Just finished this week's piece of Found Art! It is a lucky charm, I've had an idea of making charms for a while but I couldn't think of something interesting to make, until I found this small mint tin box lying around and then the "aha!" moment came.

I took off the lid and made a small collage with different papers, letter rub-ons and a little drawing with black india ink. I also used a date stamp of May 20 2008 (this last Tuesday's date). I added a ribbon and a tag with the Found Art Tuesday flick group address (just in case someone tries to find out more about it) and that little cameo thing is a button.

I sealed the collage with epoxy resin and since it looked so shiny and I wanted a more aged look, I tried to "age it" by scratching and poking it with a wire when it was just about set, then I added brown acrylic paint.

I have to say that the thing I like the most about it is the picture above. I used a "cinemascope" effect I found at an online photo editor called Picnik, (thanks to sk8ordiehard for the link!) that effcts makes anything look cool.

Here are a few more not so cool pictures. I am leaving this today at Starbucks! 

If you want an opportunity to practice your Spanish, come read Etsy en Español, {a blog created for the Spanish speaking community within Etsy, It's a whole new and fun sub-culture, the best part is all the dancing and salsa music!} 

I've been recently interviewed for the blog by the very talented Emma Alegre. The questions were really good and I enjoyed thinking about my creation process, the hard part was trying to explain it, AND in Spanish! It's been a long time since I've had to talk about art in Spanish. Must do it more often! Found Art Tuesday is also mentioned! yay!

If you really prefer English, you can read it translated, courtesy of Google Translate. Although there's a lot that is lost in translation, not to mention that it all sounds really funny. Now that I think of it, it'll be more interesting to read it with the translation!

The other day I took a look at the disaster that is my front yard. There are not any flowers and it's kind of plain, so I bought this seed mat, which is basically, paper with seeds on it, so you place it on the ground, cover it with more soil, water it, and TA-DAA! flowers start to grow.

Why is this different that just sprinkling seeds around? I don't really know, but, did you hear what I said? it is PAPER! with SEEDS how cool is that?!

And you can also write and paint on the paper, although I don't think it's the original intention for this product. Today, it will be turned into found art.

I drew a bird, the same one I drew last weekend, and since it took me a while to actually make it look like a bird, I had the great idea of tracing it into the seeds paper, then I used a black felt tip pen and colored it with watercolors. The caption reads, "A blue bird is JOY on wings" I've had this thing with blue birds lately. We also have a few of those red ones with the funny hair. I don't remember the name just now.

I made a video of the making of this one. In a few places the image is a little shaky, could be my new table, I have to work that out for the next video.

The music is again by Summer Pierre.

I will be leaving this today somewhere out there, lots of things to do today! see ya later, enjoy your Tuesday!

I'm still bummed about the high price of the Gocco, and if you read robyn's comment on my last post, you would be equally bummed. (And by the way, thanks R. on all the information!) Looks like screenprinting is the way to go, so  it looks like there will be some googlin' goin on on the subject, I got interested in the gocco because you seem to need basic colors on a basic background, and because I've been thinking a lot lately about doing things more simple. I usually go overboard with all the colors and papers in the pieces that I make. So much so, that sometimes they look like they're SHOUTING at you. And sometimes they're saying, "Hey, Look at me, look at me, look what I can do, can I have a lollipop"? Or maybe those are my kids, maybe? And sometimes you don't want to see so much SHOUTING and more whispering. So that's what I will be working on, some whispering. I will have to excercise restraint. I will try. It will be a good experiment.

 On to this week's Found Art Tuesday! Someone suggested I do something about JOY, It kind of struck me as a christmas time thing, but then I thought that NO, Joy should be an everyday thing!! So let's go spread some JOY for next Tuesday! Come on, come on let's go!

Kindness can be measured in many ways. Sometimes we think we're helping someone when in fact they don't need anything of the sort at the moment. It's like buying a gift for someone's birthday. Do you buy something you like, or do you give them something you think they want?

For me it's always hit or miss. I am not too good at reading other people. I  like to ask them questions to get to know them better, but it's hard for me to fully understand what they need. You may think you're being kind to someone by complementing them on their hair or their shoes, when actually they don't even care about that. It's hard to make people happy. So what do you do? I say you keep trying. You can't make everybody happy all the time. You can't be nice to people so that they like you. But you do have to be nice to everyone because they deserve it. We all deserve to be treated nicely and with respect.

I feel I am rambling, so let me go straight to this week's Found Art.

I thought it would be a good idea to give away one of the prints I had up for sale in the art fair, (a print from the painting above) so I pinned a note to it. I wrote that this print was free but that they needed to answer one question, that way, they have to work a little for it, and it makes it more interesting. Plus, it helps me get to know them better. I had a great chance to ask a complete stranger anything I wanted. Anything. And they would be ready and willing to answer. So the print was there, in the box, waiting. Lots of people saw it, paused for a second, and then moved on. Maybe they didn't want the print, even though it said THIS PRINT IS FREE. Maybe it was too much trouble to answer the question, maybe they didn't get it.

Until Melissa came along. She was so surprised by it, and was worried she might not know the answer to my question. But the question was this:
"What is your favorite ice cream flavor?" simple, right? She answered, and she got the print.

 Thanks for playing along Melissa!

 Oh.... the love is growing, it's going viral. Check out this website: HopeRevo, it's a website created by Krystyn Heide, who is making a call to everyone to leave kind messages hidden for people to find. Just that simple, a little note, with an encouraging message. It made me happy to see the pictures of the ones that have been left. There's even a flickr group! What a nice idea, now, where have I seen this before?? It's genious, I love you internet.