good news : )

Here is the latest news! Yesterday was my husband Steven's last day of work at ICS - Innovative Computer Systems in Farmington, CT. He had told his boss Steve Roux about 5 months ago, that he would be leaving his job when our house sold because we would be moving to Bradenton, Florida to be near my parents. Well, our house had not sold a couple of weeks ago when this decision was made -- it was time for Steven to leave the company, and we understood the decision. A party was planned in his honor. Steven had worked at ICS for 17 years! We kept our fingers crossed that our house would sell soon.

Yesterday morning on Steven's last day at work and the same day as the party, we received an offer on our house! wow. We accepted the offer, met after work to sign it and seal it, and then went to the party!! What a happy celebration it was. Our closing is scheduled for November 30th and if all goes well, Steven and I will be heading to Florida soon after that. Steven insists it is my "Guardian Angel" that made these events happen in such a way, but I must say thank you for all your good wishes, support and prayers -so appreciated!

I created another Animoto video from photos I took at Steven's farewell party -- Click Here to view it. Check out his Florida shirt, he looks pretty happy : )

Artist Trading Cards

Another Animoto video montage I made, this one may be my favorite yet! Click on the arrow to play.

10.27.2009 My Artistic Life challenge - Inspired by Your Reading Materials!

10.27.09. challenge, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

On Helga Strauss' blog, My Artstic Life we are working on expanding our creativity through her fantastic weekly challenges. Click on the link above to find out more . . . and click on the photo above to view the full image. This is the 2nd week of an online class Helga is generously offering for free! This week our assignment was to "make a collage using images from one of your favorite magazines and add dots and circles in a variety of ways". Last week we worked on dots & circles (see below) and we were supposed to pick our favorite pattern to add to our collage. A perfect idea!

I do not usually work with circles and dots so these have been great challenges for me. Thanks, Helga!!
lenna young andrews, October 27th, 2009.

for steven - a wolfe island video!

my present for Steven on 5 years together - a video montage I made from photos of Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada -summer 2009.

10.25.09

10.25.09- 0024, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

A beautiful day, and a day that marks 5 years since I called Steven Deming at work to talk about my husband John leaving me. Steven and John had gone to school together, and Steven and I had been friends since I was 15 years old (I was 47 at the time). Little did i know when i picked up the phone that day that 3 weeks and 300 or so emails later, Steven and I would decide/know we were getting married when my divorce was final. Amazing!! Simply amazing.

While we had an Open House today we drove to Farmington to take a walk with the pups -click on the photo above to see some lovely fall photographs of CT. When we got there, it was then that I remembered that Steven had taken me to this same park and same path, 5 years ago when we were first together . . . . amazing.

Vintage Image Madness Calendar-2010

VintageImageMadnessCalendar-2010, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

This is my submission, as requested by Casie Metcalf for the Vintage Image Madness Collaborative 2010 VINTAGE IMAGE CALENDAR! Click on the image to see it in full. This year, Casie will be donating a portion of the sales to Bernie Berlin and A Place to Bark. Casie says, "I am really in awe of the work that Bernie is doing to help dogs (and now cats) and would love to contribute something to the cause this year. Every little bit helps a dog (or cat) in need."

This is my third year contributing to Casie's Calendar : )). You will be able to purchase it on the Vintage Image Madness site soon; I'll let you know when it is ready. The calendar is a collaborative project hosted by Casie Metcalf with Vintage Image Madness images, and is a limited edition printing of 100 calendars. The international artists who participated in 2009 are: January - Lisa Martin, February - Doreen Cosenza, March - Frieda Oxenham, April - Tally Oliveau, May - Cindy McMath, June - Lenna Andrews, July - Lise Kirk, August & Cover - Kim Tedrow, September - Cathy Johnson, October - Megan Hull, November - Janet Heritage, December - Susan Metcalfe. I believe all of these artists are participating again this year!

