August/September Journal Pages

August/September Journal Pages

I amazed myself and got this done early. When an idea hits, I just work and work. Fortunately three out of four kids were away today and the youngest was happy to get her paints out and work along side me. The theme for this journal is "Our Bodies, Our Selves." I painted a Picasso inspired woman and wrote on the journal page "Turned in different directions." I always seem to be going in several directions at once and have a difficult time just standing still. I really hate to be idle and I know that I need to slow down, but it is very hard!

July/August Journal Page

July/August Journal Page

In this journal, the book owner chose a color theme for all her pages. I decided on orange because I find that it is my new favorite color this summer. It must be the warmth and boldness. The page before this had an image of Frida Kahlo - Mexico's most famous female artist and the page following mine had an Asian feel. I decided to bridge the three pages together by painting my version of Frida complete with Asian accents. I also wanted to poke fun at perspective by having everything out of perspective. After frustration with the background - it took me three times of covering over to get something I was happy with - I was pleased with the finished page.

June/July Round Robin Art Journal

June/July Round Robin Art Journal

Here is the June/July spread for the art journal project I'm working on. This journal belongs to Kas in my group. She hand dyed all her pages with different berries, and the help of her young son. I chose two violet pages - my fav color. The bold flower or sun - depending on how you interpret it - is filled in with zentangles all having a flower and heart in them. The girl is painted in fluid acrylics with scrap book paper dress. Various papers and paint complete the page. The 8x12 mailing envelope has a sun flower painted using basic craft acrylics and sealed with gel medium. I already have the next journal waiting on my work table. Can't wait to get started!

Scrolls

Scroll/Journal

Here is a journal in another form - a scroll. I saw this idea in Cloth, Paper, Scissor Magazine and thought "how cool is that." It was fairly simple to make, especially since I had some canvas on hand. I used a 4" x 10" piece of canvas. It was left over from our Civil War re-enacting days so I'm not sure where I got it (maybe at Joanns). I used my Caran Neocolor II watercolor crayons to color the front and back. I took gel medium (Liquidtex) and smeared it all over with my fingers, but you could use a brush, and blended the colors together. After the first side was dry, I flipped it and repeated. I think you could also use acrylic paints especially if you added a bit of gel medium to make the paint glide better.

I then chose a front and used a dolphin stamp followed by some white acrylic paint on bubble wrap. For the inside papers, I used some off white paper that I had ripped out of another journal project I'm working on. I wanted some text pages. I pulled some out of my Book of English Prose that I got at the library sale. I coated with some gesso to tone down the text. I rubbed some ink pad on the edges of the pages for a bit of color. Using gel medium to fasten, I added the pages by beginning on the right hand side, running some medium down the edge and pressing. I layered the ten pages working right side out to the left side. To finish, I hand sewed some ribbon to tie it closed when it is rolled up.

I have two more canvases painted and drying. One is oranges/yellow/reds and the second in purple and black. I'm going to use these to record our summer vacations - we have four mini ones planned. I think they will look super cute rolled up in some kind of holder, available to unroll and relive our adventures over the summer.

Art Journal

Art Journal

I have an addiction. One to paper and journals. I just can't resist buying artful paper, hand made journals, doing handmade journal swaps, making art journals. I have a stack of writing journals on my dresser. My biggest downfall is that I tend to not write in them. All these pretty books begging for words to fill them. Ahhhh, I'm getting better.

I am starting an eight month long project - another art journal round robin. I was in one, on another art group, and got burned before - never got my journal back. I really like and trust the women in my altered art group, so I decided to join in. Robin, the hostess, sent out a 12 month, 6" x 8" calendar to each participant. We are responsible for getting the pages prepped, do a front (pictured) and back cover and one page of our own art work. The pages were a pain to cover. I tried sanding the shine off, gesso, paint... Finally I resorted to covering a bunch with different neutral papers; maps, tissue paper, paper bag. I added some gesso to tone them down. I didn't really want to influence the artist's choice on the page, but it was the only was to get them covered.

I am mailing my journal off today to the first artist that will work in it. I am waiting to receive one. We have until the 21st of each month to get two pages of art done and get it mailed to the next woman on the list. We even had an international artist participating. I'm looking forward to the project.

