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!

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.

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...

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,

More journaling, more mailbox goodies...

Here's another page spread from my *Almost Daily* Pages composition book journal. The background is gesso, then yellow acrylic on top of that, then a little azo gold glaze, then some sponge circle stamping in waterslide blue acrylic. This is about my first Moleskine purchase, and the photo of The Decorated Page book is really what made me buy since there are some Moleskine journals in it (and I plumb forgot to mention that on the page journaling, argh):


The page was done back in January (honest injun...takes me this long to do the journaling and decide when finished). But, curiously enough, I've just begun a new online workshop to study the techniques in The Decorated Page, and the journal I will use will be this Moleskine, plus another one I bought last week -- a watercolor notebook and a sketchbook, one for watercolor drawings and another for wet paint collage. More on that at another time, though...

Okay, moving right along, I wanted to show the cool tags I received in a recent tag swap in my Gluebots yahoo group. The first 3 tags were created by (in order from left to right) RJ, Jeane and Joan, our loverly swap hostess:


And these 2 tags were created by (in order, left to right) Zhulia and Linda S:


And, for my 4x6 Expressions yahoo group, here is a photo of my all-time favorite inchies stamp set that I am fortunate to own, Leave Memories Kiss-Off Cubes (RIP, LM!):

The images are so cool. I have only used them in making background papers so far, though, and am just beginning to use the papers I've made.

Until next time,

As I just blogged about over at my Antics and Rantics blog, I've been held hostage in Offline World the last few days, so if ya missed me that's where I was, at home...No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain't got no cigarettes...yeah, okay, not that bad off (apologies to Roger Miller).

Anyway, I do have some art to share. In fact, I have a little inventory built up now. Just in time too, because I have to devote my time these next few days to cleaning, moving furniture, and some @#%#$%#$ miscellaneous paperwork.

I'm still sketching with my first cup of coffee every day and will not stop because I want it to become a habit, but lately it's been taking me days to finish one sketch. That cup of coffee is getting drunk too quickly! LOL I need a BigGulp coffee cup, I suppose...
I finally finished the journaling on the last few January *almost daily* pages I did. This is the page using the background I did by glueing the junk mail catalog page strips on and then gessoing. I then brushed on a glaze made with Golden Nickel Azo Gold fluid acrylic and some fluid matte medium. I went to town using up some tags and cardstock letters from my scrap supplies. I didn't want to cover the background up completely, since it was the focus of my journaling, so this border design was what I came up with.

Until next time,

Cold Case Files

I just had to document this !@##$^$% illness I've had, so this page is now in my *almost daily* pages for January:



I had started it over a week ago so that I wouldn't lose my *ephemera*, and even though I am still in the end-throws of hacking and blowing, I had to finally finish the dang page. I bet that'll be the first and only time I finish a page before the event I'm chronicaling finishes. Johnny on the spot, one time in my life! Yay! Hoo-Yaw! Ha-ha! winkwink

This page spread produced a loud guffaw from Hubs when I forced him to look at it. Usually it goes like this:

Me: Would you like to look at my latest art journal page?
Hubs: No.

Yes, that's my supportive soulmate! LOL

This page he liked, though. Since he was sick with this stuff, too, I guess he liked the leaking nose faucet. Or, he was doing a great job of play-acting. Who knows.

I shouldn't complain much. Even though he doesn't really want to look, he always says if art makes me happy, he is happy for me to do it. And I'm happy to leave him out of it, because he could take a greater interest in the art supplies I buy...and I wouldn't want that at all. Oh, no. winkwink

Is it February already?

I probably shouldn't jump ahead like this, but since rules are made to be broken and it doesn't matter a bit in the big picture anyway, I've uploaded my latest collage. (Note to File:I need to find what folder I saved my *almost daily* pages to that I haven't shown yet!)

This is my first spread in a new composition book that I started to do gluebook pages in. When it's finished, I want it to be like a coffee table book of my favorite quotes and sayings, so for now it's titled Little Gluebook of Wisdom, Vol. 1. Believe it or not, setting this up - giving myself a purpose for the book and for my pages - appears to be the only way to get me to be relaxed and spontaneous enough to just glue. LMAO - some spontaneity, huh? Geebus, I think that proves I totally suck at spontaneity. LOL

Anyway, the quote for this page is from Disney's Pocahontas...from the lyrics to Colours of the Wind. I chose my words because when I was gel-penning and markering the sky on the magazine cutting, I thought of that movie.

And, the magazine cutting is the cover of the latest LL Bean catalog. It was so pretty, I had to rip it right off.

I am working on the lefthand side of the page now. It's another Native American theme and quotation, and it will be a spread, more or less.



