Topic #51--"Botanical" Entry

From Sherrie!:

Fig Leaves

Topic #51--"Botanical" Entry

From Darcy!:

"Get Happy" D. Altaville c.2007
Available at http://www.artnjoy.etsy.com

Topic #51--"Botanical" Entry

From Tricia!:

5 x5

"Betty"

"I decided to pull out a transparency sheet I made a week or so ago and play with it. (Notice it is the same little girl as the last post. I just played around with different croppings and sizes. Her eyes are what draw me in...and I can't seem to move on but I promise next piece, new image . ****lol)
It was fun to pull scraps of paper and move them around til they felt right. I glued them down to watercolor paper with a glue stick, placed the transparency on top and sewed it into place with a bit of black embroidery thread. After that I added a silk leaf that has been sitting on my table for a few months waiting to be used."

Topic #51--"Botanical" Entry

From L.M.!:

Topic #51--"Botanical" Entry

From Aileen!:

Topic #51--"Botanical" Entry

From Susan Ramey-Cleveland!:

"In mid- to late March, the Wisteria blooms in the area of Alabama where I live. The trees and bushes in the woods and along the roadways hang heavy with the soft lavender clusters. It's one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. But you have to look fast. The blossoms last for only a week or two."

Topic #51--Botanical

Bare Branches and Red Maple Leaves Growing Alongside the Highway

By Raymond Gehman

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Miriam!:

"This topic is a good one for me...I can incessantly draw and paint pictures of women. I suppose I'll be in trouble if prompted to create a man. ;) Ah, maybe that is the whole point...perhaps I should work w/ what I don't know how to do? I'll start w/ my husband's face. He has a good face. But for now, the subject is still "woman".
It does so happen that I used a new medium. Well, semi new...I've dabbled w/ gouache before but never dove in full throttle and committed to it."

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

A big welcome to Sooz! Her entry!:

"here is an (unfinished) piece I started on the weekend. I've had this alphabet stamp set for eons (Brenda Walters, All Night Media)---suddenly in love with it again for these pages--but I am missing the "F" - luckily, so far no F words have come up.....(which is really funny since I am such a CURSER. Guess I can alter the "E" when the time comes for some F words........)"

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Wendy!:

"I have chosen this stamped image photo of Greg's Auntie Dot, a wonderful lady. There is also some old german writing which I turned into a stamped image. I especially like the idea of "soft yet strong" for woman. I think this portrays much in only a few simple words. Some of the words I've chosen are not quite as universal - such as "exotic" but "beautiful" fits the majority - beautiful inside and out. If you think you are not beautiful - I would ask you to think again. I think you are beautiful. And there are probably many others who think so too, even though they neglect to tell you.
Collage on watercolour - acrylic background. Letters for "woman" are from the very creative "Artsyfran"

"Oh beautiful woman -
Love yourself".

Angels be with you."

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

By me, Susan Tuttle:

"Blue Heart"
Mixed media, 9x12 canvas board

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Patrick!:

"i had a few ideas for this one, i guess i ended up doing a comic based on the "brainstorming" phase i went through. this conversation is based on an actual one i had with a friend the other day. i thought it was kinda funny so here it is."

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Jamie!:

"He promised her the Moon and the Stars.
I turned the mother image into a transparency and then hand painted the background and cut out flesh toned paper for their faces. I'll need to work on that technique. It is not easy to get it to match exactly. I was messing around with what I wanted to show through on her shirt. I had a grammar primer from 1882 and it had a glossary in the back and "drudgery" was the first word that showed through so I went with that theme. I love the disapproving Mother-in-Law. My husband is very wary of this piece:) No hidden meaning Honey!"

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Laura!

Here are "woman" charms she made for the upcoming Art and Soul retreat in Virginia!

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Kathleen!:

"The topic "Woman" spoke to me of friendship. So I thought I would take one of my subway drawings and blow it up and color it in. So I borrowed some magic markers, and with some colored pencils I already had, I did this picture of two friends talking. Of course, it was originally on the train, but with the colors I have chosen the setting is now more likely the living room, with the two friends sitting on the couch. I had fun with this as I don't often color my drawings, although I have been doing some watercolors of flowers lately . . .
The original drawing (actually a rather poor scan of it) can be seen on my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayork/407939789/in/set-72157594579200491/"

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Zorana!:

"Inspiration comes from many places. I recently purchased some sweet lamp work beads and was anxiously waiting to receive them. While the beads were lovely, something else caught my eye. The envelope! What made the envelope special were the words that seller wrote:
"Fragile.
Please don't crush."
They spoke to me! Such a simple way to describe the way I feel sometimes. Don't we all feel like that in certain moments? I cut up the envelope and used the words on a canvas."

available on etsy

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Tricia!:

"Acrylics on a wooden ironing board.

