Category Archives: Journals

My journal pages, mostly artwork of some sort.

Words Art Journal Round Robin and Mixed Media Call for Proposal

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I finished up my introductory pages for my Words Journal Thursday evening and got the journal off to Mary in NY Friday.  She should have it by Tuesday latest.  I received Susan’s journal yesterday in the mail.  I have an idea for my spread using the word “Imagine”.  I have to sketch it out.

Here are the introductory pages I did for my journal.

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I started out with a layer of gesso.  Then I collaged down washi and braille paper.  I went over that with a watered down layer of gesso.  Then I added washed of Quinacrodone Nickel Azo Gold and Quinacrodone Violet fluid acrylics..  I used a round brush to add streaks of quin burnt orange and dioxazine purple and copper.  I covered all of that with strips of wrinkled white tissue paper that I glued down with matt medium.  I painted over that with washes of quin gold and quin voilet again.  Then I dry brushed copper over the top. 

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Last, I wrote with pitt black pen. 

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The text doesn’t show up in the full on shot, nor does the texture, which is pretty heave.  I love how it turned out.  So much so that I am going to use it again on something else.  Who knows what yet!

Here are Susan’s pages:

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This is a beautiful print.

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And this is a wonderful drawing of the lunar cycle with various pictures that are revealed as you rotate the wheel around.

Last, but certainly not least, if you are a mixed media artist who teaches workshops, or would like to teach, I’m looking for proposals for a new event coming in 2014.  If you would like to receive the call for proposal, go to the Art-Xscape website and click on the link to request the proposal!

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Working on my Words Journal

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I managed to get in the studio this evening to start working inside the Words journal.  I had an idea last night and wanted to try it out on the title page.  I wanted the effect of water colors but using my fluid acrylics in Quin Gold and Dioxazine Purple.  I started out with a water wash over the title page, then applied a very watery application of the Quin gold.  I ended up with a very nice yellow wash.  I wanted the purple to drip up into the yellow, so turned the journal around and worked upside down.  I applied more water and then a very drippy wash of the purple, loading up more paint in some spots to get it to really run into the yellow.  I wanted the fractal like spreading that you get when you work with really wet, dilute colors.  After it dried, I went over it with some texture tools (cardboard) and stamps and copper.  While I had the purple and copper paint on my palette, I dry brushed the hinges, first with purple and then with copper.  I will probably go over them a few more times to eliminate the white. 

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In the next pass at the title page, I used Quin Violet to make the spiral and the “Words” title.  I pulled out one of my calligraphy pens and the india ink to make the stem-like lines and then added the words we are using for inspiration.  I messed up a few of them when the nib was loaded with too much ink, so I’ll go back in and fix that later.  The last step of the evening was to gesso the next two pages so they will be ready for me to work in them tomorrow.

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A New Round Robin, Art and Words

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A friend of mine from the doll world invited me to participate in an art journal round robin.  As I have not done one in a while, since I finished “Curiosity” in fact, I said yes!  There are very few rules for this round robin, just that you use the word of the month to inspire your entry, which should be 2 pages.  We each contributed words. Mine was “Flight”.  The words, in the order we are to use them are:  Imagine (February), Believe, (March), Moon (April), Flight (May), Kerfuffle (June), Assemblage (July), Impulsive (August), Fragile (September), Inspiration (October), Peace (November), Enchanting (December), and Trust (December).  The only person in this RR that I know is the organizer.  It will be interesting to venture out on this journey. 

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I have to mail my journal out by February 1st, and being the procrastinator that I am, I started today to work on it.  I knew I wanted to bind my own book, as I do not enjoy store bought journals very much for art work.  I have been thinking about how I would start the book.  Our first entry, in our own journal, is supposed to be an introduction of sorts of ourselves to the rest of the group.  As I find myself oscillating between the worlds of fiber and paper, I thought I could make a cover that merged the two.  I also liked the idea of a soft cover and a structure with a bit of flexibility to it so that people will be able to work in it and not worry about the depth of what they do.  So, I opted to use a piano hinge binding with hand-dyed fibers for the “pins” so as to minimize the weight and the rigidity. 

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For the cover, I decided to use a combination of fabrics and my paper fabric.  I initially thought of weaving the two, but instead found a piece of my paper fabric that is my absolute favorite.  Done in Quin Gold and Dioxazine Purple, it has the right amount of visual interest without being too busy. 

