Day 88 - The Monon Route

I have a bunch of cool travel-related scrapbook papers and stuff. One had this great old advertisement for the railway line that had a "hub" through Monon, Indiana, and was an important North/South line from Chicago. This alligator ad is for the run all the way down to Jacksonville, Florida. The railroad made cast-iron match holders shaped like alligators, labeled "Monon Line". Apparently these became so collectible that now there are reproductions circulating on eBay and elsewhere.
Scrapbook paper collage.
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Day 87 - Summer Horse Heaven

We've had beautiful weather lately, warm but not hot. When I was looking through my magazine clippings in the afternoon after being outside watering the yard and enjoying the weather, I found this and thought it seemed like horse heaven in summertime, so here it is!
Collage, label sticker, embellishments.
Note: I forgot to post this on Tuesday (after all this time, how could I *forget* to post?!!). Then last night I thought Blogger was broken so couldn't post either ATC. Turns out that something was messed up in browser, so after clearing browsing data, cookies, and restarting, it's now working again. Sigh..
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Day 86 - Love Collage

This was really hard to photograph because there are too many shiny things. But I love shiny things, so they continue to appear in my work!
Specialty papers, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 85 - Zentangle® #18

I'm seriously out of practice! Need to spend more time tangling.
Ink, pencil.
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Go make art!

Day 84 - Summer Flowers

Here is another watercolor on stamping.

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Day 83 - Fuchsia with Butterfly

Never mind that butterflies don't care about fuchsia flowers. I'm making a feeble attempt to justify my rubber stamp collection and this is a nice set, so I decided to use it today.
Rubber stamps, watercolor.
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Day 82 - Queen Bee

So few people realize how important bees are to our food supply, pollinating so many crops, from nuts to fruits and vegetables. Not to mention the delicious honey!
Specialty paper, bottle cap, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 81 - Cute Bunny

Spent the day at the San Diego County Fair and I'm beat! Today's ATC is of one of the bunnies on display; isn't he just darling? I love to see all the animals. We had perfect weather for the fair (IMO), overcast with low clouds all day so it didn't get hot. I'm so tired I keep falling asleep in the middle of making this card. Time for bed!
Photo, collage.
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Go make art!

Day 80 - Summertime!

Happy Summer Solstice everyone! Today is the first day that actually felt like summer here. Someday I will learn how to do watercolor. This is the third try, and while not a charm, is the end of my patience.
Watercolor.
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Day 79 - Bonsai Jade Plant

Yesterday we had a sketchcrawl at the house of one of the members of the group. She had this Jade plant (a succulent) that she kept as a bonsai tree. It was lovely; I especially liked the way that the leaves at the ends of the branches formed cute little rosettes. The day was somewhat overcast still at the time I drew this, so there was very little shadow definition. I made up the color of the pot (I think it actually was a very pale muted green) but I tried to get the tray color approximately right.
Watercolor.
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Go make art!

Day 78 - Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my Dad; I miss you! He was a stamp collector, primarily of France and French colonies. He also collected British colonies and thought that it was interesting that Great Britain didn't have to identify the country on their postage stamps because "everyone knew the Queen of England". He loved railroads and also Ham Radio. I'm sure at one time I knew why he had 2 call signs, something special I think, but I can't remember anymore. He was very interested in the space missions and also worked on the software that was used for the Apollo missions and tracking the capsule's splashdown. I think the photo was taken in 1947, when he finished his Master's Degree.
Photo and postage stamps.
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Go make art!

Day 77 - Embrace Imperfection

This started out as a reject from a series of ATCs I made a couple of years ago. I started out with one large (9" x 12") sheet of paper, painted all over it somewhat randomly, collaged, stamped, painted and stamped again. Then I cut it up for ATCs. The text in the background made it impossible to read the message (ironically) on this one, so I didn't use it in my series. I found it recently and decided to recycle it into a new ATC for this project.
Painted and collaged papers, postage stamp, inks, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 76 - Bhutan Flowers

I came across this beautiful postage stamp from Bhutan today. It's so pretty!
Specialty papers, postage stamp.
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Go make art!

Day 75 - Japan

Images from a variety of Japanese things. The writing is from the back of a lovely vintage (1958) Japanese napkin that a friend gave me. The two children are cut from some Japanese washi paper.
Napkin, washi paper, postage stamp.
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Go make art!

Day 74 - Harmony Butterflies

I was lucky to still have some of my painted background paper that matches the color of the butterflies. Left is more of my other funky painted paper that doesn't photograph well.
Painted papers, specialty papers, faux postage sticker.
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Go make art!

