Postcards and pages…

I have received five postcards from Hanna’s postcard swap.  I’m showing four of them because the fifth one came after I’d taken the photo.  I’ll show it later.

Hanna sent me the first card from Sweden.

The second card came from Oregon and was sent by Diane.

Number three was sent by Cyndee.

The last card in the photo came from Fanie in Canada.

Here are two more pages in my Book of Days journal that has morphed into my “big journal.” The second page may not be finished…I was playing with Tombow markers and watercolors. It was an experiment and I’m thinking I’ll just move on

Final Note:  I did join Pinterest.  My user name there is Mary/joyfulploys…if you want to check out my pages.  I also received an email from Pinterest last week stating that they have changed their agreement terms and they are now clear that “selling content was never our intention.”  Some artists are leery about joining Pinterest for various reasons and that was one of them.

Journal Page

I’ve been looking at Pinterest this morning….I want to join but it seems you must join through FaceBook or Twitter.  I don’t have either of those but I’m thinking about getting a Twitter account just so I can join Pinterest     Does anyone know? Is that how you sign up for Pinterest or are there other ways?

I did this journal page yesterday….I brought out my oil pastels again…it’s been a long time since I’ve used them.  It was a a fun page…the giraffe’s ear is leaning over because there was a collage piece in that spot that was shaped like an ear.

I have received two postcards  from iHanna’s postcard swap.  If you want to check that out click on the link two posts below this one.  I’ll be scanning those and sharing those in the next post and maybe by then I will have received more postcards.

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.

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.

 

Christmas card and pages…

I want to show a beautiful card I got last week.  It’s a wonderfully  handmade card by Lee.  I agreed to exchange Christmas cards with her…in my mind…card=postcard   I made a postcard for her, in fact, it’s the card on my header.  I don’t usually show cards before the receiver gets them (forgive me Lee)  but I needed a Christmas photo.  The other card I made that day ended up in the trash.  Here is Lee’s card…the bears are so-o-o cute!!!

Here are two pages from my Strathmore Journal.  The big flower piece, I started months ago and decided to finish it…it needs something but I didn’t know what…so I moved on from it.  The abstact is about me trying out a new shade of purple

This the last part of a poem by Joyce Carol Oates, entitled The Time Traveler from a book of poems by the same title:

“I don’t recognize

that person,

you whisper,

who is that person?

A stranger’s face

swimming

in a mirror.”

These are my sentiments about getting older…I don’t have many regrets…a few…or I wouldn’t be human….but sometimes I don’t who that old lady is staring back at me in the mirror.   No, I’m not depressed…or going through the holiday blues…just happened that I found the poem last week.

lost in a flurry of pages and postcards…

I’m still here…after recovering from Thanksgiving, I was finally able to get back to my art.  I did two spreads for a round robin journaling group.  There are four of us involved in that project.  It will extend into the middle of next year.  I was asked by Danielle over at A Love Affair With Paper to take part in the project.  Danielle has written an explanation of the project on her blog, click here and go to the November 29th post to read about it.  I will be posting more about that as we go along.

After getting my journal mailed to Danielle, I made some postcards.  I used one for my heading.  I can’t seem to get away from the book pages no matter what I do   I also very quickly used some Caran d’Ache crayons and some white paint on one of my zen doodles.  This poor girl looks like she isn’t going to get anything for Christmas this year.

 

Doodles and journal pages…

I have never been a huge fan of the term, “doodles.”  I can’t explain why…maybe I think a fancier word should be used to describe what I’ve been doing    They aren’t really zentangles either. 

I took apart an old book because I wanted to used the covers for a new journal.  I was left with a book block all intact.  The original book was called Gas-House McGinty by James T. Farrel and published in 1933. It wasn’t until I tore the book apart that I looked up the author and one source  cited that  “Farrell wrote convincingly of America’s harsh social realities, those forces which circumscribe the destinies of ordinary individuals.”  He probably would be “occupying” some place or another if he were living today.  He is most famous for his book: Studs Lonigan.  I have been using the pages for some of my “doodles.”  Here are three of the ones I have completed:

 

Two Journal pages:

 

 

“The night walked

down the sky

with the moon in her hand.”

Frederick L. Knowles

 

 

 

IJ Pages

“I thank you God for this most amazing day,

for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,   and for the

blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural,

which is infinite, which is YES.”

e.e. cummings

 

I have been working on several projects at once which can be a little crazy at times   Here are some pages from my Iconographic Journal.  This is the last week of Katie Kendrick’s class.  I am sorry to see it end and I got behind on trying some of the techniques she demonstrates in the class.  I’m not worried,  because, thankfully,  I will be getting a DVD of the entire class in the mail,  a few weeks after it ends.

IJ-more pages…

“If  you reveal your secrets to the wind,

you should not blame the wind

for revealing them to the trees. ”

Khalil Gibran

 

I finished four more pages.  I’m not sure that one or two of them are finished but I’m posting them as they are now. 

Katie Kendrick over at JoyouslyBecoming has a new online workshop.  It starts this Monday, September 12.  The good thing about this is…if you don’t have time to take the class right now and sign up before Monday…you will get a DVD with all the materials she presents during the class…videos, PDFs, etc.   You can read more about the workshop on her blog.

Dr. Seuss Inspired – Strathmore Journal

I tried to use some of the techniques I learned in Carla Sonheim’s class.  I don’t really like how it turned out so I probably won’t try this again….at least on a bigger piece.  I started with a paper collage base…gesso over that, and next,  two layers of watercolors. I used another layer of gesso and colored markers in certain areas.  I used a soft charcoal pencil to do some shading but I need to get some vine charcoal that Carla suggests using.  

I found out about Elizabeth at  Lost Coast Post when taking “Full Tilt Boogie” workshop.  She has a some great journal pages….definitely worth a look.  She did two mixed media works on canvas that are part of  “out of the journal’ challenge.  Below those posts are her “boogie” journal pages.