It's Been A While ......

I realized this morning that I haven't written since June 25. I had no idea, it had been so long. I've had bronchitis and it made me feel terrible. Then I took medication to cure it and that made me feel worse. It took me weeks to get back to myself and have energy.

Then I visited my dad and we celebrated his 92 birthday at the beginning of August. My dad is amazing. He's in perfect health other than one knee. The cartilage has just worn out and for the first time in his whole life he had to hire someone to cut his grass. He felt really bad that he had to do that but his knee just won't let him walk behind the lawn more any longer. 

I also went on a short art vacation. I'll post more about that later.

I received this card for my birthday from Donna G. It really intrigued me.  I love how she used so many different pieces of paper to make it and how they go in all the different directions.  It inspired me to give that technique a try.

It says:  Don't Just Do Something, Sit There.

This bird is my first attempt. I have since made the wording darker because I realized you can't read it. It's in my recycled cook book art journal.

I am going to the Tennessee Stampers retreat in September and decided that I will make a Shoe box project using this technique.  


The bird and the pumpkins are made with scrapbook back ground paper. I finally used some of my scraps that I have been saving. 

The butterfly is Washi Tape.  Some of the shapes are dies and some were hand cut. It's very easy to do. I used sticky back paper to make mine but you could use a tape runner or a glue stick and do the same thing.   

Yummy Color

If you follow my blog you know I've been having an issue with my muse going on vacation without my permission.  One of the things I do when my muse is absent is glue. I don't like to throw away pretty pieces of color so they pile up on the side of my work space. This page is a result of pretty paper and glue.

I started with a gessoed page that I stamped with the the background lines from Stampin' Up's Gorgeous Grunge.  Next I just started taking different piece of paper and gluing them randomly on the page. This page has pieces of napkins, tissue paper, book text, gelli prints and a Stampin' Up image on watercolor paper.  

The grid on the left is a matte medium transfer. The splats are another stamp from the Gorgeous Grunge set and the swirls are a very old Angel Company stamp. The only color I added to the page was the bright yellow which is a kid's quality gel watercolor crayon.  The last touch was to stamp numbers randomly using a Hero Arts stamp.

All the ink I used was Archival Ink.  This was a very easy fun page. I just glued and pasted until I thought it was finished. I love this technique. It is so relaxing and all that color just makes me happy.

Link to Paint Party Friday, The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge, Moo-Mania & More Challenge

Is My Muse Returning?

Left:  My muse my have returned.  I finished my page I post yesterday.  I added some shading around the birds and flowers using my blue Stabilo All pencil. It is water soluble so it makes it easy to pull out the color with a water brush.  My final touch was another Carolyn Dube idea. She often journals with a white pen using a giant flowing style.  I am really happy how it turned out.  I used a white Sharpie Poster Marker. I had to use it last because it is not water proof.  

Right:  I had leftover paint from the left page so I added it and some left over pieces of the gelli print to the page on the right. I cut ovals and triangles freehand and glued them randomly to a pre-gessoed page. I added the blue paint and then stenciled with homemade stencils & gesso on top of all that. I had no plan, I was just playing around. After it sat over night I decided to add the flowers as a focal point.  I like how pieces of the background peak through the petals. It order to make the flowers pop, I painted the blue around the flowers in a style I'd seen on a Dina Wakley video.  The background was a little boring so I added numbers and letters from my Crafter's Workshop Eye Chart stencil.  When all of that was dry, I outlined my flowers with a Signo Broad Black Gel Pen. 

Link to:  Carolyn Dube, MOO-MANIA number challenge, Art Journal Everyday

Summer Slump

Summer Slump.  A slump... isn't that what baseball players say they are in when they aren't hitting well?  I think I remember that from when I was a kid and interested in baseball. I seem to be in a slump.  I went almost two weeks without picking up a paint brush.  This is very unusual for me.  

