New art journal...

I cannot find my current art journal (which I had only started at the end of last year I think and had not really done much in). I happened to have another Canson Journal with that lovely thicker cream colored paper so I just decided to start over. I was in the mood to work in an art journal and I wasn't going to let the fact that I couldn't find mine stop me!

THIS is the journal I usually use -- it has always been my favorite.  You can find them at most art stores or online, this is just where I got mine last. They used to be called Field Drawing Book now they are called Art Book. Either way, I have been using the 7"x10" for my art journals since I started art journaling in 2004. Wow, 10 years ago! But I only have 4 or 5 journals as I am not a real frequent journaler and sometimes I use other books. Well I do a lot for a while then stop and start up again months later -- at least that has been my past experience. It is one of my intentions now to be more regular with journaling.

Paper works for painting as well as drawing/sketching. Mine says it is 90# paper even though the Dick Block info says 80#. Maybe I had an older one with thicker paper, who knows? 

Pushing myself out on a limb...

The thing about being retired...  I cannot believe time passes by so fast!  Whomever said being retired gives you too much free time was obviously not retired! Of course it has only been a few months still and I have had a zillion and one items on the longest to-do list in the world, so as I get through a lot of those things that needed to be done, I will indeed have more free time.

One of my intentions is to pursue a lot more artsy stuff and today I stepped a little out on a limb, or rather PUSHED myself out on a limb and bought some larger canvases!

Michael ' s had a buy 3 for the price of 1 sale today and I bought 6 large gallery wrapped canvases, from 20x24 to 24x36 inches. I have never painted larger than 16x20 inches before... here is my opportunity! 

I will be driving up to Oregon tomorrow for a few days to visit with my friend Evie who will be down from Alaska, then when I get back next week, who knows, maybe I will open up one of these canvases and get started! 

New gadget...

I just got the coolest little gadget! It's a wrap around your finger knife (xacto knife style blade)... small and you can get close up when you cut. I saw someone using it on a You Tube video the other day and immediately had to have one! It will make stamp carving so much easier I think! Haven't had a chance to try it out yet aside from on a piece of cardboard and I liked how it felt.

There is a video on the Fiskar's website HERE.

I am looking forward to this weekend when I have time to try it out!! I got mine from Amazon by the way (less than $5). It is an add-on item -- one of those small things that ships free if you have Prime and add other items to your cart -- always such a problem for me... NOT!

Autumn Leaf ATC

So today I decided to play a little with my copic markers and stamped an oak leaf onto a card, then colored it in with a variety of pens (first photo). Then I scanned it and used my PaintShopPro program -- yes I *know* I have Adobe Elements 11 but the scanner comes up with the old PSP and I forgot to change it so I used it today. First I just did a negative of the scan (second photo). Then I did a colorize to see what sorts of oranges I could come up with (third photo). You know I like my oranges!

What excited me was how varied the colors were in the negative (second photo). The blues all looked blue to me but there was enough difference in their hues to make their negatives show a wider spectrum of colors.

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday
Blue Monday

Art Room Cleanup and WOYWW #217

Ok there is NOT a before photo cause it was such a mess I could not even find my camera! So, many hours later, here is the cleaned up art side of the room. The other side is clean too although filled with storage boxes with things to put away! At least there is a wide expanse of floor for a change! My old cat Pandora still lives over on the other side of the room and the wall container shelves continue to the end of the wall. The rest of the other walls are book shelves and then my desk/computer, printers, etc.

Here is part of the room:

Then here is my table for WOYWW, nothing on it to show except for a clean surface!

And here are some postcards I made at Leslie's on Sunday. Got the ATCs done and mailed off. These are just backgrounds for one of the future post card swaps. I was in a "brights" mood on Sunday!

It's a slow start getting back to doing art after letting it go over the last month of summer. But now that I am home from my travels and with the prospect of work (school) approaching, I find I want to spend time doing some art. This is good. It gives balance to the work day for me.

Linked to:
WOYWW

WOYWW #205

I have been working on some painting and art journaling the last few days so my work table is scattered with those things. Well, it is rather neat now because I put a ton of stuff away this last weekend so I could actually GET to the table!

And of course my favorite part of the newsprint pad is the random color that is left behind...

I have been into circles again lately... (various WIP)

The art journal pages were both basically the same at first then I changed the left one to see what would come through when I painted over all the doodling and stuff underneath... I like where it is taking me.

Linked to WOYWW.

Working on the 21 Secrets class today...