The calendar measures 4.75 inches by 5.5 inches and comes packaged in a CD calendar case. The calendar comes with 14 total pages - 12 months plus the cover and back - each month is a separate page. The case can be turned inside out to form a desktop stand to hold and display the calendar. The calendar has been professionally printed for outstanding color and wonderful reproduction.

Casie's site is unique in that you can purchase image sheets and have them sent to you, OR download your images and print them out yourself! That is what i did. Casie has a tremendous amount of images to choose from - have fun looking, and thank you, Casie! It is my pleasure to participate once again. i just love your images!! lenna young andrews, October 24, 2009.

ABRR -Sallie's Book

SallieBooKCrop, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

This is a small cropped portion, a part of a page I did in Sallie Rodman's Altered Book, Women of the 1910's, 20's & 30's. This Round Robin is hosted by Sallie and I was invited to join the group earlier this year. The group does not usually share photos of their work in the books before they come home, but in both books I have worked in so far, both Sue and Sallie were kind enough to say yes, feel free to add a small portion of a page I did in their books to my blog. thank you!! I truly love to add and share my art on my blog as I create it and so appreciate this. If you click on this cropped photo, you can view the rest of the pages i did if you like. The explanation for how i created the pages is there! lenna young andrews, October 23rd, 2009.

Circle Challenge

10.20.09-circleChallenge, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

This is what i did for Art Challenge #1 (of 9): Get inspired by Pattern! - found on Helga Strauss' My Artistic Life Blog Challenges. Wow, thank you Helga! this exercise was just what i needed today . . . a little art therapy for me while i also discovered some very cool backgrounds that i may employ for my next project. Cool! I love your challenges because they always make me stretch and try something new. I am so grateful to you for that experience that you consistently bring me.

Above I used water color crayons and a big pad of paper -mine was 10"x 14". I divided the sheet into 6 grids. Top left was freehand circles with a crayon - i colored the background too. The middle top square = sequin waste as a stencil. I colored in some circles with crayons, and when some washed away as i wet the crayons, i stenciled some Dye-Na-Flow through the sequin waste instead. Top right is a button i traced with the crayons; everything was wet with water to activate when i was done filling in the squares.

Bottom left - painted a blue background with water color crayons and let dry, then dotted with white acrylic paint directly from the tube! I also used a white marker to circle the paints and add dots. Middle bottom square was tracing a Lumiere paint jar . . . . and the bottom right = using a circle template and tracing various sizes. I really enjoyed this exercise, Helga & can't wait to see next week's! awesome! yours creatively, lenna young andrews, October 20th, 2009.

The Deborah Award

My friend Sharon Borsavage, whom i only met through my art blog a very short time ago, gave me a lovely blog award today - the Deborah Award!
The Deborah award states: "Friendship isn't about who you have known the longest, but who came and never left your side." Wow! What a wonderful award, thank you! Please visit Sharon's blog: Livewire Jewelry and be ready to be amazed. Sharon does awesome mixed media work as well as fabulous jewelry and she is a most kind and enthusiastic person whom i am lucky to have for a friend. I would love to pass this award on to these art friends of mine - please don't feel that you must pass it on in turn - just enjoy! And thank you.

Tristan Robin Blakeman: Enchanted Revelry

Frieda Oxenham: Frieda Quilter

Helga Strauss: My Artistic Life

Cindy McMath: Pink Bird Studio

Here's to friends and art and love all hand in hand - lenna young andrews, October 19, 2009

art friends

It is not often that you get to meet your art friends, but sometimes you are lucky and blessed! Today, i decided to travel down to New Haven, CT to see my friend Tristan Blakeman in a play. The photo above is the two of us after Tristan finished performing this afternoon. Earlier this week, Tristan had announced on his blog that he would be in "Soccer Moms from Hell" through the New Haven Theater Company. Tristan and I have shared our art for a few years now, and most recently via the Colour Groupies group. But even though he lives fairly near me -45 minutes away, i had yet to meet him in person. Well, i decided to change that and today, I did. It was the greatest fun! The play was a HOOT, really. Tristan described it to me as "a new, un-produced play, so it hasn't been work shopped before...dont' expect TOO much - except lots of offensive jokes LOL." : ) well, that was true, but i just laughed and laughed! And what a delight to meet Tristan. I am so glad I went and Tristan was so kind - he brought me a gift!!!!!

