More Travel Sketches and Art Journal Pages

I'm a lazy sort this morning as I'm just beginning my first cup of coffee and have just arisen. I had a very busy day yesterday again. I drove to my daughter's house in the morning and we walked 3.6 miles. It is so nice to be walking outside and the neighborhoods around hers are perfect for it - very little traffic and interesting scenery. Afterward I came home for a quick breakfast - I stir fried a bit of zucchini and onion and then scrambled eggs over it - and then got in the shower. I had an appointment at the humane society with little Miss Ellabear. It went really well - we talked, they took some information and $20 and accepted her. It was just a bit bittersweet, but I am sure she will be adopted to a good home. Kittens are very soon taken home.


I did a bit of grocery shopping afterward - boy is food ever expensive! I am trying to stay within the guidelines of the Slow Carb Diet, which allows for one cheat day a week, but because I am beginning in the middle of the week and intend for my free day to be Saturday, I will have to wait for the following Saturday.


The girls are expected home some time today. They've been in Tennessee with their Dad for almost a week and we've missed them. I don't know if we will see them today or not as they will spend 10 hours in the car just to get home and may not want to spend another minute riding in a vehicle. I am tempting them with steak for dinner, just in case that will swing the balance in my favor.


I did find time yesterday to travel again into the "photo reference" file on my computer where I found another little abandoned church in a graveyard that I wanted to try to sketch in pen. I tried to get the shadows in the right places this time and was pleased that this photo actually had shadows - I didn't have to make them up.

Later in the evening after the hubster made salmon and a large salad for dinner I found time to play in my altered book just a bit. I am really getting hooked on image transfer and tried two of them on the left hand page. I love how the silly girl turned out, but need to work a bit harder with the giraffe.

I have my conditioning class this morning and then plan to do a bit of house cleaning before playing in my art room. I think I will do another watercolor, but this time I will sketch out the picture before beginning. I will share my weekend fun with you on Monday. I have a self-imposed rule that I only blog Monday thru Friday, and I find it keeps me fresh and interested to have that break each week.

I did have a nice comment from a new reader, Linda, who left a link to her blog yesterday. You should check her out. She is quite talented and works in several media, which makes for interesting viewing. I also heard from my friends Lorna and Elsie. As I expected, I have subscribed to Linda's blog and am hoping to hear from more of you. I know I am going to enjoy her posts.

I do hope you find time to make some art today and that you are willing to share it. I love reading the blogs to which I subscribe and sometimes spend way too much time checking the reading list of some of them. It is such a thrill and a good investment when I find another blog to read.

I do have to work on my color charts for Vinita's class and hope to get some homework turned by the Monday night deadline and hope to have some things to share from that experience with you.

xoxo

Gooeyness, Stickiness, Rippage

In case you can't tell from the title, I've been up to my elbows in gesso, glue, gel medium, and stacks of paper. I am working in my altered book and have been prepping pages and then waiting for the gesso to dry before playing with image transfers, paints and collage. I've been spending my Tiger baseball watching with a magazine and scissors cutting out words that might come in handy in my art.


One really problematic thing is that my waxed paper is sticking to the pages and sometimes pulling off some of the things I've put onto the pages. Have you ever had that problem? Is it product? I'm using Golden Gel Medium as my main "glue", Liquitex Gesso, and a variety of paint products including Neocolor II crayons, Golden acrylic paints, watercolor paints and many pens. Could it be that I am reusing the waxed paper too much? Is there some kind of contaminant on it that is sticking to the pages instead of keeping them from sticking to each other? Help! Help! I'm afraid much of the fun disappears if my pages begin to disintegrate when I pull the waxed paper off.


Here is a pile of torn papers that compelled me to include "rippage" in the title.

Much of this is from "art starts" that I bought at a warehouse sale at USArtQuest.

 

I am happy with some of the pages and will share them here.

Obviously Neocolor IIs bleed when PPA is brushed over it. The pear is cut from wallpaper.

The pear and apple were drawn with Neocolor II crayons.

See the damage beneath the lady image transfer?

This is the facing page of the trees below.

Long wrinkles in this page suggested trees and so.....

