Ducklings need love, too

Don't you love pink and brown with a little tan and yellowish mixed in? I knew I would use this quote of Plato's with this duckling collage image, but I also had to mix in some Christina Aguilara lyrics from her Beautiful song, too. The collaged square-and-acrylic background turned out more gorgeous than this photo could show. I may be collaging paper squares on all my backgrounds from now on. The paper flowers are from my ancient Urban Lily stash.

I'm beginning to wonder if I've had so much of my paper for so long now that it's back in style? Could I be that lucky? Must mean it's time to scrapbook while the iron is hot! I'm beginning to make preparatory moves in that direction...

Bad Hair Day Life and Art School Update

I made this page with my hair affliction in mind, which is that I just have bad hair. Period. And, when I have the supreme luck to have my hair look good, it's all gravy, baby. Looking on the bright side.

I used collage sheet images from Nancy Baumiller's Collage Play with Crowabout challenge group. And my painted background is another page in my Kelly Kilmer monthly ning class A Prompt A Day.

So, a little art school update: I have winded down on doing art journal pages, as I am worn out from it. I pushed my envelope, enjoyed it, challenged myself and kicked my art up a notch due to it. But I had to just stop this past weekend, enough being enough. I needed a break and I did nothing artistic. That behavior bled into this week, and last night I realized I could keep it up even longer, which will really blow my schedule all to hell because I am already behind in multiple classes. Time to get a grip.

My adjusted gameplan is that since I created 12 journal pages in 24 days and that is an average of one every 2 days, I plan to continue output at that speed or maybe 1 every 3 days. Yes, 1 every 3 is the plan. This means I will continue to do September prompts throughout October and that is more my style. Since each page usually takes me 3-4 hours start to finish, you can see I was doing little else when I was churning them out.  I would dearly love to do a page a day, but I like my pages to be just right how I like them and mean something, like collages in a book, so they do take longer. That's just the way it is and is going to be. I'm embracing reality with a smile. We won't even factor in my physical restraints.

I should be on Lesson 3 in my Suziblu class; instead, I've barely finished Lesson 1. Suzi cleared me to go to Lesson 2, but I really don't feel she should have (how is that for confidence?). I shall advance anyway, and if it bites me in the butt I will start over, no problem. She recently extended our stay in our class until the end of December, so that means we have a lot more time to do the course. Was that a prayer of mine being answered? No, she has a book deal and magazine and all kinds of famousness brewing, and has to juggle that and her classes. Whatever the reason, I'm happy. Another reason I am happy is that I realize now that I can draw those doll faces. I have Suzi's pdf's and videos that teach how, so I have accomplished my biggest goal, which was to discover the secret to it and find out if I could do it. Again, the quality wil be mine and not hers but I never ever expected to have her quality. I actually enjoy her method as there is a surprising amount of geometry involved, and I'm always up for a good game of math, you know. ;-) (Sorry, I cannot divulge any more technique secrets as she will have me killed if I do -- proprietary info and all.)

I haven't even begun my friend Linda's altered tin and cards class and we are in the 2nd week. {Hanging my head in shame, but I know she forgives me...that's what friends are for...let's not forget I didn't really need the class, but I wanted to support my friend, plus I am taking it for the motivation to make Christmas presents, and it'll probably be one of my more enjoyable classes, too.}

I hope to concentrate today and catch up quickly, so all will be perfect. Since we are to do only one tin in there and I am going to do a minimum of 3 (and since I basically knew how to do it -- I am emphatically not saying they'll look great, but I do know how to alter a tin), I think I'll be caught up by Sunday. I have to cover my tins and then do my dividers that go inside. I wasn't motivated to do it before, but now I am actually looking forward to it.

I wish I could say the same thing for my Paint Shop Pro classes. I just cannot seem to get past my fear and my lack of desire combined. I'm going to do a few lessons this morning before altering my tins, and if the feeling continues, I'm dropping them. I am so unmotivated to learn so many of the things PSP does that I'll never do, just in order to learn the few things I do want to know, ya know?

