autumn leaves

Hi friends.  I love autumn.  I think it's my favorite season.  I love the rich, vibrant colors of the fields and trees.  I love the crisp, cool air.  And I love the smell of burning leaves.  We've had a few cooler days and nights.  It was in the upper 40's this morning. 

My card making tends to reflect the current season, so I made some with autumn leaves.  This one was made for the mixability challenge on SCS. 

The background was done with a brick stencil and gesso.  Once the gesso was dry, I sponged turquoise ink over it and then wiped most of the ink off the gesso.  The leaves and acorn are stamped with wonderfall (SU) and cut out.  I added a lot of sponged color to the leaves.  Both colors of burlap are ribbon.

The 2nd card was made for the inspiration challenge on SCS, which was a zentangle site.

 
I used the die that matches the stamps from the first card, but did not use the stamps for this one.  On the die cut leaf, I added vein lines and then just starting doodling.  I used colored pencils and white gel pen to enhance the doodles.  I love how it turned out. 

The background is a rubbernecker stamp. The light green layer was actually a light yellow cardstock, but I thought a green would match better and bring out the green on the leaf.  Since I already had it glued to the black backing, I just sponged it with green to change the color.  All just part of the way I create as I go.  Not too much planning.  Even when I do plan ahead, I usually end up changing things along the way anyway. 

Thank you so much for taking time to stop by for a visit.

word play - F

Hi friends.  Another spread in my word play journal.  I told my daughter that this was my 'F' word, and she just snickered.  But no bad language here.  My word for the letter F is friends.  You can find all the completed pages here. 

I wanted to make something for the weekly challenge on the OWSE facebook page, I decided to to make another spread for this journal.  There were some choices for colors, and I chose green and yellow.  This is really not one of my favorite color combinations, but I guess I need to step out of my box once in awhile.

Although the background of the pages was done previously, I added more color with both paint and ink.  Then I did a bunch of stamping and added some texture with modeling paste and a butterfly stencil (Red Lead).  In a couple of places, the ink underneath bled through the modeling paste, so I went over that with white acrylic paint.  It didn't completely cover, but I thought it wasn't too noticeable, since the background is pretty busy anyway, and I was going to cover up a lot of it with the dolls and the words. 

I used two of my new Prima mixed media dolls by Julie Nutting.  I have a hard time remembering the names.  I first glued a page from an old encyclopedia onto a piece of this card stock and then stamped the dolls on that and cut them out.  I paper pieced the clothes and the hair on one. 

Behind the dolls are die cuts of a French pastry doily die (Cheery Lynn Designs) and a Sizzix scalloped circle. 

The words were printed on my computer and cut out.  The edges on everything are sponged with vintage photo distress ink.  The letter F is done with zentangles or zendoodles, whichever you want to call it.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

word play - E

Hello friends.  Wow!  I can't believe it's been almost a year since I did a spread in my word play journal.  With just 26 letters, I thought I'd have the entire journal completed in a year.  Grand intentions, I guess.  Click here to see the previous pages.  Since I made the base pages all at once, I don't even remember how I did that.  I'm pretty sure they are watercolor paper with old book pages, stencils and paint. 

This spread was put together over several days.  I wanted some texture, so I used light spackling compound with a circle template and palette knife, and then I just spread some on without a stencil. 

I used several stencils (crafter's workshop & red lead), acrylic paint, ink, and water soluble wax pastels.  I used a sponge to pounce either the paint or ink through my stencils.  I also used a black sharpie to outline some of the stenciled images. 

The letter 'E' is hand drawn and zentangled.  The title and verse are computer generated.  

As part of the mix-ability challenge on SCS, I added some paint splatters.  The Bible verse makes this eligible for the Divine Design Bible Verse Challenge 2013. 

Thank you so much for stopping by for a visit. 

word play - D

Good morning, my friends.  Well, I'm moving along slowly with this alpha journal.  I made this spread for an art journal challenge at OWSE Yahoo Group.  The challenge was to use swirls and circles.  I love things that are round.  I have a bunch of different types of decorative spheres.  But using circles on my spread was not all that simple.  There are quite a few layers of paint on this - the need to cover over and redo.  I'm not entirely thrilled with this one, but I think that's OK, because it's all part of the journey.

As with all the pages in this journal, there are partial pages from an old book somewhere in there down underneath all the paint.  I used paint on stencils.  The scalloped circles were a kind of mustard color, which I really didn't like, so I sponged over them with purely pomegranate ink.  I like the color combination, but the whole thing is a little wild for me.

The letter 'D' is zentangle/doodling.  The words are computer generated.

The butterflies were stamped on a tag which I had used to wipe up some extra ink from my craft sheet.

I used a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die for the flourishes and the doily is a die from Cheery Lynn Designs.

To see more pages from this journal, click the word play tag.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Now I need to run.  I have a class in an hour & need to get myself ready.  Have a great day.

word play - C

Hello my friends.  It's another new month already.  Today I worked on another art journal spread for my word play journal.  I chose words that describe me -- at least some of the time.  I probably could have added crazy and confused, but I wanted them to be positive. 

