Still working on the topic, beautiful.  This time I am reflecting on making art cards for greeting card use that are beautiful.  To make them beautiful for the receiver the central image must be clear with great color and the rest of the card must complement or contrast the colors in the image.  To me, the appearance must be beautiful but the cards must also symbolize me in some way, adding another layer of beauty for me.  Also, my cards need to be a reflection of my art interests.

The set of cards I created this weekend had a butterfly as the central image.  Butterflies symbolize personal transformation and growth.  As catterpillars, they are bound to the ground level, inching along taking care of their basic needs, namely eating to prepare for their next stage in life.  Then they create the chrysalis and become a pupa whose job is to transform into a butterfly.  As butterflies, they are no longer bound to the ground but can fly.  They have changed in focus — not just eating, but pollinating plants in the process, and being a thing of beauty.  I had taken some photos of a butterfly on a flower and decided to use a photo as the central image.

Purple is my favorite color and I tried to incorporate some purple into each card.  I have a variety of purple paper in my supplies, prints and solids.  No two cards are the same, though I am investigating how to copy the cards I make.  But the originals are one of a kind.  Balance and complements and contrasts become the guiding design principles.  Here are a few of my finished cards:

To add to the beauty and personalize the card, I will stamp “Thinking of You” or “Thank You” or whatever the message is onto vellum in a coordinating color and add the strip to the front of the card. 

So I think the cards are beautiful and I am giving beauty when I give someone one of these cards.

National Blog Posting Month’s topic for September is beatiful.  Now, I can’t blog every day — I just don’t have the time — but I can blog on the topic, especially in the context of my own art. 

  I am looking at the mixed-media piece I created of a water lily blossom (taken   Floral Clock in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada).

Water Liy Blossom

  The balance is in the repetition of shapes  and colors.  The mulberry paper background is cut into squares but the overlapping of  the layers creates dark lines giving the appearance of  rectangles, and of depth. 

blue, green, and dark green mulberry squares on a muslin background

The binding of the piece is  batik of greens with a light orange. 

Fern stitch in gold metallic thread on the binding

The piece has vertical height which is reflected in the light wood poster-size frame.  The flower is a photograph printed on a square piece of twill. 

Water lily photo printed on twill

The center of  the flower is a deep yellow, almost orange, like the orange in the binding.  The surprise?  The flower is outlined in metalic gold thread and the fern-stitch embrodery on  the binding.  The metallic thread adds sparkle when light falls on the piece.

Deep eow, almost orange, center

I started this blog as a class assignment in January, 2008.  Since then, I have completed that graduate program and am moving on to other endeavors.  What remains the same is that I like blogging.  So, I am keeping this blog but my focus has changed.  Instead of using the blog as a means to respond to the reading assignments and events related to those assignments and that class in general, I am focusing on the arts and creativity.  I am a writer and an artist.  I look for ways to blend the two and am fascinated by the creative process and creativity in general.  This is what I will blog on.

I have been away from this blog for a while.  Unintentionally, but last semester’s grad class took up a great deal of time and this semester’s class promises to do the same.  But I will finish in May.  Life is good.

This semester I am writing my thesis and as I prepared to write this work last semester, I noticed some things about my personal writing process.

I can’t afford writer’s block.  I don’t have the time to not produce because I have deadlines to meet.  But there are those days when the writing is slow going, if not non-existent and I need ways to work through these non-productive days.  Here are some things I’ve learned and/or tried that keep me writing.

1.  Keeping a regular journal/daybook helps to at least get the creative juices flowing.  I do 20-minute Quick Writes.  Sometimes I give myself a topic, other times I just free write.  The 20-minute pieces often spark writing for another time.

2.  I learned from Chinese Watercolor that you need to have two or more pieces going at the same time.  In the case of the watercolor, most mistakes are irreversable:  a blob of black ink in the middle of a landscape cannot be disguised.  So, multiple copies of the same piece make the mistake less painful.  For writing, I do not necessary work on multiple copies of the same piece, but I do have another piece going.  It may be in the same genre or in a different one.  The important thing is to have another piece to focus on.  In the process of focusing, the brain is allowed to rest and contemplate on the other piece and when I go back to the first piece, I always have something new to add.

