collaboration makes for great art

I have two friends that I love to make art with. We each have strengths that when together we encourage each other to do some fantastic art.
Two weeks ago we ventured up the eastern side of Seneca lake to Gail's house in Hector to play in her art studio. First we had a lovely meal with great food and conversation. Then Gail let us loose in the studio. We ended up carving our own stamps. Of course I could not just settle on one stamp I made my mermaid with fish and octupus friends and used some of Karen's left-over block and did the two dogs. Gail ended up with a rooster and Karens was much more art-deco and minimalist.

We then started to play with the stamps, ink pads to see what needed to be refined and quickly went to screen printing. I ended up with two archival prints on mulberry paper (according to Gail it picks up the paint better). Gail then stamped the mermaid on blue linen and the dogs on beige linen.
Well yesterday back up the lake I went. Again great food- dried salami, cheese from England with apricot bits in it, fresh cherries and strawberries, and some potato and bean chips. Thus fueled up to the studio we went.

What commenced up there was magical. I had brought a watercolor painting I had done 2 years ago at CAJE in North Carolina. Depicting Naomi, Ruth and Boaz in a picasso-style painting, We scanned it manipulated it added Hebrew text to it. I ended up doing a 5x7 print and framed it. Made several smaller pieces to do up into jewelry.The dogs we scanned the linen and use a paint program to put on a USNA dixie plebe cover and for our American Pitbull he got a green USMC cover painted on.The other jewelry pieces I will be working on in the next week or so as I need to wire wrap the pieces before finishing them as necklaces.

I also used the mermaid prints and manipulated it also for jewelry. The mermaid print is on acrylic and made into a necklace.

The linen mermaid Gail started to work on it for more art quilt, she added a tail, finished out the octupus and fish, added seaweed, I embellished with shell, pearls and beads. It is still a work in progress.
Knowing that we print onto linen best I went to Salvation Army and picked up a 100% linen J,Jill dress that I loved the color of but not the shape, very very boxy. We plan to deconstruct it and add the mermaid to the front. I am so excited to continue to work on it.