My Home is Not...

For today's 30/30/30 challenge and collage class warm-up play, I give you "Home is Not a Place". I used a page in my Little Gluebook of Wisdom that had been painted sky blue long ago, adding bits and scraps I've had laying around. I love this quote and wanted to represent the people as almost ghostly spirits. I'm finding my little Quickutz dies a convenient way to make shapes I do not already have in my images. On this page I made the clouds, door hinges and the fence with them.

This is my third art journaling page in as many days. And I'm both immensely proud of myself and a bit whiny for a break. So, I'll be taking the weekend off from them, but not from all art. I've a few greeting cards to make. Hopefully I can muster enough discipline and focus.

Yesterday was our Missy's 23rd birthday and we all celebrated at a favorite restaurant. I will share the card I made for her in Saturday's post.

In neighborhood news, *our* dang ducks have laid another nest of eggs in our front flower bed. Hubs is too busy teasing our neighbor across the street to be irritated about it this time around. She is getting tired of putting out food and keeping the baby pool clean and watered, but Hubs will not let her forget that she was the one who encouraged the ducks to stick around and be fed and watered. He could not wait to tell her about the new nest. I try to stay out of it, because all I know is that I'm not feeding them, yet I understand why she does. Anyway, we are expecting more ducks next month.

We also had a pretty stress-filled evening last week. Thank goodness that Hubs had just gotten home from work. I walked out to the garage and began hearing wind chimes, but it was surreal. Not only was there no breeze in the garage, the chimes were ringing constantly. At first, all I could think of was, this sound makes no sense.

Then I remembered the wind chimes that Hubs had hung up in the garage when he painted the exterior house trim last year (and forgot to hang back outside). I was stuck on stupid about there being no breeze when I snapped to actually looking at the chimes, whereupon I spied this huge-ass snake all tangled up in them.

Poor Hubs was summoned and beseeched to practice his hunting skills, which he did, succeeding finally in rooting out the shy reptile, who tried to escape by visiting 3 corners of the garage before Hubs finally chopped off his head. At one point, it came out slithering right towards me, all 5 feet of him, and all I could do was stay frozen to my spot. Some brave heart I am! Anyway, it was a rat snake and non-poisonous, so that made me feel better about pushing Hubs into the path of danger. Needless to say, our blood pressures were up for awhile that evening. Five feet of anything inhuman is too big to hide in my garage without my permission!

I am what I am...

Left-facing journal page to yesterday's page, in my Little Gluebook of Wisdom journal.

The page I share today was created with inspiration from the lessons I am reading in the Your Vintage Gluebook class I am taking. I probably should confess that with all the classes I am taking, I'm approaching them like I would audit a class. I don't necessarily do the *homework* or assignments in a literal sense. Instead, I ingest the curriculum and what I learn from it is in whatever art I create.

Vintage is not my natural style, so it may seem weird or odd that I would choose two classes that emphasize it. What studying Vintage collage does for me is that it forces me to calm down and simplify my own style. My vintage pieces are always going to be more colorful than the traditional, because color is my art oxygen. But that's okay because it is me.

In doing this page, I discovered a tip for covering up gluedots under vellum -- gelpen or viva decor pen little dots of color on top of the vellum where each gluedot is! For years I have wished for an easy way to conceal them. When the style allows, this idea is easily implemented and adds interest, too. In the future, I will add my gelpen dots to the front of the vellum first. If they need to be linear and neat, this is easily accomplished with a ruler or stitching template. Then, I have a perfect guide for where to apply the gluedots on the back, all hidden.

Now, a word about the balance of my design. This was one of those pages that was begun with some papers that color-complemented the facing page, a couple of quotes and the collage sheet image of the woman (by  Digital Collage Sheets from my stash). As I read more of Mary's lessons, I chose some german scrap pieces in various sizes to add. But the design of this facing page needed to complement the first page as well as stand on its own. So it took me a while, arranging the elements. I finally decided this layout was pleasing enough and did justice enough to eye movement, color distribution, and proportion. And when you see the entire spread, it is pleasing to the eye as well as sensical. Score! If not a superior mark, then a passing grade, certainly. Here, I merged the two in PSE for you to see:

This is what the spread open in my journal looks like.

This is also my 30/30/30 challenge for today.

Warm-Up Week

Page in my Little Gluebook of Wisdom journal,
 inspired by a collage by Claudine Helmuth found on page 62 of her first Collage Discovery Workshop book...