3.  I have an on-going art project while I am writing.  The art project could be knitting or crocheting or currently I am working on some mixed media original creations.  The important thing is to have an art project that is going to produce observable results from even 10 or 15 minutes of working.  The creative juices flow and I get instant gratification, something that the writing doesn’t always give.  The combination of the writing and the art keeps my creative side engaged.

4.  Reading.  Reading is a necessary component of writing.  Some people view it as a distraction or goofing off.  I find that when I’m reading, I’m also paying attention to the writing style and choices of the author as well as the content.  Reading may sparking some writing, such as a response or an original piece on a related topic.  For example, I am reading Thoreau’s Walden.  I immediately notice that the things that drew me to Thoreau in my teens and twenties do not captivate me in my fifties.  So, I am writing reaction pieces for a work that I am calling, On Re-reading Walden.  Whether this turns inot a publishable piece or not, it does capture for myself my thoughts and ideas that may show up in other tangentially related work at another time.

5.  Writing on my writing process.  Sometimes writing about how I write lets me see areas that I could improve or areas that used to work for me but no longer do.  It also reminds me that my writing process is an evolutionary one, so there are no rules.

6.  Editing and revising while I write.  Editing and revising take different skills.  Editing a piece in progress often leads to breakthroughs.  Revisions may do the same.  I keep copies of everything, as well as a document called Cut Material from _______.   If I cut it, I can always put it back (I record the date and the page from which the material was cut.)  So far, I have not put any cut material back but I have considered it.

That’s all for now.  I’m sure if I thought about it, I could come up with a list of 10.  That type of list would be publishable.  Something to think about when I need to start a new piece!

WNBA does not get the coverage it deserves in my local newspapers.  Occasionally, I will find a small article about one game and then the stats for other games.  Even though a local graduate is playing, Crystal Langhorne for the Washington Mystics, there is still little coverage in the Burlington County Times or The Phildelphia Inquirer.  Hence, my surprise at seeing an article about the Women’s Basketball Olympic Team winning the gold medal on the front page of the sports section and a picture with a blurb on the front page of the whole paper in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. (I haven’t seen the Burlington County Times, yet.)

I did not get to see any of the team’s games during the Olympics.  In fact, the only basketball I saw was the men’s gold medal game against Spain in which the men won.  The time difference between the East Coast and China made difficult watching, as Lisa Scottoline mentioned in her column in today’s Inquirer, but I was captivated.  I watched sports that I never watch at any other time — diving, beach volleyball, gymnastics — and the only competition that I refused to watch was boxing, but I thoroughly enjoyed all of the track and field competition, the men’s marathon, and diving.  The only complaint that I had was the way in which the US reporters interviewed people who had been defeated or failed to qualify immediately after it happened.  I think people need and deserve time to compose themselves before answering questions to the whole world about what went wrong and how did they feel about it.  The facial expressions and the overall body language was enough to communicate the intense disappointment that the athlete felt. 

I see that the 2012 Olympics are scheduled for London, England.  Will I try to go or will I watch from home?  Probably home, but you never know . . .

Last week, I met with a former student to review her essay for her graduate school application.  The essay had good content but needed revision to make it stronger and editing to take care of grammatical and mechanical errors.  During the course of our conversation, she mentioned how she had learned all of this stuff – at this point, we were discussing the use of the semi-colon – but really hadn’t paid attention.  Now she needed this information.  Also, she never thought of revision as something useful; you wrote the paper and the teacher made comments.  Well, I had a hand in that, because at the time that I taught her, her 9^th and 12^th grade English courses, I was still in the stage of giving all of the comments and the students making the changes because I said so.  I had not learned how to make comments that sparked thoughtful choices and I did not approach revision as a means to bring out the best in the writing.  In short, I was approaching writing from the standpoint of most literature teachers and not from the standpoint of a teacher of writing, which is my viewpoint now.

Revision is such an important process.  If I were teaching now, and when I have the opportunity to work with teachers, I stress the point of writing in drafts.  If students come to the writing knowing that they are going to make revisions to improve their writing, it is far less painful for them.  It is a shift for the teacher, too, because she or he is not expecting the first draft to be a polished draft.  It is a draft in which the student discovers what she or he has to say about the topic.  Some people are able to stay on topic and write a draft that just needs fine-tuning; most people write a draft that meanders around the topic, trying to discover what is most important. 

