Playing in My Studio

Wow! My summer vacation is almost over. We fabulous teachers report back to school on August 6th. It will be two weeks before the kiddos come back. There is much to be done and learned before that happens. I am excited and looking forward to another group of wonderful second graders. Yay!

I have had an interesting and most productive vacation. First, I managed to take and pass the Praxis II test which allowed me to apply and receive my Level 2 teaching license. Thank goodness that is over.

Second, I started exercising again. I see a tiny bit of improvement. What I figure is if I do the exercises every day then sooner or later something will happen. That is it on that.

Another bit I did was go on some mini vacations. One to a resort town and the other camping. Both were fun.

Finally, maybe not finally because there were other activities that I did, but I just want to get to the art. I started a fun project using 3x5 index cards. The plan is to draw, paint, collage, etc., on one card daily. At first, it was difficult for me to figure out what to create on them. Those beginning cards are not so great, but hey they do show my progress. I have used a lot of my pens and paints so far on these little cards. Yes, the paper is horrible for some techniques, but still exciting to see what happens. I also write what material was used in the creating of the art piece on the back of the card. That way when I come back to them and wonder what was used to create it the information will be on the back of the card. The project was started on June 18th and as of today, there are 44 cards. Some of the cards I have used in my art journal that was also started this summer. That journal is fun and unique, but that is for another post. Probably when I get more done in it.

Another art project I did was to create in an art journal that I have had for a couple years now. It is a journal that I play in, so it does not matter if there are mistakes. There is no such thing as a mistake if you learn from it and yes, I learned from the mess-ups.

To help jump-start my art heart I watched some artists on YouTube. One such artist is James Burke. He creates wonderful non-realistic drawings of women (mostly). One of his videos shows what he does when he gets new art materials such as paint and markers. He makes swatch dolls or buildings. I loved the idea and because my studio contains so many markers, paints and various types of pens, I decided to create swatch dolls and buildings. Wow! What fun it has been and very freeing. I have discovered fun pens that have been hiding in my stash. Creating these swatches has helped me so much. I can feel the artist child in me screaming with a joyful noise.

The ladies in the picture above were created one day just for fun similar to Mr. Burke. I added my own twist. They are done with artist markers and other pens in the above-mentioned art journal. The journal is filling up with some fun and very colorful drawings. Yay!

Okay, these are just some of the activities I have done during my vacation. It is so nice having a studio again. I have missed it and my artist child is extremely happy.

Be well, Be happy, my friends.

January 2010 Art Journal Project

I have ventured into yet another project. Milliande of Milliande Art Community for Women has started an art journal project in which we, those that wish to join in on the fun, will do a daily entry (with prompts) into our art journal for January. It is to start the year off with art. You can read more about it here and watch Milliande's fun videos of her doing her pages. It has been a challenge, but a exciting one to say the least. I am a day or two behind but that is okay, because there are to be no worries in this project. Anyway, here are photos of the pages I have done so far.

First and Second day: I made the Journal, which is a Teesha Moore 16 page journal  made out of a 22"x30" piece of watercolor paper. It is a fun and easy way to make a journal. After I got the journal together I pre-painted all the pages using  artist's acrylics in blue, red, green and some black to make the pages different shades of purple. Once the paint was dry I created the cover. There is a whole bunch of stuff going on in this layout, stamps, ink, embossing powder, collage, stickers....and so on.

Third day:  We were to add a large circle to our layout. I took photos with my cell phone camera while I was outside having coffee and reading. The photo on this page is of the sun and printed with my new Polaroid Pogo printer. I added a bit of white on the first few days work over the dark purple. The star is cut from a Christmas card and has glitter on it but the scanner does not pick up that very well.

Fourth day: This is a layout using a Pogo print of my cup of coffee. The challenge for that day was to add a checkerboard pattern to the layout. I cut a square from a styrofoam meat tray and then used silver metallic paint on the stamp. The stamp was used around the edges of the fourth, fifth and sixth day pages as well.

