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.

Creative Spring cleaning time

"Flowers of Sulphur" ATC

Supplies: collage sheet images and ephemera from Collage Stuff; inked background collaged with paper stash bits; roses sticker from Current.

Sittin' here on this early Saturday morning listening to the radio playing old school rock. Gettin' up every 15 mintues or so to work on the quick random chore and think about what to write next...this post could take the entire morning to write, winkwink.

You may recall me mentioning that I needed to reassess where my creative time's going...that's I would stew on it and see what solutions I could cook up. Well, been there and done it, finally. All that's left to do is the doing of it.

I weeded out my membership in my Yahoo and Ning groups last week. I left about half of them. I left one because I was just irritated with it more and more. The mutual back-scratching, the encroaching commercial marketing posts rub me the wrong way sometimes. Since I'm not into this hobby to be published or seek design teaming, it detracts from my available time and energy. To each his own, it's nothing personal. I'll miss some nice swaps and artwork being shared, but there are only about 50 bazillion other sources out there when I need inspiration.

I'm thinking I also need to temporarily limit my existing involvement in the groups that remain, more specifically in the 3 groups I most actively participate in. Since these have my heart and I would never want to leave them for good, I want to disrupt my space there as little as possible, so I'm going to first try to change my email preferences. I've always chosen to have every message emailed to me as soon as it's posted to the group. That makes for a huge inbox at times and is a time taker. So, I will try getting a daily digest instead. That may be all I have to do.

I also want to keep a presence in the swaps albeit a minimum one. In my stamping group, I've committed to making birthday cards for the RAK list and will continue that. I will also keep doing one card of the month and one ATC. In my altered design group, I will continue the weekly ATC mingle and the monthly lottery. And in my paper trader group, I will keep doing that monthly lottery and the occasional swap. There is a spring cleaning recycling swap coming up to stuff a 9x12 bubble mailer full of goodies that should be easy to do and good for me.

I don't think I have mentioned it, but I signed up for and paid $120 for two classes back in January that I have not done one thing in. One is a Remains of the Day journal-making class taught by Mary Ann Moss, and the other is Kelly Kilmer's A Life Made by Hand journaling class. Thankfully I have 3 more months in Kelly's and even longer than that in Mary Ann's, and I didn't sign up for either to participate daily in, so both are saveable if I act now. I also have subscribed to Vamp Stamp News and Rubber Stamp Madness, and I need to devote some time to trying out the techniques and ideas they have. And then there is my year-long subscription to Technique Junkies, which is probably the biggest treasure trove of educational goodness. While I have done a few labs, there are a zillion more waiting.

I had bought all of these with Christmas money and hadn't really paid attention to the cumulative effect. They were all things I really wanted, so now's the time to take advantage. I'm actually looking forward to the change of scenery, but that's me. I'm a fickle little winch sometimes.

The biggest behavior change is going to be my stopping all the challenges and sketches, and that will not be easy. I figure I'll first employ the Don't Ask, Don't Tell rule, which means I'll check out the sketches and use them but I won't tell anyone. It's like dating someone hot and heavy but not committing. It also lessens the time it takes to be involved in yet more communities of people. I hate it when people post and run in a group, so if I'm gonna post my work I try to praise others'. If I don't post my work there, I avoid that altogether, yet I still get the design foundation I might need on a card or other art.

I've been in the mood lately to be more free creatively, so I am hoping these changes to my daily art goals and activities will let me do my own thing more. This will either work, or not, but it's my plan and I'm sticking to it, winkwink.

Bad blogger!

So sorry...I really have meant to get over here to post again before now. I have no excuse other than I'm having too much fun creating and too little time to do it in. Same as everyone else this time of year.

I think I will suspend displaying journal pages for now until after the holidays or until I get more time. I have to scan those pages in and edit them, and I'm not feeling the love for doing that right now.

So, let me catch you up on what else I've been making.

First, some cards I have made using sketches from my Stampers Corner yahoo group:

Sketch 193 - Scrapworks paper, some rub-ons (mfr unknown), Coluzzle frame template and deco scissors:

Sketch 185 - using various papers in my scraps stash, a cat face diecut, some vellum stamped on the back with background stamps, deco scissors and a border punch. I cut the text bubbles out from birthday-themed scrapbook paper. My Sharpie paint pen provided the white outlining.

Sketch 198 - K&Company Blue Awning collection papers and embellies all the way on this card. Well, except for Basic Grey "Mom" rub-on, My Mind's Eye crown rub-on (that I gel-penned to make it a matching blue shade before blinging it with Stickles), and a Technique Tuesday scallop circle chipboard piece that I inked all over with chalk inks. Heavy distressing and chalk-inking of all paper edges. The card base is bling shimmer cardstock.

