Doing my own thing

I am continuing with the Colour me positive challenge but doing it my own way. I always seem to get stuck for ideas if I use someone else's quotes so I usually choose my own quote for inspiration. Sometimes I pick my own theme too.

 Week 27 - the one you love. This week I was pressed for time so I kept it super simple.

 Week 28 - Glitter. I was looking at my colored pencils on my desk and thought I hadn't used them for a while so they became the inspiration for this week's page. I used 'Ice Stickles' for my glitter. At least that way it stays on the page and not on me.

 Week 29 - This weeks prompt was not for me so I did this quote that has been on my pin up board for a while. Sometimes I come across a quote that speaks to me and I save it so I can put it on a page. I wanted to add some mixed media tags so I made them and used my die cutting machine to cut out hearts and butterflies for a papercraft style page.

 Week 30 - I love this quote by Walt Disney. When I used my pencils a couple of weeks ago I forgot how nice it is to use them.  I wanted to do more coloring so this week I made a coloring page then colored it in.

This is the page I drew. If you want to download it for yourself just click on the image to make it larger and right click then save the picture to your computer. You can then print it out onto any type of paper you want and color it your own way. 

 Week 31 - No prompt this week so I drew some of the items that were on my sketching table. I usually sketch while watching tv with my husband in the evening. I collaged on the hearts and flowers for added interest. It was a fun page to do. I am still surprised that I can draw things that I thought would have been impossible ten years ago. Practice really does make you a better artist.

Art journalling is one of my year long projects.

This year I have become very involved with my textile group, teaching and working on the committee side of things so it has kept me busy. I have been creating art but not posting so now that my lessons have finished you can expect a lot more sharing from me.

I have been keeping up with my commitment to the Colour me positive challenge and have created a journal page a week. This year I have been experimenting with a lot of different techniques in my journal and as I look through the 30 pages created so far I can see a definite style is there in each technique. I always seem to do neat, graphic style work with simple backgrounds.

 Week 21- Gratitude. I collaged on deli papers that had been previously printed then I carved some stamps and used them to start this uneven grid style page. The stars, heart in a square and square star are all stamps I made. The rest of the page is drawn and coloured with paint pens. 

Week 22 - Creativity. I used a white wax crayon to draw the houses then filled them with india inks and let them blend together. It was a really fast, fun technique and I love the finished effect. 
 

 Week 23 - Attitude. I was cleaning up and found some cut outs I did for an older journal so I used them to make this simple page. The background is tissue paper and paint.

 Week 24 - What soothes your soul? For me it has to be music that has the most effect on my moods. There is nothing like putting a great song on really loud and singing along. It always makes a dark day brighter. I cut the words from scrapbooking papers and glued them to a previously painted background.

 Week 25 - This week I used the quote supplied and the extra challenge to create a silhouette. I still struggle when it comes to drawing the side profile.

Week 26 - Learning new things. The prompt this week was very appropriate for me as I spent the week away at a textile art retreat learning new things. I made a simple page about the retreat that was Fibres West. I will shortly do a post about the work we did there.

Documented Life Project

I decided to join the documented life project this year because they are going to do a year of art journaling and it looks like fun. I had already decided to do a year long journal after buying the 'No excuses art journal book' so I am combining the two ideas.

The first prompt for DLP is: be your own goal keeper and the challenge is to use book paper. My main goal this year is to experiment with my art and use familiar materials in unexpected ways.

I started with a blank journal and drew in my own planner, leaving a lot of blank area for art. I did not rule the lines because I wanted it to look handmade. I slapped on two blue colors of acrylics for the background. When it dried I also sprayed it with brown but later on washed off those spots because they were distracting to my eye.

I have 4 books that I use for my mixed media work. 3 of them were falling apart already and the 4th is an old Anne of Green Gables book that I chose because the words were nice. Be careful when you are choosing a book to use. Once I did a class where the teacher bought an old book for a couple of dollars only to find during the class it was full of violence and swear words so nobody wanted to use it, lol.

 I painted one page with blue for the water and while it was still damp I tore it into strips leaving a white edge. I used the brownest book for the sand. The wavy edge comes from tearing across the grain. Any type of paper has a grain and when you tear in one direction you will get reasonably straight lines but if you give the page a quarter turn and tear, the lines will be uneven. The other objects were sketched on the book paper and cut out. The bird wings were done with cut out lines of print.

I glued down the water strips and then the sand. I used a clip to hold the page flat while it dried. With the sand I tried to put some blank areas between each of the printed strips to make them stand out more.  Later on I thought that I should have alternated them with some horizontal strips of print for an interesting look.

