Grids and Doodles…

I was looking at a face in a fashion magazine yesterday.  I wanted to sketch it but I also wanted to try for a more whimsical effect. I did two sketches with pencil on graph paper, then I went over the lines with my fine Sharpie marker.  The ideas seemed to flow  from there.  I planned to glue the faces into my BOD journal.  At first, I was going to paint the faces with acrylic paint…hence, the painted hair.  I picked up some Tombow  and Crayola markers and colored in a few places.  I was experimenting and liked the effects I was getting.  The Tombow markers act as watercolors when water is used with them.  I used water on the face on the right but not on the left face.  I couldn’t decide what kind of background to use but decided to use a doodle grid to echo the squares of the graph paper.   The last photo is a doodle page from earlier last week.

Journal pages…

Here are some pages I have finished. My Book of Days has morphed into a book of some days   I have been absorbed with the “Letter Love” class for the past two weeks. I was thinking to myself…how ironic that I’m taking a lettering class when I don’t use words on my journal pages all that often… but maybe I will now.  This page started with collaged pieces.  Then I used  gesso, colored pencils, and watercolors.  I finished with some marker and pen work. I’m not all that happy with it but I’m learning to move on and not dwell so long on one page. 

 

This is a fabric collage page I made while I was working on my quilt blocks.  It is four thicknesses of fabric that I stitched together on my sewing machine. Then I hand stitched it onto a tab in my journal.

 

This last photo is the stamp practice page that I wanted to save, so, I decided to stitch it onto a tab in my journal.  I really like my new Xyron sticker machine. I am using it to make my own paper tape.  It will take paper up to two inches in width.

…more letter love practice

I’m really enjoying the Letter Love Class with Joanne Sharpe.  We are half way through the class.  We have had a video or photo tutorial every day except for Sundays.  I need lots of practice making different kinds of letters.  As you can see with these practice pages…I am into the doodles…letters… not so much

I am also working on carving a set of alphabet stamps.  Julie’s Stamp Carving 101 class is over after this week. It will be open as an ongoing class for a long, long time, according to Julie.  I endorse both of these classes.  If you are like me and have taken a class or two that were total duds…I don’t think you will be disappointed with either or both of these classes. 

 

 

 

Letter Love

I said I was decreasing  the number of online workshops this year but I find myself currently enrolled in three workshops.  The latest one is “Letter Love.”  I love this class! Read about it over at Whimspirations by Joanne Sharpe.  It is Joanne’s first online class and she’s doing a tremendous job!  I have been using my Letraset Aqua Markers…love them! I have three colors and plan to order some more.  Joanne loves Copic Sketch markers.  I have two black ones.  Maybe, I’ll order some other colors, a few at a time.  I also have one Tombow Marker and it is a nice dual tip marker as are the Letraset Aqua Markers.   The Identi-Pen by Sakura is another great pen that has permanent ink.  I will also use my Crayola Markers because the colors are bright and they are inexpensive…that’s a plus!  We are using a composition book for a practice book.  The first photo shows the front cover of my composition book.  The next one is a practice page I worked on this morning.  I noticed I left out the letter “r” in the word inspiration while I was cropping the photo   The last photo is a page that will go in my journal…I was playing around with one of my carved stamps and some fabric scraps.

Doodle Journal page, etc…

I made a collage for the header above using several of the new stamps I carved.  The big doodle stamp on the far right above was inspired by the doodle journal page that I am posting this time.  I also finished another quilt block this week. I recounted and I have 18 finished blocks…yay, for me!

This week, we went to see the movie “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”.  I just finished reading the book a day or two before we saw the film.  It is a very moving story about what happened to one family after losing someone on 9/11 It’s very different from any book I’ve ever read because of the quirky photos and the type font that changes at the end of the book.  I finally figured out why I think the author (Johathan Safran Foer) did that after seeing the movie and looking at those pages in the book again.   We saw  “Everything is Illuminated”  on Netflix a while back.  It is another book,  made into a movie,  by the same author.  I also recommend that movie if you like quirky and different films.

I started the page above with torn pages from a phone book page.  I had cleaned my brush on the page….that’s why you see spots of color on the page.  I fully intended to gesso over it and do something else but changed my mind.  In the photos below you see the entire collage of the piece I made for the header….I could only use a small portion of it.