More Playing with Food and Other Stuff

Last week I told you about the Lifebook lesson with Flora Bowley who encouraged us to find different things for mark making or stamping. I showed you this. Although you cannot tell from looking at this, it began with marking making with various pieces of produce. After I went grocery shopping on Saturday, I took a potato and cut it up into various shapes and put it to paper. I forgot to photograph all of them but did get one to show you. Ok. So, it's not that exciting but it was kind of fun. I forgot to buy celery so I could use the bottom of the stalk to make that cool flower print. Saturday morning I was at my local arts and craft store (AC Moore) with two fun women. We had decided to take a break from art journaling and played with making prints on the gelli plate with the deli paper. This was in preparation for decorating Christmas ornaments. I really don't enjoy it when it seems anything having to do with Christmas is pushed upon us earlier and earlier every year, however,I think if you are making things, that's entirely different. Handmade things take more time and thought. Some ornaments were cut out of two pieces of card stock, glued together and decorated. Here's another plastic one that's getting collaged. And here are a few others that I made back in the summer time while watching Netflix in the evening. I haven't yet found the motivation to paint my pumpkins this year but maybe I still will. Are you creating holiday or seasonal things right now? Thanks for visiting here.

The Accordion Book Giveaway and Other Stuff

I recently made a couple of accordion books and offered one as a giveway to the person who became the 75th person to join or follow my blog. So, Kristin, please send me your snail mail address so I can get this in the mail to you this weekend. Thank you so much. I've been doing a little of this... You can see I used some of this paper already....... These are done on deli paper but some were on the gelli plate and then more paint added after that. I was going for layers. Oh, and I gessoed some of these papers first. And a little of that.. I recently showed you some recycled binders that I cut down and prepped for new journals. Here's one where I ripped the plastic vinyl off of it, cut a couple of inches off the sides to make it not standard binder size, gessoed and painted it. And then I planted my great grandmother's picture on the cover. Her name was Ella and I love this picture of her. I enlarged it at Kinkos and it fit perfectly on the cover. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for taking the time to comment. Your support is very much appreciated.

Stupid People and Other Stuff

One thing that really irks me, no, angers me, is people that don't care for their animals. Perhaps it's all in the way they were raised, that it's ok to have your dogs chained up all day long out in the blazing 90 heat and without water. I have new neighbors. They have two dogs. I have never seen these dogs drink much less get any attention. It's been hard to adjust to going outside my backdoor and getting barked at. I hear them whining and whimpering late at night. I feel very sorry for them and angry at these stupid people that now live too close to me. I want to call the County officials and report them but others have told me that unless I can witness abuse to the animal nothing can be done. I find that hard to believe. I am going try because it's just really getting to me. I believe people who do not care for their animals really are not kind people and it's been really hard for me to feel and be neighborly toward them. ON another note I've been creating a lot of art but I've been pretty lax about posting. I guess I needed a break. When I moved in to my house nearly ten yrs ago there was some tile left in one of the closets. I knew I would do something with them eventually, I just didn't know what until recently. Layers of deli paper done on the gelli plate, and doodling with paint markers. I am happy with how it looks. Stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by...............

Gelli and Deli Printing

So I've been having fun with more printing on the Gelli plate on plain card stock and deli paper. It's very easy to get on a roll with this process. I have no problem creating big piles of prints. I am using some of them on the inside page of the journals I have made for my art journaling workshops at AC Moore, and some for collage in my own journals. I love how some of them really look on deli paper. Some journals for the workshop. I think I may have a few more people for this Saturday's workshop than previously. I'm excited and hope to be able to show you some pictures next time. Here's using the deli paper on my journal page. Hope you're having a good week. Thanks for visiting.................

Wish Upon A Star.

All those days playing with the gelli plate turned in to something good.. Cut in strips and glued down to water color paper. So they could become stars and houses and hearts. And then there's always mail art. I love how playing can turn into so much more playing.........Remember my little wooden houses I've been showing you in several of my posts? I have posted them in my Etsy shop. It would be nice to send them to someone to hang on their wall. You can see them to the right..xoxoxo....jo

Letting Go

Letting go may be shaded in sorrow but it is lit by strength. ~Quinn McDonald The remaining page that I haven't shown you in altered children's board book from The Dollar Store. Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist who's blog I frequently visit. For some strange reason on those days I find her words often resonate with what is going on in my life at that moment, or on that day. I am working on the front and back covers of this one dollar book. I'll show them later. Thanks for stopping by.....Jo

