Really a fabulous prompt, but I am paper biased. When I saw wrap, I instantly thought about brightly colored packages in fancy papers with glorious bows... you know... how we expect, or hope, our Christmas or Birthday presents will look. Except mine never quite do! But seriously, who doesn't love the look of an elaborately wrapped package? This combined with my obsessive preoccupation with paper and it is no real stretch to think I would want to experiment with decorating my own paper for wrapping. I had visions of beautifully painted and stamped paper, (hey I said visions, I think my stamping skills need some work) and it is summer... All I can think is beach, beach, BEACH. Play time, summer time, rest and relaxation time! So around the house in circles I went looking for something small and flat, then my eyes landed on these tea bags. They were free, some sort of promotional thing. I didn't want to throw them out, they aren't my favorite but I'd drink them... perfect! I wanted something that I could wrap and place back in the Wreck It journal somewhere, and in the end I unexpectedly created a delightful R&R care package for myself! Cute, cute! One small challenge accepted and a long-time-coming experiment realized, and I am simply overflowing with new ideas! *Originally published on Wordpress June 7, 2017
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Memorial Day has come and passed. I don't remember a life before, or without, military influence. Father, step-father, uncles, grandfather's, cousins... if they aren't military they married military. Marine Corps pilots, the Airforce, it is all there... and even though, somehow I never learned to make a paper airplane! It actually boggles my mind, now that I'm thinking about it. Surely at some point someone had to at least have shown me. Even if they did, it obviously didn't make much of an impression on my young mind. I had already seen and flown in planes and helicopters. Paper airplanes aren't that impressive when compared to the real thing. But I still feel like I missed out on something. So I tried to fold this airplane, but I won't lie, I had my significant other fold it for me, it only took him all of a minute. Then I flew it... yeah it went about a foot and instantly began its descent into a crash landing about three feet away. Now I know why this is a contest! Crafting paper airplanes that fly the distance is no easy task. I can't say when the next time will be, that I...
Make a Paper Airplane *Originally published on Wordpress June 1, 2017 CREATE A NONSTOP LINE
Considering what our life path looks like, quite literally. If we traced our paths from the moment we became mobile until the day we no longer moved, what would those images look like? There have been artists who have explored this concept, and it is fun to consider. While from afar I'm sure they would look a great deal like this, if we expanded, enlarged each individual's life path... I'd be willing to bet they would be as distinct and unique as a fingerprint. *Originally published on Wordpress June 2, 2017 Circles have an interesting history for me, as I found out early in school that I was really quite good at drawing almost perfect circles with no aids, such as a compass. Good for me too, since I can't draw a straight line to save my life! This was also one of Picasso's favorite assignments for new artists, to draw a perfect circle. I even did a little research, and it seems there is a World Championship for free-handing circles. They fascinate me as they would most observers of the world, especially with the human inclination to make things straight, in a line, and with right angles, I almost crave the circle, the curve, the non-linear. Even my daughter had a hard time resisting the urge to interact while I worked to...
FILL THIS PAGE WITH CIRCLES *Originally published on Wordpress February 15, 2017 Reigning in some creative energy, it is overflowing on this warm grey day... It definitely doesn't feel like winter here in Alabama. I decided to complete another sketchbook makeover. So here she is, the SUPERGIRL SKETCHBOOK...
I enjoy making these things more "mine". We should not judge books by their covers, but a little extra fancy never hurts. This particular sketchbook needed some Tender, Love, & Care. At 11x14 inches it gets a lot of wear when put into my laptop bag or the passenger seat of the car. The edges are beginning to look a little frazzled. Plus I like to look across the room, or my studio, and be inspired by the things around me. Now when I look at this sketchbook it says, "The world needs you. You have been given this gift. Do not hide from the world, and remember... use your creative powers for good!" LOL. I just chuckled. *Originally published on Wordpress February 13, 2017 One of my weaknesses, since I was a child.... office supplies. I enjoy writing and holding new pencils, the smell and weight of new notebooks, the colorful and whimsical visions of paperclips, post-it notes, page markers, staples, and so on. They are just so inventive, useful, and nowadays fancy. I gather these things like a squirrel who works during the day as an eclectic secretary! There has been many a day where I have pondered alternative uses for my collections. So imagine the joy when I read the words... COVER THIS PAGE USING ONLY OFFICE SUPPLIES *Originally published on Wordpress January 27, 2017 Finally! They are finished. It took a while to decide and then complete all these numbers. All I knew is that I wanted to make sure they were as playful as possible, in my mind that meant messy. The "messy" was created by first painting little circles with white correction fluid in each corner, then using an acid-free, water and fade-resistant ink pen I wrote each of the numbers. Then I took a paper towel and smudged each number. Note that some pages went missing before I added numbers, and some pages will go missing after! Since the numbers are not really used as a guide for this book, I thought how can we really play with the notion...