I wanted to submit this portion of the painting for Artwords. The theme is "woman."

I may get brave and share the entire painting one day soon. This portion and one other are the only parts I am pleased with! I have gotten quite frustrated with myself...I can see her in my mind the way I want her to look but I just don't have the skills to get it onto the wood.

Her nose is in need of the biggest help so today I may go by the library and pick up a book on painting faces...I'm sure there's one out there. Any suggestions?
The below images are from the bottom of the ironing board...they are a part of her dress."

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Cheryl!:

"I have a collage with a girl with flowers behind her and pink and clear buttons. She has birds flying around her that say Release your inner.... and each bird has a word.

Brilliant
Happy
Confident
Strong
Playful
Talented
Sexy
Cute

Describes Women to a T don't you think?"

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Susan Ramey Cleveland!:

I Am Woman; Hear Me Sqeak

"For this collage, I used paper, pieced fabric triangles, buttons, paint, rubber stamp, a Starbucks coffee cozy, a garment tag, and gold braiding. I used both glue and machine stitching to attach everything."

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Artsyfran!:


"Inspired by my recent trip to Hawaii, she just happened. I have been studying faces, and I’m getting a bit better about creating my own freeform after looking at several different ones. This means I am finally figuring out how to pull together elements of different faces and make my “own” images. I’m enjoying the process. I still have a long way to go, but I really find the painting meditative. This image is painted in acrylic on fabric."

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Darcy!:

"Standing On The Purple Hills Of Hope" D.Altaville c.2007
Available at http://www.artnjoy.etsy.com

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Julie!:

"Since I work mainly in birds, I could only think of one project. "Belle on Couch". She screams sexy!"

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From l.m.!:

"This week's challenge was easy as most of my work involves the female form. Another painting from the vault. One of a series hung in the Art Gallery of Western Australia. I sold it to a beautiful Chilean Psychiatrist, Paola. She rang me one day just to say..."I've had a really bad day at work, but now I'm laying on my bed looking at your painting and I'm feeling much better". That phone call made not only my day but my month.
I hope she is still enjoying her first fine art purchase. Ciao Paola."
Facts: "Annunciation: let sleeping dogs lie".
Acrylic on canvas, 170 x 204 cm.

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Peggy!:

"While I've never really taken to the figurative in my work, this old intaglio print seems to fit the bill quite nicely. The technique used is called á la poupée, meaning the colour is daubed onto the plate with small pieces of tarlatan or poupée. Looking at this print for the first time in quite a while I think I might use some of its elements in a mixed media work. "

Topic #50--"Woman" Entry

From Sherrie!:

"This is my daughter on the day of her wedding.
The photo I worked from showed such confidence and pride I gasped and had to capture that some how."

Topic #50--"Woman"

Wow--we've hit topic #50 here at Artwords--yeah!!!! Many thanks for the wonderful entries everyone!! Here's to fifty more....and beyond....

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Patrick!:

"cooking for one is no fun.

okay so it rhymes, still, its true. back then i would, from time to time cook dinner for her, and later for them. with all the food groups and the like, a proper meal, a good dinner.

but when you are by yourself, cooking seems pointless, at least that the case for me.
often i realize that im feeling sick, i look at the clock and its eleven at night, and cant remember the last time i ate."

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Cheryl!:

"I took this picture last week and they are from the grocery store of course! But I can't wait till dinner consists of just tomatoes, salt and pepper!! (Maybe some bread). Can't you just taste them?"

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Tricia!:

"This one was a tough-ey. The theme for this week is "dinner." I had the last post without a vintage image so I knew only that I wanted to use one this time. This piece, unlike the last art piece, was made very quickly. I am not sure I like the colors at all but I am drawn to the face of this little girl. She is a copy from an old tin type. With these images found either on ebay or at an estate sale or someplace like that there is such a sense of mystery. What was her name? What was her life like? Was she happy? She reminds me somehow of myself as a child.
And thinking of dinner---what is your favorite? If I am ordering out, I will chose sushi every time. At home I love to make curry dishes and dishes from other countries, especially the vegetarian ones. Do you ever do breakfast for dinner? We do and that is a fave! Olivia is saying her favorite dinner is black bean soup.
What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner?"

