Gloria J Zucaro's "Doin' Somethin'"

Even though I am not posting as frequently, I have been doing some things.  Like more cards, enjoying my ATC cards that I got from other artists, doing thumbnails sketches in preparation for my 3-day Plein Air workshop with Frankie Johnson, and using scraps to make some very textural ATC cards.  I also took a couple of pictures of my work area.  Perhaps if I start linking to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, I will get more organized!  I am linking this to Paint Party Friday.  Be sure to visit and see what everyone has been up to.

After this week I will be gone to Albuquerque, NM for the IAPS(International Association of Pastel Societies). My fellow artist Dottie Carringi and I will fly into Albuquerque Tuesday the 4th, rent a car and drive up the Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe where we will spend the night. Then Wednesday we will take the "high road" up to Taos, spend the day and the night. Thursday we drive back to Albuquerque and start our round of 2 demos a day for 4 days at the convention.  And,of course, we will force ourselves to go to see all the new pastels and accessories offered by the vendors.  We are meeting up with two of our other artists friends from IL, too, so great fun and lots of new ideas and products.

One of the cards I made in a class to learn different ways to use my new Cricut machine.  I already gave the other card to my daughter as a "Thank You" for Mother's Day gifts.

Aleli, here is your card(finally)!

These are only a few of the wonderful cards received.  I would love to hear from anyone who received one of my 52.

This is all about learning to edit out all but the important aspects of what you see outside when doing Plein Air.  I was using three values and doing 2 to 3 sketches of the same scene(from my photos).  I realize outside it will be different, but I will have my View Finder, and still do my thumbnails before starting to paint.  One of the instructors I was working with laughed when I wrote "HELP!" under one of my sketches.  

Here I used Elmer's Glue-All to add scraps of torn papers over painted playing cards that had been glued to a map.  I will add more to these at a later date.

And finally my workspace(s)!

Gloria J Zucaro's "ATC Theme Umbrellas"

April's theme with our ATC group was umbrellas.  Here are a few I did just before leaving on my road trip with my Mom. We had our May meeting last weekend, so I will post those another time.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Seuss Backs and New"

Today after meeting my accountant to talk about taxes, I spent the afternoon working on finishing up my Inspirational Card Deck Swap hosted by Jennifer Brogan over at "In Search of Dessert".   I will be shipping the cards out next weekend or sooner if they are dry.  I had already added quotes and paint and stickers and stamps to the fronts.  Today I worked on the backs to adhere my personal information(name,blog,etc.) that I had printed onto mailing labels, outlined around those stickers with crayons, and hand-printed my on-earth location with permanent marker.  Then I edged each card in gold or silver leaf pen.  I am thinking I want to spray them with a sealer, but am a little nervous about lettering smearing  or their not drying quickly for mailing.  Does anyone have suggestions for what sealer would be best?  They are not due until the 29th, but I was allowing plenty of time for delivery.  Plus it doesn't seem quite right to drop them on her on the very last day.  This picture shows the backs before I finished hand lettering and edging.  When I complete the set I will post a picture of the fronts.

I also sprayed the back of my Seuss inspired ATC's from my post earlier this week with various inks through my Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stencils.  Then adhered my info on those.  These are some of the designs on the backs.

Next I created three more ATC's.  I had cut old Christmas cards to 2 1/2 x 3 1/2" rectangles.  I then lightly brushed on gesso to mostly but not entirely obscure the designs and colors.  I did both sides at once, so when I laid them down on the table, they got squashy designs on them that are so pretty.  I decided to tangle some of them and add Silks Acrylic Glaze and glitter. I left some of the card peaking through on each one.  I also finished the backs of those cards with the ink spray as on the cards above.

"Red Heart"

"Winter"

"Cactus Flower"

That's all folks!  Have a nice Sunday