Trying to revive my muse

It's been awhile since I've done much artful creating. What with the remodel and then refinishing lots of furniture, I have not been in my art room except for a few small swap pieces to send off.

Things are settling down now and I'm taking a break from the furniture painting - at least for now as there are more pieces I would like to redo - so I'm trying to find my muse again.  This came in the mail yesterday. I was about to throw it away but since it's basically a big sheet of sticker paper, I thought I would art it up for future stickers.

First I spread a light coat of gesso on it to subdue the colors and writing.

And this is what I ended up with after several layers of scraped paint, stenciling, stamping and splatters. It was fun to just let loose and not care about the outcome! And you can't even tell what it was originally.

Now I have some great background paper to punch or tear to add to future art journal pages or mixed media projects.  Here's an example of a punched 2.5" circle which is perfect for the start of an Altered Trading Coin.

So, the muse is taking baby steps back. Hopefully she will jump right in soon!

"Reflection" Altered Book page

This is a simple page with a painty background and bits of drywall tape.  The focal image is an old stamp that I stamped on tissue paper and then decoupaged to the page. Black Stabilo pencil was smudged around the image, the title and the edges of the page.

Interactive Altered Book Spread

This is a three-page spread using images from old paintings. The center page is cut into two tags that, when flipped, reveal other images which interact with the original ones. When you flip the heads or bodies, you create other altered images. This one was fun to do but I had to work to get the heads and bodies to more-or-less match up!

Left page/man with center page/woman

Right page/woman with center page/man

"Head" enter top tag flipped to left page and "body" center bottom tag flipped to right page

"Body" center bottom tag flipped to left page and "head" center top tag over right page

Some of the images didn't extend to the bottom of the pages so I had to add the lace and gold doilies. I also added a gold crown made from a portion of the doily to one of the men and stamped a gold crown on one lady.

The background was painted with acrylic paint and then stenciled over with white paint. Then I wiped on two colors of Distress ink. I used black Stabilo pencil around the images and edges of the pages.

Art Journaling

I've done a few art journal pages these past few weeks. The backgrounds were mainly "done" as they were "mop-up" pages (when I have leftover paint or messy stencils when doing another project, I don't waste the product but clean it off on pages in my art journal so later I don't face a blank page!). I used some of the images and words left over from my Journaling by 5s project so these went very quickly.

Online workshop journal page

It's been awhile since I've taken an online class. I always like to see how other artists approach their work and see similarities or differences from mine.  I've followed Cindy Gilstrap for awhile and when her workshops (junqueart.com) were on sale during January, I jumped at the chance to take her Dream Big "mini" workshop. 

In this workshop she takes you through the creation of one double-paged art journal spread using a vintage cabinet card image juxtaposed with bright, playful collage and paint. I loved her page and was happy that mine came out very similar. I did use different papers and stencils than she did but used some of the same paints.

Here is my finished page. I love it and will be trying more of this style incorporating vintage images.

I had so much fun that I signed up for another workshop!

Journaling by 5s - Intro and Session 1

I want to get back to art journaling this year. The past few years I've been doing a lot of "memory planning" in Traveler's Notebooks and it's taken a lot of my time. So my goal for 2018 is to do more art in journals.

Sometime last fall I discovered an interesting concept on You Tube which was started three years ago  by Shannon Green. It's called "Journaling by 5s" and is designed to quick-start the journaling process. You can find more information in Shannon Green's video here.

Briefly, there are five sessions of ten prompts, each done in 15 minutes on 20 pages (5-10-15-20) Shannon and many people did this in a composition book, glueing together groups of five pages to strengthen the paper. I didn't want to go to all that effort, so I found this album in my stash which had exactly 20 pages (perfect!) and the paper is quite sturdy. Some people have done this exercise on loose papers and then bound them together. This is great for spreading them out to dry. I just placed loose deli paper sheets between the pages as I worked.

You set a timer for 15 minutes for each session and do two prompts during each session.

Session 1: Use paint and inks (creating background)

Session 2: Collage and recycled materials (for texture)

Session 3: Use stamps and stencils (for pattern)

Session 4: Add images and words (focal point)

Session 5: Pen and pencil work (for details)

Being a bit rushed keeps you from overthinking the process. There is no time for decisions - you don't think, you just do! It is spontaneous and you have to go with the flow.  After all 5 sessions, you will have the makings of 20 journal pages. Some might be "finished;" some might need more work. Not every page will be a masterpiece but it is amazing how the pages evolve and turn out.