Whew, I feel like I have a heavy load of tat lifted off my shoulders tonite! I'd secretly been fearing that I no longer had it, meaning that because I've taken such a break from art journaling and collage, I'd lost whatever talent/skill improvements that I'd fought hard to acquire. But I have discovered that it's more like riding a bike (it comes back to you), and for that I am very grateful.

Okay, briefly, the black page base is w/c crayon spread with a baby wipe, then a rainbow-colored layer that is a recycled privacy envelope that I pan-watercolored, then collaged elements, and my digital signature watermark brush that I'm pleased as punch to have figured out how to do in PSE9.

I know it has been so long since I was regularly art journaling, so to review, I have several art journals in progress. My Little Gluebook of Wisdom journal is a composition notebook holding favorite quotations. Then, I have a couple of what I call play journals, where I have played with different materials and techniques to create backgrounds, and I will probably try to finish all the pages in those before doing anything else with them. My journal, Wake Me When It's Over, began as a place to put some of my musings about life. I have a genealogy journal, and then almost a dozen other books and blank journals waiting to be altered. In addition, I have sheets and sheets of 140# watercolor paper, a Bind It All, and book binding materials, just in case I want to create my own journal.

So, I have plenty to work with. And now since I am collaging this summer, what better place than in my art journals? Due to present physical circumstances with the ill-fated art table move delay, backgrounds with acrylic paint and gesso are very inconvenient for me. So, I have devised a game plan for now using watercolor pencils and crayons to lay down simple backgrounds on which to collage. I am almost excited to see how long I can go with that idea.



In addition to Claudine's class (see July 3rd blog entry), I'm now signed up for a second self-paced class, by Mary Green of GreenPaper. And I have joined a free layers workshop over on ArtJournaling ning taught by Samantha Kira aka JournalGirl. Finally, art journaler artist Traci Bonkers is hosting a 30/30/30 challenge on her blog for July called 30 Days To Get Your Art On. I'm tempted to participate, but knowing myself well it will not be every day, wink wink. Geebus, I'll have so many places to post my pages, I might start to feel like one of those card makers who make one single card that fits 10 challenges or something!

This is just a small sample of what is out there to inspire and motivate art journaling, trust me. But, I'll be praying that just a bit of it rubs off on me, because I really am enjoying it. And I'll have another genre of new art to share besides greeting cards and atc's!

Little detours...

Thought I would share a couple things I fiddled with last week while I was sickly. I guess I needed to divert my energies toward some other less pressing to-do's for a little while. At any rate, it was like childlike free-playing...no deadlines, worries or fears of failure.

I made my very first hand-carved stamp with a Pink Pearl eraser and an blade #11 Exacto knife. Yup, there will be no licensing contracts coming my way for it, to be sure, but hey, to me it's huge because it was a fear I had that I overcame.

Last fall, one of the "courses" in my little semester of online art school was studying Lynne Perella's book Artists' Journals & Sketchbooks. Actually, it was there, IF I had the time, which I didn't. But, the book study group is still going on and I've saved the lesson plans in hopes of seeing how far I can get with it, maybe catch up.

One of the lessons is to carve your own stamp. As soon as I originally saw the lesson, fear gripped my heart. I've never been a sculptor or a carver. And knives are not my favorite tool. But last week I guess I wanted to live dangerously, or at least adventurously. I thought to myself, Self, why not just try it on a Pink Pearl? I have like a dozen of them or more. What can it hurt? Just try, I told myself.

So I did, and it was lots more fun and lots easier than I thought it would be. I purposefully went for a rustic look, not a polished one, since I knew my finished product would be pretty rudimentary. It'll make a cool background stamp or art stamp, I think. And I'm pretty proud of the pitiful little thang...wouldn't you be? winkwink

Another thing that I did was start to create my ABC journal that I've been wanting to do. For the cover, I'm using an old ancient diary of Missy's that I couldn't bear to throw out. It's fur and its Tigger. Gotta use it!

I'm calling it "Tigger Words" for now. "ABC with Tigger & Me" is the second choice. I'm titling the front cover last, so I'll let those ideas simmer for a while. My first chore was to divide the pages by alphabet letter, so I had tons of fun creating tabs with my templates and paper scraps. 99% of them are attached with eyelets, too, and I plan to collage the pages with paper and ephemera. Not planning to paint a thing.

