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.

The Smash Book Overhaul- Finished.

I first started telling you about my project of overhauling the Smash Book somewhere in 2012. For those unfamiliar with this it's kind of like a fancy place to put all the things we used to collect in drawers when we were growing up, maybe a memory book of sorts or a pre-scrapbooking book. I purchased it on a whim of sorts because of it's hard cover, pretty sturdy paper, and a few things already written on some of the pages which sparked some ideas for me in terms of exploring art journaling. So, it looks like this basically in the store, give or take size and or color, but the jist of it is this. Here's some pages before I got my hands and teeth in to it. You can see some of the decorative paper here.I've shown you bits and pieces of it over the last 2 years. Yes, it took me two years to complete it. I know this because I marked the beginning by proclaiming I had done my taxes on 2/18/12. It seems fitting on this day that not only is the book finished but that I am showing it to you on this "memorable American day." I will share with you my Smash Book as I have over hauled it. Stay tuned....... Just to start you off here's the cover.

Spring Has Sprung!!!

Happy Spring!!! Thanks for all your wonderfully supportive and kind comments.

Floor Space

Since my studio looks like a tornado came through, thank goodness for some empty floor space.

What A Mess

When it gets bad enough...... I will have to clean it up. I don't know how anyone can work in that messy space.Can you tell I've got just a few projects going on at the same time? And all of them are more than a stone's throw away from being completed. :)

The Foam Board Four

Once upon a time in January of 2013 there was a piece of foam board on my table. No. This is not an April Fool's joke. This was a catch-all piece I'd do all my work on top of so it caught everything.And do you remember my goal last year was to practice drawing faces and wanting to incorporate them into my art? I think I've shown you a couple of these before. I am being brave to show these to you because they really stink.I let this sit for a good many months before I sent back to it.And reworked it some more. And ended up with this. They are certainly a bunch of strange characters but I've grown fond of them over the year watching them develop. I feel good that I didn't give up and did pretty much finish this painting. So. There you have the foam board four. Don't mess with them. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm going to link this on Friday here and here.