I decided to pick another of the 21 Secrets workshops that had doodling and working a bit outside my normal zone so I picked Roben-Marie Smith's Baby Got Back-to-Back class to do next. I have enjoyed Roben-Marie's work for many years and have taken a class or two from her here and there but have never attempted to do a journal page in her style, which is how this workshop starts out. HERE is a link to her wonderful journal page tutorials!

So the workshop starts out by making a journal page in her style, which actually took me 2 days. Once again I was working on pages I had taken out of the 9" x 12" Canson Montval Field All-Media Journal. I decided last night to start by making 2 pages so it took a little longer, and then part way through I wanted them to dry completely so I left them overnight. I made 2 pages because one of them has to get cut up for the book part of this workshop and then I would have an extra, although now I have to decide which one I want to keep and which to use for the Back-to-Back book part of the workshop!

It starts by adding color to your page (painting and gelli printing):

Then some collage and stamping:

Then lots more inking, painting, doodling...

And finally both finished pages.

What I enjoyed about this part of the workshop was using colors together that I normally do not use much of and making a page much busier than I normally do and having it look nice in the end. What I found difficult was having to constantly go back over things and doodle more or fix doodles that got covered or painted on that I wanted to show, and the general fussiness of working these pages. It sure looks easy when Roben-Marie does it but it takes a lot longer than I thought!

But I gotta admit, these are two of my favorite pages I have done lately! I think I will incorporate some of this working over and over in my art journal pages now and see where it takes me! Thanks for pushing my envelope Roben-Marie!

WOYWW #204

The last couple of nights I have been reading a lot of art blogs (in a never-ending attempt to catch up!), watching videos from various online classes I am in, and pulling out the watercolors to try a couple of techniques and play a bit.

So this is what is on my desk today until I have more time to do more watercolors. This is from a VIDEO I saw from Whitney Ferre (one of the 21 Secrets teachers but this was a separate video on You Tube), where you just doodle or scribble with watercolors. It is so out of my box that I am trying it just to see if I can do it. My first instinct is to grab the markers and go that route, so these last couple of nights I have been playing with the flow of watercolor, looking for a more zen-like approach.

Anyway, my desk as I last saw it while I pondered my results...

Linked to: WOYWW

More doodling and WOYWW...

I wish I had remembered to take the very first steps of this doodle page but I didn't so here is the first photo I took for the Doodling class of 21 Secrets:

and then I showed you what I had gotten to last Sunday:

and here is what I have since then... it is a slow process for me.

And it is also what is on my workdesk today!

Linked to: WOYWW

Paint Pens and Lots of Color!

I decided to practice my doodling and using paint pens in my art journal this week. I came up with these two pages, both a lot more colorful than my usual pages.

I really like the Bloom one... I am liking this doodling idea!

And this one I liked for all the variety of paint pens I used...

Both started out with gelli printed, sprayed and stenciled backgrounds. I gotta remember to take the before pictures!

Linked to: Paint Party Friday, Art Journaling Everyday, Orange You Glad It's Friday, Show and Tell Saturday, The Octopode Factory Friday Challenge, Inspire Me Monday and Mandarin Orange Monday.

WOYWW #201

WOYWW stands for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, a long running linky party I recently discovered. And it is really cool to see what other people are either working on or their work areas. Mine is a little more together this week than the last time...

Last weekend I reorganized my pens so I have many containers like this at the far edge of the table:

I had them upright before and not only were the cups always falling over, but I keep reading how it is better to store pens (marker type pens) horizontally so I brought home some small plastic bins I no longer used at school and repurposed them for my pens. I had been using them for desk baskets at school and had bought a dozen or so many years ago but I use something else now so they were just in my cabinet.

And then of course... there are the white pens... do I have too many? LOL (the answer would be "no, one can never have too many white markers/pens" in case you were wondering!)

And the also on my worktable at the moment: a journal page I just have color on so far...

And finally I decided this heart painting needed a quote and I think I have found the one for it, from "The Little Prince". Now I just have to decide how I will do the words, hand lettered or as collage to make it more multi-media. I will work on it this weekend when I have time. But here it is with just a printout of the words for layout so far:

So that is what is on my worktable this Wednesday! Linked to: WOYWW

Catching up with the Lettering Class...

Luckily I am not concerned about being behind since it was an online class that is open forever, so I will just get through it when I get through it! And today I was motivated to work on lesson #5 Word Play Collage for Joanne Sharpe's Lettering Love 201 class.

We had to make a list of words we liked then write them around the page in only one color. At the end I added some color around the edges because there was way too much white space otherwise and it looked bare. I tried the Stabilo pencil colors and not sure I like them... maybe I need to press harder and get more color coverage to get better watercolor look when they get wet. That is part of the fun of testing out new supplies!

More stencils...