In our discussion of her essay, we talked about making the writing more powerful.  For example, putting some pertinent and poignant information at the end of the sentence, actually at the end of the paragraph and offsetting it from the main sentence by use of a colon.  None of this did I say to her when she was my student 10 years ago.  Thank goodness, I have spent the time learning and growing as a teacher of writing through my work with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the scoring of AP English Literature and Composition exams, and the Masters of Arts Writing Program at Rowan University.

I work with many teachers who do not see the need to teach writing.  Some of them think that the students are supposed to come to them already fully informed in grammar and mechanics (from elementary and middle school instruction) and they should just teach them how to write a literary analysis, unfortunately usually in a five-paragraph essay format.  This results in there being no growth in the students’ writing over the course of four years, or at least not until senior year when teachers are mindful of the type of writing that the students may need to do in college. 

In the model that I am currently proposing to my staff, students do come to the high school with the basics.  But our job over the next four years is to advance their writing so that it becomes the powerful tool of communication that it can be.  Using textual support and examples to support an opinion are important, but so is knowing the power of short sentences and long, complex sentences, the power of the comma, the semi-colon, the colon, and the period.  This calls for the teaching of less literature for the sake of literature and more reading of literature, fiction and non-fiction, for a model of good writing and then actually writing to try to incorporate the techniques.  An ambitious endeavor on my part, but well worth the effort for the students.

July is cruising by.  Why do we say “cruising by”?  I think of the cruise control on the car where you set it when you have reached a speed that you want to maintain.  You don’t need to accelerate or even keep your foot on the gas pedal.  You can rest your right leg and let the car take over and you just have to steer. 

I don’t use cruise control.

It makes me nervous not to be in control of the car.  Even thought I know cruise control goes off with the touch of a button or a foot on the brakes, that split second of not being in control if something should get in my way — a car changing lanes too close for comfort, a truck making a right turn and coming just a little over the lane line, a deer appearing suddenly in the road — would seem like an eternity.  I already know my reaction time is not the quickest.  No Jedi reflexes here.

So is July cruising by?  Have I or my activities reached a speed where I am tempted to set the cruise control and just steer?  No really.  It’s more like I have so much to do and so little time.  I had about 10 items on my To-Do list at the beginning of the month and now that it is 3/4ths over, I still have 8 items, 6 of which must be completed before I go on vacation August 3rd.  Today is July 22nd.

Lessons learned?  1.  There is a reason not to use cliches such as “cruising by” because they may not mean exactly what you think or want.  2.  I need to buckle down and get to work.

New paper is always an inspiration or a reason for making cards or other pojects.  I buy paper because I like the coors and the patterns on it.  I do buy solid color paper but it is usually cardstock for the cards themselces or some very interesting coordinating color or mulberry paper for backgrounds or grounding.  For those who only buy paper in 8 1/2 ” x 11″ or 12″ x 12″ sheets, take a look at some of the paper available online or at a paper store that sells handmade and/or decorative paper.  The variety in weight, texture, and color is tremendous.  I love to window shop on websites such as Paper Mojo, The Paper Studio , and Paper Arts.

Since new paper was my focus, I knew my rubberstamping was going to be minimal, just words and phrases.  When adding just words or phrases, vellum is a nice choice for layering over paper or adding dimension.

Creating New Paper

I gave myself some rules for creating paper:

1.  the paper was cut into 3″ squares.

2.  6 different papers per sheet of created paper — 2 light, 2 medium, and 2 dark.

3.  No 2 created sheets could be exactly the same.

The 3″ squares were adhered to a cardstock background using matte medium.  This was the first time I used matte medium.  I found out what happens when you use too much — the paper buckles or warps when dried.  I also found that I should have tested the paper first because 2 different papers ran and those created paper sheets were unusable.  I also found that I like to use matte medium undiluted.  And I found that matte mediium is great for creating new paper, but I still like double-stick tape when attaching the paper to the actual card.

I prefer using colored cardstock when making cards because white is just too stark.  But sometimes white is the only choice.  In this case, I used coordinating mulberry paper cut slightly larger than the created paper piece to add a border.

Red Mulberry border

My finished cards are 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″.  I cut the created paper 3 3/4″ x 5″.  When I used mulberry paper, I cut it 4″ x 5 1/4″.  When I cut the 3 3/4 x 5 pieces from the created paper, I started by focusing on design elements — interesting contrasts of color or prints.  This method usually yielded 2 pieces I could use.  then I tried turning the paper over and cutting with the cardstock facing up.  After truing the paper, i cut it into fourths.  Then I looked at the created paper side.  I had to cut each quarter down to the 3 3/4 x 5 size but I like the results even better.  I liked the surprise and it was eaisier to trim because I did not have any preconceived ideas about the paper.

