Pink Bird Studio

New Mail Art - Strange is Beautiful

I've made a bunch of postcards this weekend.  Ten are for a postcard swap hosted by Sharon Ganshorn  I'm still not really sure how I came across this swap, but I'm glad I did.  I received my mailing list recently and I was delighted to find that my cards will be going to seven different states, Canada, UK and Pakistan.  Unfortunately this swap is now closed for signups, but there is something else you can participate in.

A local gallery, the Fifty Fifty Arts Collective, is having a fundraiser.  Send in your postcards - info here (that's my postcard used as the sample!) - and they will be displayed and then sold for $10 each - all proceeds to the gallery. 

Here is the one I'm sending to Fifty Fifty:

and here's the group of them:

I hope the recipients enjoy them, and I'm looking forward to my returns, which should arrive sometime between now and March. 

More Sketchbook Pages

I'm participating in the Sketchbook project again this year.  You can read more about my book on my original post.  My theme is "In Ten Minutes".

Here are a couple more pages...

For this second page I used a transparency from ARTchix studio and painted the skeleton from the back with gesso.

New Calendar Project

While visiting my friend Elizabeth's blog the other day I found an intriguing post about a 365-day calendar project she's involved in.  Turns out it is an annual project open to everyone to participate in and it's hosted by Kate of The Kathryn Wheel.  This looks like something right up my alley as it involves setting up a nice page for daily recording, but you only need 12 spreads and each teeny tiny 1.5" square doesn't require a lot of writing.  Of course I'm late already, but that's allowed so I'm quite sure this is a great project for me!

Here's my January page.  If you visit Kate's blog you can see links to all of the artists who've taken up this challenge to date - fun! 

 

Sketchbook Project Begins - at last...

As mentioned, I'm participating in the Sketchbook Project again this year.  I hope to attend one of the travelling shows this year - I was thrilled to hear that the show will be coming to Canada this time. 

I was tempted to choose "open" theme - so easy to make pretty pictures!  But this year I decided to pick a theme instead.  I chose "In 10 Minutes", and frankly I've been struggling with it.  My fallback position was to make each page in 10 minutes or less (more pretty pictures - yeah!), but I knew that wasn't really what I wanted to do, so I've buckled down and managed to get a good start on it over the weekend.  You will just have to wait and see how the theme takes shape because although a good part of it is in my head (and some even down on paper), most of it is continuing to gel.

Here's the cover.  This is what it looks like open.

When the book is closed you'll just see this from the front:

And this is the first page on the inside.  During the coming weeks (yes "weeks", not months - yikes!) I'll be showing you the bingo cards only before they get glued into the book as they're much easier to scan flat.  I just wanted to show what the pages will look like assembled.  I used the same background stamp on each page that will frame my collages.

 

You can find out more about the dates and locations of the tour here.  There will be thousands of books on display again at 12 locations throughout North America. 

New Year, New Work

Happy New Year!

Two things are difficult for me to believe - that we're already in 2012, and that I haven't posted anything since November 15.  Here's what I've been working on in the past week or so.

The first is a mixed media painting on wood - as yet untitled. This piece is about how certain events effect our perception of our physical environment.

The second is a thank you note - bird image from ARTchix Studio.

I'm hoping to have lots more to show before the end of this month as I'm working on the Sketchbook Project 2012.  I just started my book, and the postmark date is January 31.  Good thing I work best under pressure.  That's nobody's fault but my own - I have had the book for months. 

One last thing is that unfortunately I have had a huge increase in spam comments on this blog, so I'm going to have to enable the "code word" feature when you enter your comments.  I am hoping not to have to resort to approving comments, but I will if necessary.  Sorry about that - I like to make it as easy as possible for you to leave comments because I appreciate them so much! 

'Tis the Season

Aaah, Christmas...That time of year when I ask myself the same question I'm sure many of you ask yourselves - "Do I have enough Bingo cards"?  Ok I may be the only one asking that, but I'm sure, like me, many of you are starting to think about starting to make cards for the season (and some of you probably are already done, but the rest of us don't want to hear about it!). 

Although I have a plethora of supplies (stamps, collage materials, do-dads etc.) none of them was grabbing me, so I came up with this simple design.  I'm not sure if I like it or not, but I think it's passable and it might grow on me by morning. 

Happy Hallowe'en

Wishing everyone a spooky fun & safe Hallowe'en!

Crow and greeting by Tim Holtz.  Crackle stamp by Stampendous. 

Birthday Card

A friend's birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and of course that means making a birthday card.   

Images from ARTchix Studio.

It's a long weekend here in Canada (Thanksgiving), so I really hope to have more to show throughout the weekend. 

Postcard # 3

Third in a series - may present these as a triptych.  Inspired by the lyrics from a song by india arie. 

Another New Postcard