history:
Printed images and background page. I often choose to use recycle type paper for printing if it is something that the back does not show.


Just the paint colour I happened to grab after gluing most of the images down and adding words I had written for the piece. I could tell immediately the colour would need MUCH toning down.


For the next layer I used a fave stamp and red ink to cover the whole page.


I did transfers of the image of my aunt Winnie and the words I had written. More of the images from the collage challenge were added. I glued on the piece of fabric trim which I had dyed the pale yellow. I tried to further embellish the collage with vintage buttons of which I have very many. I had also painted over with a light yellow glaze.


I had used a very pale oil pastel for some edging and in a couple of other places.


The final version - I used pale yellow paint on a leaf stamp around most of the edges and tiny bits of the same colour for further yellow around the very edge.


Just a note about the words and my aunt Winnie. Winnie was my auntie on my Dad's side. This young lady had diabetes and died when she was 13 years of age due to the diabetes and complications of the availability of insulin. My dad was a few years younger than she. A number of years later when I was 3 1/2 years old I was found to have diabetes. That was 47 years ago.


I will be blogging much more in next days. At least that is my intention. There is much I need to catch you up with.

Angels be with you dear friends.

ferris wheel:
some days feel
like I'm going round
and around
on a ferris wheel

it seems to stop
when I'm atop
I gaze about
and see
what is happening

at the bottom
it never stops
to let me off
so I might
do something
anything

it just
keeps going
round
and around

© Wendy B Burton



Thanks for all your comments towards the giveaway. Please accept my apologies. I will definitely do it early next week.

a man in the universe -
I had an appointment yesterday with a new endocrinologist (diabetes specialist). I wrote a piece about it which I am sharing at my other blog.
I hope you'll take a moment to read it.

And here's a photo of "my faithful friend"



Angels be with you,
Wendy XO

permission
to smile
to laugh
to cry
to create
to breathe
to express
to be
me

And most recently I've been giving myself permission to stay away from this technology a bit so I might have fun clearing my art room and creating containers for putting tools in - mainly stamps that I am decorating the boxes for. I'll share as soon as I have an extra moment.

In the mean time I have done this journal page with an old picture, slide actually, that I found when we were at the farm over the holiday season. We found many slides. Greg needs to teach me how to do the scanning. Because they are old slides it is being a bit of a challenge.

I chose this particular image

of myself because I believe it portrays very well what I have felt about my childhood. I would try to smile because I knew people wanted me to feel happy. Instead I probably looked even more sad. Certainly not all the pictures are that way. I'll share more along the way.

The journal page was looking quite "weak". I planned to add the texture with polyfilla. The part that was not planned was when I used walnut ink spray and accidentally got some on my photo. I went to wipe as I typically do, forgetting the ink on the vellum would smudge. Ahhh, blurriness - perfect. That's exactly how I often feel about my childhood. Images blurred. I'm not sure how I feel after I put the ink on for my eyes and glasses but I think, through it all, my eyes were seeing, learning, finding myself even as I was losing myself.



Back to more discovering, more creating, more fun with the organizing.



May angels be with you as you give yourself permission.
Wendy XO

Merry Christmas to one and all:



I wanted to keep this very simple as I have encountered someone just in the past week who was facing the prospect of being homeless over Christmas. I had met with him in the cafeteria of St. Peter's Abby just before I went to take many spectacular pictures outdoors. Carl called the following evening to ask me about a place to stay. I was not able to give him anything solid in the way of a place as we are leaving for a few days over Christmas. I did try to make a couple of suggestions and passed him, I believe, to the best possible resource in the community. I have no idea if contact was made. All I am able to do at this time is pray. I feel confident that is all required of me at this time.
Also the funeral of a dear friend of the pastor that will be doing the Christmas Eve service at our country Church tonight was held just this morning.
I have encountered a number of people who suffer from loneliness or trauma over the past months.

