Dodging Tornadoes, Going Postal in the Fauxreal Republic, and Art Journaling in Arkansas

we're home again after a fun and interesting trip to arkansas, visiting and playing with mom, the siblings, and the kids, dodging a couple of tornadoes along the way and oooh-aaahing at the beautiful countryside. the first day out saw scattered thunderstorms in the distance all across new mexico and into amarillo (a town that continues to surprise me!), dark clouds throwing rainbows straight down at the ground, as many as four at a time. beautiful sight! since the camera was tucked away in the back of the car i didn't get a photo, but i'll remember the magical, mythical, archetypal look of it forever. day two, in driving rain and severely limited visibility, with tractor trailers lying like dead dinosaurs helter-skelter alongside the road, we managed to stay in front of the tornadoes all the way across oklahoma. it was more than a little hairy and scarey, and i hope the truck drivers are all safe. any day you can stay ahead of the tornadoes is o.k...

kris took along a new book,
"good mail day: a primer for making eye-popping postal art," written by jennie hinchcliff/carolee gilligan wheeler. it arrived just before we left and we couldn't stand the thought of having to wait a week before going through it, so kris brought it along and read it out loud while i was driving. (isn't that sweet of her?) these two gals are SERIOUS mail artists!

the book can be a little repetetive in some places, but then some things need to be said over and over...i love the "whatever works, just do it, and play around" philosophy it presents and there are alot of cool looking links i want to check out. i've already bookmarked carolee wheeler's blog, and  if you're at all interested in mail art, i think you'll enjoy it. there are prompts, and a great section on documentation, but i think my favorite part is where they talk about mail artists creating a signature artistamp, or an imaginary country with its own history and art and - postage stamps! is that a fun idea or what?

so, of course, i spent all day yesterday hunkered down in the studio, designing both a personal stamp and postage stamps for my imaginary country, "the fauxreal republic." here are a few of my favorites...the first image is my signature stamp. the flamingo-serifed "s" was done by hand with pen and ink, then scanned into a digital imaging program on the computer, and compiled with a bunch of other digital images i already had. i'd really like to rework this one in color, but thinking to turn the image into an acrylic stamp, kept it in black and white for now. the second and third images are (first issue! tongue in cheek here) postage stamps from the fauxreal republic. "cattails," like the flamingo "s," is a scanned image, a student watercolor exercise in wet-on-wet techniques, digitally combined with text and symbols on the computer. "quatres soeurs" is 
an old photo of my maternal grandmother and her sisters, manipulated in the same way. i SO enjoy digital imaging, and this is such an awesome excuse to sit down at the keyboard and play! what fun! i'm in love with designing stamps for the fauxreal republic, and look forward to inventing stories for commemorative stamps, a made-up art museum, historical events...this is WAY too much fun.

are you interested in participating in a mail art exchange? drop me an email. i'm also starting to ponder another chunkybook exchange. what do you think? maybe on the theme "my cup runneth over."

anyhow...that's the goings on since we got home Sunday. stamps and mail art, bread baking, sausage making, restocking perishables, yogurt making, unpacking, laundry, playing with the dogs. it's a good life.

now for the rest of the story...do you remember that i took along supplies for teaching the nephew and nieces how to make those german, finnish and art deco star ornaments? well, things didn't quite work out as planned. kris and i had taken along the art journals we made in kelly kilmer's "spirit journal" class in february, just in case we wanted to do some impromptu art journaling, say, about tornadoes or something (which we actually began referring to as "tomatoes"). as soon as the kids saw them they got all excited and wild, hollering, "we want to make THAT, aunt sharon! please? show us how to do THAT! that's amazing!" so much for MY plan! i had brought supplies, but for a different class...

with apologies to kelly for teaching her class (i DID give her credit and do so again here and now), next morning found us in the parking lot waiting for hobby lobby to open, hoping they'd have what we needed - or a close substitution...and about an hour and a half (and mucho dinero) later, we arrived at toad suck laden with goodies and ready to play! toad suck? yes, there really is a toad suck, arkansas. and my mother lives there. so does princess christmas joy...

here are the photos! a grand time was had by all!

 making covers clockwise from the left are mary, patrick, princess, my buddy kris, and katie (i'm the one behind the camera...):

princess christmas joy painting her cover with with stencils: katie, our other autistic artist, with granny looking on. isn't it really clever of her to wear one of her dad's old shirts backwards? and latex gloves? i'm going to try that at home...

all the finished covers set to dry in the sun...

but one...

 i didn't take photos while the pages were being made because the kids were using spritzers, and i was concerned about getting dye on the lens. here are some of the finished pages:

15 year old patrick, diligently and meticulously cleaning off one of my stamps...

smiling, happy people! katie and kris; kris decorated the pages and gave hers to mom...

mary and patrick... princess christmas joy and mary...

  my finished demo-journal. i snagged the rusty bell off a wind chime on the porch. don't tell...

and the aftermath. not too bad for a whole day of play with the nieces and nephew! how we kept spritzed dye off the concrete, i don't know...

with newsprint laid down, cleanup was easy. princess christmas joy is catching on to this altered/mixed media thing. "hey," she says, as we start to take up the paper, "we should just save this newspaper and use it to make art!" with another convert, i knew my work here was done!

kelly is still offering this class, and you'll find it listed on her blog. take it! you'll love it! and come away with a really cool art journal!

thanks for visiting. come again soon!

Comments

[Princess Christmas Joy]

Yeah, we're cool. We done good. thanx.

[Kris (HTGRS)]

Me, me, me! I want to join a mail art exchange and a chunky book swap!! I guess I should email you (or just shout across the room). My imaginary country is Big Sky Republic, and I love the "limited issue" stamp you made for me commemorating the Tycho Brahe Museum of Art! Who wants to find art in their mailbox?