Love This Book and the Things it Taught Me!

I finished reading Danny Gregory's book, "An Illustrated Life" yesterday and I enjoyed every page. The big bit of wisdom I got from his book is that no matter your journal style you should just focus on working in your journal/sketchbook. Many of the artists in his book have been working in their sketchbooks for many years, while others have just started. Another bit of information I gained is that these sketchbooks to most of the artists are treasures and that they would run through fire to protect them.

I loved seeing the art from these featured artist. Some made me laugh and others brought tears to my eyes. Danny's book is one of those art books that belongs on your bookshelf with all the other art books. Not to just sit there and collect dust but to be taken down read and to be inspired by the treasures inside. If you must check it out at your local library do so often. It is worth the effort.

I begun this sketch the day I got Danny's book and finished it the same day I finished reading his book. What caused the subject of this page is this. When I first receive books I will skim the pages look at the contents, the index, Artist bio and then the catalog information. I like knowing when an author is born. Most modern books have done away with listing the birth year of the author but Danny's book does. In the shipment of books I had also received another art book and finished doing all my scanning of that book and then started on Danny's. Both books listed the birth year of the author, the other book the author was born in 1943, and Danny's says that he was born in 1960. I was shocked to see that he was born the same year I was. Then it sunk in, "he was born in the same year as I was, but he has books published and is successful!" and I thought, "what have I done?" "What do I have to show for my 49 years?" That is when I got the idea to make a page, in the fashion of a mind map to see if I had actually done anything important in my years.
Guess what? I have done extraordinary things in my wonderful 49 years and this journal page shows nearly all that I have done. Not all because the page is only so big, but most of the major activities and accomplishments. I have done cool things and I plan on doing more cool things. Thank you, Danny for a wonderful book and the inspiration I got from it, oh, and Happy Birthday!

Kabob Spine Handmade Book

I have finally finished a project that was started a month ago. I made a book out of a heavy drawing cardstock type paper and Kabob skewers. Not quite sure what the name of this spine is but it was a dickens trying to get it to work. Of course it would have been easier if I had found instructions on the internet for it instead of going on memory. What is the fun in reading instructions;-)
After I finally got it together I painted and added pattern paper and ephemera. Once that was done I used this little book as my writing journal for nine days off and on.

Front cover

First page spread

Second page: There is a quote under the film.

Third page: I started writing around the edge.

Fourth page: My bird, Chickie chewed on my book, bottom of right side. Silly bird!

Fifth page: Made transfers with packing tape.

Sixth page: Made stamps out of wine bottle corks.

Seventh page: Kids thought Mom was silly for gluing chocolate wrappers in book. Hey! What ever is not nailed down I might use it in an art project;-)

Eighth page

Ninth page: I got a new purple Sharpie pen to write with.

Back cover

Well that is all of the pages that this fun little book contains. I hope to do another one in the future, perhaps I will read the instructions, or not!

Celebration! Happy 1st Birthday!

My blog is 1 year old today and I have finished my website, so I want to celebrate by giving away a gift. Please enter a comment in order to have your name put into a hat. I will have my son draw a name this Saturday, May 16. The winner will receive a 5x7 matted photo chosen from the photography section on my website. The winner will pick the photo. Good Luck to you all!

I cannot believe it has been a year already. My blog got off to a slow start, but after I joined a fantastic group of artists (Everyday Matters Yahoo group) my blog began to take on a shape that I am proud of. I have been working more at my art and that makes me happy.

I have not drawn much lately but I have been working on taking more photos. Another activity I have been working hard at is getting my website built and uploaded. It is finally done and online! I will tweak it and add more art work to it, but for now it is done. You can see it at:

http://www.thephilosopherartist.com/

Now I am off to work on more portraits, photography and writing. Oh, and I am back to schooling my boys. My 9 yo ds has just started year 4 and so that takes a bit of time, but well worth it.

Do not forget to leave a comment so you can be entered in the drawing.

Working on the Computer

I have been playing around on the computer all week. Scanning in photos of my daughter that I took of her a few years ago. She loves to wear vintage clothes and posing for the camera. After scanning the negatives I had to do some touch ups. It is hard to have a clean environment when one has animals and kids in the house. No matter how hard I tried there was always dust spots on the photos. However, we live in a time where photo programs have a cloning tool. I love the cloning tool. All the photos turned out pretty great and what matters is that my daughter is happy with them.

My other computer project was to create more kaleidoscope pictures with my tulip photos. These are the photos that were taken last year because the tulips in our yard have just budded out and will be blooming soon. I will be out there taking their little photos. Not sure if I will do anymore kaleidoscopes because I created over thirteen this week. They did turn out really well and were quite fun to do. Many of them contained hearts which was strange or perhaps part of the kaleidoscope effect. I uploaded them to Walmart Photo 1hr and then pasted them in my journal.

My journal has gone through another phase. It now contains more than just drawing. To be honest I am secretly trying to fill it up so that I can say that I filled an art journal and then it will be okay for me to order a new fancy Moleskine or a Hand*Book journal. Anyway, I pasted the photos of my kaleidoscopes and copies of work I have done outside of the journal. After pasting it all in then I go back and explain what is going on in the photos plus my feelings about them. During the week when I journal I will write in the leftover areas of the page. I will have to scan a page or two so that you can see what I am talking about.

I made this page for an Artist Date challenge on Milliande's ning page. The page was also made it as a 'Photo of the Day', which was a nice surprise.

That is pretty much what I have been doing lately instead of drawing in my journal I am working/playing on the computer.

Tulip Kaleidoscope Project

I have started a new Spring project using my photos of tulips and the kaleidoscope effect in Corel Paint Shop Pro X. The project began with the sub-group Artist Dates April challenges of Milliande's Creative Community for Women Artist*. The first two weeks we were given the challenge of creating a piece of art with the theme of flower/s. The white kaleidoscope is from a tulip photo I took last year and the red piece is from a photo of the bouquet of tulips my husband gave me for Easter. I had to use these photos because my tulips that are planted in my yard are not blooming yet (you can see their beginnings on my nature blog: http://thephilosopherartistsnaturejournal.blogspot.com/ )

I am looking forward to taking many more photos of the various colored tulips that grow in my yard. It has been a long time since I have seen them that I cannot remember all the colors they are. It is snowing today and it is a good thing the tulips are not up yet. I do love it when the tulips do bloom early and then we get snow which looks interesting up against the colors of tulips and other flowers.

After I take more photos I want to continue turning them into kaleidoscopes. The way the colors and patterns turn out intrigues me and it is a lot of fun manipulating the photos.

(*My white kaleidoscope was picked as a Featured Artwork on Milliande's site ;-) this sure helps keep that inner critic away)

Portrait Project Continued

Okay, I reworked Auggie's portrait and while it is better than the first try, I am not satisfied with it (see below) . I went ahead and started a portrait of his big brother, Gabe. This final of Gabe is much better than the final of Auggie. I still have much to learn about doing eyes. The problem I have with these two portraits is that I did them using a pastel pencil on the rough side of the paper. That gave the drawings a strange texture up close but far away they are okay. The next portrait that I do will be on the smooth side and that may help with the eyes a bit. My goal is to really get my abilities of drawing portraits down so that I can do them for others and charge a fee. I know that I have much to learn, but having that goal helps me to continue on.
My little grandson, Auggie saw his portrait and said, "Hi, baby!" Now that is a critic I can live with;-)

(Final Auggie)

(First Auggie)

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!