A Halloween Tussie Mussie. That was soooo sweet, thank you, Tristan! xo lenna young andrews, October 17th, 2009

journals/notebooks -progress!

10.09-1819, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

These are the journals/notebooks i am collaging/ altering/ making for sale . . . What you see here is what i have done so far, minus the one my friend Sharon Borsavage bought : ))) i do so enjoy this work of gathering items and putting them together while rediscovering music on my laptop out in the studio! I plan to have at least a dozen to bring to a local gift shop my husband's cousin owns. I am lucky she loves my notebooks and is looking forward to having more in her shop! Click on the photo above to go to closeups of all of them. lenna young andrews, October 17, 2009.

altered mail art

10.12.09-mailArt, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

i took a postcard with Nick Bantock's Art already on it, and then altered it to send to a friend. I added tissue paper (blue w/ stars) handmade paper with gold swirls and rubber stamping in black ink. watercolor crayon was added along the edges and then wet to activate (red), and then a Magenta stamp = woven edges, stamped on top of that. i love doing this and mailing it out! : ) lenna young andrews - October 16, 2009.

fall colours

-my October 13th walk brought with it the beauties you see above! what a wonderful way to enjoy the day and the changing temperature . . .

ARTchix Royal bird swap

Royal bird ATC swap 8, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

This is one of eight "Royal Bird" ATCs I made for an ARTchix Studio swap! Six ATCs were required and you'll see that I made 2 extra, if you click on the one above. I used an ARTchix Studio sheet that was already sized and prepared for ATCs called 'Royal ATC Birds On Cardstock' as my base. I also added transparencies from the 'Royal ATCs Transparency' sheet, 'Royal Inchie Birds Transparency'and some leftover strips of fabric, from Helga's masterboard on a previous blog challenge she gave us - i love her patterns! It took me some time to get these the way i liked them, but when i was done collaging the basic cardstock bird ATC images, i liked them! i hope you enjoy them as well -- click on the ATC above to view 7 more. yours creatively, lenna young andrews, October 13th, 2009.

Helga's Little-BiG combo challenge!

The current challenge on My ARTistic Life (Helga Strauss -ARTchix Studio) is a 'Little-Big' Combo challenge. Helga suggested, "For these 2 weeks, make a little collage (1" square) and combo it up with a large collage (4" square or ATC 2.5" x 3.5")."
yeeHa! I always bring a bag of ART stuff along when i travel, so i worked on this piece while i was visiting my parents in Florida. I choose the 4x4 size to combo with the 1x1 square. I took Helga's Masterboard that she created for a previous challenge and copied it onto a piece of vellum. Actually, i did that in August for that challenge, but did not use it. I used a copy i made on to fabric instead. The vellum copy is very light and kind of transparent. I used my xyron to make it into a sticker and then placed it on top of a piece of watercolor paper that i had first colored with yellow, green and orange watercolor crayons --this shows through the vellum print of Helga's masterboard.

My 1x1 square was an old ledger sheet that i added color to with my trusty crayons.Then, when everything was attached i used a permanent black pen and more watercolor crayons to accentuate the lines of the bird, Helga's swirls and the edges of the 1x1 piece. I finished this with hatch marks from a silver glitter marker! Thank you Helga for your continued inspiration. xo, lenna young andrews, October 12th, 2009.

