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!

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...

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,

jinx...

I knew I shouldn't brag about posting every day. I jinxed it. I missed posting yesterday. I had a really stressful day caused by nothing other than trying to get a few things done and incorporated some extra surprise stuff. No biggie just months ago. Ah, well. It's a biggie now. :-(


I think I'll just keep it brief today and show the art. This is spread in my Little Gluebook of Wisdom. Everything collaged is either scraps, junk mail or magazine cut-outs. The people reading came from a book club flyer. The puzzle pieces are left over from an old project. The tulips are cut from a card I received and thought were pretty. The earth quote is a stamped image I was gonna use and didn't.

Little discards of life pieced together to make pretty pictures with quotes. Very relaxing time spent making it. And my usual literal controlled way of determining what gets collaged relaxed a bit too. One of these days I might even get relaxed enough to put a bunch of totally unrelated stuff all on one page and not worry if it makes no sense. Not yet, but one day, maybe. ;-)))

Until next time,

various & sundry things

i'm actually on a blogging roll on both of my blogs. this is like the third daily post in a row, mmwwwaaahhh winkwink. well, good for me, anyway.

so if ya haven't been here in a while, read on down to catch anything ya missed.

i was honored by my blogging friend cathy with this cool award:



The rules governing this award are as follows:

List 7 things about myself:
1. I'm left-handed.
2. I drink one glass of oj every day upon waking.
3. I try to drink 2 cans of V-8 every day.
4. I also drink a glass of Metamucil orange every other day.
5. My favorite *good* fruit to eat right now is apples.
6. My favorite luxury fruit is a ripe avocado.
7. I try to eat a salad every day.

Okay, I must be hungry. :-) Now, I need to pass this along to 7 other Kreative Bloggers:

1. Benita
2. Nancy
3. Linda B.
4. Laura Kay
5. Roberta
6. Ingrid
7. Shirley

I'll check all ya'll out in a few days to see what deep dark tidbits you list about yourselves...or not. :-)))




My latest budding collection obsession: the cupie doll illustrations of Grace Drayton, aka The Campbell Soup Kids of vintage yesterday. I love them, so when I saw these books on Amazon at special prices, I scooped them up. I think this is my first book of paper dolls. Always before I'd remained uninterested, but not with these little dolls. Sure wish I could find more sources. If anyone knows any good links, let me know!


One of my groups recently had a monthly lottery for artist trading cards with a green and gold theme. This was my entry. There are some other very nice cards entered, so I should find out on Wednesday if I won...wish me luck! :-))

until next time,

heritage & harleys

Just want to pop in and share this with you, with a little background info too. This is the lefthand side of the Pocahontas page in my Little Gluebook of Wisdom. I did continue the colorful wind and the purple paper (which is scrap construction paper, by the way). But otherwise the two are not really a spread after all. I know, I had been thinking they would be.

We get a magazine from Exxon every few months that has feature stories about company involvements around the world. Some of it is technical and boring, but it has the most gorgeous photography, and occasionally there are some good articles.

That's where I found this Indian dude. I was fascinated by how well he incorporated his love for Harleys into his traditional Native American costume, to show off who he is. I had been saving this quote that I thought was perfect to express what I got out of his image.

I haven't decided if I like the purple spaces left plain yet, but I wanted to go ahead and show it as is. I may doodle in white paint pen a bit more at a later date. Not motivated to right now.

As I fill my two little composition books up page by page, I am loving how different they are feeling in my hand, as I carry them and handle them. Written journals feel different as they are filled, but journals with art -- with adhesive that changes the paper, with the scant lumpiness here and there that lets you know something interesting is inside -- they have their own feel and look even more pleasing to me.

I don't often notice how tactile I am, but with these books I do. I like the hardback covers on my *almost daily* more than the covers that are on my gluebook. I never even noticed a difference until now. Funny what details we see when we let them find us...

Until next time,

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,