Step Outside Your Box Saturdays

I may just have to take my own challenge this week cause I’ve not actually done any assemblage.  I have a sister-in-law that does assemblage very well, you can check her stuff out here.  Michael DeMeng is a very well known Assemblage Artist, some of his stuff is just amazing.  Keith Lobue is also an assemblage artist. Maybe it’s the few artists I know off that do the assemblage stuff on a regular basis but alot of it seems to really make a statement, I think thats why I haven’t ventured there, I don’t have any statements to make LOL I hope you all take the time to conquer this challenge, I look forward to seeing your creations. 

*****On another note, I will make every effort to post a challenge the next 2 Saturdays, however, I have previous commitments that will make it very difficult to do so.  If I’m not able to, I’ll for sure be here the last Sat. of the month, and I hope you will too. ******

Most of us are used to working in smaller formats, regular sized cards, ATC’s, Skinny’s,4×4’s or even Inchies.  Those are pretty safe zones to most of us.  This week lets step outside of our box and create something that is 8×10 or larger.  Some of you have been working on 8×10 spaces on a regular basis, so, think larger than 8×10.  I have 1 canvas that I have done that is 24×36 (I think those are the dimensions), it’s a rather personal piece so unfortunatly I won’t be sharing it here, but I can tell you it was very freeing to tackle that big space and just to let my paint flow.  You don’t have to use paints of course, work with whatever you’re comfortable with. 

Having just participated in a chunky book swap that turned out just amazing, I’m in a book kinda mood.  In the past I have altered a board book with Stampsmith images.  It was something that I’ve kept for myself over the years because I love the way it turned out.  I’ve also tried my hand at an altered book, 2 actually, but have yet to fully complete one.  Journals are another type of book that I have been working on, which has been set to the side while I work on my canvases.  There are just so many different kinds of books you can do whether you alter an existing book or make one from scratch.  Lets see how far Outside Your Box you can Step this week!

*The photo is of an altered book by an amazing artist named Brian Dettmer.  You can see more of his work here.

So often we feel that there must be a specific image that we’re working around, which most of us do, I myself prefer to work this way.  This week lets try to work w/o any particular focal image and just make a piece about nothing in particular, but something that’s fabulous just the same!

This piece is a canvas I did inspired by my shampoo bottle. LOL  Gotta take inspiration from where ever you can get it!

Today lets bring out the markers and the pens and pencils and instead of stamping everything or cutting out our images, lets try our hand and doodling and freehand.  Now I mostly can’t draw anything to save my life, but I can draw a mean doodle.  There’s a new trend out there called Zentangles, which brings doodling to a whole new level.  Show us your doodles this week!

*Apparently this wasn’t as “Outside the Box” as I thought LOL, you’re all so eager with these fabulous creations this week.  Hmmm gonna have to think harder for next weeks!*

I don’t know about you but, even though I have every color imaginable in both inks and paints, I find that some of them rarely  get used.  Anything pastel, forget it, my brightly colored paint tubes are still full.  I’m an earth tones and jewel tones kinda artist.  On the other hand I’m sure there are those of you that wouldn’t dream of choosing a Burnt Sienna, or a Raw Umber.  Good thing everyone has such different color pallet favorites or the world of art would all look the same.  So todays challenge is to Step Outside Your Box and into a box of different colors.  Use colors that you wouldn’t dream of using any other time.  What you choose to make with these colors is entirely up to you, go and create!

I’m sure most of you have made a charm before of some kind, even inchie art can be turned into charms.  One of my favorite things to use to make charms out of is Scrabble tiles, you can find a tutorial for that on Artchix.  I have a charm that I wear all the time that a girlfriend made me using a guitar pick, how awesome is that!!! You could do some wire wrapping of beads or sea glass like the one I did here, that was way fun to do, I love working with wire!  Get out your UTEE and play with that, Step Outside Your Box and stretch your imagination.

Oooo this is such a FUN challenge!!!  It’s like MAGIC almost!!  There are a few different ways to do these, packing tape, gel medium, heat, there are ink jet transfers, or laser/toner copy transfers.  I KNOW there are MANY of you that have wanted to try this, well, here’s you’re nudge to do just that!!!  Not sure where to start or how to do one?  Try one of these links:  Packing Tape Transfer, several different techniques here, even more here , oh and check out this video from Claudine Helmuth on using Rangers Paint Daubers to do transfers  .  I can’t wait to see what you all do!!!

This one is a fairly easy challenge, but I get the feeling that maybe we need an easy one right now.  Lets see what we can do with beads this week.  Whether it be adding them to a card or making a charm, try to be creative though and not just glue some beads down, sew them on, use fibers or use wire. Go Create Artists!

If you are a regular visitor of my  blog, you’ll notice that my artwork has changed over the last few months and there are more and more canvas pieces going up and not quite as much paper art.  I have a passion for working on canvas, I love the challenge it gives me and the ability to hold more wet media, such as paints and mediums, than just paper does.  So my challenge for you this week is simple, put away the paper, and pull out the canvas, whether it be, loose canvas, canvas board or stretched canvas.  Play to your hearts content and really let loose and feed your soul with creative energy.