I give thanks for the many rich blessings granted to me, for the many angels around me.

Angels be with you at this Christmas time and through the coming years.
Wendy XO

"what a wonderful world":
I was cruising around on youtube and came across this Eva Cassidy version of a song I love very much. I thought it would be appropriate to include with my post for today.



I was able to complete the vintage Christmas stocking for my swap partner, besusans. It went into the mail yesterday. I had been getting somewhat panicky about the whole arrangement but truly I create better under pressure. I loved making treasures for Susan which I believe will be meaningful. I also purchased some gifts. I also love Christmas shopping, especially for folks who have similiar interests to my own. Vintage fabrics and ephemera are not so readily available where I live but I found a few pieces in my own stash which I thought might be appropriate. I am assured that Susan should be receiving her package in about 11 days so I'll try to keep in touch with Susan so that I might show more of my own photos of the items I made, after she has received the stocking ;-).

In the meantime I want to share just a couple of the reasons why I love the the above mentioned song. So often I feel so blessed with angels. I had received MY swap package from Mandy, pearl maple, a couple of weeks ago. I promised I would not open it until after I had Susan's package away in the mail. Last night I was very tired but it was the perfect time to be opening my surprise. Tears come easily to my spirit, but especially when I'm tired, especially when someone recognizes, surprises, touches me so closely. And so the tears were present as I found the beautiful angel filled, blue filled, ribbon filled, vintage filled, hope filled diamond treasure chest which Mandy had sent. The angels were on everything, it felt. I love the colours, the richness, the handcrafting and thoughtful choices. I felt so blessed Mandy. Thank you so very much. You have truly touched my spirit.

Another surprise also arrived yesterday. There is a very kind elf on flickr who has such a talent with words. He chose yesterday to write another of his poems for me. Tom is such a wise and kind elf. Thank you Tom.



When Angels Dance in Snow
© Thomas R. Farrell
A Poem for Windy Angels

Did you know
That black and white will marry ..…
Giving birth to blue
Whom they will rest here
In the shadows of their love!

Bushes and snow and lattice fence
Lost in yesterday's passing fall of snow,
Welcoming their sun to sit a while longer
As shadows praise their God
For this dress it wears so well.

Clouds I’m sure will come
In an hour or a day
Giving all a grayer cast
And muting songs from snow..

But for now, we have the music
And contrast beaming bright,
For now I hear the sound of songs
As angels dance about --
And I hear the sound of songs they sing,
Sweet foot prints in the snow.

True to November we are having many dull, grey days. Some of them have started sunny but it doesn't take long and the clouds dullen my brain AND the skies of course.
We are back to Saskatoon for an appointment AND I'm going to the Artisan's Craft Market. I thought it's about time I tried to investigate more the local scene. Hopefully I'll have a drop of time to tell you about it.
Meantime I'll show you quickly these couple of creations. You'll have to read about them at flickr as I'm on the run.





Angels be with you,
Wendy

feeling dreadful while excited - near to the point of exhilarated:
I feel dreadful because I've not taken time, had time, to comment on so many friends blogs. But there has been so much happening. I am "this close" to being ready to open my etsy shop. I may not have lots in it to start with but I'll see how it goes. EVERYTHING takes so much time. YAAH, so what else is new Wendy!
I'm also near ecstatic because I finally felt comfortable to try doing something on canvas. I was terrified for the longest time. Fran said to me once it's not a big deal. Then I was very much the mixed -up media artist. I think I still am, but I'm finding much comfort in that place.
Between suziblu's inspiring videos and the creating in my journal I feel like I'm really finding my place. Now if some fairy, some fairy god-mother, any fairy, particularly my daughter, would decide to help a bit with the laundry, I'd be dancing my way to the stars. Wouldn't you think a 16 year old girl might like to do her own laundry? NOT this one - I guess we'll rationalize for her and say she has issues (which she really does) but that's not a suitable response LOL.
We'll proceed on the dance regardless.
This is a picture from Wednesday. It shows a couple of the canvases I'd splashed paint on. There are also a number of fabric pieces with pictures and words printed on them. Some day I might try to do a tiny tutorial on how I do that. I'd also printed parts from some of my poems which I'd translated to french with babel on some recycled paper. That would be the one that says confidential. tee- hee - really confidential. Actually I'll really miss all that recycle paper when it runs out, which it nearly has, WAHHHH!
These are some mini quilts in progress. The fabric with the gold is my own design done with permanent ink and the gold which is shiva paintstik. I love this fabric.
I'm also showing a flat canvas of 8x10 inches which I painted on and then applied some of those french words. Sometime if I remember I'll share the words as I wrote them. Don't hold your breath though.
I believe I forgot to show this journal quilt which I think I finished on Tuesday night.