Meanwhile, I have three other art journals going for my personal use. One is filled with art and I am going back and writing in it. The other two are works in progress. I like to have a place to experiment with different techniques. Some pages are good and some stink, but I don't care because it is mine. It is relaxing to go down to my work room and start a background between dinner, laundry, homework, errands. It is my little oasis during a busy day!

Art Journal

Here are a few pages from my newest journal. All are heavily layered pieces; papers, tissue paper, gesso, fluid acrylics, images, stamping. The two girls are aged versions of my daughters.

Trying to Fix my Blog

After visiting many blogs and admiring the layouts, I decided to fancy up mine. I found a site that had free templates, picked out one, followed the directions and then it got messed up. I lost my "layout" button and my blog layout changed to something I didn't set up. I spent some time before vacation trying to figure it out, but got frustrated (which doesn't take much) and just left it how it was.

Yesterday I went searching on Blogger and found a place to post questions to problems. By yesterday afternoon a very nice man e-mailed me with possible solutions. I just read thru what he sent me and found out my blog reverted back to a classic template. I clicked a few things and got my old layout back! It is still not completely fixed because the background I tried to import is now there as well as the free background button. Next step is to try and figure out how to delete this new background. I think I have to go into the html program - better leave that one for hubby!







I am breaking my altered art protocol and have added some photos from our wonderful vacation to the Shenandoah Valley in VA. The beautiful sunset is what we watched from our deck each evening. The landscape is also the view from the deck of the front lawn and pasture. You can see part of the 1/4 mile drive at the bottom of the photo. See why I am ready to pick-up and move! We visited Luray Caverns. The photos can not capture the vastness and majesty of the caves. A beautiful Monarch along Skyline Drive. The view from Stony Man at 4010 feet (2nd highest in Shenandoah Nat. Forest). We hiked to the top of the mountain and were perched on the rocky ledge (scary, scary). The cool part is we hiked part of the Appalachian Trail to get there. I am in love with the area and miss it!

I hope to post some new projects soon. I am in between swaps at the moment, but have been working on my personal art journal and some paintings. I'll scan some of the journal pages and upload them. I am very pleased with the two paintings I just finished. They are very layered with collage materials. The old hard back book cover turned out to be a wonderful canvas. I am toying with the idea of selling them. My problem is I get attached to my art and don't want to part with it.

Have a great creative week!

More Charms

I was in another charm swap on one of my Yahoo groups. The round and square charms are a heavy cardboard base. They both have paper added. The Asian one has a charm and some cording. The square has a hand painted flower. The puzzle piece is just that - a puzzle piece painted, wrapped in wire and beads. I need to come up with an idea to display all the charms I have gotten in swaps. After this one, I think I will have about 15 very unique pieces of art.

As summer is winding down, I have been painting in overdrive. I think my free time will be greatly diminished when the school year starts. I will have to go back to "Sunday is my day of art" - don't bother me. I finished up the art journal for the round robin while on vacation. Unfortunately I don't have another one because we had problems with one of the participants and she has two of the member's journals and won't return them. Luckily mine is not one of them! I began my second personal art journal. So far in this one I have been concentrating on painting my big eyed girls on various collaged backgrounds. I am also playing around with larger versions on canvas and old books. I actually started journaling in the first journal I made - wrote about our trip to the Shenandoah Valley. I love making the art, but forget to write which is strange because I love to write. I'm just not a diary person.

Well enough computer time - I'm off to paint (and make dinner).

Art Journaling

I have been playing around with art journaling. Currently I am involved in an art journal round robin. Six artists, six journals, six months, ten pages of art work/journaling each. My journal was sent off several weeks ago and I am working on one of the other participants.

I started a separate journal for me to play around with. I have been reading/looking at different blogs and have found some great technique videos on You Tube to get ideas for pages that I can then adapt to my style. The photo is one of my pages. I have rediscovered the joy of drawing in charcoal. I love how it flows across the page and smudges for shading. The background is blended oil pastel, gesso wash, liquid acrylic, and pages from a book.