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I cut out a piece of Peltex for the base and dug through my scrap fabrics and started machine quilting various pieces down.  Once I had the inside covered, I added a piece of sparkle net in chartreuse to serve as a pocket.  I added the paper fabric to the front, stitched all the way around the edges and on the spine edge, then zig-zagged the edge to finish it.  I stitched around my hinges on the spine, cut them out, turned them and stitched them down.  I had already torn down my pages and cut the hinges, so I just had to fit everything together.  All together, it took me 3 hours to construct the book.  Tomorrow night I’ll make my introduction page, or get it started at least!  

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I’m really happy with how it turned out.  If I have time, I may do some embroidery on the cover.

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This is the front inside cover with the net pocket.

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And the back with some of my hand-dyed velvet.  These are all pieces of fabric I’ve used on dolls in the last year, and a great way to use up scraps!  Because I quilted the inside down to the peltex before attaching the outside cover, you don’t see any of the quilting lines on the cover.

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Here you can see the hinge structure.  It’s pretty easy to do, but when you are threading in fiber, it gets to be a bit time consuming, even with a bodkin.  I’ll add color to the hinges so they aren’t so white against the paper fabric.

A Lot of Fabric, a Lot of Dye and Little Bits of Clay and Paint

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Spring has visited Central Texas and looks to be on its way out the door already, but I’ve been taking advantage of the wonderful weather to dye a lot of fabric.  I have been busy, working on several projects all at once and have some pictures to post, but not of everything!

I dyed a whole BUNCH of fabric over the last week.  I think I did 25 or 30 yards of velvet and 12 yards of rayon.  The velvet is all posted in my Etsy shop and I’ve got links on my Facebook Fan Page so I won’t post pictures here.

I’ve started on my All Dolls are Art 2012 table favor doll prototype.  I don’t have a picture of it yet, because it’s just clay and wires at this point. I’m venturing into new territory courtesy of my Art Fest class with Michelle Allen and trying out paper clay.  I should have enough progress made later in the week to be able to post pictures!

I’ve also been working on Connie’s fabric book pages, but, alas, don’t have pics of that either yet!  Especially since I got home late from work and spent the rest of my evening posting listings on Etsy.

What I do have are the journal pages I’ve done recently.  It has been a good long while since I worked in my journal.  In fact, I had a drought all last fall, not doing anything in it until Christmas when I had my annual “art play date” with my niece and nephew.  Whenever they are here, I give everyone a break and “babysit” by pulling out my journal and my art supplies.  This year, both kids got water color supplies in their stockings, so we had plenty to go around!

After Christmas, I got sick almost as soon as I got back to work, and ventured into my journal about two weeks in to my 6 week bout with a cold.  This page is the result of my being sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Smile

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Then I went to Art Fest, and took along my journal and supplies, but didn’t even crack a page open while I was gone.  Since I’ve been back, though, I’ve been playing in my journal when I got sick again (sigh), and been travelling for work, and just generally playing when I couldn’t put enough time together to work on my other projects.  Since it’s been so long since I played with acrylics, I’m a bit rusty, but am finding my way again.

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I collaged some images I had laying around and played with paint colors I don’t normally use on this page.

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This one has a gel medium transfer and I used a new stencil!  Love the dots!

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I decided to start out with a black background on this one, and add color to it to see how that worked.  I was listening to Florence and the Machine’s new album, Ceremonials, while working on this.  Love the album, especially love “What the Water Gave Me”. 

long_day

This is free form drawing/painting without collage this time.  I’m not quite finished with this one or the next two.

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This one is almost all collage at this point, with a layer or two of paint on top, plus some stencilling and doodling.  I went back to the color palette I used for Hey Daisy from 2010 (yep, still working in the same journal!).

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This page is the opposite page to the one above.  More collage, outrageous juxtaposition of elements.  Lot of fun to do though!  And here, for reference, is my Hey Daisy page.

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Taking a Break from Modron for a Circus Sideshow

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I am working on the fabric book page for Annie’s book, Bless the Freak, a Circus Sideshow of Freaks, Oddities and Curiosities.  I am doing Electric Girl and the Bottle Imp for my two pages.  I got most of the fusing done on Electric Girl this evening.  Tomorrow, after I conduct my interview with Lisa Renner, I’ll work on fusing the Bottle Imp.  Then, it will be on to trim, beads, and more fun.

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This is Electric Girl.  I have to darken up the drawing of her, because it’s very pale, but that can be easily fixed, now that I have her on her page.  I used fusible web to fuse the foil down, which, while time consuming, was loads of fun!

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Here’s a close up picture that is a bit better.

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And this is the preliminary stuff on the bottle imp.  This is a piece of hand-dyed fabric that I subsequently bleached the rings into from a L-O-N-G time ago.  I am going to use more foil to make bubbles I think and I have to give the Imp a table for his bottle to sit on.  I also have a little glass bottle I’m going to attach.