The Last Two Pieces

I almost forgot to get these posted on the blog. Like Tracie Lyn, life has gotten in the way of my plans for the summer. But....I did remember and here are my "Elements" and "The Heavens".

The Elements is an interactive piece. In continuing my mountain theme, I used four pictures from Hokusai's 32 Visions of Mount Fuji to represent each element. The individual element cards can be flipped up to display the next. This was a challenging and fun piece.

The Heavens came together in about two days. I had been thinking of how to do this one for about a month, not really getting anywhere and being stumped about it. Last Friday I had a vision and in one day I had the fabric and half the work done. The fabric is creatively quilted, the nebula is printed on inkjet canvas and the mountain, continuing again with the mountain theme, is printed on cardstock and everything is glued to the fabric covered canvasboard.

This has been a wonderful and challenging journey. I've played with techniques that I've never done before and stepped further out of my box than I thought I'd ever get. Thank you to everyone for pushing me out of my comfort zone.

Z'anne

Art and images copyright 2009 Z'anne Bakke - all rights reserved

Mountain Landscape and Seasons

I've had both of these done for some weeks, but completely forgot to get them posted. I'm just coming out of hibernation and not quite up to speed yet.
I had a hard time trying to come up with an idea for this theme. Four corners? Four sides? Four ? Until I thought about where I live and the seasons on the mountain. I found a picture I took last year when I was coming back from Hood River on the back side of Mt. Hood. Perfect! Then I took a maple leaf-shaped paper punch and punched out a whole lot of leaves from my collection of tea bag envelopes. I had enough colors to surround the mountain with the colors of the seasons. I suppose you could call them my "Tea Leaves of the Seasons". Don't groan too loudly, you might scare the cat.
This theme was a fun challenge for me. I'm not much of a sculptor and wanted to just try my hand at playing with paperclay. There are no correct proportions for this piece, but it was fun to play with the clay. I used a rubber blending tool to get the textures for the trees and background. After letting it dry, I painted it with gesso 3 times, then added different colored PearlEx to the various areas. After each area was colored, I sprayed hairspray on it to fix the mica powders. That is why it is so shiny. At first I didn't want the shine, but it has grown on me and I like it that way. Only two more to go!

Art and images copyright 2009 by Z'anne Bakke

A little bit of sea in the mountains

My father-in-law left the family a whole lot of STUFF to clean up, trash or give away. I got the shells, so this month's theme was a breeze to create. Sort of...I don't know how may designs I set out on the canvas board before I was satisfied. However, I was missing one thing and it just didn't look right with it. Sand.

I was not going to go buy any or run off to the beach for a handful of it. I did the next best thing. I walked into Harlan's shop and commandeered a sheet of sandpaper. I glued it down, after fabricating a hanging "system", and then hot glued all the shells. This final design was NOT the one I was happy with. Oh no, I had to change it all as I was gluing. My Muse is being fickle this month.

Art and images copyright 2009 Z'anne Bakke

January Cabinet

This was a fun theme. I had this shadowbox decoupaged in old Sear's catalog pages in the back of my workshop and only found it when I was looking for something else. Don't ya love it when that happens? I threw a light coat of gesso on it and than proceeded to search for stuff to fill it. I take a walk with the dog and cat every day and find some really cool stuff along the way. Most of these things have come to the house from different directions. The snails, wasp nest, moss and twig are directly from here. The Paulownia pods came from my MIL's tree. I found the agates in the gravel pile we had. The other rock I found, but I can't remember where. The little skulls were found in various places on the road and in the trees. The antler was part of a stash from Harlan's ex-FIL and was shot in 1947. And the dried paperwhite flower is from an arrangement by Cynthia.

Now I get to go looking for more stuff to collect!

Art and images copyright 2009 by Z'anne Bakke

Zentangle Ssssssnakes

I had fun with this project. I started it before all the snowfall and then got a nasty abscessed tooth. That put me about two weeks behind, but I was able to think about how I wanted to display my snakes. If you don't know about Zentangle check out their site and see what cool things you can do with a pen and piece of paper.

