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, 

I Love Cotton!

I grew up in the south. I remember seeing fields of cotton growing when we left the city for vacation. I still see cotton fields from time to time when I visit my home town.  A cotton field is beautiful. It looks like a field of snow in the middle of the summer. This page is done for the Journal 52 Fashion Challenge. I didn't want to do clothing... instead I wanted to do fabric.  Cotton is my favorite fabric. 95% of my clothes are made of cotton. I love the soft, smooth feel of cotton. It is not scratchy against my skin. I own a ton of cotton knit items... T Shirts, capri pants, sweats and of course cotton jammies of all kinds.  What could be better than a comfortable pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt on a cold day?  I could go on and on but I think you get the point... I love cotton.

This page is done in my recycled WordPerfect manual. The background is painted with green craft paint and then I journaled in huge scribbly writing with a green/red crayola colored pencil. (I called this type of writing my Carolyn Dube Scribble writing.)  I went through my dust cloths to find a pieces of plaid flannel and denim. I glued the fabric to discarded pieces of card stock to give them a little stiffness. I used a Sizzix die to cut the flowers. I found green brads in my stash for the centers of the flowers.  

Next I used one of the pieces left from cutting the flowers as a stencil and stenciled matching flowers in blue on the background of my page. The word Cotton was cut from a 1.5 inch set of dies from Sizzix compliments of my neighbor who bought that alphabet last winter.  The letters are cut from chip board and painted with watered down red craft paint. I used a small piece of a credit card to make the designs on the letters as well as the marks on the background. The letters are glued down with heavy duty double stick tape.

Link: Journal 52, Carolyn Dube, Artist Play Room

You Never Know When You Touch Someone's Life and Heart

I'm a little blue today.  You see, today should have been my 37 wedding anniversary.  I was pretty shocked and frightened when my marriage ended 6 years ago.  I had no clue if I could take care of myself emotionally, spiritually or financially.  So what did I do?  I took it one day at a time.  I cried, I cussed and I mourned what I thought I had and what I thought would be my golden years.  Guess what?  I survived.  Those first few years thats about all I did... survive.  

And now six years later?  I'm flourishing.  I checked my email before I sat down to write my blog today. That brings me to the title of this post.  My inbox was filled with comments from you.  You have made my day.  You have reminded me that I'm not alone and that the gremlins in my head just need to hush.  Today, those voices in my head were pretty darn negative.  They were telling me all the things that were wrong with me and for a moment I forgot that it's ok that I'm not perfect.  

You helped me remember that I'm a combination of good traits and ones I would like to work on... neither of those sets of traits totally define me.  I am not all bad nor am I all good.  I'm a mixture and who I am today is just fine.  

I appreciate all of you who take the time to comment on my blog.  It means more than I can ever say.  You touch my heart.

This is my Book of Days piece.  The theme was napkins and layers.   

The Process: 
I started with a layer of gesso, then I added napkins with text and sunflowers. Next I added a white layer of thin tissue (the napkin backing).  I was not loving it, so I sprayed yellow paint on my page.  At this point, the gremlins in my head were saying... it's ugly.   

Next I put crushed egg shells in spots around the page.  They were way too white so I added some sunshine orange paint.  This seemed like a good idea but it did nothing for the page. Now the gremlins were screaming..... give up... walk away.

Thank you Carolyn Dube.... I could hear your voice telling me to ignore the gremlins.  I picked up a piece of deli paper that had yellow, orange, green and a some wonderful blue on it.  I could hear Effy... saying just keep adding layers.  So, I tore it into pieces and glued it on top of my other layers.  I glued it very haphazardly.  I just put the colors in different spots on the page.

At this point, it had so much gel medium on it, that I thought it would never dry.  I love my heat tool.  After I dried it a bit, I looked at the page and there was a sailboat.  I didn't intentionally put a sailboat on the page... I just glue the blue on that part of the page.  Then it hit me, I must have used that deli paper when I was painted a sailboat for another page.  I don't even remember doing it but there, bigger than life, was an outline of 3/4 of a sail boat.

That boat listing to one side reminded me of how I felt.  I was listing today.  I was in a rough patch.  I could capsize or not... it was my choice.  So I made a sail for my unexpected boat out of yet another napkin that was sitting on my desk.  I outlined it with my blue Stabilio pencil and added the words Rough Seas with a Sharpie Paint pen.  I added a bit of Stabilio around the edges of the page and it was complete.  

I liked the page now but I was still feeling a down...and that was when checked my email. A special thank you to Sandy and Twinkletoes.  You two lifted my heart, today, when I really needed it.  This page is dedicate to the two of you.

Link to: Artist Play Room, Carolyn Dube, Book of Days

Like An Idea? Try It Now!

This page was inspired by Carolyn Dube's Page A Bouquet from Black Paper.  This is the second blog that was doing color over black so I decided to try it.  

Here's what I learned.. 
~Leave some white space in the black. It will make the background more interesting.
~Make sure your stamp is really covered with white paint before you stamp.
~I love my Twinking H20 paints.
~A good fine liner brush is a worth the investment
~If you like an idea... Try it now before you forget what it was.

The Process
I  painted black on a journal page and then stamped the flowers (Donna Downey/Unity stamp) with white Gesso and then painted them with Twinks. The bird is punched with a Stampin Up punch &  painted with Radiant Rain. The swirl background was a gift from Lori and is made by Stampendous.  The lined background is a stamp I bought at Stamping on the Plateau. I don't know who makes it.  I added a little bling to go with the shimmery paint.

Stars and Stripes Gelli Print

The Gelli Arts  facebook Page is having a Stars and Stripes contest.  I decided to enter my door decoration.  I use two sizes of stars cut from cardboard and glued my Gelli prints to them. They are hanging on glitter mesh ribbon I bought after Christmas one year.  In person, it gives the hanging a nice sparkle

Everything I used for this project was recycled or had been in my stash for at least 5 years.  The tiny blue stars were cut from some garland I'd had forever.  

Link to: Gelli Arts facebook page, The July Gelli Party, Artist Playroom

Gelli Plate Cures the Blues

It finally feels like spring today and I wasn't noticing it.  My mom died two years ago today and even though I'm glad she's not suffering with cancer anymore, I still miss her.  To make matters worse, my young co-worker left for his new job today.  He was my partner is silliness. I was sad to see him leave. I will miss his ready smile and the mischievous look he would have right before he did something sure to have me laughing.  Brentwood Youth are very lucky  to be getting him for their Youth Ministry.

Both of those things were bringing me down today.  I considered going home and taking a nap but when I arrived home... the Gelli Plate was calling to me.  By the time I finished pulling prints, both my hands were paint stained and I was feeling much better.  I pulled many cool prints but these two are great.  When I saw the top one I sighed.  I love the cross hatches with the Tim Holtz Umbrella Man.  

The bottom print is my favorite.  I love how you can see all the ghosts of other prints in the background.  It pulled up several colors and I love the variants in the colors of this one.  I threw umbrella man, the saw blade and the butterflies on the Gelli plate as an after thought.  I thought a whole page of orange would be boring.  I love this print.  It looks like umbrella man is dancing with the sun.   

I don't think you'll find it in any of the Gelli Plate literature, but today, the Gelli Plate and Umbrella Man helped cured the blues for me.  How could I not smile when I see Umbrella Man dancing with the sun.  

I enjoyed my Gelli Plate time so much that I even did my grocery store run when I was finished.  When I went out, I noticed the warmer air, the blue sky and bright sunshine.  A little art sure improved my day.

Linked to Carolyn Dube March Gelli Print Party, Gelli Arts Facebook Page , Creative Everyday