Art & Soul Fat Book, "By the Sea," Here I Come

Suddenly my blog seems to have become "what I did on my weekend." It's not supposed to be just that, although when you eliminate politics, religion, co-workers, family and personal issues, it's either blog about my arting adventures, or tell you what non-food object Larry the Cat has recently consumed.
So, obviously this post concerns the most recent weekend and the approximate 23 hours total I spent on 40 fat book or 4 x 4 original pages front and back. These will be mailed off to a hostess who will create covers, sort pages from other artists, bind the books and return to me at Art and Soul May 1 a fabulous finished book.
I decided to go with a Zetti theme for half my pages and a nautical alphabet for the other half. All the pages were first cut from watercolor sheets and then painted with acrylics, gel medium or gesso in shades of blue. After each side dried, I rubber stamped nautical images with distress ink on one or both sides.
Next came drawing and collaging my Zetti mermaids a la Teesha Moore http://www.teeshamoore.com/, then watercolor painting, glitter, gel pens and other accents. The pages you see here are not done yet, but are waiting for embellishments of beads, charms and fibers to be added before they are mailed. All these additions help make the fat book fat!


Besides this, I kicked off my weekend by finishing 32 handmade Mermaid Ballerina charms pictured further below, which were mailed off today for another Art & Soul swap. Now I am down to my miscellaneous charms and swaps I will take with me to trade with the other artists there, a highlight of Art & Soul for sure.

And, to prove I have more to talk about than just my weekends, I have to say Yay! to Alex who made the high school varsity baseball team, which we kicked off tonight at a team and parent dinner. (We have a scrimmage planned for tomorrow in the rain and sleet). I also have to say Whew! to me for surviving today: a 6 a.m. drive out of state for a day of meetings, a rush home to take two dozen homemade lemon bars to said baseball dinner, and living through a 90-minute radio interview on blogtalkradio.com for my ZNE art group. Finally, I have to say Happy Birthday (the 18th) to my childhood friend Jeaniene: you're older than I am once again!! Yay!

Good night, Gracie!