Tell All

If it weren't for my clever friend, Robin, over in her pink house studio giving me a head's up, I might not have known,(well, maybe months from now) that I was a guest yesterday over here. I have followed Jenny's blog for several years now and she never ceases to amaze me with her endless amount of creativity. I would like to bottle her energy, or the energy I feel coming from my computer when I go to her blog. She endlessly and generously shares her ideas, videos, and tutorials. It was she who got me started on saving cereal and cracker boxes to make home made journals and it was she who grabbed my attention to use old costume jewelry to make Christmas ornaments, just for starters. Recycled art is very cool! (I haven't finished it yet, but it's in the making, and maybe by Christmas, I'll have that ornament done. lol! So, thank you, Jennibellie for giving me a spot and graciously gathering us together. And thank you for stopping in here................I'm off to do some gluing while I park my self in front of Netflix until I can glue no more.................jo

Where I Was Before - MInus the Glamour Girls.

Because I am running in low gear after my work day today, I don't have something new to show you after yesterday's post. Actually, I haven't mustered the energy to climb upstairs to my studio yet and the longer I sit and think about what I could post, the more tired I become......... for those of you who still work day jobs to keep a roof over your head and or support your art habit needs, you know what I mean. Actually, I just want to sit and paste in the latest journal I showed you yesterday and then I will really be in relaxed mode. But wait! I find it interesting to see what I was doing a year ago on this date. This is what's in my "What's on my Art Table Now" folder a year ago today. I think I was somewhat influenced by Tracy Bautista's work minus the glamour girls. So out of that one page came I also think that's when I fell in love with the Bic White Out Pen. How about you? Do you happen look back and see how your art has changed in a year's time? Hoping things are ok where you are..... and thanks for sharing a moment or two with me. I'm headed to the Glue it Lounge for some tea......... or maybe Aimee will serve a glass of wine..............xoxo..........Jo

Can't Get Enough and Other Stuff.

How does that song go? "Don't stop til you get enough." I guess I've become an avid member of Aimee's Glue it Lounge. I think it's because of this that I am still going strong on using up the scraps. Remember the Faces I started in the van? They were just my very beginnings of trying to draw faces at 7am or so while sitting in my van waiting to go in to my work place. I found a new place for them a long with using up my scraps. Here are a few more. While these are not finished pages, I believe they are all beginnings for backgrounds for art journaling pages. And here is the way my little houses are at this point. My houses are growing a village. lol! So much fun pasting! They look better standing up but I can't seem to find a clear enough space in my studio to lean them up and I was too lazy to carry them to another place to do it. Can you tell I've been busy? One final thought. I am getting ready to once again participate in Daisy Yellow's Icad challenge. (That's index card a day, in case you didn't know.) I did it last year and was pleased that while I did not always follow the prompts, I did manage to complete 61 days of art everyday on an index card. I can tell you how doing this led me to other things on larger canvases-if only on to larger index cards. So I started out with this and moved into this size because all of a sudden I needed to spread out. The point I am trying to make here is it's a great way to show up and create every day. I never expected myself to produce what I did on an index card. So, I am going to do it again because I know this experience has helped me grow as an artist and there was no pressure on my self to do this or that. The prompts are there only for suggestions or ideas; they're not written in stone. And doing art on an index card can mean anything. For me, working on an index card works for me sitting in my car in the morning before work with my coffee. Being part of this experience also allowed me to connect with other artists and be part of a community and make some friends. You can check out all the info on Tammy's ICAD challenge Now, if I could just get myself to put what I put on an index card on very large canvases, I'd be in trouble. lol Thanks for spending a few minutes here and I hope you will want to come again..I hope you might check out the ICAD challenge just for fun................Jo. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I am linking to Balzer Designs Art Journal Every Day here and Artsyville here

Not at 5am

You know how I write in the early morning hours and then put faces on top of those pages? They look like 5 am faces. This is my first attempt at a watercolor face not at 5am. I have no idea what I am doing. I'm just trying to imagine what I want it to look like. I think I did this on Sunday afternoon or early evening. I shall keep on trying. Thank you so much for all your kind comments regarding yesterday's post on Using Up the Scraps. And thank you for stopping by here................................jo

Using Up the Scraps

I'm finding myself getting in to this cutting (or in most cases tearing for me) and pasting, using up the massive amounts of scraps in my stash and actually putting it somewhere.Talk about relaxing. In this case most everything on this page is scraps of my own art with some home made stamps thrown in. I really like pinks and purples.And I couldn't resist the bit of purple washi tape. I think this will be a background journal page. I am going to share this over at the Tuesday Glue it Lounge There's some cool "sticky stuff" to see. Thanks for sharing a moment here....................... jo

