Sunday Art-The Redo

    Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice weekend. This past week wasn't the most exciting for me since my husband was still home with his bad back. He's SORT OF feeling better (fingers crossed it continues to improve), just still in a lot of pain to sit.  The poor guy. If he's testing my patience, this is really testing his own too. 

 

    What's also made it tough at least for me right now is that there is so much ice on the ground (even with the melt because now it's cold again and the melt has frozen) that unless I head down to the beach or to a shopping mall, I'm feeling a little bit cooped up. Well, this too shall pass, as it always does.  

    I mention this not to complain but because it fits in with my art for today.

    Today I am joining Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room and Gillena for her Sunday Smiles. I am also joining  Art Journal Journey where my challenge is"What's Up?".

    Since I wasn't doing all that much last week, I had quite a bit of art time. However, my muse wasn't exactly hovering over my shoulder inspiring me much. I think my muse has gone someplace  without back issues and ice on the ground. 😏 (Grin)

    To motivate myself to make new art, I have gone back to and slightly revised  a couple of journal pages that I made before but that I didn't really love. The great news is that I now really like these pages. Let me share one. The old view is on the left and the new view is on the right.

    The old view wasn't terrible, but it felt a little disconnected. The red ticket and the heart, no, that didn't belong. And everything just felt like it was floating on the page. There wasn't any focus on the old photo.

    On my new version I did some covering up with  1 inch wide washi tape, and I added this worn looking frame. Then I moved around the gold key (luckily it pulled off OK) and added a new quote. I actually like how less of the clock shows and the family now looks more anchored to the page. I also really like the white stamped words on the black paper.  I do miss that you can't see as much of the filmstrip on the left of the original, but I don't think the filmstrip was really all that strong an addition on the original.

     Last week I shared my work desk, and today I thought I would share a  wall unit I keep my small individual rubber stamps in.  And that I just love also.

       

   I love little cubby units, and several years ago I saw this one in an antique store. The best part was that I saw it right before my birthday, and it made a great gift from my husband. The bottom row is a bit cut off,  but it doesn't go down any further than the half row you can see in the edge of the photo. The writing on the unit  was on it when I found it. It used to be part of  the campus post office at the University of New Hampshire.

   Yes I have A  LOT of rubber stamps. ( I love rubber stamps.) 😸

   What I love about the top (as well as the smaller unit that came from IKEA years ago) is it gives me space to put out some of the little tchotchkes  that I've collected over the years. Some of them were gifts; some were even gifted to me  when I was a child. Some are little things I picked up on trips. Also, when I was a teenager my grandmother went to South Africa for several months. My uncle and his family were living there at the time (and I was so jealous I couldn't go with my grandmother). My grandmother brought back lots of African art and carved wooden animals, and you can see a few of those which were either given to me or that I collected from my parent's home when it was cleaned out.

    I had my post written and then I also noticed that Nicole was showing her African art. I also have a few pieces of African art, as I mentioned above. Here's some close ups of what I have; all it  came back in my Nana's suitcases.

  My parents received 2 masks from her. I don't know where the other one went to, but I took this one when we cleaned out my parent's house. I hang this face on the door into my art space (which is just the spare bedroom) since it obviously doesn't fit on  the top of my cubbies.

    My parents also received these 2 wooden giraffes. Although the mask was something it took me years to appreciate, I always loved these giraffes. I have one downstairs on my fireplace mantel, and one here with my tchotchkes. (And you can see a few of my other little knickknacks better too, but I was really just trying to get close up photos of  the giraffe and the water buffalo in this photo.)

   I'd apologize for the shadow in the photo, but I think the shadow looks interesting.  And here's 3 other items my Nana brought home to me on that trip.  

   I love having a personal space where I can put these items because they all hold memories and make me smile.

   That's all for me today. Wishing you a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.