Art Journal – On a Day Like This…
We spent the morning going to some garage sales in our area. We found an old tea pot, chest and old picture frames to name a few items. We will put those in the flea market. We also picked up two different sizes of Revere Ware skillets. If our granddaughter doesn’t want them for her new apartment…those will also be going into the flea market booth.
This afternoon, I finished this page. I showed it to my DH and he said he liked it and that was a departure from my usual art. It started with a wash…the two figures in the background appeared in the drips and runs of the paint. Then I used my pen and did some doodles, I didn’t like that so I painted over all that. You can see some of it peeking through the paint in some areas. I used my water soluble crayons and more ink. I finished by gluing on the woman in the foreground…she was some more doodle art I had done a few weeks ago. On a day like this…it just is.
Art Journal – Rendezvous
This page is in my multi-media journal that I started at the end of May. I really liked working on this page which started with a wash of red and blue. I decided to draw a face and see what happened. I used Ultramarine blue acrylics on her head covering along with some purple. I also used Caran d’Ache water soluble crayons and watercolor pencils. I kept blending everything together. The flowers were cut from magazines. I couldn’t get the paints to smooth out on her cheeks because collage papers on the back were causing bumps and ripples.
I want to also mention that Alberta over at Amusing Muses gifted me with an award. You are supposed to tell seven random things about yourself . I think I will pass on that… but go here: http://amusingmuses2.blogspot.com/ to read about it. She is a talented writer and artist.
New Project
I finished my second cardboard journal yesterday. When I use the term cardboard, I mean tissue, cracker, cereal, etc. boxes. I tried to draw a diagram showing how I put it together. I cut twelve four inch squares. I then joined two squares together using strips of foil lined paper from an empty dog food bag. I joined them by sewing them on my sewing machine using a wide zig zag stitch. Looking at the diagram (it’s not clear) the foil strips actually overlap the cardboard pieces. I left them longer and trimmed to fit after sewing. After doing all of them, I had six units that I then sewed together right down the middle of the foil strips. Next time I made a journal like this, I will make more pages and make signatures and hand sew the pages together. This has been a learning experience. (On the first journal I made, I used cloth strips to join the pages.) I will post some pictures that may clarify what I did on this journal. The front and back covers are covered with a decorative tissue paper glued down with gel medium. If anyone has any questions about how I did this, feel free to ask.
Cereal Box Journal (6)
I hope everyone in the US had a great 4th of July holiday as well as a great weekend for everyone. I finished this page today. I found as many positive words as I could glue inside the sewing lines on the left. Read them to yourself out loud…the message is great. I sketched the girl and colored it with watercolor pencils.
I almost forgot…I won a giveaway over at DJ Pettitt’s blog…. She is a great artist…I’d be happy to be half as good as she is when I grow up! 
Go here to check out her website: http://djpettitt.blogspot.com/
Cereal Box Journal (5)
Two more pages down. These two are very simple renderings. The first page shows some bits from an Ideals Magazine and a quote from Oprah’s magazine. The green man holding up the world is from an ad reminding us to recycle our old magazines.
Cereal Box Journal (4)
I finished two more pages but I’m only showing one of them. The other one didn’t scan very well. On this one, I sketched the girl in with pencil and then used water soluble crayons on it. I used the bars on the business reply cards to add some interest around the edges of the page. I only have a few more pages in this journal. I’m thinking about making another one.
Cereal Box Journal (3)
I decided to post two photos instead of scanning both pages together. I love working on these cereal/cracker box pages. The pages certainly will not buckle up when gluing layers on them. Several of the pages have papers sewn on them also.
I realized this morning that yesterday was my one year anniversary with this blog. It’s been a great year…I have met lots of blog friends and feel that the whole blog experience has been beneficial. I can see growth and improvement in my art work.
Collage – Floral Avenue
This was painted on a piece of old file folder. I used acrylic paint and some water soluble crayons. I also used a little bit of blue India ink. There are various layers of paint thinned down with glaze medium. I stamped with a empty bath tissue roll into wet paint. I also stamped the broad black leaves with a a stamp carved from an eraser. The big orange flower was glued onto the piece. I suppose this is technically NOT a collage. This measures about eight by 10 inches. This photo could have been bigger but because it was scanned horizontally, I had to make it much smaller.
Collage – Stamped Out
I had started this collage on a piece of cereal box a few weeks ago and had forgotten about it. I found it and decided to finish it. I was pleased with the background but not the girl. This piece is collage papers, mainly old stamps, and lots of acrylic paint and oil pastels. The girl was drawn and cut out from a sketch book. I think the figure would meld into the piece better if I had drawn it directly onto the background.
Cereal Box Journal (2)
Last night, while watching America’s Got Talent, I worked on these pages in my cereal/tea box journal. On the left side, I started by gluing letters all around the top and side. Don’t you love the tomatoes that I tore from a Subway wrapper? On the right I glued a part of a drawing that I came from my sketch book. The background is part of a painting that came from another Ideals Magazine.
