November 3rd Weekly Post

 Happy Sunday!

Hope everyone has had a nice week.

My right eyelid is swollen now. I had the same problem last year with my left one. It eventually cleared up with a prescription steroid cream, but this time I'm using old skool Bactine also and it's helping better, I think.

As is the case with my left foot having much drier skin than my right one, both eyes are oozing due to allergies but the one swollen eyelid is an auotimmune reaction, not pink eye or other infection. WEIRD, huh? With 5 arthritises (aka autoimmune disorder), every day or week brings some little weirdness and I'm learning to try to just remain calm and remember, this too shall pass.

Which kind of ties in with the top quote on this piece.

The theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art is Chandelier, hosted by Cindy.

I've had this Sizzix Sizzlit chandelier die forever and have used it here for maybe the second time.

I printed out some Songbirdy clip art of an open window breeze from the old Mischief Circus days and layered it onto a 4x6 copper TH Kraft-Core Metallic card stock. There was just enough left over of the copper card to cut the chandelier and the mats for the sentiments, which I stamped with Versamark on deli paper and heat-embossed with copper embossing powder before adhering to the copper mats. I had narrowed down the sentiments to these 2 and thought, heck, I'll just use both.

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Next, a simple birthday card for a nephew, using KI Memories designer paper and a focal sentiment cut from a die I bought on Amazon. 

And the sketch I used.

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And a mixed media card for a girlfriend, using flower stamps and die again from Amazon, a Lawn Fawn sun die and inked stenciling with hand drawn clouds. The sentiment from the floral set was stamped, heat-embossed and cut with a Spellbinders Labels die.

And the sketch I used.
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Last up is an art journal page where I have used a bit of what I've learned from Shawn Petite.

 

The first pic is the page I began with, collaged with tapes and then gesso'd.

Then I began playing with a leftover acrylic paint palette of colors, practicing building up the colors, rubbing them off and/or in, layer upon layer, until something emerged through the grunge that I could draw on. I'd been looking at atmospheric landscapes, so I incorporated a little of that. 

I could have painted the buildings black in silhouette, but I liked the different colors that showed through. It's really just a practice page for techniques. When I looked at it at that point, it reminded me of a very dark cityscape, perhaps in winter. I almost went with Summer in the City lyrics, but then I ran across this John Updike quote, which are lines from his poem January. In PSE, I composed the words on a black background and layered that onto a gold Gecko Galz clip art frame, then printed out and fussy cut it. This is not the scene that his entire poem describes, but these few lines are appropriate for my scene.
Here's the entire poem:

The days are short,
The sun a spark,
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.

Fat snowy footsteps
Track the floor.
Milk bottles burst
Outside the door.

The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees of lace.

The sky is low.
The wind is gray.
The radiator
Purrs all day.

I love the lines about the sky and the wind, too. Also, the milk bottles bursting.

My artwork this week does have some macabre sentiments, but this is the time of year for that. I should note that Updike also wrote the novel The Witches of Eastwick, among many others.

That's all for me this week.

Thanks for visiting and hope to see you next Sunday!

XOX