It's a strange feeling...

...to be between homes, having sold the one (and temporarily borrowing it from the new owner until the transaction is finalized in May) and purchased a condo about four blocks away.  We're neither truly in one place or another.  It's obvious to me that the situation has inspired my revitalized obsession for wonky houses.  Hence the latest painting:

Beach Huts (after Laura Harris) mixed media on paper  2018 © Win Dinn 

Let me tell you how this all came about...I've had this photo of Laura Harris' house on my inspiration screensaver for some time, and there's something about it that just makes my heart sing.  

'Coming Home to You My Loves' mixed media 48" x 48" © Laura Harris

Being the thief that I am, I used this lovely house as a jumping off point to create a couple of stencils in a much smaller size for my own mixed media.

I first printed a black and white image of the cropped painting, and then cut two versions of the house with my admittedly inexpert knife skills.  By the time I'd burned the images into the house wrap they'd taken on a life of their own.

I printed both stencils onto a piece of painted mulberry paper and then cut them out.

With the leftover paint pounced onto the photocopies, the copies look most interesting too.

 I auditioned the stencils and photocopies on a Gelli print,

 twice, and decided they have a feel of beach houses to me.  What do they remind you of?

Of course, now that I've done a couple of stencils, I just want to do more and more and more using my own designs for wonky houses.  The TAPS project demo I did a couple of years ago will be a good starting point, I think.

Colour just soothes...

...the soul, doesn't it?  I'm so happy to be back in the studio and playing with colour again.  I finished another journal spread (started a couple of weeks ago), and I am loving the quieter tones of blues, purples and magenta.

You can see that the segments of paper have rearranged themselves significantly from the original layout, some bits have disappeared entirely, and there is a theme of letting go.  It must be all that purging that has taken place, don't you think?

And just in case you think I've gone all serious on you, I thought I'd better show you another piece I finished this week.

Started with a Gelli print,

it took the addition of a 'wall', a tree frog and some flutterbies to turn this into a reminder

that I'd probably better have some lunch.

All items were 'glued' with gel medium and an iron in a method demoed thoroughly on YouTube by  Laura Lein Svencner.  The method has many advantages over the traditional gluing method using acrylic liquid medium, not the least of which is a lovely flat seal.

Do catch me up on your activities in the comment section below - I'd love to hear what you're doing!

It's been a whirlwind week...

...and I'm happy to sit and catch my breath today.

The house has sold,

a condo has been purchased (it's about four blocks away, and exactly what we wanted - thanks, Carol!), and we can now prep for a move on May 22.  All this in twelve days from listing!

Once the craziness died down, I was able to spend a moment or two in the studio to finish that page I started last week.  I know I'm truly going nuts, because I'm likely the farthest thing from a hockey fan one could find, yet here is a (sort-of) hockey-themed page regardless.  Somebody was obviously feeling very playful after the hiatus.

A second spread is curing under John's book (it seems to be the only one left in the house after all the purging and packing).  At least, I hope it's curing, since it looked pretty ill when I covered it up!

And the tables in the studio are once again covered with a series of unfinished projects - how the heck did that happen so fast?

I did manage to finish a painting for the first time in ages, so I can tell the muse is back in working order.

'Spring Storm' 8" x 24" mixed media on canvas  ©Win Dinn

Do catch me up on your doings in the comments below - I'd love to hear what you've been up to this week.

I can be tricked...

...and when I've been out of the studio for a while, I need to be.  So I take this lovely box of scraps

 and with eyes closed, choose one.

Once I have my first scrap, I pull a host of others, this time actually using my eyeballs, and start to play with pattern and colour.

Once I create a stamped background and lay all this lusciousness down, I think it will be a great journal spread.  I was amused that I was able to find both parts of the word dream in the bottom left corner, even after someone had chopped it apart.  There is no such thing as an interrupted dream, apparently.

I was on a roll, so I pulled another - this one is such a beautiful accidental landscape that it deserves it's own page, don't you think?

And an oriental spread of red and green feels like a power page - this one will be fun to finish.

 Somehow this one has a musical feel to it for me - I'll be interested to see where it goes!

I'd love to hear your tricks for getting back into the studio after a hiatus.  I think there have to be hundreds of them and after these last few months I need to know them all.

It's down to the wire...

...and today is the day our home is listed.  What does this mean?  Well, the house is clean, tidy, staged and ready to show, so I've got some studio time now - hurray!

I had a call this week from a local group who were looking for ideas for small table centres to use at a tea where the theme would be the four R's - i.e.  reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose.  Here's what I came up with:

This abused miniature dictionary is just the perfect size (4 1/2" x 3") to sport a book sheet
rosette and tendril. Both book sheets are covered with  paint mop-up dryer sheets for
additional colour.

Here a soup can takes on a new shape and purpose, graced with another paint mop-up item - a piece of
cheesecloth.  The flower is made from leftover collage papers; on one side the centre is a beer bottle
cap topped with a stray button, while the other is a pair of twisted pipe cleaners which continues
on to form the stem.

A closer look at the beer bottle cap/button centre.

😏

The reverse centre is the twisted pipe cleaner.

Now since I used a flower I had on hand, the second item is not completely repurposed, but I'm sure that the pipe cleaners could be replaced with wire clippings from any shop (Had John not been in the process of clearing his, I'm sure he would have helped with that.  😏 )

So I'm looking for YOUR take on a small table centre utilizing repurposed items.  What do you suggest?  What have you done in the past?  What can you do right now.  Tell me in the comments below, and I'd LOVE it if you gave me a link to see.  All you ArtRockStars out there surely have some more fun options!