Sketch 191 - Finally, Missy's Christmas card to display in her apartment. I got to use my Labels Eight Mega-Nestabilities and my QK Eliza alpha dies for the text. Card base is bling shimmer cardstock. Felt snowflake lace by Queen and Co. was added underneath paper and then cut outs from it embellish the card. SandyLion papers and Cinderella image. I used eyelet snaps on the cutout snowflakes so that prongs would not show.

It's a Great and Grateful Day

Happy Thanksgiving to you and me, dear readers.

I am so very blessed to have you in my life...you who stop by and visit to see what's up, who have been so loyal and giving with your time in the past, the present and the future.

I saved this Harvest 4x6 card to show today because it kind of signifies my art and life. First the center image was printed when my magenta ink was too low, so I took the opportunity to color it with my markers. My life is all about making lemonade out of lemons, and my art is likewise imperfectly blessed.

The card is layered with scrapbook paper, die cuts and shaped with deco scissors, three examples of the sort-of-less-than-respectable tools in mixed media art that often are my staples. The elements are not chosen specifically for the art; rather, they are scraps that challenge me to make art out of them, something I do 90% of the time with so many leftover supplies. Finally there's a gorgeous texture (that you can see in real life if not on screen) of the cranberry doily cut-out that is distress spray-inked, that is also something I love to add to my art.

I have now been faithful in my low carb dieting for one week and have lost 8 pounds, which makes me happy and motivated to continue. My arthritis pain is still there in my hip as a constant reminder. But I've been *going rogue* with it, refusing to let it get to me and using it as a motivation to eat right and move, stretch and posturize constantly to cope with it. The flu is long gone now, praise be, and my energy levels are back to normal. I have been focussing on getting plenty of rest, fluids and non-drama daily life, not sweating the small stuff.

One important thing that's helped me do this successfully has been making my art. The other important thing has been staying in touch with my loved ones more than normal, even our Reggie dog, who has happily lapped up more attention and treats. But as for my arting, when my pain has been at its worst, I've been creating, creating, creating. It has been a wonderful therapy for me to escape into. I always say art is my therapy, and that has never been more true.

Now, on to what I promised...A Dozen Augusts. Have you ever looked through Traci Bautista's book Collage Unleashed? I highly, highly recommend it as a reference and lab experiment book in mixed media. I am in a yahoo group of the same name that I think Traci started and still ever occasionally pops in to post a message to. There are so many fun, funky and messy techniques in the book, and it naturally lends itself to loyal fans, some of whom are members of my group. (More later on about a member who makes the most gorgeous stamped and painted backgrounds on deli paper and who inspired me to buy a huge box of deli paper sheets from my local Sams Club...it's a 2010 project for sure).

Anyway, the CU group had a calendar swap I participated in. We each took a month and made 12-8"x10" calendars using one or more techniques in the book. Well, you guessed it. My month was August, hence *A Dozen Augusts*. While I printed out and adhered the same exact calendar grid on each page, I colored and collaged each page differently. I tried to use specific techniques of Traci's, and I did sometimes, but all in all I'd have to say that I turned to the book often for inspiration to go my own way a bit. You who know me know that is very normal, hehe.

So, here we go. I'm going to show you all twelve of my August pages as small images that you can click on to get a larger view. I hope you do, because I put a lot of depth and texture you won't see otherwise. I'll just show all of them and then discuss a little afterwards:

I didn't record exactly what I did on what page, but each page was started with a base color of either acrylic paint, watersoluble oil pastels or watercolor, and sometimes a combination. Then, stamping with foam and rubber/clear stamps using acrylics and/or ink. Then the final layers of collage, stencilling, illustration, or doodling. I used gel pens, markers, colored pencils, whatever I felt like.

I had a collection of ancient Urban Lilly flower embellies that I'd decided to use (because you know that my art is always defined by what supplies I've decided to try to use up), so that became my motif, but I also tried my hand at drawing one of Traci's signature Glam Girl faces (not on these, but on one of the cover pages that I also made...those I will show in a later post) and one of her doodle flowers. I'm very proud of having overcome my nervousness and inner critic to just go for it.

I also enjoyed using one of my new Coffee Brak stencils I'd ordered from Ginny's Small Studio Emporium. I'd taken the time to coat each side of the stencil with Diamond Glaze prior to using and I am so glad I did. The stencil is made of oil board and I used to have an oil board stencil years ago. It lasted a while, but eventually broke down from repeatedly soaking up paint along the inner edges, and so far I think that the Diamond Glaze will prolong the lives of my stencils. Coating both sides makes it lay flat and not warp, and the wet media does not soak in one bit. It's like it makes it waterproof, which was my objective.