I used colored pencil along the edge of the sand to make it stand out. It probably would have been easier if I had done that before they were glued down! I also added a little blue pencil at the base of the waves for shading.

I glued everything down and added a little watery acrylics for color. I kept them watery so they would be transparent. I left the whole thing to dry before I added the shading. 

I did some outlining and shading around each of the parts of the picture. I used a Quick Kutz alphabet to cut the letters out of book paper and added them to my page with some shadows.

I have also bought the 'Whimsical Lettering' book so I am doing a different exercise from that book each week as well. Here I have used a pencil to doodle on the letters that I had cut out. In the book it is supposed to be marker doodles on letters that have been drawn with a marker but this is close enough. I am also adding the weather each day and a brief description and image of what I have done. I hope it will be an interesting journal/diary by the end of the year.

Week 5 Index Card a Day

The theme this week was texture/stamps. I concentrated mainly on texture but also used stamps where I could. Sometimes I forget about using all the stamps I have.

 Prompt - California. My first thought was beaches but then I remembered I had these textured backgrounds I made on index cards a couple of weeks ago so I sort of did my own thing.

Prompt - red.  I used texture paste through a stencil for the background and then cut hearts out of the first card I had stamped and colored. I accidentally got green ink on it from the next card  so that is why I had to cut it up.  

 Prompt - flower bouquet.  I stamped two bouquets of flowers and colored them with markers.  I cut them put and put them together as a single bunch on another textured background.

 Prompt - coffee.  I used a coffee cup and real coffee to stamp some rings. I used a rust embossing powder on the rings. After I heated that I stamped some more rings and splashes onto the card.

Prompt - tomorrowland.  The first time we went to Disneyland we went straight into tomorrowland and got onto the Space Mountain ride. It was very scary because we had no idea that it was a pitch black roller coaster.  If we went again it wouldn't be so scary now. 

Prompt - Independence day or flag.  I was too lazy to draw the Aussie flag so I did some Tibetan prayer flags instead using embossed papers. 

Prompt - postage stamp.  I used a punch to make the butterflies from old postage stamps. I did feel like a naughty child defacing stamps at first but quickly got over that when I saw how pretty they now looked. 

52 cards...

I have been neglecting to share some of the cards I have been making. Somehow I jumped from week 16 to week 20.

Week 17 - The prompt for this one was Objet d'art.  I used images cut from a giftware catalog. I tried to choose colours that would work together and then arranged them around the frame I had painted. I had so many items cut out (I did them while watching tv with hubby) that I put them on the back of the card too. 

 

  Week 18 - prompt Army.  I couldn't think of a way to do a card about the military definition for Army so I twisted the prompt to suit my own sense of humour. The arms were painted with acrylics and then I added some colored pencil shading. It is a great way to store a bunch of poses to use in later drawings.

Week 19 prompt - dictionary.  I glued a dictionary page to my card with gel medium.  When it was dry I used coloured pencils to sketch some daffodils. Daffodils are a fairly easy flower to draw if you are just beginning to learn sketching.

Week 21 Prompt - niche.  This shows the hole I made in one card that I glued to a second one with two layers of black foam tape for a 3D effect. I had previously gessoed the first card and stuck tissue onto the second one.

I didn't like the yellow tissue so I covered the cards, front and back, with this paper that I know as mulberry paper (it may be called something else where you live). You can see it has lots of threads in it and when you tear it the edges are frayed nicely. I put lots of overlapping pieces on the cards and then dry brushed on a little silver paint to highlight the texture.

 I used two cards to make my niche.  I used scrapbooking brads for the flowers.   The butterflies are old pieces of jewelry that I had saved. I used wire cutting pliers to remove the jewelry parts and adhered them to the card with foam tape.

Week 22 prompt - trim.  A humorous take on the prompt.  I painted the background with acrylics and covered it with plastic wrap while it dried.  It gives the paint an interesting texture.   I did a simple sketch and colored it with pencils.

Week 23 prompt - emerald.  I used self-adhesive paper for the background of my card.  The tree was embossed on green metallic foil that was stuck to cardstock. I used alcohol inks to add more color to the back of the tree and then used a Brilliance stamp pad to add the copper color to the tree. The Brilliance ink works on most surfaces if you dry it with a heat gun.

Week 24 prompt - game.  I painted the card with distress paint and then used a stencil and distress ink to apply the pattern. I had the scrabble tiles in my stash (I think they were a freebie with a magazine) so used them to make the words.

I am now caught up with this challenge. I also have a bunch of index cards to share so will try to post again very soon. Keep making art and having fun.

Use up your stash!