I'm kinda tired of painting pages. Seems like I'm not alone, either. More and more people are paper-piecing, dry collaging, layering papers and found objects, sewing them on, attaching with metal embellies or just adhering with gluestick. I plan on incorporating my stamping, drawing and smaller art pieces. Whatever strikes me. I'm gonna try to get one A page done by month's end...at least get it started. And I'm not going to re-bind the book with my Bind-It-All until I finish it.

I haven't really had a chance to find Tigger-themed items for my ABC journal yet, but I did chance upon the sweetest tiger stamp to use. It's a Dee Gruenig Posh Impressions stamp and should add to my logo-ing nicely. I know I can find Jolee embellies that are Tiggery, but I'm also gonna be on the lookout for stickers and anything else. Let me know if you see anything Tiggerish out there, okay?

Doing better, still creating

While I don't think that my recent increase in hip pain is going to go away, the good news is that I am learning to cope with it and am not letting it stop me from making stuff. In fact, I've been turning to my arts n crafts when the pain has been at its worst, because it's impossible to sleep or do anything else.

~~4x6 artist postcard made in October~~

I'm still finding art in my computer folders that I haven't uploaded here. This post card is one of them. I really liked how this turned out. I got to use up some brads, eyelets, ribbon, fibers, and stickers, as well as older papers. I also used my watersoluble oil pastels on the background cardstock and one of my border punches. To me, these are the colors of Autumn. Those of you who get to experience a true Autumn are lucky indeed. I have my imagination, so I put it into my art.

~~*almost daily* journal page from march 21~~

Still catching up showing you art journaling from my *almost daily* journal. A page to record the few random things going on back then when I created this.

~~*heal* atc made for a sick friend~~

This was made just with the bits n bobs on my creating table. I have to say, I'm getting better at throwing away scraps of a certain size or smaller. It feels like a victory to me, no matter how trivial.

In my next blog entry, I'm going to begin a little series tentatively titled A Dozen Augusts. Are you intrigued, curious or confused? Stay tuned...

Oh, Poo! Flu Redux :-((

redux: adjective meaning "brought back, restored" (from the Latin reducere - bring back)

Sweet Mother of Mercy, have you none for moi? Yes, the flu just will not leave our house! Of course, I could have just never gotten over it the first time, but at any rate I have had a relapse. The Hubster swears he's gonna kill me if he gets hit with it again, so please pray for me cuz it doesn't look good for him, either.


Actually, I'm not dying or anything, but I thought I was going to have to spend my entire waking hours yesterday sitting in the bathroom (you get my drift, right?). And my fever won't completely go away. And did I mention that I'm reeeaaalllyyyy tired of all this? LOL, sounds like a good excuse to change the subject, so without further ado, a little art...

I made this 4x6 art card for a cigar band label swap that went up in smoke got cancelled, but it caught the eye of Jodi from The Creative Jar flickr group, and

http://www.thecreativejar.com/

By the way, I learned about it from Google Alerts. Remember when Marah Johnson saw my atc? I signed up for it once Linda explained it to me. That thing is pretty cool. Anyway, thanks again, Jodi! If you have your art on flickr, then join her group by the same name.

xxx

Here's the next page in my *Almost Daily* art journal, from March:

It has been so long since I did this one that I can't even remember what supplies I used, but I do remember that I had a lot of fun making it!

xxx

I also had lots of vintage fun creating this Christmas-themed 4x6 card:

Okay, true story: I was trying to come up with a title and text to use for this Victorian scrap Santa. I measured the space where the button letters are on the left and thought Kris Kringle would go perfectly, but I didn't know much about him except he was in Miracle on 34th Street. So I looked him up online and learned quite a lot about the different Christmas traditions in other countries.

And in some kind of synchronicity moment, I read that in the northern European countries Kris was supposed to visit homes with a tree and he climbed through an open window. And as you can see, my Kris is holding a tree! So of course, I could not name it anything else. I just love when stuff like that happens...

xxx

Finally, I want to share my progress on my Taking Flight Whispers journal.

In this photo, you can see my original sketch, and then the re-sketch onto the front of the journal. No, I did not trace it on there. I re-sketched it, so the journal face looks a bit different. I almost had a cow while doing this, for fear the journal face would suck, but I think I lucked out. Different but good as well. I am pleased with both faces.

The whiteness of the hair is a coat of gesso, and you can barely see that I've colored in her complexion with Shiva oil paint stix. Very creamy. I do not care much for working in oils, so my Shivas may not get used often. But it was an adventure and it does do a good job on skin. Let's see, that's gesso on the bottom, then re-sketched, then white Shiva, then yellow ochre and burnt sienna dotted on and blended with my finger and a small lip brush, then raw umber dotted on and blended in for shadowing. I was timid and didn't use as much as I should. Something stopped me for fear of screwing up. Or else, I saw I was on the verge of creating something lovely and was afraid I'd screw up.

