My Favorite Color Palette

This week's Studio Friday Prompt - Color
I perused some of my altered book pages and found that there IS a pattern to many of my pages - earth tones, but especially golds and browns. Here are some pages that show this pattern:

{Leaf }

Thinking about my obsession with leaves and trees. I especially love trees in the winter when all the leaves are off - you can really see the structure of the tree. I think they are gorgeous when they are naked. Peg says she thinks its sad - but I see them as being exposed, their structures bared for the appreciative observer like me. Thought I'd post my tree/leaf wall in our family room.

The leaf mask was made by my brother in law - a metal artist. Jim won it for having the best costume at their Halloween party a few years ago. It is so cool. I'm so glad he won for his "head on the table" costume he spent much time creating (and is sitting in our attic).

The Gallerie Michele poster is special. We saw it in Williamburg Virginia when we were dating and taking a day trip from Jim's place in Baltimore. I admired the "naked" trees and we walked on. For an upcoming holiday, I received it as a gift. He traveled all the way back to buy it for me! So sweet.

The oak leaf is a real leaf found in my yard... don't know where it blew in from, as there are no oaks I know of close by. It's been stuck up on the wall for a couple of years.

I plan to let leaves and trees begin to impact my artwork as they are truly a reflection of me.

Studio Friday - This is Me

I am not techno savvy enough to know how to make a collage of images/photos, but can take individual pictures and upload them. This is me... an altered book artist. I love books in general and love to take a book and alter it to reflect me. Here are a few books I've done.
A little snippet of one of my bookshelves... Books, writing, creating... putting all three together is me, is my passion.

Our Book is Out!!

Our book is being published as we speak! Funny after these almost three years of work on it, it's not as exciting as I thought it would be. It is a huge accomplishment, yet I am not as excited as I thought I would be to publish a book. Oh yes, I am very proud, but I can't describe why I am not dancing with glee as I thought I would. Now comes the waiting time to see if anyone will buy it and use it with students. I hope someone finds it valuable.

If you want to buy it or find out about the details of the book, go to:
http://www.sagepub.com/textbooksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book227645

Studio Indulgences

My first post to Studio Friday! I've admired all the other posts for months, now it is my turn to get involved. My studio indulgence, based on the photos here, is that of time to organize my studio. As evident here, I have a ways to go, but have started and steal as many moments as I can to get organized so I can create art without being overwhelmed by my surroundings.

The other studio indulgence is just the fact that I HAVE a studio to work in... after having to sacrifice my office/studio at the addition of our daughter, I worried I would not be able to indulge in art without a designated space. But, I do now have a cozy corner in our bedroom that my husband doesn't object to too much, if it is not too messy.

November is here and today a gorgeous 50+ temperature - perfect day for cleaning out the garage. I still had all my teaching materials stashed in boxes waiting to be sorted and thrown out or placed in the attic. It took all day to go through things and my 20 boxes are now winnowed to 12. Still too many, but I'll need time to get over my past life and a few years to feel good about tossing things.
I have posted this tag here as a reminder and commitment to myself - I would like to create a "tag" for each book that I read. I read about this idea and thought it would be a great way to immortalize my reading and my literate life. I think it would give me a good excuse to find a few "Stolen Moments" and create. So, here is my pledge. With every book I read (over 32 pages - no children's picture books unless I find one so motivating and scintillating) I will create a "tag" and display them in some way, possibly including them in my altered books.