Fifth day: The assignment was to add a piece of old calendar or journal page. I just made a new journal page and wrote a bit about my day then I did some collage work on the page. 
Sixth day: Draw a tree was the task of the day. I drew three winter trees using pastel pencils. It took me a couple of days to finish this page because I wanted to find a quote from Thoreau's Walden. I just knew there would be a good quote in one of his chapters based in the winter. Here is the kicker. I did not just want to read the chapters, I wanted to read them while I sat outside. I live in Utah, Northern Utah where the high for those days that I sat outside was only 29 degrees. On one of the days there was a slight breeze, very slight but enough to make that 29 degrees feel a lot colder and because we live on the bench of a mountain there is still snow in our yard. At least the sun was not blocked by clouds like it usually is. Despite the cold though, I did manage to find my quote: Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. I wrote the quote on a piece of plastic, added a bit of gold beads and then used my heating tool to shrink the plastic a little. The page also has some vanilla inked 'snowflakes' with clear embossing done on them. The snowflake stamp was made out of a cork from a wine bottle (thank you, Gretchen;-).

Seventh day: Add a smile to your page. Well, I added three cute little smiles to my page. The photos are of my youngest son and my two grandsons and their funny little smiles;-)

Eighth day: Journal about our word or phrase for the year. I want to be creative every day, not just in art but in my writing as well. Thus far I have been doing very well at creating art and writing daily. Of course, it is only day twelve of the new year, but they say it only takes a few weeks to create a habit. If I continue at this rate my Create Daily creed will be a habit. Not just an "Ah, do I have to do it again!?" type habit, but a habit that I enjoy and I do enjoy it.

Well, that is all the days I have scanned into the computer. There will be more soon, I promise! For now, I wish that you all have a word or a phrase that will carry you through this year and perhaps beyond and that it is a joy.

Now go create something!

My "The Decorated Page" Workshop Lesson 6 (final lesson;-<)

Well, I think that I am done with the workshop I have been involved in. It has been fun coming up with page elements to fit certain applications and layouts. The hardest application for me was 'changing forms'. It just took a bit of thinking to come up with some design that fit both the theme of my art journal and the application. The final page is a story about me getting my driver's license. A road with trees and then writing. I used my brayer to make the road and dauber ink stamps for the trees. Getting the yellow for the divider line on the road was difficult because it did not show up well. I ended up using a glitter pen. The irony of the story is that I loved driving and up until four years ago I drove everywhere we went. Now I am driven around because of my illness, which by the way is getting much better. Soon, I hope, I will be able to drive more and more. I miss getting up and going when ever I wanted to. In due time I will be off again.

The next layout and application was Borders and Storytelling. It is the story of my birth as well as that of my twin brother. I did an earlier page of me as a baby, which is just on the other side of my twin's page. I do not have a baby photo of him, only his high school graduation photo. Which shocked me when I found it because my 23 year old son looks just like my brother. It is very amazing how much my two older boys look like my brothers. My 15 year old son looks like my little brother. Scary! but good;-)

The final page is a map of the places I have lived up until now (and for a good while). I really do not like to move, but I do like seeing and living in new places. This is why I wish to travel in a motor home around the the USA and work as an on the road artist, writer and such. I need to get healthy first and that means it will be a couple of years before this can happen. I can dream though and work on getting better. Practice my art and writing and enjoy being where I am, the here and now.


I will miss working on these workshops but will continue with my art journal autobiography. There is many more pages to fill in this journal and probably many more journals to fill. I will post my pages as I get them done. Now go create!!! ;-)

My "The Decorated Page" Workshop Lesson 5

I have done three more layouts for my Decorated Page workshop for the Yahoo group-Artists of the Round Table. This workshop has been a blast and using the theme of an autobiography has made making the pages sentimental. As I go along not all the memories of my childhood are good, some are even scary to remember, but I have to do it. This is a book that I want my children and their children and so forth to enjoy, even if they know of the horrible things that have happened to me. AT this point I am not sure I will make pages for those memories. I might just write about them and I may or may not leave them in the open. One of the exercises of this workshop was to insert an envelope as a page, so I may put the stories in there and leave it up to the reader to decide as to whether or not he/she wants to read them.

The layout of the two little motorcycles are done using the Diagonal and Springboard layout. The point of the springboard is to put objects that will remind you of a story. On the blank pages after this layout I will write the story of me and these two motorcycles. I loved these bikes a lot and they are the part of my childhood that bring me great joy.

