Art Journal 1231

I worked on binding my journal for Dawn Sokol's 1231 journal making class over the weekend: I was able to work out the math for a cross stitch binding for both of the journals. The blue one had two signatures...

and it also has all of these great flip open pages. Lots of room to work.

The green one has three signatures, and I wasn't sure that I could make the stitches work, but they did. Yay. I like how they look. The spines are structured with duct tape - DID YOU KNOW that Wxxxxxx (THAT store) has a zillion (OK, like 15) colors of duct tape? I never imagined! Flourescent colors, and teal, and bright red, and hot-rod-flame and even a tye-dye pattern. Now I have to go check out the local hardware stores to see what they have...

The covers of the big green journal have modeling paste/spackle stars on them. I painted them gold for the long winter nights ahead.

Oh! And we have a new benefactress: she brings us wire spools. They are free and you are welcome to come stake a claim on one or two. Tables? Chairs? Bookshelves in the round? A spine for a book or a scroll? What would you do with one??

And I am thinking of making a Knitting Spool with the cardboard tube. Make hats, or blankets...

Did you know that Sunne Spot will be open all during Thanksgiving week? (Except the day itself.) Sunne Spot can also be rented for parties, and even inpromptu gatherings. What are you doing with your in-laws all week? Call me. We'll set up a couple of hours for ornament or present making: 323-1629

a morning of color

Good morning for painting at the Studio. Please do come share in the fun. It is all play - to shake the sillies out: I have been beading all week. :)

So: 461 Commercial Street - that is Route One. I am upstairs in the red, big, Cheese Co. building just up from Fresh Farm. 8:30 - noon.

Come play. This is good for us to look at color for a while.

Results of some painted papers

This is sooooo cool: I saw this on a DVD of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's called Collage: Fast and Furious. (Great show.) She is very generous with video and photos on her blog, here. Anyway, she shows this on her DVD: drawing a white glue resist. I used watercolor paper here: The next day, after it had dried thoroughly, I sprayed it with blue and red acrylic water that I made:

And here are a couple of photos of the dried paper:

A side view:

And the paint, being acrylic, not watercolor, will stay put on the glue as well as the paper. Great. Don't know what I will do with the paper ... make ATCs?? make a little book cover?? Hmm.

Oh! And I have seen this done lots of times before and have never figured it out: plastic wrap wrinkle texture. One paints, lays plastic wrap atop with wrinkles, lets dry and Voila! gets great texture. So I did ...

... but got these interesting but veeeery subtle textures:

The gold is lovely, but only at an angle.

THEN, I discovered the secret: I sprayed acrylic water on the paper (so it has to be quite wet!)

And I used a color that contrasts significantly from the color below.

Very successful, n'est-ce pas? Come see it quickly, before I cut it up into some project.