Letting Go of Heavy Things

I've been on a roll both inside and outside the house the last month or so. Cleaning, sorting, getting rid of, donating, giving stuff away, cleaning out the garage, rearranging rooms, and getting the yard cleaned up for an eventual garden, and thinking about a yard sale. It feels very good to let things go. Once I get it in my mind to do something, there usually is no stopping me, which can be a good thing and at times a not so good thing. I tend to forget that I am not twenty years old and start rearranging the furniture. I always end up paying for that later in pain. And then I forget to eat because I'm on a roll and then I get a migraine and that messes me up. In between doing all this I still made some time for Art. I think I left you with the gelli plate and making transfers onto clear packaging tape. You can see that here I then played again using the gelli plate as a canvas and may have left it sitting on my art table for several days before coming back to it, adding a layer a time and of course trying to be patient for it to dry. This is what I ended up with. Here's a close up. And here's what the tape looked like when peeled off from the gelli plate. Very cool, I thought. While I was working with those colors some of them had to be used on other things. Yes, the index card a day challenge goes on until the end of the month. Here are some of the latest. And lastly, I wanted to show you my work in progress. Nothing like going from one extreme size to another. This is on plywood from Home Depot. I hope you are staying cool and having a good weekend....... Thanks for sharing your comments and for visiting here. Please do come again............................jo ** I am linking to Carolyn Dube's Party and Artsyville to the glue it lounge

Secretly She Always Wanted...

It's been awhile since I showed you some of my faces..... My faces began as a challenge I started when I was doing art in the morning in the van before work about two years ago. Since then my ritual for drawing faces gradually found their way on to my daily morning pages which I write between 430-5am every morning. Many people have commented that they like the way the writing shows through under the faces but they cannot quite read what was written and was it my intention. Morning Pages, as some of you know, is a tool, in which Julia Cameron has written extensively about. Most of us were introduced to this concept in The Artist's Way, but she carries it on in many of her books after that. Morning Pages, is a steady stream of writing.. writing what ever comes to mind. I have always kept a written journal, but, I have done Morning Pages for at least the last ten years pretty consistently. I have had all kinds of journals for this. Hard bound, blank paged journals, lined journals, fancy covered, wire bound notebooks and cheapo composition notebooks, which is what I have been using for the last several years. When I write I am in a sort of half awake, half asleep state, pillows propped up, pen in hand and I just begin to write." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. God! I so do not want to get up this morning. Must be it's going to rain today as my head hurts. Blah, blah, blah, Damn neighbors were playing their music so loud blah, blah, blah." As long as I can keep the blah, blah. blahs coming, the pen will keep moving........although sometimes I am aware that I am nodding off in the middle of the sentence and I will write," keep the pen moving or what was it I was complaining about when I felt myself falling back to sleep with my pen in my hand?" You get the picture. I will fill the page and then begin writing on top of what I have already written. The idea is not necessarily to come back and read what I've written or for anyone else, necessarily to read what I've written, but that I feel like I have "dumped" or "poured" or emptied what ever I needed to get out, onto these pages. I've whined, complained, dumped, cursed,spilled my guts, emptied my fears and/or anxieties all over the pages. And some how, it feels right. I feel right. If I don't do my morning pages, I feel something missing. My day doesn't quite feel right. I go get my coffee, come back to bed where I begin to draw these faces on top of these pages. I don't know where the faces come from. They just appear. I am sure that often times the faces will reflect some thing in my mood or state of mind on any given morning. Lately, I have been amusing myself by naming them because they seem to have personalities. OK. I better stop. You may think me really off my rocker at this point. (lol) I give myself another 30-45 minutes of playing with pan pastels or water colors with my faces before I get up and hit the shower. This is how I start my day. This is how I get in my creative time and this is what makes me feel good even if my faces aren't good. It wasn't my intention to talk this much about this, however, I found I had to explain where the writing underneath all the faces came from. On another note........... the ICAD challenge goes on. The bunch I'm showing you were made with the gelli plate to make backgrounds but also the tape transfers. I added my hand carved stamps and washi tape. I hope you like them. This has turned out to be a long post. I hope you enjoyed your stay today. Thank you and please do visit again............. I'm headed over to Glue It Tuesday in hopes I haven't missed the deadline and Carolyn Dube's place for the gelli print party.