Been a Week

Well it's been a week since my last post. I have been doing a couple of things. I'm fighting a UTI which sucks but I think I'm finally winning. I've also been doing the Draw Happy section of the 21 Secrets Art Journal Playground on Dirty Footprints Studio site. There were several interesting assignments. the first was to try different tools on top of various media:

We did some doodling:

And probably me favorite, we painted some circles on a page and made faces:

I'm now onto Abstract Adventures from Connie Hozvicka. I've done one painting from a pre-lesson called Get It Out :: Get It Down. I want to do more on it but here in the Pacific Northwest, paint just doesn't dry quickly. I'll do more on it tomorrow and start the first of the Abstract Adventures paintings. 

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Strong

I put together some of the techniques I’ve been learning and created a journal page dedicated to the women in my family. We’re a matriarchal bunch and it seems that right now I’m passing the crown to my oldest daughter as I let her take on more of the planning and logistics of family events. Having five children with spouses, significant others, kids and jobs, getting everyone together can be tricky. The five siblings all have their birthday’s in a two month slot so summer can be very family oriented. Right now she’s working on the boys’ birthdays. They are August 15 and 18 and it looks like we’re going to go to the pinball museum on the 20^th. The two older girls had a party at my oldest daughter’s house and their sister got us all to the zoo on one of the few nice days we’ve had this summer.

The women on my journal page are what I call my ansisters, those women who came before me in the family. I only put three on the page but there are several more for future art efforts. For me the strongest matriarch was my great grandmother, Kit Simms Horrell. She held the family together during the great depression working as a wet nurse, a practical nurse and helping other women with abortions when there was nowhere else safe to get them. She raised my mother as my grandmother had tuberculosis and died when my mother was 13. My mother and she had differences similar to those experienced by many mothers and daughters but they maintain unity in the family no matter what their differences.

Thanks, Julie

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer had a great post yesterday that showed how to spend just 10 minutes a day on your art journal. I didn't realize that Art Journal Every Day wasn't about creating a page everyday but rather about committing to spending at least 10 minutes a day working on your art journal. It also showed how much you can do in 10 minutes. Thanks, Julie.

I didn't blog yesterday because I was having problems getting and staying connected but I've got that resolved now (I hope). I wanted to talk about why I was disappointed that I couldn't do very well with the spiral art toy. I love to do intricate designs and then color them in and I thought this would be one way to do it. I guess I'll have to continue on with what I've been doing.

First I draw the images and then I sit with my fine-tipped felt pens and color everything in. It's my idea of fun.

Spirally Challenged

Okay, I've got to admit it: I'm spirally challenged. In the 21 Secrets Art Journal Playground video that I working on it calls for using one of those kids' toys where you put the pencil in the slot and draw in a circle to make various designs.

Well, I can't do it, at least not very well unless it is the circle in the center of the disc. as these two pages from my Techniques Journal show.

But I do have some interesting pages that show the difference between backgrounds done on gessoed and non-gessoed pages.

  

Technique 1 is basically putting drops of paint on a page and spreading them with you fingers.

 Technique 1 (non-gessoed page on left)

 Technique 2 is putting drops of paint on the page and using a credit card to spread it.

Technique 2 (non-gessoed page on left)

 

 Technique 3 has the first two colors spread with a credit card and third color applied with a dry brush.

Technique 3 (non-gessoed page on left)

I'm not sure there is a "like" or don't "like" decision to be made. It's all a matter of what the desired effect is.

Gonna Run One Day Behind

It looks like I may run one day behind on these posts, posting for the previous day in the mornings.

As I said I'm working through 21Secrets Art Journal Playground. This is a series of workshops by 21 artists. I started with Alma Stoller's Child's Play Workshop. One of the lessons I worked on was making your own stamps. Here are some pages created with the stamps I made.

This background was made from yarn wrapped around a dog bone and the ends of the bone.

This one was made from yarn wrapped around a cassette case.

And then there are those backgrounds you make by accident!

This is the sheet I was cleaning my brush on.



Starting My Art Blog

Recently I tried to joined an art group and was asked for a link to my blog. While I do have a knitting blog, it just didn't seem appropriate for that group. So here I am starting a new blog. The group I wanted to join was Art Journal Every Day and I wanted to sign up for August. So now I can go join and link to a reasonable blog.

I am semi-new to art journaling. Right now I am focusing on learning techniques. I purchased the download of Paula Phillips (aka, Journal Artista) Layered and Textured Backgrounds: Art Journaling Tips and Tricks and it was a great place to start. I've learned so much from it. I'm also working through 21 Secrets: An Art Journal Playground and Total Alignment both of which are on the Dirty Footprints Studio site.

And now I'll be signed up for Art Journal Every Day which will be a good way to record my progress on each. Of course many of my postings may be exercises but here's a page from my journal to start the process. and serve as my August 1 entry. BTW, I'm not too good at photographing pages yet but I'll figure it out or get a scanner.