Why Not?

If you can doodle or paint on pumpkins then you can certainly alter a leaf. I picked these up in my yard last night and had a bit of fun with paint markers. I am pressing them in a book. I'll try paint next. :)

Unfinished Stuff, Works in Progress Stuff, Vintage Stuff

My studio is again looking like a disaster zone. I prided myself a couple of months ago when I did some reorganizing and cleaning about a month ago, but it's really hard to tell at this point. I cannot decide if I have two many projects going on or if I seriously don't have enough surface space in which to work, or I am just too lazy to clean up before I work on something new. Or a little of each. I looked around my studio last night. I feel really lucky to have this space because I know many people do not have this luxury. I do have a lot of things going on. A lot of unfinished projects. Perhaps I have ADD where ART is concerned. I tend to move from one thing to another. You know what happens when you give a mouse a cookie.... He asks for milk and a straw and crayons and.......... These lines strung from one window to another are good sometimes for hanging things you want to refer back to......... I have to share with you something really cool.. some new people have come to visit my house...... from another time....... These vintage dolls were passed on to me by my mother who is at 80 yrs old full of wonderful stories and memories as I help her clean out her garage and pack things up. Seriously, these dolls belonged to her and her mother. I did not have a lot of dolls as a child. I never had Barbies and don't feel I ever missed out on them. I had some rag dolls but preferred a lot of time to play with my brother's Match Box cars and "Little Kiddle" dolls. Does anyone remember those tiny little dolls? Anyway, I know my mother lovingly brought these very old dolls from Oregon years ago. I never knew of their existence. Last weekend she asked if I wanted them. I did. I think she was hoping I might give them a home instead of her giving them to a consignment shop where people might well be arguing their monetary worth. They are worn but they have been well loved. I will share more on them as time goes by. Thanks for stopping in.

It's Coming Together

I had an awesome time on Saturday with three wonderful, creative women at my mixed media class at my local arts and crafts store. We've been working on a large piece together, a group collaboration for the last several weeks. I've seen growth. I've seen us begin to loosen up, to not be so critical, and have fun creating together. Check out how this is blossoming.There's a lot happening. Here's my daughter Liza, getting a panoramic view for us. And she got a great panoramic view. Stay tuned for more on this group collaboration. I'm proud of them. Thanks for all your comments on my last post. Hope you had a peaceful, creative weekend. Thanks for visiting.

Moleskine Mornings

I've been working in a larger Moleskine journal in the mornings in the car before work. I have to arrive at my work place nearly 45 minutes before I actually start in order to find a decent parking spot so I take advantage of the time by bringing my breakfast, coffee and some art supplies with me. It's pretty amazing how much you can do in that amount of time five days a week. It also makes me feel better by creating something before I start my rat race of a work day, which seems to suck more out of me lately. I have pre-gesso-ed the pages a head of time and mostly have been spreading the color on with the Caran d'Ache neocolor 2 water color crayons. I've journaled a little bit each morning and then sometimes in the evening or on the weekends will add more marks and doodles with paint markers or bits of collage. I can be working on a couple of spreads at a time. Here's a couple of close ups. I'm sharing this with the good people over at the party. If you haven't already, do check this site out. It's full of wonderful, creative "stuff." I am looking forward to another couple of hours teaching a mixed media workshop at my local AC Moore store tomorrow. I wish you a peaceful, creative weekend. Thanks for visiting here.

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.

Painting with Food

On Monday when I was off from work I sat down with Flora Bowley's Brave Intuitive Painting lesson on Lifebook. I am blown away by this artist and one day would like to take one of her live workshops or one of her online classes. She had me(us) looking in the refrigerator for things to use as stamps. The best I could come up with was some mushrooms, some celery stalks, some cucumber slices and some onion. I wished I'd had some potatoes to cut in to sections or carve some stamps out of and I wished I hadn't thrown the bottom core part of the celery away because it would have made a cool flower image stamp like Flora did. I found it a bit challenging as my vegies were super slippery once I dabbed them in to the paint, but some of these made some pretty cool marks. She suggested we work on two pages at a time, one with only cool colors and one with warm colors. I think I can say I finished one of them. Here it is along with a couple of close ups. No paint brushes were used. Only fingers. I used a credit card and the end of the paint brush for mark making. I'm sorry I did not remember to take photos in the beginning with my veggies, and as it turned out, much of the mark making was blended or covered up. I like the color and I like the layers. I like that you can see through them in some parts.I like it better now after not looking at it for several days. I had no plan or outcome and that was the point. It really was intuitive and it was a lot of fun. Do you create art in this manner? Intuitively? Thanks for stopping in.

More Fun on Saturday

I spent a couple of hours on Saturday at my local arts and crafts store with some very creative women. While we didn't work as much in our journals that day, we did a similiar group exercise that we'd done the previous week. Last week we each had a piece of card stock and after following a prompt we passed our paper to the person to the left of us. By the time our own work had gone around the table several times with a new person and a new prompt, it was transforming. This week I spread a large piece of brown paper in the middle of the table and that became our shared canvas. Everyone participated in the prompts so it was one big creative collaboration, each person adding their twist. We learned that paint can be put down with things other than paint brushes. I asked them not to get too attached to the areas or sides they were working on and switch to the other side of the table. Like turning a canvas, switching to the other side of the table allowed us to see it from a different perspective. While we did not completely fill the paper, we did have a good beginning. I found it to be quite a lot of fun and I think they did as well. I am enjoying the day off from work today and am off to go play in my studio. I hope you are having a peaceful day. Thanks for stopping in.

