I based this on 103-year-old girls’ book “Dorothy Dale’s Great Secret” – and used the old linen book cover, which I stripped from the book.  I also used text and then painted my own conception of the text.  The background is black gesso.  I used a century-old Nat’l Geo. image to start with for the painted girl, then overpainted nearly all of it with acrylics.  Everything was re-done except eyes, nose and general face shape.

Why Was Dorothy Afraid??

During the clean-up, I decided to make a couple ATC’s with some backgrounds I’d made quite a long time ago.

Paint and collage on the left;  on the right a little collage with the addition of a charm I made 4 years ago using some elements from Ten Two Studios.

The binding is 4-needle coptic, but I then attached the signatures to the fabric spine with waxed linen and my own fabric beads. (The ‘fringe’ below the beads is the waxed linen, in which I separated the 4-ply linen with a needle, so that each single ply shows.)  The art doll is Risque’ Renee’, and she is intended to be a ‘muse’ for whoever uses this journal.  She is stuffed with UTEE Flex beads, (resin beads,unmelted), and was beaded by me with 2-ply clear nylon thread.  Her hair is needle-felted wool (by me) with bead adornment.

To see all the images, go to this folder.  Click on the images to enlarge them.

Her name is Risque’ Renee’, and she is ‘exposed’ by the Paris Gazette to be quite the little ‘diva’.  I may do more beading for her hair and jewelry – but so far – here she is.  This is the first beaded doll I’ve attempted…technique needs improving, but it’s fun.

Risque' Rene - beaded fabric art doll - 8" H x 4" at hands

Chance helping hold down my palette and guarding my glues:

Chance guarding art supplies.

Here he is hard at work guarding my little Baby Lock sewing machine.

No one uses this sewing machine without Chance's permission - Ha! (he sleeps with his head upside down, with forehead squarely placed on his 'blankey'.)

And now- back to your regularly scheduled program…..

The ‘Poor House’ name comes from the key hanging (from an old Underwood typewriter element- it’s the little switch to select red or black typewriter ribbon.) The key was in a bunch of junk in my mom’s desk drawer when I cleaned it out. (I NEVER get rid of keys).

The computer circuit speaks for itself ; the’ limbs’ are also from the old typewriter-they’re the old metal bars that typed the letters by striking the keys- – do you hear the clickity-clack of old typewriters in your head yet?? The postage stamp was a perfect fit to finish off this ‘poor’ person.  The book is 8″H x 5.5″W and about 5/8″ thick.  It has a metal hanger affixed to the back and currently hangs in our family room.

The Poor House

This canvas is 42″H x 18″W.  I continue to want to “creART” by using up supplies I have on hand, which included this large blank stretched canvas. Yesterday that encompassed finding all four boxes of my crayons (which I had dutifully organized in a handy drawer by my table!)  I glued them onto the bare canvas using PVA adhesive.  When the adhesive was dry, I got out my heat gun and played around with melting the crayons on the canvas, letting them drip vertically, then horizontally.  PLAY was the operative word of the day for me.  I then stenciled, painted and used spray wash to fill in white canvas areas.  Acrylic and wax do NOT blend on the molecular level, but this paint is so light, I doubt it will chip off the wax any time soon.  This whole idea came from an image I had saved in my Pinterest folder….

After the paints were dry, I used white gesso and removable tape to create the arrow ‘road’- when that was dry, I added the newspaper text over the gesso, using PPA.  I then lightly wiped aqua spray wash over all, and then used white gesso for the road dotted lines. ( See if you can spot the turtle on the road.)  I glued him on with Liquid Fusion.

The borders of this stretched canvas are 1″ all around- I gave them a wash of turquoise, to blend with colors in our kitchen- this collage/painting hangs between our kitchen and family room.  (click image to enlarge.)

"CrayArt" collage

In keeping with my desire to use supplies I already have, I used some fabric I’d used in another AB Spread awhile ago.  This time, I spread Liquitex Flexible Modeling Paste onto the book pages, then gently spread the fabric on top, making sure it was smooth.  After drying overnight, I made the fabric butterflies, sewed them to the page, and sewed around the borders as well.  I embellished the spread with a silk flower attached with gel medium, and a stamped saying by R. Tagore on white tissue, adhered with PPA. The pages, opened, are 10.5″W x 8.25″H.