I ended up making 20 cards and only discarding 2 because of the color-running problem and 1 because I just didn’t like it.  Five cards I made into anniversary and birthday cards for upcoming events.

Birthday card

Birthday card

Anniversary card

The other 12 cards are ready for personalizing, as the need arises.

ready for personalizing

Ready for personalizing

I am inspired, though, to work on a larger scale in three possible ways.  One is to create a larger piece of created paper, perhaps using watercolor paper as the backing. I think watercolor paper for its ability to absord some of the water if the matte medium is diluted.  Two is to create a larger piece and to use that piece as a motherboard, going to a printer to get a color copy of the created paper and then cutting the copies.  I saw this idea in a magazine a few years ago but have not had the opportunity to try it.  Three is to create a piece on canvas and not use it for cards, but create it as art itself.  I would use canvas which I bought a while ago — last year, actually.  I think I could create some wall pieces.  Interesting thought.  A challenge for myself.  These ideas sound good for a rainy weekend.

Next art that is calling me:  Chinese brushstroke painting.

I came across a blog called “The Book Whisperer”.  The blogger, Donalyn Miller, works on connecting children with reading.  In the post, “Out of the Box”, Ms. Miller writes about the experience of reading Airman by Eoin Colfer and what she has learned about flying because of this book.  She also shares other things that she has learned from reading, fiction and non-fiction.  She also talks about how reading non-fiction sometimes sparks the interest in fiction on that topic and vice versa. 

Her posting has got me to thinking about my own reading and how it connects to teaching.  I have taught elementary schoo, middle school, high school, and college.  The common denominator has been that if I am passionate about what I am reading, the students will catch some of the enthusiasm.  Not every student will love what I am reading but they all express at least an interest.  I think of some works that I taught what are considered lower-level 9th grade students.  We read My Antonia by Willa Cather.  When I recommend this book to other teachers to teach, I hear “The language is too difficult.” or “The book is too long; the students will never read a book of that length.” or “These kids don’t know anything about the 1800’s or the Midwest.”  Well, the book is long, and the language is denser than the students usually read, and they might not know anything about the 1800’s or the Midwest, but each complaint is a point to be dealt with in the teaching of the book.  I love the language and learning some of the older meanings of words.  When students are engaged in the story, they don’t mind the length.  The immigrant experience fascinates me because it is so different from my own experience, but many of my students were immigrants, so the story appealed to them.  For those who weren’t here was a chance to learn something.  The story led us to inquire about immigration in the 1800s – what countries did they leave and why, where in the US did they settle, why did some areas appeal to certain groups and not to others.  Then looking at Nebraska which is very different from our New Jersey home:  just what are those geographical differences; how does this impact the family, schools, community, etc.; what is the Midwest like today; and what were the overall historical and economic concerns of the 1800s.  As you can see, I move from fiction to non-fiction easily.  I think the non-fiction enhances the fiction, adding another layer or depth. 

Another book that I have taught that others won’t is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.  I love it.  I love the way in which it is written with the alternating chapters of story and social commentary.  The Depression is a time period that fascinates me — a period that my parents and grandparents lived through and a period that has had such lasting effects on the psyche of the nation at large, one of those defining moments.  Again, the complaints arise about the length, the time period is too far removed from the students, there is easier Steinbeck to be taught, the ending is so depressing.  Again, each of these can be addressed in the teaching, even the ending.  In grad school, someone typified the differences between the British and American novels:  American novels looked for a happy ending, British novels did not.  Steinbeck leans toward the British in this case, but it is reasonable.

Sometimes, I think that teachers get an idealized vision of our students and then expect that we can predict their likes and dislikes, even their strengths and weaknesses.   I think that we do students a disservice when we lapse into that behavior.  I believe that we should challenge students, all students, and that with scaffolding, support, and guidance, they can reach new heights.  i also think that all students should be exposed to a plethora of literature and good writing, fiction and non-fiction.  If we don’t expose them to it in school, students might never choose to read the various types of literature available to them.  And don’t get me started on poetry . . .   Too often teachers have killed poetry because they have analyzed for techniques and literary/poetic devices and left out the most important part — the effect or the meaning that the poet was trying to convey.  I could go on and on about poetry, but that is a post for another day.

