Growing Glass No.1

My stars... I am all a twitter at the moment and so so so excited to share these photos with you!! I have said for a while now (here.... in emails to friends..... chatting over dinner...) I want to (need to) start exploring art outside glass beads and jewelry. And it is not that I am not lovin' every minute I spend making beads and jewelry... it's just that I think I need to expand my horizons to spark my creativity. LOL, I am thinking of that line in Shrek where Shrek is telling Donkey that Ogres are like onions... they have layers. I got layers people.

I shared with you on Friday a link to Sally Jean Alexander's website. Her book "Pretty Little Things" was a birthday gift. I have spent every day since getting it pouring over the pages. I love it. Now, this isn't the first mixed media art book that I have ever looked at. Oh no, I actually have several of them. The thing I am drawn to most isn't the soldered trinket boxes, or the doll heads on dinosaur bodies, or vintage tape measure tassels... it's the collage.

In college, I had this one teacher that had us do train of thought/splash board/brainstorming stuff. It was my favorite way to try to get ideas for new projects. We would be given a topic (ex: summer picnic) and we would take a giant piece of paper and just start writing anything and everything that would pop into our heads (ex:crawling ants, checkered cloth, red, white, flags, soft breeze, band playing, music, golden tones, rock bands....) I could go on and on.

Anyway, in the new book I was gifted, Sally uses a technique for collaging that reminds me a lot of what we used to do in college. I love it. She has you write words on slips of paper, put them in a bowl and build the layers of the collage randomly from the words that are pulled from the jar. I think I have kinda held myself back from going-for-it with collaging because I didn't know where to start. This made it click for me.

I can't not tell you how much I loved working on this. I am calling it "Growing Glass No.1". I love the feel of paint under my nails, charcol on my finger pads, the smell of drying resin.... my stars it is heavenly. Almost like a coming home of sorts. I have told you before, I have an art background. I went to college on a scholarship for painting. I didn't realize how much I missed it!!

Alright, calm down, take it easy... don't worry you little heads about it... this is just a distraction I am indulging. I am not in anyway shape or form giving up on the jewelry thing!! What I am going to do it pop into a frame shop and get one of those shadow box thingies for this!!

I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback... what do you think? Mixed media is an art form that I have only peaked around the corner at... so is this cool? Would you hang it in your house some where ( know I would)? I am hoping to do a series of these over the next several weeks and finally get something posted in the Beyond Jewelry section of my website.

And by the way... blogger still hasn't fixed the spell check, so sorry... I stink at spelling.