In order to see the details of it, which you really must, please click on it and then do the view on black at my flickr.

I'm off to the big city again for some more tuning up.
Angels be with you dear angel friends,
Wendy

Those Crazy Kids... for photo Thursday at CaC

Our daughter Cat at breakfast this morning:



Our kitten Blue at the same time:



And our dog Billy who loves to be playful at any opportunity possible. I should learn from him:



I also want to share this day a very special video I found which is meant especially for Melba but I think we can all be inspired by it.

Angels be with you.

sliding through shades of blue:
I've always loved the colour blue. I was so entranced when we were returning from Regina to the farm a couple of evenings ago. Greg was very kind and made some minute detours so that I might capture photos. The clouds, their many colours, the moon, the sunset - all were intoxicating. This photo shows in some small way the layers of blue.



The summer days often make me feel as though I'm sliding through shades of blue, not necessarily in a good way. I'm thinking more of the moody blues. Cat's frequent need for attention, our holiday time being spent mainly at the farm (not really a holiday if you can imagine) and little time to create, especially in my mind, bring on these blue shades.

Here are a couple of examples of some creative time I've been squeezing in between the other blues. Some of the journal pages mention snow, heaven forbid. Some of the writing is newer. I tend to write while on longer road trips. The inks are kind of a new fave - cat's eye color box fluid chalks. Yummmm. They're nearly as scrumptious as the Reese's miniatures I mention on one of the pages.





I've also been doing a tiny bit of writing at windyangelsandyou - more on shades of blue. Take a look.

Curls: I've just returned to artwords with this entry. It's a doodle I started in one of my journals. I finished it earlier this evening. I like the colours and curves and swirls and words. I hope you like it too.

WOMAN

Words: For inspire me Thursday's theme this week we are to choose some words and be inspired by them. I chose to do a bit of a different twist on this and created around the meaning of all words in my life. I tended to be more of a writer in the last few years and only within the past year have been trying to merge into the visual arts while still using words, usually my own, within my art.
The collage is blue paper with handwriting applied to 81/2 x 11 card stock and then stamped with ink. The larger words and image are done digitally and then printed onto the card stock. The buttons - chosen to add some whimsy.


These are the words found in "my tiny treasury".

May words inspire you with every step you take.
Angels be with you.

Doodles and words: Today was a long day with driving and meetings. I did have lots of time for writing on paper for collage or doodling over and I also started on some doodles. Once again I was inspired by the art of Jude. Her doodles, as all things, inspire me to keep creating and trying new things.
This piece was done entirely while driving. the roads were a bit rough and I didn't get the lines very good at some places. I'll play with it more another day.





This doodle was started while sitting at the meeting. I am often uncertain what to do for the doodles. It is not something that comes naturally to me. Maybe as I experiment with it more I will feel more comfortable with it.

Doodling: Here are some doodles and words with which I've been playing on and off through the past days. I've signed up for a swap that Chrysti is doing so thought I'd play a bit in preparation. I may do borders on these yet or add more.
Angels be with you.