2x2: 2 Artists, 2 Sketchbooks -- Week 60

This week is not one of my favorite weeks.

I was kind of stumped as to what I was going to do. The gleam of silver in Dana's page made me want to do something silver, but I wasn't sure what. Studying Dana's page, I noticed that her squiggly lines made think of handwriting. REM lyrics popped into my head.

Dana (l), Anne (r)

I wrote the lyrics on my page with a silver paint marker and was going to leave my page like that, but I just didn't like it. In part because it became less silvery as it dried. I think the paper absorbed the ink (unlike the cheap paper I used to test the marker). I photographed my page, hoping that I could catch the glint of silver, but the ink looked even less metallic in my photographs and I knew I couldn't leave it like that. Using acrylic paint and lots of water I distressed my page.

Dana (l), Anne (r)

I looked to Dana's page for color choices and I let my page be messy and the paint obscure many of the words. Looks a bit like an angsty art journal now.

Don't forget to check out Dana's blog for her take on this week's pages!

About the project (get the full story on the 2x2 web page):

2x2: 2 Artists, 2 Sketchbooks is a collaboration between artists Dana Barbieri and Anne Butera. Dana and Anne met in an online painting class. Although they have never met in person, they have become friends through regular visits to each others' blogs. It was through this connection that this project began. Wanting to move from friendship to collaboration, each spent two months filling one half of a sketchbook before mailing it off to the other. Dana worked on the lefthand pages and Anne on the right. Each will be responding to the other's work on the adjacent sketchbook pages over the coming year. Watch weekly as they reveal another page of their story.

About the artists:

Dana is an artist and crafter living in the foothills of the Catskill mountains two hours north of New York City with her husband, two children and little kitty. She is passionate about painting, knitting, crochet, color, pattern and design.

Anne is an artist, writer and crafter who finds inspiration and joy in the beauty of her garden and the magic of nature. Dissatisfied with and disheartened by the pace and lifestyle of the city, she and her husband (with their two rescued greyhounds) relocated to a small town in the beautiful Driftless region in southwest Wisconsin with the goal of living a slower, simpler, more intentional life.