Getting back to a routine...

You would never know it by the lack of anything happening here, but now that school has started up again and I am a week or so into it, I think I am getting into a routine that will give me time and energy to do some arts & crafts. Boy oh boy was I tired the first week of school -- getting back to expending all that energy! And I have way more kids this year (even 4 or 5 more in each class seems to take more energy) -- they are saying we will get one more science section so maybe I will go from 38 kids in each class to maybe 36? Yeesh... hard to even think about DOING science with so many kids crammed into a classroom! I don't want to go on more of a tirade but this country really needs to rethink its priorities when it comes to education! I am so glad I will be retiring at the end of this school year!

More art soon!

Autumn Leaf ATC

So today I decided to play a little with my copic markers and stamped an oak leaf onto a card, then colored it in with a variety of pens (first photo). Then I scanned it and used my PaintShopPro program -- yes I *know* I have Adobe Elements 11 but the scanner comes up with the old PSP and I forgot to change it so I used it today. First I just did a negative of the scan (second photo). Then I did a colorize to see what sorts of oranges I could come up with (third photo). You know I like my oranges!

What excited me was how varied the colors were in the negative (second photo). The blues all looked blue to me but there was enough difference in their hues to make their negatives show a wider spectrum of colors.

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday
Blue Monday

Zentangles, Zendoodles, and Rhondoodles, oh my!

I know Zentangles are all the rage, as seen HERE. And apparently Zendoodles are similar as seen HERE.

WHATEVER you want to call it, I like this style of doodling and recently decided to try it a little. I thought what a nice thing to have quietly on my table during boring meetings or in a few moments here and there at school... so I decided to make some ATCs and try out some of the designs. Mine are totally rank amateur and not following any one style in particular other, just mixing it up Rhonda style!

Here is the ATC I made yesterday...

Looking at it this close up I can see where my black pen didn't hit the paper... not obvious at all when you look at it real size (2.5" x 3.5").

The most fun of all of this is scouring the Internet for all the fuss (and legal hassles) about calling an age-old doodle idea/form a "Zentangle" or a "Zendoodle" or whatever people are trying to tradedmark and patent now. And people even pay to get "certified" and then tell you what you must call this line or another line or dot and it is all pretty crazy (stupid-crazy) to me! I mean, give me a break!

I think I will just call mine Rhondoodles and do what I want! So there!

Linked to:
Show and Tell Saturday
Creative Every Day
Inspiration Avenue

Pink Post Cards...

Pink Post cards... Odd thing for a swap (@Swap-bot), I know, but luckily I happened to have a gazillion pink gelli-plate printed deli papers that I could tear up and collage for a post card or two!

These were made by collaging a lot of pink gelli prints (torn up) onto an 8.5"x11" page then cut into post cards and ATC backings. I got 2 PC and 4 ATCs from one page of collage. I like them as is, but may spend a little time looking for other things to collage onto them while I watch TV later.

Linked to:
Paint Party Friday
Pink Saturday

A background page and more ATCs...

To start out, this morning I made another painted collage sheet which I will cut up for ATCs. It is a piece of card stock that I had gelli printed last weekend and I added collaged elements. When I cut it, each ATC will have parts of the whole and then I can add more elements for each card. I can get 10 from one 8.5" x 11" page. (Google ATC template images and you will see)

And then I made some more ATCs for a swap from Swap-bot.

Not sure why these didn't scan so well... guess I need to check my scanner settings again. Oh well, they are already packaged up and ready to send so I will just have to be satisfied with this quality of picture of them this time.

Linked to:
Glue It Tuesday

Template for A2 size envelope

I spent a little time making more A2 size envelopes this morning and thought I would show the template (shape) I used. I used it to cut out the shapes from gelli-printed topo maps just cause I was too lazy to take scissors and do it that way!

This is what the template looks like.

So if you have a Silhouette (die cutting machine) you can take this JPG and open it on your Silhouette, trace it and then save it as a studio file. After mucking around for quite a few minutes on Blogger, I find there is no place on Blogger to upload a file for you and Flickr doesn't see STUDIO files as anything it can upload. But it is easy enough. I used it on 8.5 x 11 inch paper and it worked fine!

If nothing else, just print it and trace around it with scissors!

Now to weed through all that old scrapbook paper I don't want and make envelopes!

More ATCs and some handmade envelopes...

Yesterday and this morning I made some more ATCs to swap. Flowers for the Swap-Bot Floral ATC swap, and wouldn't you know it, I forgot to scan all 4. These are the two left over. The ones sent were similar but in pink and purples. The background is gelli printed onto watercolor paper and the flowers hand drawn with Posca pens and Sharpies.

I need to come up with a good system of cataloging and storing my ATCs now that I am back to doing them. When I used to trade these before (late 1990s into the early 2000s) I didn't have much of any system and it drove me nuts! This time I plan to start out with at least a spreadsheet and addresses in a file. I could probably Google it and someone may have already made one available out there.

Then I had a request for some of the postal ATCs I had already sent out to the MMSA swap so I made some more to swap. I am not sure why I keep making five, which is an awkward number to scan!

And then I made some handmade envelopes to send the swaps in. I used some of the old topo maps I have that I have used to clean off my brayer from gelli printing. Big swatches of colors with the topo map showing through here and there. One of the fronts:

And one of the backs, glued closed then decorative washi tape on top.

Linked to:
August Gelli Party
Show and Tell Saturday

Back to Mail Art...

Years ago (like 20) I was very deep into mail art and swaps, with things constantly gracing my table that I had gotten or needed to send out. Then I stopped... (and many years went by where no art happened)... and now the Mail Art bug is back! There is something so fun about making a post card or an ATC (Artist Trading Card) and sending it off to anywhere in the world... and then getting one back again!

And then yesterday I got my first Mail Art in the form of a post card from Leslie! Testing out my new PO Box and making it pretty!

I hadn't played with the gelli plate for a while and it was calling to me so I made some starter background pages this morning which I will turn into post cards (or maybe ATCs, although I prefer to do a whole page then cut it specifically for those). I will do some more with these before I cut them into card sizes to wait to send out. I love the gelli plate... so simple: paper and paint and the result is always fun! (If not, just do another print over and eventually you have an unexplainable thing of beauty!).

Here's a close-up of one I particularly liked:

And here are my very high=tech techniques for some of the patterns...

For the bubble lines:

And for the overlapping circles, I just used this contraption several times on the gelli plate before I printed...

Here is how you make it:

Told you it was high-tech!

So now to just join more swaps and find some new Mail Art buddies and I am good to go!

If you would like to trade mail art (post cards or ATCs) please contact me using the contact form in the tabs above if you want to set up a specific swap. For just random Mail Art postcards, feel free to send me a post card and I will send you one in return. Don't forget your return address! My addy for mail art is:

Rhonda H.
P.O. Box 292745
Sacramento, CA 95829

Looking forward to seeing your fun mail art!

Linked to:
August Gelli Party
Paint Party Friday
Creative Every Day