I Zentangled my snakes, used color pencils to color the background, glued it down to the painted canvasboard, cut up duct tape to use as a frame for the snakes, added a glow in the dark plastic snake and the sssss and called it done. It's a funky piece and different than what I probably would have done it I wasn't on drugs. For my tooth, drugs for my tooth. ;)

Art and images copyright 2009 by Z'anne Bakke

Ashka, Ghost Wolf

Ashka, Ghost Wolf
Another wolf to add to our blog. I had the hardest time figuring out what animal to use for my piece for November. I have so many to choose from that live up here. I started with a squirrel and decided that she needed to be used for my Cabinet of Curiosities. Then the elk. Wapiti was not cooperative and will be done in a larger format for another time. Rabbits, chipmunks, deer, coyote...none were speaking to me. But then Ashka stepped forward and I knew my wolf was the one.

Ashka is one of my Spirit Animals. He brings new ideas and creative ways when I need to express my soul. He is my Teacher and even though I don't always listen, he is very patient with me.

This is another transparency that is attached to a painted 8 x 8 canvas. I added dried ferns, from one of my leaf gathering walks, to "hide" Ashka in the brush. Letters were colored with StazOn and glued to the canvas. Be careful, Ghost Wolf is watching you!

Art and images copyright by Z'anne Bakke 2008

Field Notes, My Version

My primary working media is/are beads so this theme was quite a challenge for me. I don't sketch or draw, but when I take my walks I do carry my camera. I have a goodly collection of photos of all things nature and use both my camera and computer as my "sketchbook". Here is my interpretation of Field Notes.

Since we don't have the horses anymore, the flowers and grasses have taken over the pastures. At the peak of flowering in late spring or early summer, the colors are so beautiful. Daisies are my favorite flower and they have spread throughout, changing the pasture into a meadow. The fungus was a great find, it lasted for over a year and now is on the way to the great fungi heaven.

Sorry for the fuzziness, I scanned this piece and the small bits are somwehat 3D. As all things, this looks better in real life.

Z'anne

Art and images copyright 2008 by Z'anne Bakke

Flora challenge

What beautiful, clever and artistic flowers you all have created. They make me smile.

Z'anne

Forest Flora Fantasy

Here is my September offering to our challenge. It incorporates a leaf from one of my maple trees, twigs from a willow and recycled tin can and copper leaves.

I took a class, taught by Suzie, on playing with acrylics and that is how I painted my background. Using rubber stamps to stamp into gel medium and leaving wonderful impressions. I had already pressed and dried the leaf and then covered it in gel medium to make it more pliable. I cut and tied the twigs and then attached them to the canvas board and glued the heck out of them to make them stay. The "flower" is held together by small wires that are coming from the back and used as the stamens.

Enjoy!

Art and image copyrighted by Z'anne Bakke 2008

Forest Spider

Hello Everybody!
I just had to get arting up lately, so here is my August canvas. I used a transparency for the background for my spider. (I wonder of this is going to be a trend for me throughout this challenge.) It is a picture of a vine maple on my property. Then I found a small branch, cut to size and attached with two wires. Threaded the "spider web" and added my spider. Somewhat simple, but quite effective I think. I hope it doesn't scare the spider-phobes too much.

Since I only get to this blog about once a week it makes it difficult to comment on each separate piece put up. I would like to say now, that all the artwork to date is FABULOUS! I'm very honored to be in the company of such wonderful artists!

Art and image copyrighted 2008 by Z'Anne Bakke

In The Name of ... Crow #5

This piece was made of 4 transparencies. The top is just the "frame", the second is the crow, the third the alder tree background and the last one is all of them together. They are all held together by pins with beads separating the layers. The same pins and beads are holding the crow feathers in place.

Crow #5 is a piece honoring my mother, who passed away this last Sunday. One crow for sorrow. Thank you for that poem, Leigh.

Art and image copyrighted 2008 by Z'Anne Bakke