Susie's Muse

Pocketful Round Robin

Today I have been working on the cover for my book for a round robin called 'pocketful' Each of our pages has to have a pocket and each of us have to add artwork to each others pages but also create something to put into each pocket. It should be an amazing project but with 15 players and the first round starting on June 15th; it will be awhile before we see our books again.

I am making my own book. The pages are house shaped and each has a pocket. Here is the front side of my cover which I am doing in fabric.

I am calling my book 'Found Lives' and intend to put an altered cabinet card into the pocket of my page. I still have much to do before I can put this project to bed so I best get back to it.

I have been busy and enjoying every minute of it. My 'dance' studio projects ate up a great deal of my free time since January and now that I am free of all of it I have had a chance to play again and it feels SOOOOOOO GOOD to be creating again. Doing what I love. One of the most enjoyable events the past few weeks has been the official launching of the Yahoo In This House online art group. So many great artists gathering for artful adventures.

I have also been working on a canvas that I began late last Summer. It's morphed so many times, I wish I had photographed all of the changes. It started out a blank canvas 18 by 24. First I covered it with a layer of gesso just for textural purposes into which I added several scraps of text. I let that dry and then dry brushed titan buff over the whole thing so that the text would show through in places. After that I added more text. I don't remember what I did next only that it went through many color changes. At one point it was a very bright yellow over several other layers of text and images. It sat for months that way until I did the edges using Goldens Crackle medium. Then I painted the entire piece severeal different blues. I then added several buttons, some other odds and ends that I ended up ripping off and then crackling the middle area with Behr's crackle meduim going over with a color called 'cozy cottage' and it has been that way until this past weekend. I added some color highlights and the image of a door. The door image is courtesy of Kathy McElroy from her trip to Paris. This piece is still not finished but I now have a direction for it. Stay tuned for further developments.