Florida Sunshine

wow, what a great visit i had with my parents! I went last Wednesday and stayed through until an early, early 4am wake-up call this morning! Since my dad has been dealing with cancer last year, i have been going down to see them more often than i used to. When dad was feeling worse, i felt i was really needed there, and now, it is simply good for support for my mom & dad and family time together. I get a nice break and we are all very relaxed. Dad is really doing okay; he truly is a fighter. He is undergoing chemotherapy again, but at a lower dose. It's a little debilitating he says (the treatment) but he is still going strong. We celebrated his 76th birthday while i was there, and these pictures were taken right before we went out to our favorite restaurant in Bradenton, Ezra's. Do you see the very bright and very snazzy shirt and stylin' jacket i am wearing? Well, there is a story behind that . . .

One afternoon while i was there my dad came into the living room and said to me, “let’s gO!” I did not know where we were going or what we were doing, but of course i said, sure! He took me to a local store that sells nice women’s & men’s clothes. Some of them were funky and very cool looking, and looked a lot like what my mom would pick to wear. When I asked him what we were doing, he told me he thought *I* might like to pick something out for myself—he wanted to buy me an outfit!! Wow, this was a complete surprise. I thought we were looking for something for my mom! So, I went ahead and chose this really interesting shirt in wild colors that fits like a leotard. That was settled, and then my dad asked the salesperson what would go nicely with that?! I ended up with a really pair of nice pants and a matching cropped jacket! I was almost shocked at my dad's thoughtfulness, but not really. The truth is I rarely buy clothes for myself because I would just get paint on them!! This is a great outfit that i know i will dress up in a lot and always think of my dad and the sunshine he always brings his 'girls' - my mom, my sister Kathy and me! i love you dad. yours, lenna young andrews - October 12th, 2009

art sent!

i am still in Florida visiting with my parents but thought i would catch up and post some recent art and mail art sent to friends before i left! more photos and art when i return early next week.

time for family

-That is a photo of my mom (and me as a babe!) featured on an ATC made for a "we are family" ATC swap I hosted in 2006! I wanted to share these ATCs here again as I'm off to spend time with my mom and dad in Florida for a few days -till Monday! I so look forward to our visit.

I loved making these ATCs. The one below, I even turned into a postage stamp via zazzle. So cool! You can create all kinds of things through zazzle, check it out!

I will get back to my collaged notebooks when I return and share them with you when more are finished. I have some recent collage art and mail art i did to add here, but i will wait until I have some down time in Florida to do that. Mom lets me use her computer, and steven has given me a program where i can remotely hook into mine and grab my photos, documents or whatever! till then, be good & enjoy. lenna young andrews, October 7th, 2009.

part 2 - collage notebooks!

i did finally get back into my studio and worked on some collaged notebooks for a local gift shop. I want them to be simple and beautiful, and not take too much time to do because they cannot be too expensive . . . . I created three more today, relying on words and images from ARTchix Studio.com, plus scrapbook papers, rubber stamps, velvet leaves and whatever else I could find that seemed to fit!
You can see all of the notebooks here in a set on my flickr account. I have 4 more i plan to decorate, maybe this weekend. It's back to Stonewall Kitchen tomorrow!

I really do enjoy doing this type of art . . . gathering items i think might work, searching for something the piece "needs" and adding to it until it feels done. it makes me happy to do this and i feel proud when i am done. Here's another thing for me to be proud of -- today i created a YouTube channel for myself -wow! In the future I would like to have videos of my lessons or at least demos of techniques. But at the moment I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of creating Animoto videos. I mentioned this earlier this week. Animoto takes photos that you choose plus music you select, analyzes it and combines it all into a very cool little video. I could share these videos on my blog or by sending you a link but i could not send you to see all the videos i created on Animoto. So, the YouTube channel was the answer to that. It is like a little web page of my videos i have created and i am sure I will add to it. http://www.youtube.com/creativelenna. yes, another web site for me, geeze. I wonder if Decklin knew what was going to happen when he created the original one!! hope you enjoy, lenna young andrews, October 1, 2009