Letter Love 201 Lesson 2

Following the guide from the teacher, Joanne Sharpe, I used most of the quotes she had on the list. Now that I have done this I want to compile a list of quotes I like/use a lot and make another one...

Here is a close up of part of the page...

My hair and a cat...

Decided this was the month to get my hair done professionally again (about once a year I spring for that) and had them add some golden highlights to my hair...

Meanwhile the neighbor's cat with the unfortunate name of Tofu keeps coming over to visit... she is so gorgeous!

Letter Love 201 class...

After a wonderfully fun day at my friend Leslie's house playing with gelli printing again and deciding on our challenge art page, we got down to the idea of taking Joanne Sharpe's Lettering Love 201: Lettering as Art online class.

Leslie signed up right away and I was only a few hours behind although I didn't get started on the class until today.
Lesson 1, make the cover for the journal.

I mostly followed the teacher's style and suggestions and discovered I didn't have very good water colors! I had a small cake set that hadn't been used for a number of years so I think the colors were not as vibrant as they might have been. I have some tube watercolors but I like the idea of having a set of cake colors to just open up and start painting with so I got myself another fairly cheap set on Amazon.
And Leslie, my scanner also doesn't like 9x12 journals! I found my Canson All-Media Journal to use and decided to try the large size for this class.

I am liking these online prompt groups...

They keep me motivated and creating... this page was actually for 2 different groups, Carolyn Dube's "Use Your Words" group as well as the ongoing Journal Fodder 365 group on Ning that I have mentioned before. Both of them had a prompt about words so I was able to incorporate things from both prompts onto one page.

Mid week journal page...

Or what I did this evening instead of going to an exercise class. I had started this last night and came home wanting to do something in blues so finished this page.

I can't believe I am almost finished in this Canson Journal already. I stsarted it last year then lost where I had put it for nearly a year then found it and have been journaling almost daily for the last couple of months. And now I have around 10 blank pages and around 15 gelli printed pages in it and it is done! And now I am thinking I want to go larger for the next one... and maybe start a couple, for various purposes. I still want to make a journal with just art pages from song lyrics.

One last Sunday art journal page...

Found a few old photos of me when I was searching some files on my computer so I decided to print them out and make another journal page. Since I have a busy week ahead these from today might be the last until next weekend.

Still under a slight Sabrina Ward Harrison influence, I added the quill pen (not successful on that paper) and some ink blots. I don't usually do that much collage on my pages but I like it so I think I will try more in the coming days.

Last day of vacation...

for this week anyway. Luckily we get next Monday off as well for the "official" President's day and THAT weekend will be art-fun packed as well!

Yesterday I got to wondering what Sabrina Ward Harrison was up to and through another art friend found her online at Facebook. I hadn't realized she had put out another book last year, again the use this book as a journal type book (which I never do cause the pages themselves are too pretty or interesting to me to journal over them). And then last night I looked at Spilling Over before I went to sleep...

Today I made a sort of Sabrina influenced page in my own journal.

Sunday art...

Finished up a set of gelli prints that I started yesterday and ended up with 21 pages, which I am going to bind into a small book (7 signatures) and probably just keep as the gelli prints without any other journaling in them. It is very colorful and I haven't get fingured out how to show it in a photograph so I guess I will need to scan the pages and make a mosaic to show them before I bind it. But not today...

I did another journal page, not so much for the Art Journaling Journal Fodder class but more cause it just felt like it was coming out of me today...

Gelli printed background with collage and writing on top. Lyra aquarelle crayons and Micron pen. Ink drops on top of it all.

3 Day Weekend Art Play...

Heard my Gelli plate calling me early in the day so spent some time playing with that...

Then made a journal page for the Journal Fodder 365 class on Art Journaling (see links in a previous post). The topic was writing on non-straight lines so I made some swirly shapes on a gel printed page in my journal and went to town.

What you don't see is the incredible mess my work area is so tomorrow I will be cleaning that up before I do anything more!

Going in circles and Into the Woods

Continuing to work through Journal Fodder 365 for the Art Journaling group... today I found myself drawn to circles.

Gelli print background, then pen, and Lyra Aquacolors (can't find my Neocolor IIs which I prefer so using these while I keep looking). This was from one of the Journal Fodder 365 exercises about repetitive shapes on page 19.

The Journal Fodder guys just announced a retreat this summer... sounds interesting. Thinking about it.

And on another (musical) note... we just got back from seeing the Sacramento Light Opera Company's rendition of one of my favorite musicals, "Into the Woods". It was fun, very well done for such a small venue and a pleasure to be somewhere not crowded on Stupor Bowl Sunday! I must prefer a musical any day! Also a pleasure to be able to support a local production.

Gelli print collage...

Started making flower petals from a piece of gelli printed paper and ended up with a couple of flowers in my journal. Here were the pages before I started to cut them up:

Not sure yet what I will do next but here is the beginning of a gelli-printed collage.

Linked on Double Vision

Finished January Art Journal Calendar!

Yay I managed to continue this on a daily basis in January!

Another Journal Page...

Sort of from the Journal Fodder 365 prompt but turned more into an introspection of my art...

Journal Fodder 365

I joined a group on Ning called Art Journaling and one of the groups I am in is Journal Fodder 365, based on the book by Eric Scott and David Modler. It is a year long look into Art Journaling and the Ning group will go month by month with posted pages from the prompts.

The first month is a lot of introspection about who we are and how we got to where we are now in our lives. Topics like who are the pivotal people in our lives, what roads did we take and not take, what are our personal mythologies...along with the first week prompt of "I am", being the roles we play and so on.

