CranberryCloud Laurel Martin

On the last day of March I have finished my POD project.  This was a tough one.  This month's theme was typography and Lisa gave me the most typography-ist piece of typography I have ever seen!  Have a look below.  Words are symbols to which we ascribe meaning and typography is supposed to emphasize that meaning.  In fact, print on a page is really just little squiggles and our remarkable brains read meaning into them.  Our brains love to read meaning into things and to do so they look for patterns.  Anywhere the brain finds a pattern it recognizes, it sees meaning.  Different people see different patterns and find different meanings.  This is the idea I was playing with when I created my piece.  I must say that I had some problems as I looked at the words as pictures and then as symbols.  The two did not want to reconcile.  However, that is what typography is all about: reconciling how words looks visually and what they mean.

This is my ghost girl and I thought of her when I learned the word this week because she needs to be rescued from her corsets and restrictive life.  She is lucky that she has money but she still can't move or make choices about her life.  She is trapped.   I'm certainly glad I don't live in her times.  I had a very difficult time scanning her because her penciled in face did not want to show up.  It's a little more visible in real life.

Last night was the artist's trading card party at the Latcham Gallery in Stouffville.  There were so many beautiful cards laid out on the tables!  The trading is always a bit of a frenzy and I'm always so intent on acquiring cards that I barely notice where mine go.  That's why it's  good to have photographs.  This time I did all my cards on the back of cereal boxes.  I fell in love with the smooth surface, which is great for marker, and the colour is lovely.  Cereal boxes are now one of my favorite materials, especially when they are golden brown instead of grey brown.  I'll have to restrain myself from opening up the cereal boxes in the grocery store and checking out the inside colour of the cardboard!

I'm not sure where these fellows came from, but I'll never look at parking meters quite the same way again.

The weather is warm here and soon the forest will look like this!  Thinking of spring I was inspired to paint this.  This picture is a new process for me.  I made a digital copy of my original watercolour and then painted a little on top with acrylics.  That way you get an original copy.  I love oxymorons!

This is another page of the book I'm altering.  If you're a bibliophile, don't worry.  The book I'm altering is called, "Structure and Aims of Canadian Education" and could only be of interest to insomniacs.  I'm not really sure what the theme of my book is, but it appears that this little person goes on a journey through the book.  The journey is more psychological than physical.  Here, at the start of the book he/she is just emerging.  I have a lyric by The National always running in my head, "I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain."  The secret meeting appears to be over and she/he is glad to be out in the fresh air again.

Here's my altered book page.  I made it using all of the supplies I showed in my last post.   The scone cutter stamps were a nice framing device.  The old yellowed pattern tissue gives a great vintage look and I love the black graphic marks.  The puzzle pieces where little works of abstract art in themselves.  I took most of the cardboard off the back to make them flat.

The handkerchief was a bit of a challenge.  I varished it, hoping that when the varished dried I could use it as a stencil.  The paint seemed to just blob right through.  However, this blobby look worked with the page.  Then I rubbed the handkerchief with a piece of waxed paper and got exactly the effect I was hoping for, only on the waxed paper!  This technique needs a little more head scratching.  If anyone out there in blogland knows how to do this, let me know.  I'll be trying another page soon!

If you read my post a week and a half ago called "Artist's Block" you may remember that I'm making an altered book in an art class, and I can't seem to figure out where to start.  So yesterday my friend Lisa and I ventured out to various thrift stores in search of inspiration.  I was thrilled to find some old dress making patterns.  Yes, it's true, I'm easily excitable.   I also got something that you may think of as cookie or scone cutters.  You would be wrong about that because they look like cool stamps to me.  I also found an old handkerchief and a great puzzle of a Chinese street scene.  All in all, I spent a total of $4.06.  A definite bargain!  Now I am inspired!  To top it all off Lisa lent me a fabulous book on collage.  Thanks Lisa! The pictures in this book are beautiful.  I can't speak to the information because I haven't been able to tear my eyes away from the pictures!  I have added all these elements to my brain, stirred and next post I'll show you what I come up with.

You have to be brave to be different.

It's been sunny here all week!  Something we haven't seen in a long time.  It's definitely affected my art as you can see.  Somehow, a little bunny appeared in a sunny garden... or on my art paper.  A few posts back I mentioned how I couldn't find any Japanese paper and I was going to make my own.  The paper I made is  more CranberryCloudese than Japanese.  You can see a picture of how I make it below.  I love the effect of bubble wrap pushed into acrylic ink.  So much fun!