The bookshelf page is done using the Columns and Information Gathering layout. I used a gold pen but the scanner cannot translate it. The writing is some of the authors I have read. The photos of the books are the ones I enjoy reading over and over except for Jasper Fforde. I have only read his books once through, but I enjoy reading the books in his series. I love to read, among other things and this love has thankfully passed onto my children (hubby loves to read also). I was privileged to teach two of them how to read (wish I had started teaching my children at home when the oldest was starting school) and that is one of my favorite accomplishments.

The final page here is actually the next to the last page in my book. I am saving the last page for my 50th birthday, which is next May. The page layout is using Organic Shapes and Decision Making. Once again the scanner did not pick up much of the shiny pink flowers. The paper I used was a 12x12 scrapbook piece that I thought was very pretty. I did antique it a bit in order to fit the theme of the page. I love antiquing paper because bright whites bother me. My fingers are still burgundy from the inking I did on the background. I should have scanned my fingers, they were a big mess. Hey, they looked like artist's hand;-)

I only have three more layouts to do (I think) for this workshop, but many more pages planned for this art journal. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Have a happy and creative day!

The Weekly Challenge - Stamps

The Weekly Challenge - Stamps is for another artist's Yahoo Group I am on called: Blissfully_Art_Journaling. There are several challenges given often and this one sounded fun.

We were to do an entire page using only rubber stamps and ink. I also used embossing powder in gold, which may not show up on the scan I did. I also used my children's alphabet stamps to stamp out the quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. I could not use his full name because of two reasons; one not enough room and two there was one letter missing from the alphabet stamps and that was the letter D. A bunch of other stamps were used and several different inks.

Not perfect, but a good challenge to do. Limiting the materials or tools is a good way to get the brain thinking of different ways to use them. Sometimes when we have too many tools or too much material to use we get lost and cannot focus on what it is we want our page to say. Perhaps I will do this again and see what comes out of it.

Have a fun and creative day!

My Work for the Week & EDM 216

I found another wonderful group of artists on the internet. It is a community of women artists run by the artist Milliande: http://milliande.ning.com/ (Sorry fellows it is just for women, do check the web for a guy artist only site) There are many talented women on this site and a lot of art to look at. On the site I found out that there are sub-groups to join, such as photography, groups from certain countries, and so forth. I joined the Milliande's Artist Dates. Each week she posts a challenge or activity to do and then post to the website. Others can then comment on your work if they wish.
I decided to do week one and four. Week one was to create a work that included a postage stamp and week four was a piece using the colors yellow and blue.
Wow! Once I got started I could not stop, because instead of drawing my EDM#216, "draw your inner critic" I created a collage of me overpowering that critic. My yellow and blue collage is one devoted to affirming my artist /person. In some ways the two collages are a set, even though I created the EDM piece after the yellow and blue collage.
I have them both up in my living room where I do most of my drawing so that I can be reminded of my artist self.

I AM AN ARTIST!!! I CAN HEAR MY MUSE!!! I AM DEAF to my inner critic.........

Journal Pages & EDM 215

Spring came for a few days but now has left for who knows how long. One week we have warm sun and then the next we have cold and more snow. I am ready for spring to come and stay for awhile. In Utah the weather can change quickly. One of the sayings we have is "wait 5 min's. and the weather will change!" I have gone camping at the end of June and be caught in a snow storm and needing coats and the heater turned on. Okay, it was at an elevation of over 9000 ft. but still it is a crazy thing to be in a snow storm in summer.

This is my EDM 215 drawing, 'Draw your thumb'. It is actually my first drawing of my hand not sure what is wrong with the picture other than my wrist is too fat for the size of my hand. All in all I had fun drawing it. (I do have Reubenesque hands and body;-) more to love I suppose)

First ATC or ACEO

This is my first ATC or ACEO project. It was made on bristol paper with a combination of inks, stamps, scrap paper and ribbon. The poem is a left over from a altered book of Emily Dickenson's poetry that I made for my daughter (you can see that book on my Flickr page.) The amount of time it took to make the ATC card was about 15 mins. I had to clear my art desk first and then cut the cards from the sheet of bristol paper. It was fun working on a small piece of paper and not having any expectations about it. I did not even hear my inner critic wake up. My Muse got there first and we had a fun time creating together.

It will be exciting to see what else I can do with these little canvases. I did a Google search of this art form and found some amazing pieces of art. It is crazy how much detail can be put on a 2.5 x 3.5 surface. You all that have yet to try making an ATC/ACEO should cut some paper up and have a go at it.

Fun! Fun! Fun!