Pink quilt

Posted on January 18, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Random pink/red scrapbooking pages
Strathmore visual journal
used stamps
white acrylic paint mixed with water
bronze “super gel” pen (The Write Dudes)
white pen
Distress ink
glue stick

Inspired in part by the character “Izabel” from the Saga comic book series, drawn by Fiona Staples. I normally do not like pink, especially fuchsia, but have been drawn to it recently. It is part of my current practice to look closely at everything that I normally turn away from, to learn from it and invite healing into it. Everything is a teacher.

Hidden nest

Posted on January 18, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Images that arose while creating this:
nest, telescope, Andy Goldsworthy’s nature art, revealed/hidden, interference, water drops in a pond, radio waves, Zen gardens, aboriginal paintings, Advent calendars.

Materials:
Pages from F.C. Happold’s “Mysticism” book (bought at UTC bookstore at least 20 years ago)
Distress Ink – tumbled glass, antique linen, brushed corduroy, rusty hinge
“You are here” stamp
Dr. P.H. Martin’s Bombay sepia ink
White “gelly roll” pen

Tools:
matte medium, sponge brush, paint brush, glue stick, Strathmore 9×12 visual journal

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao”
– you can never reveal Truth through words (or even art)

I glued down the pieces of the pages from the “Mysticism” book – all about a direct experience of God. How funny that you can’t talk about it, but this author certainly tried in many pages. After gluing down the pages, I inked over them. I let it dry and noticed later that some of the pages had overlapped – I’d not put matte medium on top of the pages, just on the journal paper. Thus, some of the edges could be lifted up to reveal the un-inked words underneath. How awesome to the theme that they happened to include
Truth
God, dwelling

Which is what mysticism is about, and this artwork. It was positive feedback that I was on the right path.

I inked the three poems that spoke about mysticism (included in the pages I’d torn out of the book) with a pale blue to indicate robin’s eggs. They are the eggs in the nest. They are the fruit of the tree. They will mature and fly away, spreading the truth.

Yet the nest is not filled in – there is a big hole in the middle. This is where you find yourself.

I dripped the ink on, but then used a brush to wick some up. It made excellent patterns and colors (very subtle) in the bottom right. I’ll try to replicate that later on another piece. Some blots I left solid to dry. They became “rocks” in the Zen garden, so I used a white pen to draw the waves around them. They too obscure the words, but yet reveal more in their obscuring than the words do in their revelation.

Alice in the Woods of Words

Posted on January 15, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Art journal page.

Random pages from Hamlet
Distress Ink – rusty hinge applied with a sponge, allowed to dry as a base coat, then I colored with antique linen, brushed corduroy, pine needle, crushed olive, tumbled glass)
reversed copy from Alice in Wonderland
super gel pens (from “The Write dudes”)
Doodle scents markers
used stamps on paper
matte medium
scrapbooking scissors

Art created on retreat January 2016

Posted on January 10, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

“Travel by Stamps” is now available!

Posted on December 29, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

So apparently I like making books.

“Travel by Stamps” is a picture book using stamps for the illustrations. I wrote and assembled the story in a tiny travel journal first. Then I scanned the stamps and typed up the words to the story, changing the layout to suit the new format of a printed work.

This was created for fun and as an homage to art journalists. I can’t sketch very well yet, but I’m learning quite a bit about layout and design for when I do.

This is available in print and e-book from Amazon. It is only 42 pages, but because it is full color it is more expensive than would be expected for a book that size.

4 x 6 index card art, December 2015

It is customary that the woman of the house not work for the time while the candles are burning at Chanukah. I decided to make art during this time. I’ve enjoyed these little quick art projects in the past but have not made time for them since I was working on editing and formatting my third book. I’m glad I made time to do these during this time. It forced me to sit still and play.

12-6-15 1st night of Chanukah

12-7-12 2nd

12-8-15 3rd night

12-9-15 4th night

12-10-15 5th night

12-11-15 6th night

(door 1)

(door 2)

(door 3)

(door 4)

12-12-15 7th night

12-13-15 8th night

4 x 6 collage – August 2015

Posted on August 23, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Travel (by) stamps

Posted on May 24, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Some journeys are private…

1 …where we venture out alone, with few provisions.

2 Everything is a surprise, or a delight,or a wonder, or a challenge…

3 to be enjoyed or dealt with on our own.

But sometimes we travel with others. Then there are more decisions to make.

4 How shall we travel? How shall we move from here to there?
Underwater?

5 By helicopter? Or skis?

6 Or the unknown and as-yet unnamed?

7 Perhaps we will take a plane…

8 …to Spain?

9 Or a tiny boat with only room enough for five…

10 …to visit a mountainside where homes crowd atop each other.

11 Perhaps we will sail away in a ship out of the mists of time…

12 …to an island fortress long forgotten?

13 Or take a rickety, rumbling cable car up a hillside…

14 …to discover a medieval village unaffected by modernity?

15 Warmer climes, you say? Then we will travel by camel…

16 …and stay with Bedouins…

17 …perhaps enlisting the help of a local herdsman…

18 …to enjoy the wildlife…

19 …from a safe distance…

20 …for them…

21 and for us.

22 Then maybe you’ll tell me you can fly

23 …and we discover a land forgotten by time.

24 Maybe you’ll prove to have secret talents and we will travel in a small black box…

25 …to visit a large black box.

26 While there, we fall in love with minarets…

27 …and towers…

28 …even discovering that we now notice towers (bell, clock, and otherwise) in Western climes.

29 We are grateful for the new eyes our travels have given us.

30 We can fly to islands…

31 …where animals outnumber people.

32 There, we can ride a horse into the forest…

33 …to discover those who stand out …

34 …and those who hide.

35 Or we can take a canoe…

36 …along the shore…

37 …to see animals at a safe distance,
both large…

38 …and small.

39 Even America has undiscovered lands…

40 …filled with animals who are majestic and rare,

41 or common and equally beautiful.

43 Travelling further, we see beauty everywhere we look.

44 Some of it stark…

45 …some of it serene.

46 We decide to take some of the beauty home with us, to decorate our table.

(This was assembled by hand in a 65 x 80 centimeter travel book. I wrote the words on the left side, and glued the stamps to the right. The book was purchased at least 12 years ago as a Christmas gift, yet it never found a home. It stayed in my gift basket all that time. Most of the stamps were given to me by a friend in a massive box from an estate – it was a man’s entire lifetime collection, unsorted, some glued together from damp. I sorted them into categories over a long weekend. That alone took at least 10 hours. Then I sorted out the stamps for this and worked on it over the course of a few weeks. I scanned, cropped, and uploaded this in a day – that took another three hours.)