The free Taking Flight book study began again over on On the Wing ning, and since I blew my first chance to study Kelly Rae Roberts' awesome book, I really have to do it this time. My lovely friend Teri has decided to lead it again, but probably not 3 times. My realization about being able to draw petit doll faces will only help me with Kelly Rae's faces, which I love equally, so strike while the iron is hot, I say. I should mention, this was not on my original class load, so it's an Add. Dang, I'm an art glutton.

While we are on Adds, I had counted the Lynn Perella Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks book study group over at Artists Round Table (where I did the Gwen Diehn class), but now I have finally decided to audit this, if only for the section on decorating slidemounts, which is my favorite part of the book. We will see how it goes, but I've decided to sign up today.

Well, I'm worn out talking about what I'm gonna do and now need to rest in order to actually do something. Doncha love it? Onward Christian Soldier! LOL Here's to Don Quixote and Windmills! Laterz!

High School No-Knows

I've been trying for awhile now to use up my paper scraps (heck, all my stuff, anything will do!). Since I'm in an art journaling class that uses paper collage, I'm thinking about letting my scrapbook style come out and play even more than it usually gets to. So, just warning you, if my art journaling pages look more and more like a scrapbook page in the future, you read it here first. :-)

Day 7 (yes, I am behind, but still chugging along!) of my Kelly Kilmer class page:

The tags are great, so I can keep the journaling hidden (sorry). My journaling is on the backs of the tags...3 subjects: boys, math, and electives plus room for more subject tags in the future.

Top half of the page is covered with a boatload of teenager-type stickers left over from scrapping for my former teen child, Missy. :-) Only got rid of one sheet, so I'll have to do this again sometime.

The image of the girls (and 3 other retro images you cannot see) courtesy of Nancy Baumiller and Crowabout for Week 46. (I'm old, that was the actual style of dress in my day, lol.) And the design was inspired by LotusPaperie's Challenge 140 sketch.

Ridiculously old Urban Lilly scrap papers (that unnerve me how well they go with the stickers) were used to cover the shipping tags and the pocket front. I brushed on a thin coat of whitewash to dull things a bit. Scrapworks alpha rub-ons and my Pitt and Uniball Signo pens. Let me add: these are still just paper scraps, I did not cut into any full sheets. yay!

More art journal pages

I saw this magazine ad and had to use it. I love that view. So, now, if my family remembers to look in my journals, they will know where to scatter my ashes after I'm cremated, when I die. I have no idea where this view is located, but it looks like a cool or cold place. Like Ireland or Alaska or Canada, maybe. Missy and the Hubster wouldn't mind. Can you say Road Trip? LOL, sorry, but the thought of going on vacay to scatter your loved one's ashes can't be all bad. Look on the bright side?

Occasionally I will journal my arss off on a page, but only occasionally. This is one of those occasions. I wanted to record this quirk in my youth, so I designed my page to accomodate a lot of open space for writing. The other major achievement of this page is that I used up about 60% of a page of old stitch rub-ons to make the journaling lines. All papers used were stash-bashed (yay!).

Well, back to the art journal for me. I'm a one-track-mind creator these days. :-)

Until next time,

Just dropping by

...to leave a few art journal pages for you from my Wake Me When It's Over art journal. I'm completely immersed in creating right now and I'm neglecting as much of my normal everyday life as I can without crashing and burning. N.2.It fersher. It's the daily mantra to paint, collage and journal a page that has me going. FInally, after several tries, my self-discipline is cooperating. I never thought it was possible.

I wrote the poem as journaling for this page about language. Everything is stash-bashed, nothing new cut or opened.

This page began from rebellion at not wanting to blend the colors. Painting bands reminded me of watercolor washing and I realized I was missing watercolors a little. I tried to put the hotter colors behind the paper collage, in line with the sentiment of the quote and to perhaps mute their brighteness somewhat. The snowflake stickers -- gawd, how long have I had those? They were a true afterthought, but I was looking for something airy to cause some movement on the page.