I do that a lot, do you? Seriously, I do it A LOT.

No, still not finished, but you know what? It will be done when it's done. Not gonna stress. Not like I'm sitting around eating bon-bons otherwise. Oh, gawd, I WISH. Anyway, in case something falls on it and ruins it, I did want to capture the loveliness while it still exists, lolol.

Over the Flu Hump

I'm doing better, finally. Since I last posted, The Hubster came down with it, too. He even took a day off work, which is shocking in itself if you know him. I think he had perfect attendance grades 4 through 12 (grades 1-3 had a few days of absence due to mumps, measles and chicken pox, or he'd have had perfect attendance there, too). Anyway, he's back at it and recovering slowly but surely as well.

Oh, where to start catching up? Ah, oldest first. Here's my next art journal page, back in March (looks Halloween-ish, doesn't it? It's the Marah Johnson skull rub-ons):

The rest of today's photos are creations made last month. Here is a 4x6 artist postcard. I do not know what came over me to draw this...acute bravery, I guess (my courage isn't cute, just strong hehe). I guess it was time for me to play with the shabby whimsical portraits I've been learning to draw in Suziblu's class.

I call it Jane's New Dress because it looks like she's modeling it a little shyly. I used a charcoal pencil rubbed in with rubbing alcohol (it earned its name) and watersoluble oil pastels using watercolors as the wetting medium:

After it was finished, I realized I'd used Halloween colors, and she would have made a great Good Witch with the addition of a black hat or broom. Oh well, next time.

Next, how about an artist trading card?

The weekly mingle theme was purple power, so this is titled Purple Marie. I took a dusty mauve purple card base and rubbed in some w/s oil pastels. Then I stamped in purple around three corners and heat embossed in sparkly clear powder before adhering the images, from a collage sheet by Collage Visions.

Finally, a greeting card, made for another one of my nephews for his birthday:

I used sketch #160 from my yahoo group Stampers Corner and some ancient Scrapworks papers and diecut.

A little Darkness never hurts

I've been up all night, creating, packaging traded mail art to new homes, working on 3 different projects an hour here, an hour there. And then it occurred to me that October was almost over and I hadn't done Michelle's GPP Street Team Challenge #34, which was to start with a black journal page.

Since I had my inks and embossing powders already out, I decided to use them. I took my Ranger Inksentials white gel pen, hurriedly wrote what was on my mind in a stream-of-consciousness way, unedited and in very sloppy handwriting, until the page was filled with white cursive. Then I rubbed in some watersoluble oil pastels, and stamped over that with pigment inks and heat embossed.

I like the results so much that I scanned it in to use in the future as a background. Click on the photo to enlarge it -- you can really see all the embossing and different colors. And if you like it, you are more than welcome to snag it for yourself. It's my Dark Side gift to you.

It seems like only yesterday it was the beginning of the month -- time is moving much faster to me than it used to -- and I had planned to do dry pastels or embossing ink and Perfect Pearls for the challenge. So much for that.

I still want to do dry chalk pastels on black paper someday soon. I recently read you can *burn them in* with rubbing alcohol so that they won't rub off. Don't know if that is true, haven't tried it yet (I did manage to have fun doing that with a charcoal pencil the other day, though, so the alcohol does do something along those lines).

Black paper definitely has possiblities I never seem to remember to utilize. I'm glad I took a few moments to *Challenge 34* myself and Come Over to the Dark Side. :-)))

Catching up *almost daily*

I'm in the midst of a few projects right now with none to show yet. And, I've been meaning to work on catching you up on my *almost daily* journal pages, so here are a few for you today, where I left off last:

Gossip Girl's lament...

I had such fun creating this page in my Little Gluebook of Wisdom journal, and I do think it is one of my best collages yet.

The background ala Kelly Kilmer class came out with a luminosity that I love. I had collaged paper squares underneath the paint again. The first layer of paper over the paint is tissue paper that I stamped on. And then I stamped on the paint with multiple generations of ink coverage, otherwise known as stamping off. I chose to print a quote by Ben Franklin and then I couldn't resist a comment at the bottom, reflecting that the ballerina stood between the Nutcrackers, which are basically two pieces of dead wood. (Just in case you don't get the humor of my comment in relation to the quote, there are 3 of them there and two are *dead*). All of the images are from a collage sheet from Nancy Baumiller's  Collage Play with Crowabout challenge. The dotted paper is from some DCWV paper slab...a Fall slab, I think. I cut little lines of it for the borders.

