It Has Been Too Long!

What Have I Been Doing? Well, for one thing I have been neglecting my blog. It has been too long between posts, I am truly sorry for that. I promise not to go so long between posts.

Now as to what I have been up to for the last couple of months. All the normal mom/teacher/wife stuff and my new job as bill collector for my doctor, which has taken some time to sort out the files of who owes what. As far as my art goes I joined another class on the Yahoo group Artists of the Round Table. The book we are following this time is Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks by Lynne Perrella. We are on lesson 4 now which is to create ATC cards that are journal prompts. I will be working on them today and/or tomorrow, but for now I will share some of my completed lesson projects. There will be a lot of photos to look at because of the amount of work I have done lately. Just wanted to warn you. I hope you enjoy them.

Lesson 1: We had to create a journal. I made mine out of black poster board and other various materials. The baby journal is a piece of embossed cardstock with various papers in it. It was fun creating these two journals.

Lesson 2: Take one image and do a different treatment eight times. The first image is the one I used and instead of photocopying the image I used my inkjet. One must always remember to use fixative on inkjet images otherwise the ink will run! I learned that lesson on the version that is on silver. I had forgotten to use fixative and when I glued the image down it made the ink turn green. I pulled off the image from the background and used a marker to add more green. Lesson learned! Some of the images I tweaked in Print Shop Pro X instead of straight printing. You know me I am a computer artist as well as all the other types, so I had to change the image a bit.

Lesson 3: We had to search through Perrella's book and find a page layout that we really liked and create our own version of it. I chose the page in which an artist made a journal just for her Haiku and poetry. I began the project by finding an image in a magazine and then writing a Haiku for it. After writing the Haiku I did the page similar to the inspiration piece in the book. Lots of stamping and inking went on. I used a piece of cardboard as the background and that is why it soaked up the ink even though I had painted the board first with a brown glaze. Oh well, it was a lot of fun creating the page. The page fits in the middle part of the journal I made (see above) and a bit of the page sticks out. The next pages I make outside of the journal will need to be on thinner paper, otherwise they will not all fit. I plan on putting some kind of fiber on the upper edge and not in the same place as the Haiku page. I think it will look cool with the many strings and such hanging out the top.

Well, now you know about some of the activities I have been doing the last little while, okay, long while. I will add my ATCs to my blog ASAP. I hope your days are creative, fun and full of joy!

Encaustic Painting

Hi all, I have been playing in my studio again;-) The other night as I was falling asleep I was thinking that it would be fun to do an encaustic painting using Crayola Crayons. I have always wanted to do this type of painting but the materials to do it are just too expensive. Besides, I always have crayons around that I am constantly stepping on or picking up and a bucket of crayons that have lost their own boxes. After five kids there are plenty of lonely crayons to experiment with.

I used a piece of watercolor paper about 9in x 12in, Crayola Crayons (the other cheaper brands did not work as well), and a small iron that was meant to be used in order to iron small parts of clothing such as collars (it looks like a wood burning iron only white and has a clover head on it).

What I learned from my little experiment? Well, as I have mentioned, the cheaper brand of crayons do not melt so well and that it was fun, fun, fun melting crayons. I know next time to put more crayon down before trying to make trees, or use dark paper under the wax and to add more white to the trees. I also learned not to turn the iron up too high because the crayons can smoke and to always save those broken pieces of crayon.

My boys wanted to try so next time I get the material out I will let them have a go at it. After I was done I asked them if they could think of any thing else I could use to make art with (I have asked them this before because I do altered art;-) They went screaming towards their playroom to protect those Legos that always seem to be on the floor and when I step on them they manage to hit on the worst part of the foot, the arch. Ouch!!! Hey, it would be cool to melt a whole bunch of them together to make a sculpture;-) (my oldest said that I could buy my own Mega Blocks and melt them;-)

Well, I am off to work on a portrait and to celebrate my 9 yo son's last day of Year 3!