There are pieces of some old book pages underneath the paint and I used ink on the stencils.  When I first purchased my stencils, I really didn't know what I would use them for or what I needed, so I find myself wishing that I had gotten more of the basic shape ones or those that make good background fills.  I'm certainly going to have to get some more. 

The letter C is made with zentangles and doodles and then sponged over with turquoise ink.  I also highlighted parts with white gel pen. 

The words were printed on the computer, sponged with turquoise ink and edged with a black marker. 

I like the added color from scraps of patterned paper. 

If you want to see the other pages that are completed so far, click on the word play tag and that should bring them all up. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a great week. 

born to be beautiful

Hello, my friends.  I felt like being creative tonight, so I worked on another art journal spread for my Word Play book.  You can probably guess from the title that the letter I did is 'B'.  I decided to go with butterflies.  That's a good 'b' word - don't you think?

These are watercolor paper, coated with gesso.  Layers include old book pages, stencils with acrylic paint, pattern paper, sponged acrylic paint, stamping, and doodling.  After the pattern paper was glued down, I sponged more white paint to blend it better.

The large letter B is hand drawn and doodled, cut out, sponged with blue ink and then some white gel pen highlights were added.

The blue butterflies are colored with copic markers and then lightly sponged with white acrylic paint, which gave then an almost foggy look.  The smaller butterflies are painted with twinkling H2O's.

I stamped all the flowers with black archival ink and then used markers to add some color.  The sentiment is printed on my computer.

I'm really enjoying creating art journal pages.  They are so different than card making, even though there are some similarities.  I think one of the things I like about this is that there are really no rules.  And if there is something I really don't like, I can just add more layers of paint or paper, or cover it over with gesso.  Lots of room for experimentation and trying new things.

Thank you so much for stopping by.  Have a wonderful weekend.

assume an attitude

Good morning, friends.  Happy Saturday.  Beautiful and sunny today, but very windy.  It'll be fun driving to my lace guild this afternoon.

A while back, I posted this page, which is the beginning of an alphabetical art journal.  Yesterday, I worked on a spread for the letter 'A'.  Each letter is hand drawn and doodled by me and then cut out.  This one, I added a bit of vintage photo distress ink to.  I'm not sure exactly what each page will be, whether I'll just use words with that letter, or a quote, or saying.  This one I made a sentiment using mostly 'A' words.

The backgrounds all started the same way: gesso, part(s) of an old book page, paints, stencils.  From there, I guess it will just be what I'm in the mood for, or if I'm working on a specific challenge; whatever...

I pulled out a bunch of scraps of pattern paper and added bits and pieces.  I also punched out some flowers.  And, of course, I added a butterfly (SU).

Thanks for stopping in.  Have a great weekend.

something to work toward

Happy Sunday, my friends.  Do you make new year resolutions?  I know that we're already a week into the new year and half the people who make them are probably already missing their goals.  I never make new year resolutions.  I guess their too intimidating and since I tend to be a live-in-the-moment type of person, I think making resolutions is just setting myself up for failure. 

With all that being said, I decided to set some goals to work toward.  I'm not resolving that I will do them; maybe I'll accomplish them and maybe I won't, but I do think they are some things I can try to do. 

One of them is to start an art journal.  Will I work on it everyday?  Not likely.  But I think it's something that will push me to try some different things with my art.  So I made a page.  It's taken me all week to get from start to finish.

I started with a piece of watercolor paper and glued on some scraps of newspaper and designer paper and then proceeded to cover it all with gesso.  I just played around adding paint, stamping, doodling and added some images and die cuts that were just sitting in my stash waiting for a home.  I used sharpies and gesso to color the quilt.

A couple things I learned.  I'm still terrible with a paintbrush in my hand (but brushstokes leave a lot of texture) and gel medium smears ink (at least water based ink anyway).  I may have to use pigment inks from now on. 

As far as those goals go?  I just worked on two of them.  I started an art journal and I tried something new.  Finishing a quilt should be attainable.  Organizing my studio?  Who knows.  I haven't been very successful in that.  But I think it's a good goal to work toward.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Zentangle

Hi everyone. Happy Friday! I hope you've all had a great week.

Even though I was teaching a couple of classes yesterday, I managed to work in some play time for the ways to use it challenge on SCS. I didn't finish the card until this morning, but I had the background all finished last night. The challenge was to do zentangle, which is basically doodling in black ink on white cardstock. You divide off areas and then fill in with doodles. I'd never done it before, but it was rather fun.

I decided to pair mine with this girl stamp from Stampington & Co. I thought the similarity was a perfect match. I printed the sentiment on my computer. I used oval nestabilities (Spellbinders) and oval punches. I wanted just a little splash of red for an accent, so I gathered a piece of organdy ribbon with a needle and thread and attached it behind the ovals. Then I added the red rhinestone jewels and colored her lips & eyes with prismacolor pencils. Both sets of ovals are popped up on dimensional tape.

Thank you so much for visiting today. Have a great weekend.