Gender-specific cheese sandwiches
The Bluebird of Testosterone visited at dinnertime tonight. The Husband asked The Boy which kind of sandwich he wanted from the local supermarket deli.The Boy: I want a cheese sandwich.
The Husband: Grilled cheese?
The Boy: No, boy cheese.
Postal
I've finished another postcard to send out to Tally for our swap:
It started life as one of those free postcards you can pick up near the door of certain bars and restaurants. A big sneaker company put these church lady-looking women in their shoes for the ad. I picked up a lot of them, and mostly have been using them as the base for the other altered postcards. But this time I decided to alter the image using a challenge technique I'd seen Jen Worden use.
I seem to be getting worse at following directions as I get older, I swear. You start with a glossy magazine image; I figured the postcards were plenty glossy. Next, you're supposed to draw the broad outlines with a Sharpie first, and THEN gesso in the parts you want to cover, kind of like painting by numbers.
No... I had to slap the gesso on first, and then realize I couldn't see the image well enough. I ended up watering down the gesso so I could see a little more detail. Here's a lesson: it's really easy to dry up the extra-fine end of your Sharpie if you're dragging it through gesso. But it was still really entertaining to outline the face of the woman on the right.
Sorry about the sideways orientation: Blogger is having issues, as usual. They were the right way when I uploaded them...
Anyhoo, I added scraps, one of my favorite text stamps ("Things just weren't the same at St. Alphonse convent after Sister Agnes went on her shooting spree "), then the dancing girls stamp which I colored in with pens, and glazed the edges to blend the top with the bottom a bit more. I also used the dancing girls stamp on the back, on a transparency, and colored in their legs.
So that was a little bit of fun that'll go out in the mail today or tomorrow.
It started life as one of those free postcards you can pick up near the door of certain bars and restaurants. A big sneaker company put these church lady-looking women in their shoes for the ad. I picked up a lot of them, and mostly have been using them as the base for the other altered postcards. But this time I decided to alter the image using a challenge technique I'd seen Jen Worden use.I seem to be getting worse at following directions as I get older, I swear. You start with a glossy magazine image; I figured the postcards were plenty glossy. Next, you're supposed to draw the broad outlines with a Sharpie first, and THEN gesso in the parts you want to cover, kind of like painting by numbers.
No... I had to slap the gesso on first, and then realize I couldn't see the image well enough. I ended up watering down the gesso so I could see a little more detail. Here's a lesson: it's really easy to dry up the extra-fine end of your Sharpie if you're dragging it through gesso. But it was still really entertaining to outline the face of the woman on the right.
Sorry about the sideways orientation: Blogger is having issues, as usual. They were the right way when I uploaded them...Anyhoo, I added scraps, one of my favorite text stamps ("Things just weren't the same at St. Alphonse convent after Sister Agnes went on her shooting spree "), then the dancing girls stamp which I colored in with pens, and glazed the edges to blend the top with the bottom a bit more. I also used the dancing girls stamp on the back, on a transparency, and colored in their legs.
So that was a little bit of fun that'll go out in the mail today or tomorrow.
Introducing... Kicky McAngrypants
I figure every crying newborn looks pretty much the same, so I'm bending my rule about No Pictures of The Boy on le blog.
Aside from a little matte medium to seal the inked paper edges, this new page is done. It's about how I discovered that sticking out the lower lip when angry is something babies really do, without being coached.You know how some people (um, me) rename people "Something McSomething"? It's a habit I picked up from my sister-in-law while she was living in L.A. So it was inevitable that The Husband and I would apply that to The Boy in the first few months of his life.
The Boy was not keen on swaddling: he had to have his arms free, and very soon he decided the legs had to be free too. So one evening, while The Husband was bouncing The Boy on his knee to calm him down, he came up with "Kicky McAngrypants."
I typed "Introducing" and "Kicky McAngrypants" in Blasphemy [hee hee... "blasphemy"] font, then did water transfers of both in different font sizes. I also gessoed, then painted the nameplate space with a cream acrylic, then adhered the water transfer with matte medium. Just for good measure, I painted a little more cream around the edges of the nickname.Finally, the fun part: I blended it in with the patina of the nameplate by painting it with the special Michael de Meng schmutzing colors. I love it when things turn out the way they look in my head!
The "Introducing" water transfer sits on top of cream acrylic paint too, because I figured it wouldn't show up very well otherwise on the purple cardstock. A little more schmutzy paint on that and the prickly cactus loteria card to tie them all together, and there we go.
I also made a mica and vellum paper sandwich, bound with wire. Someday The Boy will look at this page and not find it funny at all, of course. So this is my (ultimately futile) explanation that he was not, in fact, tortured by his parents for the sake of a picture. Geez, The Boy got nursed and a bottle right after I took the picture! What does he want, blood?Oh, yes... of course he will.