Both the backwards text and the stamp in the corner are image transfers.

I also spent a little time doing some quick sketching in my everyday sketchbook.

And what blog post would be complete without a picture of a guest artist at work? This is my youngest guest artist. I predict you will be seeing a lot of her and her work here in the future.

I am happy to report that I ran a 5K on the treadmill yesterday. I am a bit sore today, but then I haven't been jogging since I hurt my back last weekend. I am just about to get ready for my fitness/conditioning class this morning and am hoping the stretching will help with the soreness.

I hope to spend more time collaging today and am tempted to pull out a small canvas and try that as my substrate to see how that works out.

What are you planning for today? Are you making time for yourself and your creative spirit? I hope so. Do share your art online - there is such a warm, supportive community in cyberspace, which is so helpful especially for those of us who work primarily alone. 

xoxo

Friends and Family

Yesterday morning I met some of my retired buddies from work and took along a friend whose husband was a teacher in the math department. We met at Bob Evans and it was a good time. I had a lovely omelet and looked at cute pix and got caught up on happenings in the lives of people I've known for a long time, but don't see that often. Definitely a good thing to keep in touch in that way.


The girls arrived at my house around noon and then the real fun began - oh, but wait - first we drove to Mason and did a major grocery shopping at Meijer's. Not my favorite activity, but at least now it is done.


And then the fun began. First we tried image transfer, but the girls weren't happy because they didn't believe me that they weren't supposed to turn out perfectly. Then we sat in front of my computer and watched an image transfer from Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday. They really liked her pages and thought they might try image transfer again sometime.


I put away the image transfer stuff and we got out the stamps and stencils and colored pens and the fun began.

Miss M (4 years old)

Miss P (9 years old). She's a natural!

A couple of spreads in my book. The blue bird on the right hand lower page is an image transfer.

We took a break from the altered books to spend a bit of time in the back yard swinging and talking. Then I made some beef stew/soup, which the girls didn't like. They ended up having cereal for dinner.

In the evening I decided to try to capture Miss P in her batting stance at the softball game. I don't think I've quite got it, but she is rather pleased.

This morning Miss P and I are going to my fitness class and then to a garage sale in Stockbridge. Afterward, we will return home to pick up Miss M and try out luck at a few more nearby sales before settling down to do more art in our altered books. I may try more image transfer - who knows maybe the girls would like to try it once again. Their Mom will be coming around dinner time and will eat with us before taking the girls home.

What do you have planned for today? Does it include some time for yourself? Do you have plans that include creativity? I can't wait to check in with you and see.

xoxo

AEDM and Elephants

My friend wasn't able to go shopping with me yesterday, but I felt the need to get out of the house, so after posting my swaps I went to Hobby Lobby by myself. What fun! I was able to find some of the Cuttlebug embossing folders for $4.99 each and got 40% a Spellbinder die set. I also found a deckle-edged watercolor journal at 30% off, a water brush, and a stamp set of Encouraging Words for 50% off.

The three embossing folders were paisley, flowers, and music. I think the music one will look much better on larger paper.

Once I returned home I finished the elephant swap. A couple of them I had to start from scratch because after rearranging my work room, I couldn't find the two that were in progress. I am sure they will turn up sometime, but I needed to get these in the mail, so had to begin again. I took advantage of this little setback to do some image transfers using the Wizard. I have never been as pleased with transfers as I am with this amazing machine. Each of the elephant ATCs has an image transfer on it.



I also tried an image transfer on an embossed cardboard card that I had using a picture that I really liked. It turned out great. I don't know how this card is going to be finished, but so far I really like it.



Today I am going to stop at the post office to send off the elephants and go shopping with a non-artist friend. It is my turn to drive and her turn to buy lunch. I am going to stop in a couple of second hand shops and who knows - I just might find some arty stuff.

Bye for now, and don't forget to live in the moment.

ATCs and Faces

I am still trying to draw a face each day, but some days I just don't get a chance to step foot into my art room. I am still trying to get some color into the sketches I am doing, but I find that pencil still shows through and sometimes the pictures looked better before I tried to color them. Today's face is colored with colored pencils and her face is a little yellow since I didn't really have a realistic flesh color to use - the black was too black, the olive was too green, and this was obviously too yellow.


