I’m dedicating this post to my friends Elli and Soren. To Elli because she has a case of spring fever right now of epic proportions. And Soren loves googly eyes on everything and these chix have pretty close to googly eyes going, without actually googly-ing. The journal part is above, written in white gel pen. I found these chicks at the drug store after Easter last year and have them sitting on my kitchen windowsill. They are bright and cheerful and we have extremely interesting conversations while I do the dishes. Nothing I can share here, you understand. Spring has Sprung!
Posts Tagged ‘art journaling’
Three chicks art journal page
Posted: March 5, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, journaling, new art work, photography
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Art life
Posted: March 2, 2012 in photographyTags: art journaling, everyday object still life, new art work, photography
I haven’t spoken too much on this blog about setting up simple shots with everyday items that you have literally laying around during the day as you make art. On this day I’d been using my alphabet rubber stamp set and decided to make a phrase and shoot it from eye level. I made sure the stuff in the background was art related (although you can’t tell now what it was, it was a rubber stamp pad and a paper plate palette) and set the other stamps behind the words. I like the depth in this shot and a tad of Posterize that I applied in Elements “arts” it up a notch. Get yourself some decent natural light in an area with some flat surface available (i try to use my kitchen counter) and set some objects up. Don’t have to be fancy about it. I saw a great shot of a fork yesterday on a fellow photographer’s blog. Try your flatware, dishes, art supplies (paint brushes are awesome), parts of a flower bouquet, flat marbles with writing underneath, your journaling supplies for the day. You’ll be surprised how poetic these shots look when changed to black and white, cropped and maybe filtered just a bit. Print ’em up and put them in your next collages. If you get really inspired by one of your set ups, draw it into your journal before breaking it down. A great way to practice your drawing, too.
Day of the Dragonfly
Posted: February 28, 2012 in art journalTags: altered book, art journaling, journaling, mixed media, new art work, stamp, stitching
Last summer we had epic rain which resulted in the spawn of mosquito larvae on our flat roof which was holding puddles of water. About this time, dragonflies reached all time highs in populations and record breaking sizes and colors. I even saw a rare for this area bright red dragonfly; most of them here are an iridescent greenish-blue or brown. It was not unusual to see dragonflies last summer the size of birds, and in packs of 50+ swarming the backyard. If I had an ounce less of dragonfly love it would have been positively creepy and The Mist-y. I commemorated one dragonfly filled day with this journal page. I have a ginormous dragonfly stamp and did a lot of coloring with marker over top of already pretty scrapbooking paper. Patterns and lines were made using a white gel pen and I found a cute tree frog in a magazine to paste onto a wing looking like he was getting a free ride. Whee! I sewed around the edge of the page when it was finished with a blanket stitch. I love this page because it reminds me of a real day in the backyard enjoying nature and because of all the summer colors in it.
Fierce with reality
Posted: February 25, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, journaling, new art work, pen/ink drawing, terry lee getz
Sometimes a journal page is nearly an excuse to document a quote. Or it can seem that way, unless you do something, anything, to showcase the quote in a new setting. For some reason that I do not begin to remember, I decided to make this quote into a turban like headdress and do a partial portrait of a wise woman beneath it. The quote is by Florida Scott-Maxwell, who I am not familiar with nor had I heard this quote before but I loved it immediately and wanted to save it to refer back to. I ended up loving this page even tho it is a bit sparse. There is so much to think about in the quote I did not really want to distract from that thought by putting in a bunch of color or textures or patterns. This is pastel chalk directly onto a naked white journal page, no special paper, no gesso. Just a sharpie, white page and a tad of planning–not much, though. I wanted the page to remain fresh when I view it. As a side note, I also see in this page which was done months ago, an interest in more white space which is on my mind these days when I make art. Not that you’d really notice a change yet…still in the percolating stage.
Crow on a wire at twilight
Posted: February 24, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, new art work, painted canvas, painting
Although this piece is on canvas board I consider it an art journal piece. The canvas had an image on it that did not work out and I began to play around from scratch over top of it. The crow kind of materialized out of the darker paint I was using to cover the previous work. I believe there is metallic paint in several colors on the crow and the rest of the color is regular acrylic. A white pen was used to journal a shrine-like shape around the bird. I love crows although I find them hard to render unless I am stamping them in black ink in a really graphic way. All that dark can make definition hard to achieve to separate areas of the body and face. I “solved” the problem somewhat in this piece by doing some sweeping lines with the white pen, which gave the bird some personality and unified the body of the bird with the rest of the piece. Certainly not my favorite piece, nor best created, but I did resolve the problem of a canvas that was not working at all and turned this into a decent journal page. I will copy it and paste it into my altered map journal one of these days.