Day 73 - Fishface is Having a Bad Day

I think this fish looks seriously grumpy. Some days I can relate!
Painted paper, faux postal, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 72 - Zentangle® #17

Did some Zentangle® on a painted ATC card. It's very hard to draw on the textured surface of the acrylic paper. Remind me not to do that again.
Painted background, ink.
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Day 71 - Peace Flowers

I got caught up in watching the BBC TV series Robin Hood today, so had no time for anything fancy. This was hard to photograph though, because the whitish blobby stuff is actually interference color that reflects the light in unusual ways. So you'll have to trust me that it looks way better in person.
Specialty and painted papers, sticker.
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Go make art!

Day 70 - Remembering My Grandparents

This picture is of my grandparents, but I don't know when it was taken. I'm guessing it was pretty early, maybe 1915 to 1920 or thereabouts. The actual picture is much larger as they are in a huge field of daisies. My grandfather had nice thick, curly hair all his life.
Photo, specialty paper, ribbon, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 69 - Unknown Layers

Another acrylic painting from the backgrounds I started last weekend. Like yesterday's painting, I'm not satisfied that it is finished (colors not blended well, colors too bright), but there's no more time so that makes it done.
Acrylics.
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Go make art!

Day 68 - Dawn Seeps In

Played around some more on the cards I painted with backgrounds last weekend. If this were a real painting, I wouldn't call it done because the blending isn't smooth, but I don't think I'll have any more time to work on this today so I'm calling this one done.
Acrylics.
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Go make art!

Day 67 - Organic Mutation

Another one based on the stuff I learned last weekend. I had time this afternoon to do a little bit of work on it to define the shapes, then added some Zentangle® doodles.
Acrylic paints and ink.
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Go make art!

Day 66 - Floating

Sorry I forgot to post this last night! Yesterday was a very busy day. I threw the ATC together early from one of my partially made cards but didn't have time to take a picture and post it. By the time I got home I was tired and forgot I hadn't posted it. I can't even think of a clever title (sorry, Rachel).
Painted paper, specialty paper, sticker, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 65 - Prize Petunias

Grow more flowers! Then you too can have the pleasure of fighting off nasty snails and slugs for weeks on end so you can have flowers like this crazy petunia in your garden. Seriously, this petunia has flowers that look like Martha Washington geraniums. Most of my yard has more snail-resistant plants like real geraniums, agapanthus, bamboo, juniper and stuff like that. I don't like putting out snail bait because the birds often eat it by accident. But the little trays of beer don't stand up to the massive assault of snails in my garden (I would seriously need a moat), and getting up at dawn to go pick snails out of the garden gets old really fast. I have a small patch near my front door I like to brighten up with annuals, but in the past I always lost the battle with the snails. Not this year! I found a snailicide (is that a word?) called Deadline. It is a thick liquid you put on the ground around your delicate plants. I like it because even though it is still a poison, I only need to put it around the plants the snails like to eat, like petunias and lobelias and other annuals. So far it's been very effective.
Painted paper, photo, specialty papers.
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Go make art!

Day 64 - Bird Observing Chaos

Someday I will learn to leave well enough alone. Today's painting workshop was so busy I didn't work on an ATC at all. I have about 20 ATC cards that I smooshed paint on yesterday, so I picked one and with my gel pens I started to pull out some shapes from the paint. But I just couldn't stop with the doodling! If I weren't so tired I would start over but I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open already. So here is the mess I am inflicting on my project for today. If you haven't already, look at yesterday's ATC, it is pretty nice if I do say so myself.
Acrylic paints and gel pens.
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Go make art!

Day 63 - Nature's Rythm

Today I took a painting class with my favorite teacher Chris Cozen. As the day progressed, I used what I learned on some ATC blanks.
Acrylic and ink.
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Go make art!

Day 62 - Matilija Poppy

Two months! Woohoo! This morning I met with the San Diego Sketchcrawlers at the old cactus garden in Balboa Park behind the Puppet Theater. This garden was designed for the California Pacific Exposition in 1935, so the plants there are large. There were lots and lots of Matilija Poppies blooming. They are native to this area and have huge flowers that look like fried eggs. The flowers are the largest of any plant native to California.
Photo, specialty paper, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 61 - Award-Winning Squash

Eat more veggies!
Painted papers, sticker, ribbon.
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Go make art!

Day 60 - Seahorse Dreams of the Sun

Did I say how much I like these faux postals? They are from ArtChix Studios. I need to start collecting subject ideas for when I use these up. Fortunately, it will take a while.
Painted paper, specialty paper, sticker, embellishments.
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Go make art!