Daring

I had the sudden urge to paint on a larger canvas this week. The weather was crappy and not exactly conducive to dragging everything outside and the garage......... well, that's entirely another story which I'll save for later...... Tell me this was not daring. Crazy! OK. So I did lay down some plastic tarp and I probably should get some more to replace the garbage bag that hangs on the lavender wall.......... but, hey it IS the art studio. It worked and I haven't got paint on walls yet. So, this is a beginning of something........... who knows where it will go. And my houses- you know my affection for houses..........here are two of them. which seem to be perfectly photographed on top of the 50 x 50 piece of plywood and against the garbage bag paint covered backdrop. This saw was not working for curves like this These are in progress. So I borrowed this. Now that's what i call building houses! lol. This experiment was also done in my studio which really should have been done in the garage as I had saw dust everywhere. Stubbornness and determination are sometimes stronger than smartness, but, hey I accomplished what I set out to do. What crazy thing have you dared to do with your art lately? Thanks for stopping in and as always, I so appreciate all your comments......................xoxoxo

I Knew He Would Fly

My son, Marshall, graduated from college this weekend, a bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design. Of course, I am proud of him as his mother for having achieved this goal, but I am also impressed with his drive, perseverence, artistic gifts and abilities even without being his mother. And so, like all graduates, he begins a new chapter. I made him a card. Here is the cover. Here is the inside. Here is a closeup of the inside message. And here is the backside. I also made him a banner (in a matter of several hours)on brown paper- you know the kind that is used for stuffing/packing. I really had set out to make something to wrap a gift in but it turned in to more of a banner. IN order to photograph it I had to tape it to a door. This is how it started.And then I added some pictures of him at certain points in his life and it ended up like this. Here are some closups. Lastly, I don't know too much about graphic design other than it is big part of this world today. I spent some time going to my son's website. It was pretty "mighty." I hope your weekend has been a good one. Thanks for visiting..............................jo I am linking this to Aimee's Glue it Lounge on Tuesday since there's a heckovalot of gluing and pasting going on here.

More Gluing and Recycling

I never seem to make it on time to Artsyville's Glue it Tuesday. I suppose better late than never. I find myself enjoying this process of gluing into a journal. In this case I'm sitting in the front seat of my new car the last several mornings with glue sticks and layers of torn paper on top of an already painted page. I finished it off with my own stamps. Since I am on this kick about using up scraps of my paper, this is where I find myself. One of my index cards I made with Daisy Yellow's index card a day challenge (ICAD) from last summer was used in the above piece. She's starts another challenge this June 1st and you can find out more about that here. I thoroughly enjoyed it last summer. I found that many of the pieces I did on an index card became the inspiration to larger pieces and for those days when I was just too tired or unmotivated I always felt like I had done some art because I had done my daily index card. Some of them ended up in a little book I made, some of them got torn up and used in other art work and some of them are still hanging on my art line across the room of my studio. I will again create some art on an index card for 61 days. And lastly, here is the progress on my houses, which also fits in to Glue It Tuesday. I am loving them but I also need to seriously clean up my studio. Thanks for visiting. .......................jo

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I'm still working on my faces in the morning. Okay, I'm not really working too hard on them lately because I'm getting bored and I keep telling myself I need to work on faces in different directions and I haven't gotten to that point yet, so frontal faces are what I keep doing. I will show you the okay ones and the crappy ones, too. Yes, a lot of crappy ones. Or I could rationalize it in that they aren't so bad for 5 a.m. I have to laugh because I think they are a reflection of me and how I might feel in the morning.... and in that sense they are true to life. Getting up out of bed in the morning when I have to go to work is not terribly enjoyable, so if I have to get up I might as well get up(sit up in bed with coffee) and do some art no matter what comes out. At least I am showing up. On another note, I saw an article on page 56 in May/June Cloth Paper Scissors on making houses out of woods scraps. I love houses in my art. I suddenly had the urge to go to the very unorganized garage and find the hand saw. I took a small piece of plywood and drew the outline of two houses and with much muttering I managed to saw out the images, breaking or at least chipping each one at the tip. No matter, I glued them with matte medium and put a paperclip on it. I then sanded them to remove splinters and then gessoed them, let them dry. Then I covered them with paper. Here they are at this point.Then next step is to sand them again and then start collaging and or painting them with painted papers. The houses by the artist in the article are darn sweet. Imagine the neighborhood you could make! I'm off to play! Thanks for coming by................................xoxo................Jo