This one was very fun for me to watch unfold. This was practice in getting more comfortable with combining patterns and colors. I also used my new Copics Ciao marker set to color the hand and the little mandala. I love how these go on the paper and how easy it was to apply the color. I got the set of 12 on sale for an awesome price, as a test of them. I could have had the same control with colored pencils, but not the intense vibrancy of color. I'm seeing another major purchase in my future {sigh}, but maybe just a few markers at a time if I can restrain myself.

Art school

Guess what? I'm a full-time student now! At 53, I've gone back to school.

As promised, here's my additional post on Back to School for the GPP Street Team Crusade #33: Back to School, where I nitty-gritty the details about my new student status.

All without leaving my home. :-) I am taking a bunch of online art classes, it seems, in September and October.

It all started with deciding to take Kelly Kilmer's A Prompt A Day monthly class...again. I signed up for January's and did a few pages. Didn't like it cuz I didn't like getting dirty with paints. It's similar to my feelings about camping. Hate the thought of it and the first few days of it, until I'm really dirty. Then, I love it (and by then, it's usually time to head back home. I cannot win.)

At any rate, I did not finish that class and always regretted it. Meanwhile, I began painting in my composition books because I took Eliece's class and in there we just used one or two colors at a time. So I got used to painting. And keeping the brushes and paints wet. And cleaning the brushes. And cleaning up the mess.

Now I like it and I'm getting pretty good at it.

(Here's my first September page in Kelly's class... "The Life Aquatic". This was done in my Wake Me When It's Over Journal.)

Guess I'm feeling my oats here, because once I signed up for Kelly's September class, I took the plunge and signed up for SuziBlu's Let Petit Doll Beginner class, too. Wow, I thought. My September's gonna be ker-razy:

1. A journal page a day Sept. 1-30.
2. A 5-week class Sept. 5 - Oct. 8 learning to draw shabby dolls.
Well, wait, there's more.

The other day, somehow I found myself surfed over to this amazing place called My Creative Classroom. Omg, let me just say I wanted one of every course they give. There's like 5 I want to take and had to just refuse. But when I saw that my friend Linda was teaching how to decorate altered tins, well, I had to sign up!

I figured, learn from the Mastress how to decorate those, make some cards and voila, Christmas present! Since I have like 6 tins sitting around, it sounded like a Plan and it will be a great one. Then, I saw a Bind-It-All 101 class. This is just the shove I need to get jiggy with my machine (so I can try to fulfill my dream of being like my friend Tina, the mini-book Queen), so I signed up for that one as well. Then, I ran screaming from there, well, screaming YAY and MORE LATER, but at least I left before doing more damage.

So, let's subtotal:

1. A journal page a day Sept. 1-30.

2. A 5-week class Sept. 5 - Oct. 8 learning to draw shabby dolls.
3. A 3-week class on altering tins and making greeting cards Sept. 14-Oct. 4.
4. A Bind-It-All 101 class for 4 weeks from Oct. 6 - Nov. 3.

Let's see, is that all? Well, no. Still have 4 more Creative Lettering lessons to do to finish that course, and then I have a free one to choose. I finally decided on Doodling. But that's self-paced, whenever, so I can always fit that in. There is the A.R.T. class coming up in October on Lynn Perella's book Artists Journals and Sketchbooks. I wanted to take that, but I don't. That Decorated Page class was a killer! They work your butt off over there, lol. So, it's great, but be prepared.

1. A journal page a day Sept. 1-30.
2. A 5-week class Sept. 5 - Oct. 8 learning to draw shabby dolls.
3. A 3-week class on altering tins and making greeting cards Sept. 14-Oct. 4.
4. A Bind-It-All 101 class for 4 weeks from Oct. 6 - Nov. 3.
5. A Doodling class - self-paced, no deadline.