So, anyway, what is your favorite page? I have to confess, I cannot answer that for myself. I have too many wonderful memories of creating each page, so they are all special to me. I'm as equally proud of my stencilling as I am of my drawing as I am of my collage layouting as I am of my stamping, etc etc etc. All I know is, getting inspiration from Traci's book and then attempting my own lab experiments was a wonderfully freeing and creative endeavor, and my only complaint was that it's so dang messy. But everything has a downside and I'm a little anal about mess, anyway. If you are looking for a book to help you break free and just be funky in your art, this book is it. I only cracked the surface of techniques offered. I could probably do 12 of each month and not do them all.

I hope everyone has a great and grateful Thanksgiving, and if you are doing the traditional Black Friday crowd crunching, please be safe and try not to spend what you don't have!   ~~ xoxo

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.

Moving right along...

Guess what? I have the flu! And, this is gonna sound weird, but I've lived in fear of this day, freaked up of catching the dreaded H1N1. And now that I have it (so the doctor *thinks*), I have to say I am very happy.

Say WHAT?????

Yep, you heard me. I'm happy cuz this is one light case of sick, people. Doc told me I should fare lightly, due to all of my immuno-therapy. Of course, I can still get pneumonia, and if there is a chance in hell of me doing that, I will. Maybe not. I will be running to the hospital if that happens, but as of now, I don't even have a runny nose. I've had the aches, the shivs, a manageable fever, the runs, nausea (no upchucking, thank you!), and no appetite until after about the first 24 hours, then I needed to eat and didn't care if it was shoe leather which is what it tasted like. It was rice. I ate one bowl and it liked to wear me out.

So anyway, there's very little respiratory interaction with this, except for coughing up stuff. Yep, I was worried I already had pre-pneumonia, but Doc said that's common during the virus. It's afterward to worry. I'm upping my intake of green and peppermint teas, just to be helpful. Anyway, been managing by sleeping a few hours, then up for like 4 hours, then another nap, rinse, repeat. It's a pretty good life when I can forget about the aches and when I remember I'm *out sick* and therefore not responsible for crap. Hehe.

Anyhoo...back to art. Yeah, I need to get back to uploading stuff so that I can get caught up. How about I share with you my 9x11 mixed media collage that I did for a page in my Paper Traders yahoo group 2010 calendar?

I went with one of my layered collage-and-paint backgrounds and my *signature* paper-piece entarsia, if you will. I used little square-punched papers on the watercolor canvas board, giving the sky that waffle texture. The clouds have stamped images underneath that have bled up and in the full-sized image it is a very interesting effect. Click on the image to look at it in more detail.

I kept my design pretty simple, as it was my first attempt at a large mixed media piece. I resisted the urge to draw or stamp vegetation or add any people, etc. I read where someone thought my stuff was too busy, so hey, the eyes can easily rest on this. Winkwink And do you see that the paper is some ancient Foof-A-La? It's all coordinated. I took no chances! hehe

In other news, I'm currently working on Traci Bautista-inspired stamped and painted background papers that I will adhere calendar grids on for a calendar swap in my Collage Unleased yahoo group. I'm having glorious fun with them, too. No expectations, no pressure, just one big lab experiement. Nothing goes to waste. So far I like all the ones I've done but if I end up with any I don't, I'll just keep to cut up for backgrounds on atc's or post cards and start another page. The hardest part is having to stop and clean off my stamps. Hate that. It would be so much more fun if I didn't have to do that, but oh well.

I've also made progress on my Kelly Rae Whispers journal cover. The papers are collaged on and I'm struggling with the portrait. Ugh. I could just trace one out of her book, but I'm not gonna give up yet. I can draw a perfectly good shabby petit doll, so I may just do that. Who says it has to look like Kelly Rae drew it, right? Nobody did, but I've just been trying to and it's not me. So, hopefully, I'll have that under my belt in the next few days and can move on to catching up in my Bind It All class and then catch up in my Artist Journals and Sketchbooks class. Sigh. I'm tired out from just listing it all. It's fun, though.

Oh, and no, I have not mentioned the assignment I'm having so much trouble with... ;-)

November's here...

Get ready for some turkey. You can have mine while you're at it. (I only really like white meat and in a sandwich.)

Can you believe we are only 55 days away from Santa? This just is not computing in my headtop (kinda like a desktop computer, but it's on my neck).

Well, anyway, here is my November calendar page spread (you can click on it to see it in more detail):

I really liked how everything came out on this one. I did some fab pencil coloring around the borders and the paper edges.

I was going to just plop all of the months of this calendar into a 12x12 album, but of course, I neglected to remember that this particular blank calendar from Karen Foster is 13x13. So a lot of that fancy coloring is gonna have to get whacked off if I albumize these pages. So that means I'm back to undecided about what I'm gonna do. I may even just glue on new date grids and use the whole thing again.

