Helping Out My Artist Child

I had some of my art supplies sent over from the house that I was living in to my new apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then I had to arrange my art supplies with my graduate school gear in an apartment that is not all that big, but big enough.
I love this place, but it was missing something. I also was missing something in my life. After doing the assignment with the hands for one of my graduate school classes, it dawned on me that I was missing a key element in my life. ART! My artist child was neglected for way too long.
Now that I have some of my art supplies, I can create art. Even if the creations are just doodling as I am taking notes in class, at least I am creating and satisfying that drive to create.
My next goal is to arrange my little basement so that I can bring over the rest of my art supplies. Then when I need some bits and pieces to go in or on an art project, I can simply go downstairs and gather what I need.
Now go create!

Too Much Time Between Entries, My Bad!

I am finally getting ready to go camping! However, my favorite campground (see photo) to go to is probably still covered in snow and/or too many people. What I really want to do is to go camping and where I go, as long as it is in the mountains, does not really matter. I will take my trailer, books, writing stuff, art stuff, dogs, bird, a child or two, husband, misc. camping gear and of course food and head to the canyon near my home.

The camping is rustic, but not too far from home, which means my husband can come and go to work and home (he likes to take a daily shower, not much for getting dirty;-) taking care of business. My trailer does have a potty, so camping would not be too rustic;-) The key is, we just want to go camping!

I hope you all are having a wonderful summer with your families and taking time to be creative or relaxing with a good book. If not, take the time to do something for yourself, it fills the creative well.

I will post more often. I know that I have made that promise before, but now that I am not working there is more time. In order for my writing to get better and read by more people, it is key that I write more. My goal is to write more, plain and simple, right? So, hold me to it and I will. Now go create!

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!

Journal Title Pages and That Annoying Critic

On the EDM email list we had a discussion about beginning a new journal and how hard that was. Is it the blank page that scares us or is it our inner critic that is nagging us? I think it is that nagging critic telling us that we are not good enough to fill those beautiful empty pages. It is very difficult to quiet that critic and nearly all artists have one. Some artists are good at keeping that critic quiet and some cannot. At times my critic is yelling at me telling me that I am not good at all and that I should just give it up. I am getting better at letting my Muse help me to shut that critic up.

The first thing I do with a new journal is to create a title page. At times the title pages are very involved and at other times it is just simple writing. Some journals have two or more title pages. One at the beginning and then another in the middle. This happens when I change my mind or add a new direction of the journal. The top two middle layouts above are in one journal. I like doing fancy layouts using different media to create the page.

It is still difficult at times to start a new journal and I know that as soon as I buy my Moleskine (may have spelled that wrong;-) that critic is going to be yelling at me and telling me that I am no good and to leave that pretty new journal alone. I am going to yell back and just start drawing and writing in my Moly! Because by then I will have filled a drawing journal and my Muse will be helping me.