Rework and revisions (in my Hands AB)

Before we begin, I just want to add a comment about my Silent Sunday post. Yes, these are all clocks in my house. The ones that are surrounded by birds are in my bathroom, which means I have two clocks in there. One was correct, one was not. As for all the clocks, the photos were taken within ten minutes time. You can see how some were the same, others were an hour fast or slow. I have clocks in every room of my house. I only showed a few (HONEST TRUTH). None are ever set correctly. It all began one year when a friend noticed I had no clocks in my home. She bought me one for Christmas and that seemed to take off. Yes, I have loads of clocks, but I never look at them. I use the clock on my computer or VCR (I'm really old school when it comes to taping TV shows). Other than that, if it doesn't change itself, it doesn't get changed. Every year, about half my clocks are set to the current time, the rest to the "old" or "other" time.

And finally, I appreciate the nice comment Cat at La Dolce Vita gave me on her blog yesterday. If you live in, or near Fort Collins, CO, you might want to sign up for her class. Now, lets rework a little art.


Last spring, I made this two page spread and photographed it before the paint brush embellishment was added. I paired these two together because of their color, not their similarity.


Something unusual happened several weeks ago. Patty Szymkowicz e-mailed me a scan of this very image. She said hers came from Country Living. I'm not sure where mine came from, but I told her I had one and asked how she might use it in a spread. How surprised I was when I was going through my Hands AB and saw I had already used that very image. I liked Patty's idea for a spread, and although I didn't use it, it got me thinking about what I did have that I could use and what type of spread I wanted.

The first thing I did was carefully remove the hand image along with the paintbrush which had been attached using E-6000 and didn't come off too easily.


That meant I had to cover the background in some way. I used pigment ink to color around the circle image I cut from a magazine, then cut strips of sheet music and scrapbook paper, including leftover strips from the left side. After I attached them to the book page, I added the central image and three flower petals.


While searching for a companion piece for the painted hand that is now on the left, I found the one from the first two photos in this post. It is now on the right. When telling Patty about it in an e-mail, I initially confused it with the "painted hand" one on the left that was still in my "to use" box.

In order to rework this spread, I started by pairing the paintbrush with the hand that looked like mine after a painting session. I rationalized that the paintbrush and painted hand made more sense together, than the one I had originally used it with. To make the background, I used red and green pigment inks that I actually spread around using my fingers. Anyone who works with color knows red and green are opposites on the color wheel, so adding them together creates brown. Although I never quite got the brown I was hoping for, I did manage to get some decent tan and was able to tone down the red a bit.

After removing the hand from the page in the first spread above, I knew how I wanted to treat it. When Patty suggested a buffalo or a cactus, I thought about a road trip across the country. Many times I drove that stretch of lonely highway through New Mexico and Arizona on my way to California. The image reminded me of those desolate highways, where mesas and blue skies were my only companions.

I guess I need to apologize to both Chevrolet and the Beach Boys for garbling their lyrics. I came up with "See the USA in your little Duese coup." I used some of my deli paper and an image of an early 1930s Duesenberg to complete the page. You can learn more about the Duesenberg, also called "Duesy" by clicking the link. I would like to thank Patty for unwittingly encouraging me to change the spreads to make them more compatible. Patty is always an inspiration. I only wish I could make art that looks half as lovely as hers.

Today's blog is way, way off the beaten path. In my never ending effort to find men who blog, I found this site last night. David Jaffe is a gamer. His name may even be familiar to some of you, or maybe your children. His blog is colorful and unique. I must warn you, there are a few four letter words in this blog, so be careful who is around when you peruse it.

I was unable to leave a comment on his blog, so he must have his comments disabled. I couldn't find his profile or e-mail address, either. Apparently, he is big enough in the gaming industry to have a Wikipedia profile, though. My belief that I must step outside the altered paper, photography, and fabric art world on occasion has taken me to this unique site, so I hope you will at least give David's "Criminal Crackdown" blog a look see.