mathenymercantile

Journaling on my experience as a mixed media artist. I love trying new techniques. You might find anything from altered art like books, tip ins, ATC's, fat books, watercolors, scrapbooking, stamping, cards, antiques, potpourri. I hope to add items you enjoy for sale. I have been dabbling in art since I received my first box of crayons. I especially love the heritage or vintage look. judy

Name:
Location: central, Illinois, United States

Mother of two beautiful women, grandmother of 1 boy and 2 girls, caregiver to my Mother, artist. Our family includes 1 cat, and a land turtle. I have been mama to 2 ferol cat families.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Artists Of The Round Table







A.R.T is doing a workshop using Bernie Berlin's book " "as the lesson plan.This weeks lessons were;1. Drop liquid watercolor randomly on wcpaper then find a focal point and outline. I saw a flower and leaves , couldn't get my black marker to write so I used a brown Stampin Up marker. I had used an irredescent bronze and this pulled the color out.


2. Add watercolor to a babywipe and use as a background.I made this into a rescue pet ATC. (Momma Cat just brought her second litter of kittens to my backdoor last night to get them started on solid food.There are only 3 of them. I have 2 others I feed from her first litter. She is a ferol and I haven't been able to catch her to get her spayed.)

3. Use a painted paper towel as a background. I did this one to honor all the soldiers who protect us from harms way.
So thats this weeks lesson. I hope to keep up. Thanks for looking~

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Some days are diamonds....








Some days are gold....



I have been pretty stressed out by real life and this is my blue funk time of the year. I have been new car shopping and just spent many hours at a dealorship. On the way home I decided to stop by an antique shop and see if I could muster up a movie magazine for the next AB I'll be working in. The lady there is disabled. and slow in speech and movement, she tells me where to look but I don't find what I'm after. Bummer!!! I ask if she ever put the cabinet cards out I had inquired about months ago as I pause at a selection of postcards. "No" she replies.



Then she tells me she has a very dirty box I can look through if I don't mind getting dirty.She gets me a towel and an overflowing box . I can hardly contain myself. I have collected cabinet cards and old photos for many a year. I begin sorting, hoping she cannot hear my heart pounding.



There are old letters. I take a few of them they are all written in pencil.



OK so I have 3/4's of the box in my pile. I wonder at the price. I already have postcards of Hawaii on the counter. So I take them over to her and ask the price. She starts slowly counting then asks me if I had counted them. We work together and group into 10 pieces . She then says "What did you tell me you did with these?" I make art from colored copies, and I also collect them. I cannot believe family members would not keep them. "Yes its a shame people let family pictures go. I could never do it."



she says. She charges me $40 and my heart sings! I tell her I haven't had this much fun in a long time and to save all her dirty boxes for me to go through. She laughs and says "I will."


I can't wait to get home and see what I have. There are pictures dated from 1783 to 1865 of a man and another of his wife, folded under the picture of her is their marriage certificate! There is a tintype photo. An envelope containing 11 holiday postcards including New Year and Santa.Letters to and from the various family members. Newspaper clippings. One lady in several different poses on cabinet cards and she is a beauty, too. I'll be going back for the rest of the box just to keep that family history together.