Stamping on Painted Backgrounds

ATC

Mindy's Flowers stamps by Autumn Leaves

Pencil Crayon on Watercolor

I've seen some lovely cards lately over at Stamping Mathilda and Some Fiddling on the Kitchen Table.  Yesterday I looked through my file of painted backgrounds and made this artist trading card.  I also stamped a few larger pieces that will likely become cards.

Watercolor on Gesso?

Watercolor and Gelato in 6 x 6 Junk Journal

Roz Stendahl does fabulous drawings in beautiful handmade books.  She also does exhaustive experiments and reviews of all kinds of papers and media.  One of her recommendations for mediocre paper is to apply a layer of gesso.  She will use this even for watercolor, so I thought I would try it.  (I'm finding that I'm attracted to a square format book lately, and the only one I have is this 6 x 6 journal made from scrapbook paper.)

I can't say that I'm convinced.  It dried OK, but the watercolor was very slippery going on.  The background of gelatos was very fun, though - fingerpainting!

Thoughts on Unfinished Journals: You Don't Have to Finish the Way You Started

Gelli Print

The second journal I'm working on finishing began its life as a sketchbook.  Most of the pages are kraft, and a few are cream.  I stumbled upon a You Tube video by Robyn McClendon in which she prints in a kraft journal and a light bulb lit up in my head.  I may change my mind again, but so far, I'm having lots of fun!

Each day I work with a different color palette.

A few trees are making an appearance.

Thoughts on Unfinished Journals: Why My Brain is Tired

Zeigarnik

Sprayed Ink Accordian Journal

Zeigarnik is the psychological fixation on unfinished tasks.  Zeigarnik explains why I spend so much time thinking about my unfinished journals.  You can read more about it and see some beautiful sketchbook pages here, on Laurie Doctor's blog.  She talks about how this is linked to procrastination, productivity, and multi-tasking.

Although I feel better knowing why I think about it and how to solve it, getting at the solution is harder than it looks.  (I already knew what the solution is - just finish them!)  Even before I read Laurie's article, I began to take the unfinished journals off my shelf and work on finishing them.

I'm trying to do them in the order in which they were started.  This is the first, an accordian journal just waiting for a few small entries to complete it.  

Now it is done:

And on the reverse:

Here's a close-up of a few of my favorite pages:

Cute Idea for Book Signature Threads

I found a cute idea for finishing the ends of the threads on a handmade book.  

I found it on Vintage Junk Journals. There are so many good ideas on this site!

All of the signatures in my new junk journal have a calendar page for the innermost page.

Debbie-Anne uses punched hearts for all of her junk journals, but I used punchies and hand cut shapes based on the theme of the page.

I glued matching shapes to the ends of both threads, sandwiching the two threads between the two punchies.

Fun, eh?

Silly Scraps Saturday

I did cut into a pristine 3"x 3" piece of origami paper for this "Notan" experiment, so I'm not sure it qualifies as a "scrap", but it's my blog, right?

I've been wanting to try Notan for awhile, and this post by Diana Trout inspired me.  I haven't got the book yet so I just used her video.

More Alisa Burke Inspiration

Alisa Burke recently did a fabulous demonstration about Mixing Pastels and Water and water, which inspired me to give it a try.  Who knew this was possible?

That led me to try the same thing with Inktense Blocks:

And I even worked a little bigger!

What have I Been Up To?

Not blogging, obviously.  LOL  I've been stuck at home with a cold this week, getting sucked in by the Internet mostly.  I did find (again), Andrea Joseph's wonderful "collection" drawings, and they inspired me to do a couple:

Before I got sick I made a visit to Vandusen Gardens, inspiring this page:

Permission to Play

Coincident with my desire to get messy with paint, I found Carolyn Dube's free mixed media workshop, "A Permission to Play".  The premise seemed to answer my desire - I was looking simply for permission to play!  I'm still in the middle of it, and look forward every three days to the release of the next video.

One of her recurring themes is to free your creativity by using art materials which aren't precious.  At the beginning of the series, she leads you through making an art journal out of an old cardboard box.  I didn't follow the instructions (I think that's allowed if we're giving ourselves permission to play), but instead starting using pages of scrapbook paper.  Why was that?

Towards the end of October, I was noodling around on StampingMathilda's blog and found a post about using up her scrapbook paper.  I'm not sure where she got with this plan, but I gessoed a few pages of scrapbook paper with the plan to make a new journal.  The binding of the journal never happened, and Carolyn Dube works on unbound pages in her workshop.  So, eager to play, rather than make another journal, I grabbed what was closest - gessoed scrapbook paper.  Will it ever get bound?  Who cares - I've given myself permission to just play!

Finding Inspiration to Draw

5.5" x 8"

Fountain Pen and Pencil Crayon

On a wet day I paint from photographs.  The daffodils were from Paint My Photo, a wonderful site offering copyright-free photos for painting.

Another inspirational site is Make Awesome Art.  A recent post inspired me to draw a watercolor sketch from a photo I took in China:

Love One Another

 

 

"A new command I give you:  Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another".  - John 13:34

 

Like most, I've been pondering the horrific hatred demonstrated in Orlando this week.  This passage is the answer God gave me when I asked Him, "What can I do?"

 

A few minutes later He led me here.  Laure has it right, I think.  "Maybe, just maybe, if we fill the world with kindness, we'll begin to crowd out the hate that drives someone to harm others."  I encourage you to check out Laure's project and spread the love!

 

Yesterday, I made bookmarks for The Bookmark Project.  That's one of the ways that I can fill the world with kindness.  My commitment to this project has been renewed.  I'll post an update about this project separately.



Share the Link Love

I hope I get this right.  I'm already late for this mission, but it is such a nice idea I hope Tammy at Daisy Yellow doesn't mind.  (If the pic doesn't link, try this: http://daisyyellowart.com/vividlife/share-the-link-love.html)

The mission is to share links that we love each week in April.  I follow many blogs, and they are so inspirational!  Here are some of my favourites, apart from Daisy Yellow, of course:

iHanna:  I've linked to iHanna before.  Her blog is full of collage, journals, photography and scrumptious PINK!

Martha Lever:  Martha inspires my love of calligraphy, but her blog shows her talents at painting as well.

Elvie Studio:  Another calligrapher I admire, Lori also dabbles in handmade books and stamp carving, two more of my passions.

My Grid and Inchie Projects:  I have a weakness for grids, and this lady sure knows how to do them well!

Simplicity:  Simply the best in simple greeting cards.  Susan is the queen of design, IMHO.

Hey, that was fun!  More next Sunday!