It has been awhile since I was in collage (the last time was in 1992-ish working on my Masters and teacher certification), but that looks like a full load to me.

Actually, 18 hours at least, because Suzi's doll class is like a adding a lab and is worth 2 classes timewise to any of the others.

And then there is running the 4x6 yahoo group. And I didn't even count taking my Paint Shop Pro classes! Oops! Make that 21-22 hours. Wow, the blood is coarsing the old veins now! I'd better stock up right this minute on midnite oil!

Things should be hairy-crazy-busy, but I'm looking forward to it.

Art overdose, bebe! :-)

Until next time,

September = School Daze

When I taught 3rd grade almost 2 decades ago, the staff always used to call the beginning of the year "school daze" because it reflected the way we felt for the first few weeks.  This is my homage to that annual tradition, just from a teacher's point of view, lol.

This piece is only 4x6 inches, but I loaded it up. The base is chipboard packaging from a box of granola bars, with strips of dictionary paper glued down and painted white. Then, I applied very old alphabet rub-ons all over the front, even at times rubbing on the entire portion of the sheet that was left, all at once. Then, the painting layers a la Kelly Kilmer.

Next, some stamping of foliage and addition of little punched leaves, topped off by the borders. The focal image, The Thinker, was a laser copy that I did a gel image transfer on and made a skin that I then adhered to the base. I tried out my Omni-Gel stuff. So-so for the effort. I could have done the same thing with heavy gel mediun, but the thickness of this stuff does make it easier. Oh well, ya win some, ya lose some, and learn a lesson or two along the way.

Anyway, I love the way you can see the letters through the image transfer. I've kinda gone crazy printing out laser copies of images to gel up and make skins with.

I am almost finished with my Sept. calendar and will try to post tomorrow. Until then, remember to slow down in school zones!

Wake me when it's over...

So, I've got this really cool Mead Day Runner student planner that Missy discarded one year after using it for about 3 months. It has a thick cardboard back cover and a thinner front cover. But on top of that is one of those clear binder pencil pockets with the zipper closure. On that is a little clear poly pocket, like the baseball card protectors we use to put ATC's in 3-ring binders.

Here, just have a look:

What I love about it is that it came with a bout a dozen of these little tee shirts that have smart-ass sayings on them. And for some reason, "Wake me when it's over" speaks to me as a great title for an eclectic art journal like I have re-purposed this planner to be.

Here is a recent page from inside this art journal, heretofore known as the Wake Me journal. Painted background inspired by a Kelly Kilmer prompt in my January lessons I finally finished (by doing pages like this). I cut the cat out of a mail order catalog. The flower's from some packaging. The rub-ons are from my @#$%@#^#%& stash that I'm getting really tired of having.

I should really quit even using magazine images and just stick to using my stash, no matter what. I cannot seem to shake my little mental wise-guy who whispers, that's not gonna work. Instead, maybe if I imagined myself on a deserted island with nothing but my stash...

Sigh, just one more illustration of the Dark Side of being a Packrat. Not glamorous!

Until next time,

The power of imagination

Here is a recent page from my Little Gluebook of Wisdom composition book journal. I stamped the girls and the paisley in black versafine ink, scanned them, then printed them out on my laserjet, then made packing tape image transfers out of them.

The background is from several I've been doing from the Kelly Kilmer class I bought several months ago and did not finish. I am LOVING doing the backgrounds now. Guess I wasn't ready for them back then. I will be taking another month of her A Prompt A Day class in September.

The cut-out paper I used here is from K&CO, as are most of the square and rectangle scraps I laid down before painting. The quote is from a sheet of old Chatterbox stickers. The brown ribbon is an orphaned piece.

Thanks for looking and hope you like it. I have several more ready to share and will be doing so, and several others almost ready. Art journaling is finally coming easier to me! (but did I just say that out loud and jinx it? Hope not! lol)

Until next time,