I am back to what a wrote about in January. I can get fixated on something and let everything else go by the wayside for a while. I love to read. I would often rather read than talk to people. The past two weeks I've read a lot of books. I've read instead of creating, cleaning or cooking.  OK. I'll get real here.... the cooking & cleaning are boring and they go by the wayside all the time.  

I've given some thought to why I do this.... there are several reasons.  I go through spells where I don't sleep well.  Whether I sleep or not, I still have to get up and go to my paying job so by the time I get home I'm tried and want to chill. Where I live it is very hot and humid and just sucks the life out of me. You know you are in the south when it's so humid you can stir the air at 6 am.  Like everyone else there are issues that arise that cause me stress from time to time.

All of the above combined and my muse took a vacation without me. I've told her over and over I want to go to the beach in January when it's not so warm.  Silly girl, I'm not sure where she went but I bet it's cooler than here.

I know the best way to bring her home is to get painty so yesterday afternoon I did just that. I watched Carolyn Dube's latest video and I really liked the grid idea so off I went.  I used a gelly print I had and I tore mine instead of cutting.  I decided to use modeling paste and stencils so I have to let is dry before I decide what to do next. The stencils are by Crafter's Workshop. The giant flower is a rubber coaster I found at the Dollar tree that I use it on my gelli plate. I love it. I got all those great brush strokes by adding a lot of glazing medium to my acrylic paint.  More to come when I finish the page.

Anyone else in a slump? Try some painting practice.  FYI if you have Matte Medium on your finger your smart phone touch screen doesn't work so well.  

Link to:  Carolyn Dube, Paint Party Friday, 

Stencil Play

I worked on a page last week and had paint left over on my pallet. I just can't waste the paint so I stenciled on a blank page in my recycled cookbook journal.

I started with a gessoed background. The green ovals are from a homemade stencil Lori West made for me. The rectangles are from a Delta stencil. This page sat for at least week because I had no clue what to do with it.

I decided I wanted to try out my new Crafter's Workshop stencil so I grabbed some Basic Acrylic Paint. The color is really a bit more pink than the photo shows. I was just playing around. I had no plan at all.  

There is no great meaning. It is plain and simply a page of play.  When I was all finished and it was dry I used a green paint pen and wrote about playing on top of the page.  I like how tiny bits of the writing show here and there.  Have you played in your journal lately?

Link to: Paint Party Friday, Art Journal Everyday, Anything But Cute 

Confession of a Mixed Media Artist

I confess, as a Mixed Media Artist, I tend to see most things in terms of my art. This is especially true when I go to a restaurant that serves food on Deli Paper.  

The moment the food arrived on this wonderful black and white checked paper, the ideas started to flow. I could not leave that place without asking for a piece of that paper. I have asked so many servers for extra deli papers that it's become second nature to me now.

The black and white check reminded me of a 1950s diner.  I found photos of old dress patterns online. If you google Fashions and a year you'll find all kinds of cool images.  I wonder who scans all these images in so we can all view them and use them in our art?  

The numbers were done in MS Publisher and printed on a laser copier.  Then I did a packing tape transfer.  I run my transfer under warm water because I'm too impatient to wait 5 minutes.  It was a Fast and Easy Page.
Link to:  Paint Party Friday, Art Journal Everyday, Mixed Media Monthly Challenge

Really "Seeing" instead of just Looking

I've been playing with watercolors.  This is a Stampin Up image.  I stamped on a sample piece of watercolor paper and used a water brush and a set of Winsor Newton watercolors.  

I could tell you everything wrong with the way I painted these but I won't. I'm just beginning my watercolor journey and I know that if I sent one of these as a card the recipient would see a pretty scene with a boat.  

I've been told that learning to paint is all about practice, practice, practice. I will continue to practice. 

I find water coloring stamped images very relaxing. No stress of trying to draw something. I'm realizing I have to really think about where the sky peeks through the trees and where a shadow might be. I am hoping this new way of "seeing" is a learned skill because it's not instinctive to me yet. 

A friend suggested I look at one part at a time instead of the whole picture. I'll give that a try next time.  What is your most relaxing form of creating?

Link to: Paint party Friday