Moleskine Moment On A Paint Party Friday

About 3 or 4 years ago I bought this nice Moleskine journal. I never used it because I was afraid I'd mess up the pages. :) I am braver now. I am reminding myself that I came to this blog to play and make messes. The temperature is cooler now. I can leave watercolor crayons in the car while I'm at work and they won't melt. Yes, I am crazy enough to create art in the car in the mornings before work. I have been doing this for the last several years and it really makes a big difference on how I start my work day. So, I've begun playing in this journal. I gesso-ed some pages ahead of time( not in the car. lol ) and then enjoyed scribbling with water color crayons. I can spread the color on one page and while that's drying I can do some journaling on another page. I also tried a transfer.(not in the car.) A photo of my grandmother. I'm determined to get better at this and I know there are a few techniques out there. Still, not too bad for my first attempt. Tomorrow I am looking forward to teaching another work shop at my local arts and craft store. I have decided to redesign the workshop and change the description of the class from Art Journaling to Mixed Media. I say this because I am sharing so many techniques, tricks, ideas etc. that can be used in other areas of art, like altered books, gelli plate, deli paper, working with Citra Solv, and the list goes on. In other words it's not just art journaling. It's everything and anything and what I have decided is that some people may shy away from an art journaling class because they don't like to journal or they think they cannot "do art." I am hoping if I reword the class description it may spark some people's interest enough to give it a try. I am having a really good time with some very creative women and I want the class to keep on growing. I hope you've had a good week and that you have an art filled, peaceful weekend. I am sharing this with some very awesome, creative people over here so go and check it out. I appreciate your taking the time to leave a comment. Thanks for visiting.

On A Whim

I recently opened up one of my bigger journals which is something I hadn't done in awhile and began to rework this. Pardon the quality. I took this at night and I couldn't get the lighting right. I think I am returning to my "I wanna do better faces thing." I started playing around and trying to add more paint, shading etc. And then this one was already nearby me on the table. Pan pastel on the face. ON a whim I set this one on top of the other. Pretty funny. Somehow even though the card stock is not laying down flat, the colors seem to work with one on top of the other.The background becomes more interesting. Neither piece is finished. Her mouth is crooked. What do you think?

Something Different

I led an art journaling workshop again at my local AC Moore (arts and crafts) store on Saturday. IN previous workshops I have been working on giving them prompts in the beginning to kind of loosen us up. Sort of like getting ready to play. And at the same time I try to share with them something new. Like working with Citra Solv or the gelli plate or deli paper. I wanted to try something different this time. I wanted to build a sense of community with the group, to suggest that we share or create something together.I did not tell them in advance what we were going to do. I gave them each a piece of card stock and gave them a prompt. After each prompt was completed in about 5-6 minutes I had them pass their work to the person on their left. Glue down some images or an image that speaks to you. Move some paint around with a credit card. Draw a flower. Outline something in black pen, marker or paint. Add some pink, purple and red paint. Cover something up. Write your name with your non dominant hand. Draw some hearts. You get the picture. And so it went. It was interesting for me to give them a prompt and then have them ask me questions. They wanted to know, should they cover the page completely with images. I don't like pink, purple and red together they said. I'm not good at drawing flowers. My answer was "Do what ever or how ever you want to do it." There is no right or wrong. After each prompt what was on the paper grew and grew with comments and oohs and aaahs. I think the coolest part of it was all of us looking at our originals and seeing what had been added (or taken away) by someone else every time it came around. Someone might not have liked how it started but was excited to see how it ended up. I thought it was so interesting to see through someone else's eyes. I could feel a lot of "what if's." And that's really what playing is about, I think. What if I did this because there are no rules. We had a lot of fun and two hours went by very quickly. I loved seeing the look on their faces as they played, loosened up and let themselves just have fun, and do it as a group. I think they had so much fun they gave me permission to take pictures for this post and that makes me very happy. So, thank you Faye, Marion, Liza, Laura and Martha for such a fun two hours spent with you.

Happy Paint Party Friday

Last year I kind of went crazy with altering live pumpkins. It was trial and error, between spray painting a base coat and gessoing and then collaging or painting. I think I did a bit of everything. I don't know if I will do this again this year to the extent I did last year but I did pick up some artificial pumpkins and a few gourds with my employee discount at AC Moore where I am teaching some art journaling workshops. I put a layer of gesso on that one. Gee, do you think I was tired? I just realized I uploaded this picture twice. Sorry about that. If I delete it I might wipe out the entire post and have to start all over again and I do not have the energy or patience to do it again........ Last year the live pumpkins were shellacked so they lasted until just after Thanksgiving.The artificial ones will be around for awhile. Has anyone else done this with a pumpkin? Live or plastic? Thanks for visiting. Happy Paint Party Friday. Thank you to Kristin and Eva for hosting this. Hope you have a wonderful creative weekend. Kristin if you are reading this I need your snail mail address to mail you the accordion book because you are the 75th person to follow my blog. :)

In The Yard

Crazy mushrooms are showing up in the yard.. And then there's tons of pine cones that have fallen. Talk about an obstacle course. .