The baby was up on and off most of the night the night before last, so was difficult during the day yesterday. She was a bit feverish and very needy. She did finally crash in the late afternoon and I was called from my art room to take a few pix. She had been playing at the end of the sofa hugging her big bear when suddenly she became very quiet. All you could see of her were her legs sticking out.



I also finished the two ATCs in the round robin I was involved in and got them in the mail.



The one above arrived with the lovely silvery background. I added the woman's face stamp and the decorative edge stamp and then collaged the word "dream" onto the bottom corner.

This one arrived with the background and the collaged cook and recipe info. My contribution is the image transfer of the soup and tomatoes.

I went to the Leslie post office this time instead of the Pleasant Lake office and what a difference - the woman was pleasant, efficient, and helpful. I was afraid that kind of service was a thing of the past. At the Pleasant Lake office, I usually have to wait at the counter while listening to the employees gabbing in the back, get an unsmiling face of a person who acts like I am interrupting their day, have an employee ask if New Mexico is in the United States (she was not joking!), you get the picture.....


I am also involved in an ATC swap in the arttechniquesatc Yahoo! group. The theme is "metal". Over the course of the couple of weeks that I was brainstorming what to do with metal, I felt that this was going to be very difficult and then I found these little metal flowers with raised stickers on the back at the dollar store. And dictionary pages area always good backgrounds. I think I wish I had rotated the page a bit before attaching it, but overall I am pleased with how it turned out. As a finishing touch I stamped with an iridescent copper liquid acrylic using a bottle cap and then ran a brick red distressing ink around the edge. That, too, went out in yesterday's mail.

For the rest of this week, DD works and so not much art will be done, but I have Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off. It is my Mom's 84th birthday on Friday, so I am driving north to see her for a couple of days, but should still have a couple of days in my art room to do more of the ATCs I am working on for swaps.

Most of the 120 4 x 4 fat book pages have been received by now and I absolutely can't wait to get my copy in the mail. There are so many techniques that I not only have not tried, but have never even heard of...oh, the possibilities.

Meanwhile, this morning I am driving into town to have my tires rotated and balanced before making the trip north. I seem to have at least one tire that is feeling "wobbly" when I drive. I hope to also have time to run into a store and find a couple of small spray bottles to use for the ten 6 x 8 saran wrap techniques that I am supposed to swap by November 10.

Lots to do. Meanwhile don't forget to live in the moment.

Class Results

I had a great experience in the collage class and the second day was as interesting as the first. I really learned a lot, not only from the instructor, but from the others in the class. I shared a table with Juanita Bitonti, an extraordinarily talented silversmith. She crafts beautiful jewelry and is featured in several area galleries. She is also a very talented artist. Her collages were really well thought out and were not at all at a beginner level.

She and I shared a table with Jack and Ann (also in the collage class) and had a bowl of rice topped with an egg, vegetables and teriyaki chicken for lunch today. YUMMY!

I left early because the baby had been up frequently overnight and Papa was alone with her for the day. She is 1 year old and is really busy.

This is my collage that I think is finished.

This is another that needs more work, but so far I am liking it.

I used one of the artist boards as a comparison for image transfer. I need to add a Con-tact paper transfer, a packing tape transfer, an ironed on transfer. It seems like there more, but I am at a loss just this minute. I made notes on it next to each transfer so that I will have a good comparison to see how each method works. The only difference with these ones is that in the class I only had access to liquid gel medium. I use soft gel at home. I don't think that will make much of a difference, but it should be noted. I like each of the transfers shown at the left and none of them was too difficult. However, the Elmer's Squeeze & Caulk needs more time to set than any other method I have tried.

I received the two round robin ATCs this week, so on Saturday when I have the day off, I need to do my part and get them back in the mail. I am also participating in a round robin ephemera/paper swap and am anxiously awaiting my turn.

I haven't drawn a new face for the past couple of days, but hope to get another one drawn today or tomorrow. I need to learn how to shade them so that they have more depth. That is my next skill to learn.