The Gathering

Hi there, Pocketeers. I promise I've still been arting. Slowly, little by little, I've been building my 52 Card Pickup deck. Some cards I'm really happy with, and others less so. But I'm having fun working on them (if you can call it work). Here's what I've put together lately: 

That last one isn't my favorite, but it is the result of me finding my new stamps from Lavinia Stamps in the mail and wanting to try them out RIGHT AWAY. I had forgotten that the oak tree stamp, which you can just barely see in the background, would be so small, but the stamps are great quality. They're clear cling stamps, so they are also great for partial images if you don't put them on a block. 

Part of what I'm enjoying about doing these cards is the scale of them. It's something I will keep in mind for future art. One of my friends who gave me a lot of the Magic: the Gathering cards I'm using talked to me about artists who over-write the art that's printed on the cards with their own original art, and suggested that I try that out. The more I think about it, the more appealing the idea is. I might experiment with that one I finish this deck. Or I might just start before then. Who knows. But it's a great challenge. There's all kinds of magic I could try to work with these cards. 

In the Name of the Father

I hope everyone out there who is or has a dad has had a good Father's Day :)  We started with bringing breakfast to Mr. Pocket's dad (and mom) and finished up with dinner with my parents.  And I got to give my dad a little project I put together just for him.  I actually decided on this gift because I had done a similar one for my mom for Mother's Day, and decided that it was only fair to put the same amount of effort and love into Father's Day. 

Ok, so here's where it gets Jesus-y.  If you have problems with religion, this is your warning that there is religious content ahead.  Not trying to convert anybody here, just showing my art which happens this time to express my (and my family's) Catholic faith.  Ok, disclaimer over.

So the gifts I made for my parents for their respective holidays started out as canvases turned around backwards.  I used photos as the focal point for each, and embellished around them a la Finnabair, but simpler because it's me.  For Dad's, I used a photo I found of the stained glass window at the United States Naval Academy Chapel, because he is a Naval Academy grad and retired Navy pilot.  The window depicts Jesus walking on the water.  As another meaningful element, I used the first and most recognizable words (and alternate title) of the Navy Hymn, which also tie in with it being Father's Day quite well.

The background is a sample of textured wallpaper from Graham and Brown, which I painted and wiped off.  Many thanks to Seth Apter for the tip on where to find fantastic textured wallpaper :)  The waves in front are painted and scrunched tissue paper.  Various embellishments came from my stash, some are Prima, some are random, some are Tim Holtz.  The bottles are filled with water and a trace of Distress Ink, and some of the Glossy Accents I used to glue the corks in place leaked into the water, which made it cloudy kind of like real ocean water.  Happy accident. 

Detail shots.

The words are stamped on a length of the Tim Holtz ribbon that I sprayed with a shimmer mist that's pretty subtle, so you probably can't see the shimmer in the photo.  But I managed to get wings in, since Dad was a pilot.  Also, I LOVE that wallpaper.  Now I need to get more.

So, in case you were curious, here's the original, which I made for Mother's Day.  I've always wanted to do a Marian piece for my mom, since she and I both have a particular devotion to the Blessed Mother.  So finally I figured out what I wanted to do, and shortly before Mother's Day this year I learned a new word.  "Kecharitomene" is a Greek word that means something more than "full of grace" but less stilted and formal than "most highly favored."  It occurs only once, as far as anybody knows, and that's in the Gospel when Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her she's going to be God's mom (pretty heavy news, really).  So I decided I wanted to work that in, and originally I was going to fill the background with different names and epithets for the Blessed Mother, but in the end I decided it would be better with just the one term.  For the photo, I used a photo I took of a statue of Mary and Jesus at Kloster Eberbach last year in Germany. 

I sprayed all those white paper roses with pearl colored Perfect Pearls, and painted paper rose leaves gold.  All the metal pieces on the frame were the wrong color for the piece, so I painted them gold and whitewashed them with gesso.  The rest was all bling from the stash, and that Tim Holtz ribbon sprayed and stamped.

 

 

So there you have it.  I'm getting back into the art groove, and parental holidays have been helping, LoL.  I've been moving forward with my 52 Card Pick Up deck, too, but I'll show more of that later.  For now, I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I made for my parents.  Hopefully it shows how much I love them.  They're both pretty spectacular :)