New journal pages...

Slightly out of my comfort zone on the doodle front, but I wanted to get working on a couple of online classes/Ning groups I had joined. So in between learning how to use my new Silhouette Cameo (update soon I promise!) I worked on a couple of doodle-ish pages. Is that a word? Well it is now!

And I finished a collage page that is not really my style but I had some pretty scraps I wanted to use somehow.

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!

Playing...

Had a wonderful time yesterday morning meeting and chatting with a new local art friend, Felicia. Go see her art @ Pinky's (54th & H Streets)
Then started to play -- 9 days off for Spring Break and my plan is to do some sort of art every day!
Trying out a few things with diluted inks. Here are some snippets...

Left to sit overnight. Gotta dig out my watercolors to play more.

And playing with taped edges...



Linked up in Mandarin Orange Monday.

Mandarin Orange Monday...

I am so inspired by this Mandarin Orange Monday challenge! I actually really like orange and it is fun to find things to add to this challenge blog!

Here are a few newer Gelli print pages that are screaming mandarin orange:

and one more gelli print...

and finally an art journal page looking very orange (with a gelli print background)

Linked to Mandarin Orange Monday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

Spring makes me want to garden...

I spent a while outside this morning and cleared out some weeds (tons more to go) and planted a few flowers we got yesterday at Green Acres Nursery...

Ranunculus: one of my favorites! Planted a cheap gallon pot just for the jolt of color!

Eagerly awaiting the freesias... these have come back from past years.

And some snapdragons (new)...

And ushering out some of the last poppies...

Also planted some hollyhocks and carnations from little 6 packs. We shall see if they grow. I am usually better transplanting the 4" plants. Between me being too rough and the soil being too yucky (clay) the little ones often don't take. If they haven't I can always get some others when I am on vacation the week after next. Looking at the soil in the flower area though I think the first order of business when I am on vacation is to add more organic matter again... that clay is persistent!

Craving color...

And the desire to find my old travel photos and add them to Flickr and maybe post a few here...

And I was so craving color this evening I thought I would start with these from a trip to Spain in 2003 (these were from Seville).

Anyone know what these fruit are called?

I have a gazillion old pix to sort through and these were just at easy reach but I will get a lot more of them on Flickr soon. I have photos from Spain, south of France, Czech Republic and a summer in Italy that I never put on Flickr so I think it is about time!

Oh and by the way... a small request:

If you happen to be on Google+ and visit my blog, please join by clicking the Google "Join the Site" bar to the top right under the heading FOLLOWERS. I would love to have you as a follower! Thanks!

A new TED discovery...

I have always loved the TED talks and this weekend I discovered a couple I had not yet heard (although apparently half the world had already). And the amazing thing is that I found one of them through one of the online art classes I am taking (but now of course when I go looking for the link I can't remember where it was!).

Anyway... HERE is the main TED talks link.

And it was Brene Brown who I just found out about this weekend and loved her talks: HERE (Vulnerability) and HERE (Listening to Shame). And HERE is her website Ordinary Courage).

I didn't do much artwork this weekend, it was more a mind work weekend with some time off for a bit of reading.

Then my friend Leslie bursts ahead on the Lettering Class which reminds me I have some lettering to do, so I think that will be the focus of this coming week!

Working on a Painting... and Jeopardy Swag!

While I was waiting at home today I spent some more time on a painting I started the other day. It started out with some gelli printed background, then stenciling, and various acrylics, neocolors, dyes and inks over and over... I feel it still needs something but not sure quite yet. I am sure it will come to me eventually! It is the largest canvas I have tried in recent years (12" x 16").

So why was I home from work anyway?

I took the day off work today because...

A month or so ago I took and online test to be a contestant on Jeopardy and I passed! I got an email saying the second round would be held in Sacramento today so off I went...

Luckily the tryouts were held in Sacramento so I didn't have to travel but there were people in the room from as far away as Vancouver, BC and all over the Bay Area. We took another test -- 2 actually, one was the test that counted and the second one was a new test they were trying out and wanted to see if there were glitches so they were giving it to the contestants in this round all over the country to standardize it (or whatever that word is when you get a lot of different results for a test to see if it works for everyone). Then we played a little bit of a mock game and had interviews. Since I am a teacher I also get to be considered for the teacher tournament! Now if they want any of us there is an 18 month window in which they might call us... hope I get on! The whole process took around 2 and a half hours. AND we got parting gifts!

Russian Nesting Dolls...

Testing out some transfers that didn't show up very well on the very patterned background. I need to work on how to make better transfer images. Meanwhile I was looking at my little matryoshka on my shelf and thinking how at times I am like one of those nesting dolls... you gotta peel off the layers to get to the real me.

A few new Gelli backgrounds...

Can't seen to stay away from that Gelli plate! Made these tonight... wanted to use some orange on one of the paintings and decided to also do a little gelli printing.

I really like how the orange one made shapes through the stencil (roundish holes) as it pulled up from the plate.

Linked on Mandarin Orange Monday.

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.

Sunday Introspection...

I was told when I was younger that I "think too much"...

I didn't really know what that meant at the time but I see it now when it comes to my art. It is hard for me to be loose and free -- to allow all that spontaneity that art sometimes demands, I guess in that thought I can answer my own question of why I do art journaling... it allows me the space to be free and open and at the best of times, spontaneous.

With that said however, I still think too much and take a lot more time looking at other people's art than doing my own. I tell myself it is for inspiration and ideas and then later say I don't want my art to look like or be anyone else's... Where do getting ideas and being derivative separate? I need to be there.

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!