I suspect the prompts will generate a lot of pages. Here is the first one I did...

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!

3 Days to Play...

I love 3 day weekends!

So first of all my general ideas about why I blog come down to it being a creative outlet for me. And maybe somewhere along the journey I will connect with other creative sorts and share ideas and art fun.

I found out about a growing your blog event through my art friend Leslie and found that I got there too late, registration had closed. It turns out to be ok though because I think I want mine to grow slowly for now since I am sort of limited in time... if I find too many creative things to do I end up not doing anything at all. That's just how I am!

And finding out about the Grow your blog event sent me clicking through all sorts of blogs and it is now almost noon and I just managed to get ready for my day! Glad I have an extra day to play!

We have to take the dog to the doggie wash now (a major event considering how dirty she manages to get herself in a short month or so since last bath)... more later.

Later...

Andy helping Maggie with her bath...

Finally she doesn't stink! How she manages to get so stinky in such a short time amazes me!

Things to figure out...

I realized a week had gone by and I had not written a single post, although I was doing some art every evening after work. Mostly I was too tired (after teaching Middle School all day) to stay up and extend it to the blog.

In light of that I want to figure out how to get photos onto the blog more quickly. I may try via my phone although then I don't have a chance to crop or adjust brightness or anything, which makes me wonder if I need to do that anyway?

I need to ask around and see what other art-posting bloggers do. I already know that a couple of people who do cooking (Paleo) blogs spend a couple of hours a night on their blogs... I am not willing to do that. Teaching during the day only leaves me with a certain amount of time and energy in the evenings and I don't want to spend it all putting things on a blog.

So that brings me to the other thing I realized I needed to figure out: why am I doing the blog?

For me it is more a record keeping way for me to see what I have been doing artwise. So I ask myself, "Self, why can't you just post to Flickr and not worry about the blog?" I do like the times when people respond to things I have posted but then I could see that in Flickr too.

I spent some time yesterday looking at the art blogs I enjoy and realized most of them (95% maybe) also have the blog because they do other things online: online classes, sell in Etsy, etc. They use the blog both to show people what they are doing but also as a constant reminder of their classes, shop, etc. I have neither, so again, is a blog necessary or just a place to put photos?

I need to think about this...
But today I am going to go play with the gelli printing plate and do other art with a new art friend in Tracy. I always get so inspired when I can art play with friends.

More gel plate prints and week one of art journal calendar...

Sunday is a great day to play with the gel printing plate. Of course now I have a gazillion backgrounds -- need to work with them!

I am getting better at making several passes over each page to get depth of colors and interest... Now I wish I had another week of vacation to play more!

And Week 1 of the January Art Calendar is done...

Word for the Year...

I saw a lot of websites with this idea over New Year's so I thought I would give it a try. Instead of making resolutions (that never get kept), pick a word, one word, that you can focus things you do over the year from. Here are a few other blogs that explain it much better than I could:
Gretchen Rubin
One Word 365
My One Word
Christine Kane

So, after toying with words like Creative or Gratitude or Patience I finally honed in on the word release.
R E L E A S E
Release seems to fit a lot of my needs for the year:
Release of creative energy (in letting myself do more art)...
Release of anger...
Release of bad health or bad eating habits...
Release of worry...
Release of fears...
etc.

What to do with all those Christmas tree lights...

This evening I walked into the living room and found this... Andy said he missed the lights and since I wasn't riding my bike lately...

Background Pages...

I did some playing with the Gelli Arts gel printing block yesterday and today. Plus today did a little stenciling for backgrounds.

It is not the greatest photo -- that should also be one of my goals this year: to learn how to set up the camera to take better photos of my journal and other art work. I also want to learn how to do a video for a journal flip.I need a tripod to start with...

Another page and background.

I wonder if there is a You Tube video on how to set up for an Art Journal Flip video?

Art Journal Calendar Project

One of my art goals this year is to do a monthly Art Journal Calendar to highlight what I do for daily art during the year. I found an old art journal that I had taken pages out of and had exactly enough pages left for 2 years of calendars! Serendipity!
Here is my January start:

And my entry for the first day of a New Year! Great beginnings!

Art Intentions for 2013...

It feels like a year of new beginnings and a lot of finishing...

Some of my art goals intentions for the New Year are:
1. Do art daily! Even if it is 10 minutes of making a background in my journal. Just do it!
2. Do a monthly art journal calendar to keep track of what I do for my daily art time.
3. Work on my  Ticket to Venice journal.
4. Finish my ROD (Remains of the Day) Journal.
4. Paint on a canvas (board) .
5. Make more books!
6. Work on the Craftsy classes I signed up for.
7. Find my art style... an ongoing search.
8. Go to Art Unraveled in Phoenix in July.
9. Do more art quilting.
10. Make my taupe quilt.
11. Do more embroidery.
12. Finish the scarf I am knitting!
13. Redesign my blog title with photos behind the title so it always looks the same on all browsers.

I also wanted to mention that the other day a few of us who are local but taking Mary Ann Moss' Ticket to Venice online class met up in Fremont at the studio of one of the participants. We spent the day gabbing, playing, looking at each other's art, and getting motivated to work on our journals for the class. I had SO MUCH FUN!! It really rejuvenated my spirit for doing ART and making it a priority in my life. I was so busy looking at stuff that I actually forgot to take pictures of the day but I am sure it won't be the last time we all meet and play!

Journal spread December 2012

More journal pages I have been working on.