Correction to 9/25's post: On my journal page Beauty, I neglected to credit Nancy in the use of her duckling-woman, bottom border, girl in the heart and the eggs from her Week 47 collage sheet. My apologies.

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!

Art journaling month (for me) continues...

Ah, ode to Summer! Don't you just wanna jump right into that smile?

Well, even my backyard pool (and that happy-face pool isn't mine) is beginning to get a bit too cold for comfort these days. So, it's just as well that I live vicariously through my art journaling. I did hear that today's high temperature will be in the low 90's, but in the 80's for Monday and Tuesday, so unless we have a sustained week of temps like today, my backyard swimming days are over for this year unless I want to endure cold-shock therapy. I think I may just try getting in one more time late this afternoon, just to say I did it and say au revoire for one more year.

Anyway, when I think of water, I think of pools. And when I think of nature, I think of water. And the prompt I was following asked us if we prefer nature in the form of the woods or the ocean. You know me. My answer was neither. LOL While I absolutely LOVE looking/gazing at an ocean view, I don't much enjoy the beach and sand thing. In my life I've gotten more than my share of sunburns and ear infections at the beach. (Being out in the wind would give me an ear infection every time.)

And the woods just come in last, in my book. Chiggers, ticks, mosquitoes, snakes, critters, dirt. Not if I can help it. I am famous in my world for not liking to be dirty filthy for too long. I have done camping in my younger days and it would always take me 2-3 days to get used to being dirty. Then, it would be time to go home, so what's the use? I know it's really girly of me, but you can go camping and hiking for me. Have fun. :-)

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,

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,

Class-a-holic

I finished my Decorated Page workshop (DPW) last week and went right into the Creative Lettering class I'd purchased...in May {blush}. I'd done the sample lessons right away, but got sidetracked when DPW began its demanding pace. I was so determined to get back to my lettering that I did the last two DPW assignments as my first two lettering lessons. A two-fer always helps save time. :-)

Here are my last 3 DPW pages. First is a page I created in answer to an art journal prompt over at On the Wing ning. I combined a bleed layout with a spilling application (in DPW lingo):



The next DPW page is also my first lettering lesson. For DPW, I combined another border layout (we have one less layout type than we do application types, so I got to repeat one layout) with a springboard application. For my Creative Lettering Class (CLC), I was to print out an upper and lower case alphabet:



My final DPW page is also my second CLC lesson. For DPW, I combined a columns layout with a changing forms application. For CLC, I was to print out an upper and lower case alphabet 4 different ways (like 4 fonts if I was typing it):



That finishes up DPW and I should get my signed certificate around the end of this month, as I was one of the first to finish and she's giving a few extra weeks for as many as possible to finish.

So, onto CLC. I went ahead and did the first 2 lessons again, this time on graph paper. I wanted to practice my formation control some more:



I've kept on working on CLC and have 3 more lessons under my belt. Lesson 3 required me to write some words, each twice. So, I wrote down some names of my favorite film stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. I couldn't stop there, though. For practice, I wrote a quote that I created (I'm the fan):



Lesson 4 required me to write a quote of my choice on curving lines and then erase the lines. I opted instead to use my curve form (I used it to make my pocket in my DPW journal) as a ruler and just write with it placed on the page:



For Lesson 5, I was to journal on some wavy lines that I need to draw. This time, I used a wave-shaped ruler and traced the lines with a Gelly Roll sparkly gold gel pen, because I wanted a very light line. I will do this again, as it worked out great. I chose a Gelly Roll purple gel pen to write another quote:



I am thinking I will do this last lesson at least one more time, this time stretching my letters from line to line horizontally. This is how my teacher did it in the lesson example. I've only done this one other time and I was okay until I got halfway into it, then I kind of paniced. I'm going to try not to do that this time and will share what I come up with.

I hope to finish this class quickly, as I got a free one when I signed up, so I have at least one more lettering class to take. Plus, I am also going to start up Kelly Kilmer's A Prompt a Day class on September 1, come hell or high water. I still have not done all of her class from January, so I want to do those during the rest of August to get in the groove of painting backgrounds and journaling on a daily basis. That's why I titled this post Class-a-holic. I definitely am one, but I'm enjoying myself.

Until next time,