Breathe and Plant A Garden

Ok. So, I am nearing the end of this Smash Book Overhaul. I don't often show myself in my art. I notice a lot of artists do and they take a lot of selfies. I'm not there yet. The "breathe" page I actually was petting my dog Buddy but somehow he got cut out of the picture when photocopied so I had to replace him with something. lol. a flower. Some washi tape, a partial picture of my cat Lucy, some torn paper of my art, and some art journaling. I kind of like this page because I look relaxed, like I AM breathing, which I probably need to remind myself to do more. Plant a Garden has pieces of paper distressed with citrasolv and more pieces of my torn art, some international newspaper, doodling with paint markers, and some journaling. I have a couple of pages left I feel that are worth sharing, but I'll save them for next week. I hope you've enjoyed my ride in this making this smash book my own art journal. IN case you don't know the story behind this, I found this Smash Book in my local arts/crafts store two years ago. It kind of reminds me of the pre scrap book era (although I've never been a scrap booker). I bought it for it's durable paper and a few interesting prompts. Mostly, I just had a lot of fun with it, making it my go to book while watching Netflix. I am sharing this hereand here If you haven't checked these places out, come and join the fun and or just have fun looking around. There's so much "good stuff." Thanks for visiting.

Deep in the City......... In Tiny Microscopic Rooms - The Smash Book Overhaul

Making my way through this overhauled Smash Book. I love any art having to do with buildings, city scapes etc. I was playing with alcohol based markers here with torn pieces of paper altered with Citrasolv. I think my friend Robin lives in one of those buildings but I cannot remember which house is hers. Thanks for visiting.

De La Fleur- The Smash Book Overhaul -continued

It's sort of a scuffed up grungy look with pieces of torn and altered citrasolv papers, paint splattered waxed paper and baby wipes, some faint punchinella stencilling, and acrylic inks. I then had great fun dribbling the black ink from the top and tearing the edge of the page. I added those tiny stick on letters I found in the .25 bin at the art store eons ago. I think this is one of my favorite pages in the book. I hope you've had a good week. As tired as I am I'm venturing over here tonight. Do come. The folks are nice and there's lots of good stuff to see. Thanks for visiting. I am linking as well to Balzer Designs Art Journal Every Day.

The Smash Book Overhaul -Part 2

I'm going to show you these pages a bit at a time because I wanted to explain in some cases what was done. Here's the inside front cover. ....... some doodling, playing with an assortment of markers and gel pens. Notice the mandala on the index card which is glued down. Remember ICAD, index card a day? It's coming up in June again. The next page is sort of a flap page. I took bits of paper I altered using Citrasolv , which is a natural cleaner. Pages with photos from a National Geographic magazine were soaked and or sprayed in/with Citrasolv for various amounts of time and voila! YOu get many different new images. It is a messy process but if you have some time and patience you've gotta try it at least once. I have often left disposable aluminum pans soaking for days with a dozen strips and forgotten about them only to return and have the liquid dried up and the paper stuck together. But peeling them apart promises great surprises. I also have left them hanging outside letting the ink drip off onto the ground or paper and then letting them dry from there. I've also manipulated the ink around with various tools to get patterns, create designs, writing and drawing in to the ink.Pockets and puddles of ink blend and bleed. It's best done in a ventilated area or outside. While the citrus orange leaves the room smelling very nice, it can be overwhelming for some people. Throughout the book you will find bits and pieces of paper made with this technique. I have tried this with other magazines but it doesn't work. The secret is in the ink that Nat'l Geographic uses in printing. I think I discovered washi tape around that same time, so I bordered the page with some washi tape strips. Oh, yes, and there's a bit of a piece of map showing through. Stay tuned for more.

On Sunday

While it was doing this outside I was inside doing this Back in the Fall, I played around with distressing National Geographic pages with Citrasolv. Have you ever done that? I think you can tell the blotchy, bleedy looking strips on this piece are from that process. I love the way they look and actually, I love the orangy citrus smell of Citrasolv. I also use it for what it is intended for- for cleaning. It's one of the most natural cleaning products I've run across. So, my process was to tear strips from old National Geographics I'd subscribed to when the kids were growing up (I'm so glad I saved them.) and then lay them in a disposable, flat aluminum pan, and let them soak in a layer of Citrasolv. I would often leave them soaking for days at a time but I'd turn them over when I got home from work. AS you turn them you can see the ink bleeding and running and you can make marks on the paper with your finger or a paint brush or the end of a paint brush or whatever you can think of. If pieces were laying on top of each other when you peeled them apart before or after they dried, wonderful things would happen in the peeling process. Anyway, I liked the way these papers looked mixed in with the others sewed down on a file folder. While the snow was very pretty I am certainly ready for Spring. Thanks for spending a few moments with me.