“To listen is to lean in, softly…
Posted: February 23, 2012 in art journalTags: altered book, art journaling, found images, journaling, mapmaking, maps, mixed media
with a willingness to be changed by what we hear”-Mark Nepo. This is a page from my altered map book journal. The page started with a black and white copy of a map I made of my hand, then collage elements and a rough border were laid in on top of the illustration. Watercolor provides a unifying burnt yellow and the quote, shrine and bird pictures are all from magazines or junk mail. This is the first page in this book and I covered it for protection with an old piece of brown wax paper which was pulled back for the photo. I like using evocative quotes culled from reading material and already printed, ready to glue into the page. I also rubber stamp and hand write quotes that seem appropriate for the day that aren’t pre-printed. I believe this is the second page I’ve shared from this altered map journal, I continue to work into it frequently but it takes time to move through it because everything has to dry properly before moving on.
Eye of the Hand
Posted: January 27, 2012 in New Mixed Media artTags: art journaling, mixed media, new art work, painted canvas, painting, stencils
Another mehndi hand, this one the classic eye in the palm. Stencil is from Balzar Designs by The Crafter’s Workshop. The stencil has six hand designs on it in this size, and the same designs are available reduced on a separate stencil. Paper foundation to canvas board, Golden Light Modeling Paste thru the stencil to give the image height and texture, then painted with Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paints. The stitching lines are these awesome little pre-inked stamps called Sew Stamper from We R Memory Keepers that you run along the image where you want the line to appear. They have about half a dozen stitch styles, are easy to use and really give this project a “crazy quilt” vibe. Words were rubber stamped with Staz-On ink, my favorite. I am not affiliated with any of these companies, these are my “go-to” supplies at the moment and I just want to share the info.
Vintage Vignettes make good journaling prompts
Posted: January 26, 2012 in photographyTags: art journaling, ARTpool Gallery, found images, journaling, photography, shop window
From the amazing January shop window at ARTpool Gallery comes this fun vignette of a vintage poodle sitting pretty on an etagere with a pair of gloves casually laid on the top shelf. I love the look on this poodles face and also his body posture. The only thing missing is the chain many of these knick knacks from the 50’s had around their necks. A photo like this can bring memories rushing back of our grandmothers or great aunts living rooms or vanity vignettes from back in the day. If that poodle could only talk? Why not look at old items in the thrift store, antique or retro shop and make a note of how many you remember, what houses you remember them from and who owned them. Were they favorites or despised gifts that had to be placed on show? Did they get passed around or passed down sacredly? My grandmother had a keychain bob that I called the purple horse, even though there was very little purple left on the figure and I can’t be sure if it was a horse or a seahorse at this date. But I remember it and several cool brass keys it held! Have a good time relating to these kitschy items and don’t forget your journal entries.
My artwork at Artpool Gallery, St. Pete, FL
Posted: December 31, 2011 in New Mixed Media artTags: art journaling, found, mixed media, new art work, painted canvas, stencils
My work has been juried into Artpool Gallery in St. Petersburg and may be seen as of today. I will be showing six pieces in my romantic fantasy series (My Love appears above), and my 4×6 pieces recently printed by styrofoam plate. Artpool recently reopened in a large building on Central Avenue across from Haslams book store, for those living in the area. Please come by and see this great gallery space and visit my work! The piece above is canvas surface embellished with paper, paint, stenciling, found object hankie, bird, spoon and roses from my husband that I dried myself. The objects are sewn on and the final touch was journaling with a white Sharpie Poster Paint™ pen.
Funny Bunny box
Posted: December 21, 2011 in New Mixed Media artTags: art journaling, found images, mixed media, new art work, wood box
This small glass topped box is hard to see in it’s entirety in a blog format. The picture is a found photograph someone took of a bunny at a drainage ditch. The bunny is tiny compared to the enormity of the area it was in and the rest of the picture so I took a good bit off one side of the photo. Then to bring the attention more to the bunny goodness I smeared some white gesso (it looks blue IRL too) around the edge and made a little bunnyhead drawing on the lower left side. On the bottom of the box I wrote Funny Bunny over and over again in pencil. There is some journaling about the photo and what appealed to me about it along the front edges of the box and the sides. I found an old fashioned looking bunny illustration in an old Compton’s Encyclopedia that I cut out and glued to the outside bottom of the box, completing it. These pieces are actually little thought experiments for me. Why did somebunny take this bunny picture? Why did they keep it? Is it their bunny or a wild bunny? Why were they at a drainage ditch? Pick a thought and build a box around it, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Crickyn 