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From L.M.!:

"Another student painting from the vault. Not strictly a "dinner" subject however please note the cut pear on the plate. where's the cheese I hear you mutter...why she's here, I am the cheese. this work resides behind the computer that I am using this very moment...hence the strange assortment of objects at the bottom of the photo.
Info about the work...not much to tell.
This work is from my Graduation exhibition called "Teaparty Times" and without boring you to tears with a lot of conceptual tripe it is loosely about "Alice in Wonderland" and her relationship with the cat. Amongst the paintings and installations was a looped video I made. A good friend (Tony Bond) played the part of Sigmund Freud and he commented on the hidden symbolism of the characters at the Mad Hatter's teaparty. My son, Adam played the dormouse as a seedy nightclub entertainer telling endless and bad 'pink' jokes. Every so often a short sequence showing me in bed with my Russian blue (a breed of cat yer ning nongs) and me in my birthday suit would cut into the ongoing and nonsensical teaparty.
My poor, now deceased Albanian Nonno, nearly choked watching me flaunt it all in the name of art. In the background, "Think Pink" played (from one of my favourite Audrey and Fred movies). Was I, am I ashamed? Nah..."

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Julie!:

"I don’t have an interesting story to go with this week’s entry; but I can tell you that if there is cake around, it would not be uncommon for me to eat it for dinner. Not dessert. I said dinner.

6x6 canvas. I used Distress Ink to color the background paper for the cupcakes and color wash to color the canvas. To add some texture to the canvas, I covered it with painters tape and gesso. Once dry, I added the text. Pink pen highlights the Artword; and to finish, I covered all of the frosting with 3D crystal lacquer."

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Ascenderrisesabove!:

Title: “China Decorates Our Table”
Medium: Dry Pastels

Inquire to purchase a print
~~~
~~~

… China decorates our table
Funny how the cracks don’t seem to show
Pour the wine dear
You say we’ll take a holiday
But we never can agree on where to go

Sometimes I think you want me to touch you
How can I when you build a great WALL around you
In your eyes I saw a future together
You just look away in the distance …

Excerpt of China by Tori Amos

~~~
~~~

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Susan Ramey-Cleveland!:

"In this hand quilted wall quilt, entitled "Junk Food," that's just what the little kitty is dreaming of: juicy birds, crunchy mice, and succulent fish. Talk about Meow Mix!"

Topic #49--"Dinner" Entry

From Sherrie!

"I'll Start Dinner"

"It is cloudy and storming here today and I cook or sketch alot on these days so this gave me a chance to combine them."

Topic #49--"Dinner"

By Mei Liong

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

A warm welcome to Kathleen! Her entry!:

"Dinner With Chair"

"I originally did this drawing in pencil, but then at the suggestion of my friend Laura I put in color on top of a xerox copy with color pencils. It was fun to do, but takes so much longer than drawing the original!"

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

A warm welcome to L.M.! Her entry!:

This is a very old work. One in a series I produced while doing my MA in painting at College of Fine Arts, Sydney. It was acquired by The Newcastle Region Art Gallery in 1987 and is called:
"Labyrinth:The heart is a lonely hunter"
233 x 326 cm, synthetic polymer, charcoal, chalk and oilstick on canvas.

It is an abysmal reproduction as I have scanned it from a shot I took of it while it was on show in the Holdsworth Galleries, Sydney and like most student THEN, I could not afford to have slides done.
Anyway, this has been dug out of the vault so that I can enter it in the current Artwords topic...please note the chair in the composition. Also I went to a journal I was keeping at the time and this is what was writte, word for word, which was for my eyes only....here goes.

"Labia labyrinth:the heart is a lonely hunter" ( I obviously lost the word labia when the gallery acquired it)
Bird in a gilded cage comes to mind, the woman trapped by her gender in a dominating maze of neo classical architecture (children's building blocks). Many ways to go, a sense of confusion.

Arrows: -Symbol of direction, in this case pointing every which way
-Also symbol of the prisoner
-Could also be phallic, piercing, wounding...the male wounds> penerates>invades the female.
-To pin down

The Chair: -the male/phallus
-Anchor/stability
-"Sit up straight and be good!" (this was an admonishment of my father)

The child: -Gender destiny
-Responsibility
-Purpose

The curtains: -Concealment
-Domesticity ' a woman's' touch'
-The female...the slightest breeze and they will bend without breaking
-Flexible, accommodating
-Sometimes serving no purpose at all other than to be decorative.

Hmmm.....Yoda says"political animal was I"

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Patrick!:

"it reminded me of some of the office jobs ive had, one in particular where there were two types of chairs. the nice new ones in the production(my) department, and the rest of the building.

the reason we had newer chairs was that we didnt get new chairs when the rest of the building did a year before.

finally hr buckled and we gots our nice new chairs.

so comfy.

till the rest of the building found out and would try and steal them when we too our breaks.

the solution was that we would scoot around all day long to ensure that our chairs remained in our possession.

it was kinda fun."