Note to file: Think Ahead and cut to the size of the album next time. *Think* was made popular by the head of IBM back 60 years ago, and I already do a lot of that. What I need is a motto that will help me do what I need to do more of, so *Think Ahead* might be a good catch-phrase for me in 2010. I always tried to follow that axiom in my work career and it served me well. I was sort of the go-to geek for that at the last firm I worked. I troubleshot a lot of ideas.

As I've aged along with my immune diseases, it's not as easy as it used to be to think ahead. Or even think, for that matter. Right now in one of my courses, there is an assignment that I just cannot figure how to do to save my life. And I'm too embarrassed to admit it to anyone, which is why I'm not supplying any details. I'm literally taking so many classes that it's not obvious which one I'm struggling in. Hehe. I'll figure it out, but it kinda worries me, because I have several examples from classmates to look at along with their explanations, and still I just stare at it like it's Japanese.

Makes me feel like I've had stroke damage or something from earlier on. I had that little episode several months ago and they told me there was no damage. Who knows. I've never had a sharp spatial brain cognition and that is what this assignment requires. I may break down and email a classmate. I have 3 or 4 I feel secure enough with to admit this.

See, now you'll have to keep up your visits here, because you know me, once I figure it out I'm sure I'll spill the whole story. Gotta love an honest fool like me. :-)

It's BOO Month!

It never fails. When I have a calendar collage ready to show on the first of the month, I forget! So it is here, but I'm grateful I remembered on October 2nd. This month, I practice my colored wax pencil layering. All the orange bordering you see is really a few different colors and about 6 layers.

Did you know that when you color with pencils, you should lay down multiples so lightly and thin that you can barely see the first one? (I'm talking the regular pencils, not watercolor, although I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt to layer those either.) If you use good waxy ones like Prismacolors, the wax will move the color around the paper, and on each subsequent layer the wax will help the color to fill in where it skipped on the prior layer. I learned this back in the stone age when I was taking art classes as a college undergraduate. My instructor would say, "A light hand lets the wax work."

It's true. Most people apply too much pressure on the first layer and/or give up way too soon when coloring. The first layer of color should be hard to see, in fact. Although this is tres difficult for me to do as well, I've had my best luck doing it by pretending to be testing the color to see if I like it and that helps me apply it lightly. Something else I do is to wipe each layer with a tissue occasionally in between layers. Some people do not do that. They like to keep the bits of color dust on the surface. It all depends on personal preference.

Anyway, we shade and color our dolls with Prismacolors in Suziblu's class, so that means this is another technique I need to do decently. Practice makes perfect, ya know! LOL

My collage for this month's calendar page was simply done, as the Karen Foster paper is very busy on its own. The skull is a rub-on from Marah Johnson's Skull & X-bone Designs booklet, and the pumpkins and witch are from my stash. I made the calendar grid masthead with a strip of scrapbook paper (Theresa Collins for Junkitz) and various stash alphabet stickers which I then outlined with black gel pen. I added a digital frame around the photo in my PSP Pro Photo X2 software.

Back to making greeting cards! Happy World Card-Making Day, by the way. Today is also the start of my second workshop class over at A.R.T. (a study of techniques in Lynne Perella's awesome book, Artists Journals & Sketchbooks (we use the acronym AJS). I will be having a crafty weekend and hope you will, too.

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...

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!

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.

Back to School Sept. calendar

Lordy, finally finished September's collage! As I mentioned yesterday, I used quite a few collage images of Crowabout's . I also have some of my own stash on it too.

This is a scan of it, which means the edges are not in the photo since it is a 12x12 and I have a regular-sized scanner bed. That nasty vertical line trying to disect the graduate man is annoying, but not so much for me to re-scan with a towel over it all to try to stop the shadow. 

I snapped a couple of photos of it hanging on the wall and one of them actually turned out pretty well, so I think I may submit it instead:

I was just making all this up as I went along...no sketch, so I suppose I should be proud it turned out this good. But I really wish I'd moved the Make It Happen rectangle to be centered over the Edumacation part below it. And a couple of other little things. Oh well. I needed a page altered on my calendar and this helped get it done.

Why this theme (other than it is the month for Back to School)? It happens to be the theme for GPP Street Team's Crusade #33, that's why! I am only too happy to oblige and indulge for Michelle. I even plan to do another post on it later. But, I do believe that a good calendar page on the subject can provide motivation during the critical first month of commiting oneself to *Edumacation*, so there be my humble offering to that.

Along the feeder road of this, call it Self-Improvement Row: if I could cure myself of one artistic disease, it would either be my stubborn affliction for not seeing correctable crap until it's too late, or it would be to not give a crap about that crap and just create. It's just that I spend so much time on things and there's always some art pimple glaring at me.

Now would be a good time to remember that art quote, something about art is knowing which mistakes to keep. Yep, that would have my name on it! LOL

{Trying to act nonchalant for about twenty seconds, then giving up and screaming ARGH#@$^@$%&%*$^(&(&.}

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!