I'm really enjoying my wet palette (shown with my Starbucks double-shot glass). I've had it probably 15 years, maybe 20. It has an airtight cover and disposable donut-shaped sheets. I fished it out to see if it still worked ok and it does.



While I painted on my gluebook page, I added the leftover paint to some atc bases. I also had enough left over to add to a couple of gessoed journal pages, too. I think I might be starting to get the hang of it. Always gotta be thinking about several projects' progressions when ya paint.



My latest Lab Experiment: some of my most-used paintbrush handles are starting to peel paint, so I decided to paint Diamond Glaze on them and see if that stops it. I probably wouldn't mind, except I cannot stand when the paint comes off in the shotglass, on my fingers, on my project, etc. That's gotta stop. Plus, there is nothing wrong with the brushes. Anyway, here they are drying. I'll let you know if this stops the peeling and or otherwise helps anything.

I have been awarded for the first time for this blog, and twice in one week!

Thank you, Linda, for choosing Paper Paisleys as a Rockin' Blog:


And, Thank you, Sarah, for choosing this blog as Fabulous:

For this award, I need to share with you 5 addictions of mine and then pass the award to 5 blogs.
5 addictions I can think of right now (I have a lot more, LOL) are:
1. cigarettes
2. coffee
3. diet cokes
4. internet shopping when possible instead of physical shopping
5. my hair straightening iron

I want to pass both of these awards along to these 5 Rockin' and Fabulous Blogs and their owners:
1. Pearl
2. Charlie
3. Vickie
4. Kim
5. Rozette


Until Next Time,

a journal for your thoughts?

Great Good Friday, everyone. I hope we all have a fun and creative weekend. If we get to create, then we're having fun, right? :-)))

Well, I got another page spread journaled in my *almost daily* composition book. This is basically where I stand on everyday coffee (and cups). Did I feel like writing or what? LOL

I see a definite trend toward scrapping in my journal right now, and that's okay. That might end up being all that I do in this *almost daily* journal. I'm already starting to see it as a Book of Me in 2009.

So, what about when I feel like sketching...or creating something that doesn't fit the theme of that journal? Time to start another one. And another. And another. Hehe.

Two art journaling groups I'm in recently had polls asking how many journals are you working on? You wouldn't believe how many people answered more than 3. The more I get into journaling, the more I realize that this is a natural and typical thing, particularly if you like to theme your journals.

That's why I broke down and bought my first Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. I know I can use it and I wanted to see what all the love for it is about. (By the way, it's pronounced in 4 syllable Italian, like Mol-e-skee'-neh). And once I held it in my hand and opened it up, felt the pages, I immediately understood the attraction. It's one sexy little number. I see more of these in my future, but only one at a time and in moderation (she said as she fondled the black leather cover).

It's not like I need to buy another journal, ever again.

Not as long as I have this little baby, my Zutter Bind-it-all.

Along with my collection of art paper (which I finally got organized and under control so I know what I have), I only need binding o-ring strips and chipboard to make covers. And I've got plenty of both onhand. I just need to do it. Hopefully I will soon, as I am seeing some gorgeous handmade journals that people have made in the classes I'm taking online.

Over the next few days, something that I will be doing is furiously gesso-ing composition book pages, and also wet-collaging scrap paper strips on them. I told a friend yesterday that it's a bit like paper-maching a balloon to make a pinata. I really enjoy getting my fingers all pasty and wet. I was never one to enjoy finger-painting, but perhaps it's much the same thing. I also like to spread gel medium like that sometimes. I might just have a little glue fetish going on, but, hey, at least I'm not snorting it! :-)))

So, anyway, I might not get another page journaled until I stop finger-glueing. But, I do have a few more pages and assorted photos and topics in the queue to show, so we will see how well I can continue to feed the Blog Beast with regularity. So far, I'm pretty proud of myself, which sometimes leads right to failure, so maybe only a little pretty-proud.

I did want to mention a couple of books that are inspiring me right now. I highly recommend them and will keep them in my permanent library, meaning, they will never see the light of ebay. I'll save that for my next blog entry so, until next time ---- xoxo!

i'm finally a struggling artist!

No, not like you think.

I'm struggling to keep from bashing my head against the wall, in search of a good way to prep thin pages in books and journals to accept wet media.

When I joined the Composition Book Art Journal group, I read the group files, I googled, I even read some of the books I have in my own library. By far, the most frequent answer is to use good paper (as in watercolor 140# cold press or thick handmade papers).

Well, that doesn't help me one bit, as I am pretty sure if I wrote the composition book people and told them they need to use that kind of paper, they would be laughing so hard they couldn't reply.

Ya know?

Anyhoo, one of the suggests I read was to glue two pages together to increase the strength. Okay, did that. Used a glue stick and it didn't really make them stick together all that well. Tried again. Used Yes! paste and that worked good as far as sticking, except the page was really buckled badly. So, then I added some gesso to both sides. Still buckled. Stronger, but buckled.