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

A warm welcome to Jamie! Her entry!:

"I was thinking how utilitarian chairs are and that turned into what's my favorite chair and that turned to what's the most important thing I have ever used a chair for and that lead to rocking my babies to sleep at night. Sooo...here is it is. I know they are small, but those are the words to Brahms Lullaby. Oh, and don't make fun of my chicken scratch!"

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Susan T.:

Here is an atc entitled "Peter's Dream" that I created this past winter--I'd love a chair like this, wouldn't you?

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Cheryl!:

"This is my entry for Chair. I have a collection of little chairs actually and I was going to take a picture of the collection. But I like how this one stands out by itself against my red wall. It is about 12" high. There have been no adjustments to the photo either except for cropping."

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Tricia!:

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

"I had been waiting for the right opportunity to use the image of the little girl (or perhaps it is a young boy) and was so excited when I saw the topic for this week. The original plan for the piece was for the child to be holding an artist's palette in one hand and a brush in the other with words that said something about the importance of honoring imagination in our children, but as I went along I discovered a scrap of paper with the nursery rhyme Sing A Song of Sixpence and the whole idea was quickly changed.
I did the background part using watercolors and a charcoal pencil. The photo which was colored in photoshop was mounted using those pop dot foam thingies. I needed the child to be raised a bit from the back. The sign is also held in place with a foam dot. The feather is one I found on the back porch.
Red oil pastel lines the edge (though in the photo it looks a bit pink).

I added the 4 and the heart, then rounded off the edges to also turn this into an oversized playing card for a yahoo group I joined not long ago. The theme for the 4 of hearts is "birds." -there is a different theme for each card. Isn't that cool? I am a bit late jumping on the bandwagon but I thought it would be fun."

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

A big welcome to Miriam! Her entry!:

"I've been having a lot of fun playing w/ tissue paper...I think I said this in a fairly recent previous post...I keep thinking of more things that I would like to jump off w/ it than what I am currently doing, but alas, I think of these things kind of late at night when I'm winding down and I don't want to get into "anotherhugeproject". If I was single I would think nothing of staying up late and doing it anyway...but those days are long gone. So I have to record them to memory instead and wait to give them a home. Currently I have several boxes and what nots that I'm covering in tissue and experimenting with this that and the other. I'm realizing that I got so "stuck" in painting that I forgot about all the fun things I used to do like this... To boot, I've never been much for being the artist that drew all the time like my old teacher used to advise. It is true, you get better the more you practice, but drawing always has kind of worn me down... This tissue paper thing has somewhat the immediacy of what I crave but the "practicing" element that I'm missing from drawing, too. Then I think maybe I think too much about it. ;)

Anyway, I've been intrigued by artwords but have never tried to participate in a challenge. This week I told myself I would do it no matter what....
The topic is "Chair".
Immediately it made me think of my old art teacher (yep, same one) who had us do a self portrait as a chair. Back....Lord, fifteen years ago???...I remember thinking immediately I would know what kind of chair would represent me. A big huge overstuffed chair that was a patchwork extravaganza. I still have the drawing somewhere...I'll post it if I ever run across it. By the end of it I wondered if I was really so "out there" as the chair had turned out. Was I really so colorful? It's hard to say. I am more subdued today, but I fancy I'm rather comfortable.

"

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Wendy!:

""OLD" - I sometimes wonder what an object would say if it could speak. This chair was being stored for many years in the old, rough basement of the farm on which I grew up. It was apparently the only surviving piece of the house in which my father and his siblings matured. The house burnt down when my father was still a child. Now this chair has a place in our living room. It is in rough shape but I like to leave "old" in its comfort. "

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Laura!:

collage: vintage wallpaper/fabric, watercolor, pen, custom papers, 8x10, portrait


"This is a special piece I just completed and perfect I think for this week's theme word *chair* as not only does it have a big, comfy chair in it, it also features a wonderfully inspiring and talented online friend, the curator of Artwords herself, Susan Tuttle." (aw, shucks Laura--I'm blushing!)

Topic #48--"Chair" Entry

From Julie!:

"Somewhere in my imagination, there are some birds quietly afloat on a beautifully upholstered chaise lounge waiting to be rescued.

I covered this 3x5 canvas board with paper I hand painted with Dr. Ph Martin ink. To obscure the color a bit, I washed a little Gesso over it and then attached the chaise. The birds are stamped onto a page from a vintage French Saint directory and covered in 3d Crystal lacquer. The last step was to age the corners a tad using Ranger Distress Ink in Peeled Paint and Broken China.

Oh… the birds do get rescued. They always do."