Here are some of the stencils I have made the last week or so since I got my SIlhouette Cameo. If they are the light blue, then I have not used them yet. Otherwise the acrylic paint that I used is on the stencils. Once it dries it doesn't come off onto anything else and it seems to make the stencil a little more sturdy so I don't clean them off too thoroughly.

Many more ideas to make, and much more journaling and other fun uses to put them too... I need another Spring Break to play again!

Having fun making stencils...

It is a really simple process! I am so glad I got this machine because not only can I make a new stencil whenever I think of one, but also my hands do not have to go through the agony of cutting stencil material with an exacto blade. And of course now I can make much more intricate stencils than I could by cutting them myself!

First make a design on the Silhouette software:

Then cut the stencil with the machine. It is a bit noisy!

After it is cut, take it apart and you have the stencil and all the parts from inside to play with as well. What I like about this is that I can resize the same design and make a couple of stencils of various sizes to use.

Next prep the gelli plate. THis time I used some pink and purple cheap craft acrylic paints.

Making a print: The bottom part is weird because I wiggled my arm and it didn't print exactly smoothly but no big deal, I just use it as it turns out!

And later making a print from the inside parts of that same stencil:

It doesn't always have to be printed with the gelli plate. Here is another new stencil that I used spray inks with:

Linked to: Gelli Party (Carolyn Dube)

WOYWW

WOYWW stands for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, a long running linky party I just discovered. And it is really cool to see what other people are either working on or their work areas. Mine is definitely a mess today but...

That was actually the point of my photo!

Ok, it's a mess, but I took this photo partly to link to a What's on your Workdesk Wednesday and also (big pointy arrow here) to remind myself that the newsprint pad under my work often gets really cool looking and I should use it instead of throwing it away. And sometimes I don't remember things like that until I focus on them. So right after I took this photo I tore off the paper and set it aside!

Thursday morning update: I had forgotten I had used a piece of my newsprint work paper in a journal a couple of months ago and loved how it turned out...

Linked to: WOYWW

I took the leap...

and bought a Silhouette Cameo to make my own stencils. I had been debating this large purchase for a month or so and decided yesterday to go for it!

It arrives tomorrow and I cannot wait!

I can hear you asking, "Why would I spend that much money to buy a machine that cuts out stencils?"

Well have you priced stencils lately? Small ones @ $5-$7 each and larger ones @ $14-$15 each. Plus postage! AND... they aren't even my own designs!

Not that I don't love a lot of the stencils out there... I have a TON of Crafter's Workshop stencils already... but really... you know you can look at a piece of art that used stencils and know immediately if it was a Dina Wakely or Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stencil... not that there is anything wrong with that but... I don't want anyone looking at my art and knowing whose stencils I used anymore! To me that takes a lot of the originality and creativity out of the work.

So for the price of the Cameo and some .007 thickness stencil mylar I can make 20 large stencils and I have already paid it off! And they will be my own designs or words or anything I want to make, no one else's!

Watch out art journal!

Inspiration Journal Page...

Trying out some new pens I got.

The ones on the top are both Prismacolor -- so nice and dark! The bottom one is the FudeBall 1.5 I got from Jet Pens. It looks so washed out compared to the Prismacolors. Collaged elements and stencils on a gelli printed background.

Looking at it now I wish I had done more with the lettering -- after all I am taking a lettering class! But I wrote it quickly while the thought was on my mind and didn't worry about the writing. Eventually I hope to learn how to slow down (I can always jot down my thought on a scrap and rewrite it nicely later)... eventually.

Design Seeds...

I love the site Design Seeds. It is a great way to look at color combinations and use them to spark creativity. A few of the combos I have enjoyed lately are below.

But do go to the site and explore... very cool!

Coffee Garden and Gelli idea...

Today we had MLK Jr. day off from school so I went out to coffee with my friend Marilyne at Coffee Garden near my house.

She regaled me with the delights of being retired and then I caught her up with all the happenings around school that she has missed this year so far. I think she has the better deal!

Down the street from the cafe is an old wall sign from days gone by:

Then I went to Beer's Books to grab some of their sale hardcover volumes to tear up and use for art journals. Some I will gut the pages and others I may use as altered books, but either way on Monday's the outside cheap table ($ per hardcover) is half off so I walked away with 9 books for less than $5. Works for me!

Also today I played with an idea I had in the shower (why do all good ideas happen there when I can't write them down?)... make strips of plastic and weave them together to make a stencil for the Gelli plate.

So I made a prototype out of paper and tried it out...

liking the results. Now to cut up some old transparencies I no longer need for school!

And finally a second pull with another color... love it!