Painting Frenzy and Risk Taking

A while ago, Ilese was camping in her Honda Element on some nearby BLM land, and we got together several times to chat and a couple of times to do artwork.  She's worked at all different kinds of artwork for many years, and she does very cool monoprints using Gelli Arts off-press gel plates.  I have been coveting these plates for a while and they will probably be my next big art supply purchase. But, in the meantime, I decided to try doing some simple monoprints with what I had around the house and then use the prints as the inspiration for painting.  

The two paintings shown above were made by first painting a canvas a solid color and then printing circles in a contrasting color with painted bubble wrap.  Really easy peasy and fun to do.  After I got a grid of circles, I started painting what else seemed to be important to bring out.  

This one was made using a sheet of paper towel that was embossed with a connected hexagonal design.  Instead of adding the print to the painted canvas, the paper towel absorbed some of the paint and left blank spaces, which I proceeded to paint.   

Then I tried printing with a heavy piece of hand tatted lace that I'd come across in a thrift shop or someplace.  I printed it four times in the above painting, then started to paint.  You can sure see my background as a mosaic artist in this piece.   

This one, based on a different paper towel pattern, is the last of five monoprint paintings that I've created over the past five days.  I was kind of on an OCD or manic frenzy.  Or, as Steve says, CDO (since it's important to put the letters in alphabetical order, dontcha know).  

These five paintings will be part of my upcoming April-May show at January's Gallery in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.  I'll be driving my car over to TorC to put up the show in early April, leaving my RV here in Arizona, since we plan to summer in northern Arizona this year, anyway.  

Remember my fantasy road sign series that I painted last summer?  Well, I decided to take a small financial risk and I've just ordered some note cards made from four of the designs.  I will try selling these on eBay and I'll probably also visit some store owners I know in New Mexico to see if they'd like to carry them, individually or as card sets.  Here are the designs I picked:

No cat pics today.  It's windy and Sonja is hiding.  Occasionally she comes out and meows at me to make it stop.