The bottomline is that if the teacher is enthused and willing to take the time to break the literature into appropriate pieces for the students, just about anything can be achieved.  The same is true for writing, another passion of mine.  But that, too, is a post for another day.

I make my own greeting cards through rubberstamping and the use of paper.  I love paper.  I love the variety of decorative and handmade papers that are available, especially through online shopping.  I visit my local craft stores, such as Michaels, A. C. Moore, and JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts, when paper is on sale to see what is available. But when I want to see beautiful paper, paper that does not come in 8 1/2 by 11 or 12 by 12 but 21 by 37 and other sizes, I visit my online resources, usually Paper Mojo.  For the past few years, I have purchased from Paper Mojo and usually buy a dozen or so pieces that tend to last me for the year.

Buying paper and planning art projects is another antidote for the contraries (see my post on Views From the Rear Window for more on the contraries).  I make a list of things to do and sometimes go as far as to detail a project or two and the bad mood of the contraries is lifted.  For example, I have not had the time to paint.  I paint in the Chinese Brushstroke watercolor style, having taken lessons for about two years.  I have not had the time to paint, but I have detailed a landscape that I plan to do of the mountains and desert of southern Arizona.  I usually paint on rice paper, but am aslo interested in expanding to silk.  On the Dick Blick website, I found silk hoops that are inexpensive and are actually packaged as a children’s or class project.  So, I bought a set to have on hand when I get the time to try this.

Sometimes though necessity intervenes and yesterday I needed to create Father’s Day cards for the fathers in my life — my own, my husband, my brother, and two of my sons.  I bought a stamp that says “Happy Father’s Day” last year, so I knew what I was putting in the middle of the card.  But, the outside is always a problem.  I have lots of floral stamps because I like flowers.  I have leaves and trees.  I have southwestern theme stamps.  I have dragon flies and a few birds.  But I don’t really have male-oriented stamps.  When I think of these men and their interests, I think of cars, rvs, tools, and possibly music.  I don’t own stamps with these interests because there are not a plethora of stamps available on these interests. 

So what could be the theme of my Father’s Day cards?  I thought of June and the approaching summer, and that takes me to the shore.  I do have some stamps of shells but not a complete beach scene or paper that reflects a beach theme.  But I do have some ocean wildlife stamps from when I was creating invitations for my daughter’s baby shower and the theme was the aquarium.  So a sunfish, a dolphin, and a sea turtle were my choices.  Now for the paper.  Going through my stash, I found two pieces of 12 by 12 paper that looked like underwater.  They would work.

To use color on the stamps and emboss in clear, or to stamp clear and use colored embossing powder what is the next decision.  I decided to stamp clear and to use Gold Crystal and White Silver embossing powder by Rubber Dub Dub, Inc., rather than actual colors.  (I tried to create a link to Rubber Dub Dub which is in Cape Coral, Florida, but the web address on the embossing powder kept taking me to a military supply store, so I don’t know if this comapny is still in business.) 

The White Silver actually looks white on the paper and for a change I used white cardstock. (I usually don’t like white cards and have a variety of colored cardstock purchased from my local stationers.)  I left enough room to use the shell stamps across the bottom and used the ”On Your Special Day” stamp on the front.  I tried first in the Gold Crystal but I found it difficult to read.  No, I thought it was impossible to read, but I asked my husband to read it and he could, so it was just difficult for me.  When I used White Silver, it was much clearer.

The cards turned out well, I thought. 

   

I would love to say that I will start earlier next year and will have these done sooner than the night before, but the reality is that it probably won’t happen.  I will keep my eye out for appropriate stamps for men  or will figure out another way to get appropriate images on my cards — photo transfer, perhaps? 

I would love to say that I will make a bunch of cards so that I have them on hand and just need to stamp or put in the appropriate message.  That does happen from time to time, just not often enough.  When my pace slows in the summer, I will spend some evenings engaged in card making, especially now that I have new paper to play with!

My dream is to one day create enough cards and on a consisten basis that I am able to sell some on Etsy.  I don’t see that dream being fulfilled any time soon, but it is a dream so who knows what will happen.

Too many ideas . . . too many talents . . . too little time!