Some time ago I took a good look at my accumulation of craft and art products. I realised that I had a huge amount of stuff and some of it was not even useful any more. I have never really felt that I needed the latest of everything but I found it hard to resist a bargain at craft fairs or art store sales. Then when I did have a big stash I kept wanting to save the good stuff for the big, important projects not the small everyday work I was doing in my studio. Art journaling and general scrapbooking were not important enough

I went to use one of my art products and found it had dried up when I had hardly used it at all. That was the light bulb moment for me. If I didn't use what I had it would be gone before I could use it. Even the scrapbooking supplies that are now seen as out of date would seem too dated if I didn't use them. I had to learn that everything I make or create is important and worthy of the best supplies. I decided to stop buying any more new things and use what I already have. This was hard at first, but now I can go to a craft fair and only buy things that I will use immediately. Sometimes I don't even buy anything at all! It is my goal to use up a lot of items I have been saving so I have more space in my studio.

 This weeks card for the 52 challenge has part of my stash in it. A while ago felt cut out borders were popular for scrapbooking and I bought a few colours. I had this green one that I decided to use.

 You can see it is pretty bright and also self adhesive. It was one length but I cut it into three pieces to fit onto the card front like a background rather than a border.

 I used the Lumiere paints on the tissue paper side of the card. I also did the same on the other side of the card that was plain. I ended up using the plain side for the front and put a quote on the back.

 I sprayed the felt with mica sprays. I was hoping they would become more colored and sparkly but most of the spray was absorbed by the felt. It did make the green color less vibrant.

 When the felt was dry I removed the backing paper and stuck it onto the card. I cut some of the lengths apart so they would fit onto the card better. I used my favorite Inca Gold metallic paints to add more color in random areas on the leaves. I used copper and gold colors.

 I glued on some butterfly cut outs and the card was finished. The quote on the back reads:
"Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see - Henri Rousseau."

 You can see how 3 dimensional the felt is. I like the way the altered felt looks so now I will start adding it to more of my scrapbook pages. I love when a small bit of fun, like these cards, inspires me to use products in a new way. Go ahead and look through your stash. Find something you have had for a while and think of a new way to use it. What are you saving it for?

Easiest how to make an art journal.

Okay I know I have shared a few different ways to make a book lately but this method is by far the easiest of all. It only took me 1 hour to make from the very start to the end. It may take you a little longer the first time but it really is easy.

 
I started by gathering my supplies. I am using a pad of artist paper for the book pages but you can use what ever paper you like. If you use scrapbooking card you could turn it into a mini album.  I also found these plastic book covers at my local art store. I think they are for a binding machine but I am going to use them for my covers. You don't have to use the same. Card or chipboard covered with paper or fabric also make great covers. I am using coloured duct tape to hold the book together. I have white to use on the pages inside and the colours for the cover. You can use any strong tape, duct or masking but it must be strong or your book will fall apart. Don't be tempted to use washi tape as it is not sticky enough.

I used a score board to fold all the paper in half to the finished size of the book.  I cut the covers to to the same size as the pages.

Next I put the white tape onto the cutting mat and trimmed it to the size I needed. My tape was quite wide so I cut it in half lengthwise then cut it a little longer than the height of the pages. 

I lay two pages back to back so the folded edges are touching and put the tape down the middle to hold them together.  I trimmed the excess tape off  as I go. I then add another page the same way until all of the pages are taped together. There is a close up below.

When I have a few pages joined together it is easier to put the tape onto the stack of pages and turn it over so the tape is down on the mat.  Then you can just add the next page on top of the tape.

When you have your stack of pages it will look like this. You can see the tape inbetween the pages. I don't press it hard together because I want a little of that tape showing when I put the spine on. It helps to hold it together later. 

I add the covers the same way. For my cover I used the pink tape. This will be inside the book when you open the first page. I decided to use one green and one pink cover on each journal.

The book is almost complete now.

For the spine of the book I place a length of the decorative duct tape onto my cutting mat. I folded under the ends to hold it still when I carefully put the book down onto it. The tape sticks to the pages and also that little bit of duct tape we have between them. You know how well that tape sticks to itself, there is little chance of it ever coming apart. If you have a lot of pages you could add two overlapping strips of tape for the spine.

Fold the tape onto the bookcovers and trim off the ends. Your book is done. How easy is that?

 

My inside book cover has the pink tape for a feature. Every second page has no tape so you can work on a double page spread. This flexible spine means you can open the book up fully. The covers I used are transparent so the first page will be visible later on. 

Enjoy this easy method of book making. I used it for small journals but the options are endless. You can add as many pages as you need. This will be the last book I make for a while. I need to start using all the ones I already have.