Note to file: do not glue 2 pages together anymore. It may work for someone else, but not for me.

Then, I ran across someone on Flickr who said she preps her pages like artist Kelly Kilmer taught her in a workshop, and she couldn't give all the details, but it involves collaging torn paper strips onto the page and then painting or gessoing on top of that.

Well, sweet! So, I thought, could this help salvage my buckled pages? I tore a bunch of strips from a mail order catalog (thin paper, kind of glossy, like magazine paper) and then basically wallpapered them on. Had a great tactile time, too. I used my Yes! paste and my fingers, because it was just easier that way (and I do get some kind of perverse enjoyment out of having my fingers right in the smooshy stuff).

Seriously, I put a little hot water in a glass custard cup, and then every time before I would spread the paste with my fingers onto the paper strips, I'd just touch my finger pads onto the surface of the water to wet them a teeny bit. This really helped me be able to smoosh the paste onto the entire paper strip, front and back. And since the paper I was using was somewhat glossy, it accepted the little amount of water very well.

Yes, I know I could also use gel medium and I have before and will again, but I have this big old container of Yes! paste sitting around slowly getting hard. You know old Kmarty me! Waste not want not!

So here's what it looked like at that point:

{Click on photo to see it larger}

To recap, this composition book page spread is pasted paper collage on top of a thin coat of gesso on top of 2 lined notebook pages pasted together. Here's another photo angle of the raw page up to this point:


{Click on photo to see it larger}

Now I let it *cure*, after first zapping it a bit with my heat gun. I left the book open to that spread, let it *be* for hours, then closed it up with wax paper between the spread and put heavy stuff on the book (to straighten the pages). Then, repeated the whole thing....for a couple of days.

And let me tell you, those pages are strong! You know the old joke about your jeans being so dirty they can stand up all by themselves? That kind of strong. So, of course, I'm loving that!

Anyway, what to do with magazine ad covered pages now? I can totally see gessoing over it or painting. But because I was going to pretty much cover most of it with my journal entry for this page spread, I just sponged on some inks which gave it a nice yellow-green hue. Here is the finished page:


{Click on photo to see it larger}

I am still experimenting. Stay tuned....until next time.

new endeavors

The brunt of my tax business sale paperwork is done now. I knew that my blogging needed to start again, so I looked at what areas of art play I wanted to immediately persue.

I've been admiring all the eye candy of art journaling for awhile now. I even took a shamefully few baby steps in it last year, but I couldn't find a hook in it for me to have a passion for doing it. I love seeing that passion in others' pages, though. So, I was spending a lot of time looking, but not touching, :-)

Well, an attempt must be made to break me of that! So, I decided to join a few classes, learn on-the-job in a group, etc. My first decision was to join Composition Art Journals yahoo group. Missy loveloves those hardback notebook paper books, always has. Consequently, I have a stash of them. The thin paper is a limitation, but I am playing around with different mediums and techniques to find what works best for me. And it's been fun. I love the feel of those little books. I also love my Moleskine, but the two are not comparable, in my opine.

Here's my first page that sat around for nearly 2 weeks until I felt comfortable adding the journaling. It's hard sometimes to loosen up my anal-ity. I have to take baby steps. :-)))



When I saw the porch photo in a Lowes ad, I just connected with it. I wanted one, lol. Anyway, I scanned it into my Paint Shop Pro and did the watercolor effect on it. Printed it out and then painted around it.

I've given the compo-book the theme of an *almost daily* daily journal. I figure that a daily just sets me up to fail. I need the vagueness that *almost* implies. I also treat it like it's no-fail. If I want to scrapbook in it, I can. If that is where my creativity feels safe that day, like Randy in a Christmas Story, in the kitchen cupboard, that's where it can play.

Something else I wanted to consider trying to learn was how collagists get the depth in their backgrounds. Pam Carriker is an artist whose work I love, and so I signed up for a 5-week workshop she's teaching.

The great thing is, it's been stressful but great. The bad news is, I cannot share any of it (as its her proprietary method). But we have a class group on Flickr, so all my classwork is uploaded to my Flickr account first, if you want to see it. :-)

I also bought some books and some Pitt pens and markers to teach myself Calligraphy. I may have to take a class to force me to learn it, lol. So we'll see how that goes. Haven't gotten into it yet.

And, I need to scrapbook some pages for my mom's purse album I am making her. 2Peas is offering a deal through 1/31 where if you upload 20 new creations you get a $20 store credit. Even though I can't show those here either (until after I spend that credit, hehe), money talks! If any of you who are into scrapping have your mojo on, that's a great deal.

Looks like my compo-book pages will be all I can show here for awhile, so I will spread them out, hehe. More laterz!