ADD YOUR OWN PAGE NUMBERS : STARTING HERE -> *Originally published on Wordpress January 26, 2017 Instructions are often up for interpretation, and I enjoy a little wordplay. Not to mention who doesn't love to color?!?! So I broke out a pencil, drew in some lines, to make even more lines. Then I used colored pencil to color them in, and lastly restated the pencil lines with a black colored pencil to make my drawn lines a bit bolder. To finish it off, inking in the question I was left with. As an artist I come across this saying all the time, and so I spend a great deal of time pondering all the possibilities of a statement such as... COLOR OUTSIDE OF THE LINES *Originally published on Wordpress January 25, 2017
I would be lying if I said I was not guilty of this bibliophile sacrilege. I simply like my books to lie flat. So it was no hard task to...
CRACK THE SPINE As an artist we have to keep our hands and minds moving, which is hard when pregnant and on bed rest. So I am starting a portable studio, not just a sketchbook. Not just a place of record, but to collaborate and conversate. I have had Keri Smith's texts, "Wreck This Journal", "This Is Not A Book", "Finish This Book", "The Pocket Scavenger", "Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes", and "How To Be An Explorer of The World" for.... well longer than I'm willing to admit!
And so here we begin with... BRING THIS BOOK IN THE SHOWER WITH YOU I have to say I LOVE the way the pages turned out, with the creases and ripples. They are visually stunning. *Originally published on Wordpress January 17, 2017 The bends, valleys, and many newly formed faces that become the structure of a crumpled piece of paper. Incredibly difficult to replicate. Impossible to document even as a drawing or singular photograph. I love them, crumpled sheets of paper. I've made whole piles of crumpled paper balls, filled birdcages with them, and attempted to cast them in Bronze, just in order to further admire them. There are a great many things crumpling paper can provide, one is an unusual canvas to experiment with. It is a two dimensional surface becomes a three dimensional structure which can be altered and then returned to its two dimensional state. I had to play with this! I sprayed the paper with distress stains from a number of angles, once dry I coated the entire page in a thin layer of silver craft paint. I am really pleased with the results. It creates a tie-dye metal foil effect. Experiment success! Not to mention the deep satisfaction, it is almost therapeutic like breaking pottery or popping bubble wrap to, one sheet of paper at a time... Tear Out & Crumple *Originally published on Wordpress June 10, 2017 Back at it again! The past year and a half has been consumed with infants and pregnancy, new jobs, and moving.... My daughter is now 10 months old and we have a baby boy due in April. Making the transition is definitely a challenging one, especially for the Working Artist Mother. How and when will we get the time to be creative? Even when the chance arises.... What can we get done during a nap? What can we get accomplished and put away in these limited pieces of time? It was beautiful and fitting to find these two pages next to each other, thoughts of disassembling and assembling, ripping and attaching, tearing and gluing, so perfectly situated side-by-side. Definitely the perfect place to begin again, not at the end or the beginning but in the middle. How to honor the challenge of both but intertwine the two into a singular creative contemplation? And so with these thoughts swirling through mind and a need for a little glam, I got out all the gold and glitter and began to... TEAR STRIPS, RIP IT UP!&GLUE, STAPLE, OR TAPE THESE PAGES TOGETHER *Originally published on Wordpress February 10, 2017 |
AuthorTabatha Lendquvist works from her private studio located in Walker County, AL. She is an Interdisciplinary artist working in various mediums to include painting, bookmaking, and poetics. Archives
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