So, ready, set, go! Here are the results of my first session using acrylic paint (Dylusions) with both a brush and a credit card "scraper", Distress stains and a few spray inks (Adirondack and Dylusions). I limited my paint colors to yellow, blue, red and pink; stains to blue and orange; spray inks to green, orange, turquoise, red and purple.

Pg 1

Pg 2

Pg 3

Pg 4

Pg 5

Pg 6

Pg 7

Pg 8

Pg 9

Pg 10

Pg 11

Pg 12

Pg 13

Pg 14

Pg 15

Pg 16

Pg 17

Pg 18

Pg 19

Pg 20

As you can see, none of these are particularly pretty! Thank goodness they will have four more layers! I did well with the time frame, even having an extra minute or two to go back and add more on a few pages.

Stay tuned for Session 2!

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Memorial Day weekend while also remembering our brave soldiers and their families (past and present) who sacrifice so that we can enjoy our freedoms.

On Saturday we made a quick, one-day turnaround trip to Houston to spend the day with Bill's almost 92-year-old aunt. She broke her pelvis and is recuperating in a rehab facility. It was a relief to see her doing well. We were picked up at the airport by her granddaughter who we haven't seen in ten years, so that was a nice "extra."

This is last week's planner spread. I painted the background with acrylic paint and then used a baby wipe through a stencil to remove some of the paint, but it's hard to see and mostly covered up!

Sunday was the last day we were in Albuquerque with all the kids and we went to an art/interactive installation in Santa Fe called Meow Wolf. It's almost impossible to describe but is a combination of art, "haunted house," jungle gym etc. I cut up the brochure to make a tip-in at the top of the right page and then journaled about the experience in the remaining space. The flower in the lower left corner was stenciled onto the inside of a security envelope and then cut out and embellished with black doodles.

30-Day Art Marks Challenge - Days 3-5

 Day 3 - Layered

This page started as a dictionary page. I did a wash of pink acrylic paint and then swiped some white paint horizontally with my finger. I "layered" circles painted with paint daubers, then doodled with white and black pens.

Day 4 - Stacked

This background is a gel-plate printed deli paper which I glued on to the index card page. I cut triangles from another painty deli paper, glued them on in a stack and then doodled with white and turquoise paint pens.

Day 5 - Round

This was a thin book page. I used blue and green watercolors for the background and "stamped" with bubble wrap. I  then painted yellow circles with acrylic paint and my fingers. I added a touch of turquoise and then doodled with a black marker.

I am having so much fun with this challenge. I love my tiny junk-papers book and working for less than ten minutes to "make my marks." Of course, these aren't art masterpieces, but rather little exercises to get creating every day.

Altered Address Labels - Tutorial

Do you get so many address labels in the mail that you don't ever use them all? Or, in my case, I keep receiving ones for my daughter who hasn't lived with us or in Texas for ten years! I was about to throw them away but then had an "aha" moment and decided to alter them! I used a few in one of my recent weekly spreads and promised to share a tutorial. So here goes:

1. Cover the label sheet with one or two coats of gesso. You can see that they aren't totally covered but the following steps will take care of that.

2. Paint with two colors of acrylic paint with a paintbrush or old key card or your fingers. (I used a hot pink and light blue which combined to make a violet.)

3. I added more pink.

4. Then more blue.

5. "Stamp" with white paint and bubble wrap.

6. Stamp with black permanent ink (I used a chevron roller stamp).

7. The black stood out too much so I applied more white paint with bubble wrap to soften it. (Can you tell that this is a back-and-forth process? Put something on, add something to cover that, add more, etc...)

8. Add small dots with pink paint and a piece of shelf liner.

9. Add more white with corrugated cardboard (a coffee cup wrapper).

10. Stamp script randomly with black permanent ink. Finished - or just keep going until you like it!

 Here are a few of the labels from the finished sheet. Each one looks different, but they coordinate.

And here are a few more I have done.

Sometimes the labels are bigger and you could even punch shapes from them.

The possibilities are endless and you can recycle and use something that would have been thrown in the trash! I hope you will give it a try!