Abstracts and Florals

It seems that my journal pages have been following a certain theme lately….abstract shapes colored with watercolor pencils, intense pencils or Prismacolor markers and floral designs. 

Colorful Flowers 2

On this first page, I used Prismacolor markers on the right side and watercolor background on the left.  For the floral color, I used Intense pencils.  I used a Pitt pen for the zentangle doodles.  You’d think I would have worked in the two sides separately but No.  Both side were done at the same time. I really like the intensity of the color.

 

Colorful Flowers 3

The right side of this page was really a happy accident.  When I colored the page above with the markers, they bled to the other side of the page so I decided to make use of the color there.  It’s a little patchy and not as intense as the first page but I like it just as much.  

We Had Jungle Fever

This past weekend I went to help My Girl get a room ready for the new baby. “Little G” is due in a little over two months.  My Girl sweetly said that I inspired her desire to decorate the room in a jungle animal theme when I gave her stuffed giraffe and baby clothes with cute jungle animals on them.

So for weeks she searched for just the right pictures that we could paint on the walls taking into consideration our level of painting expertise and the time required to do it.  Because I’m not in the same town our time frame was short and the images had to be uncomplicated and easy to do. Not only did we only have a few short days to paint but we also had to shop for baby accessories to fit with the painting and go on a hospital maternity tour. (I’ll be with her and her husband in the delivery room.) 

The animals are not as detailed as I would have liked but we think it came out great. We had loads of fun and we worked out butts off getting the room done.  Here is what we painted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not too bad for a couple of amateurs.  We also got a lamps, rugs and other jungley accessories to round out the jungle theme.  It was a great bonding experience.

No Fabric Involved

Doesn’t this page look like a crazy quilt?  So colorful and happy.  I used both Derwent Inktense Pencils and watercolor crayons to add the background color. then added the doodle using my Pitt pen and more Intense Pencils for the flower colors.

 

I love the colors in this next page too.

 

 

Thanks for lookin’

If you could rewrite your past, would you?

If you could rewrite your past, would you?  Even in hard times I love my life. Yes, It’s a good life that I share with my guy.  That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like to change some minor decisions I’ve made but I’d keep all the major ones.

Then, of course, there are some decisions that can later make you feel like a prisoner to your circumstances.  Mine have to do with a career path I chose not take and how that decision affects my life now …. but then again had I continued on that path, I’d probably feel the same.  It wasn’t my calling.

Who would have guessed that the best decision I ever made was to reach out and touch the hand of that gorgeous man in the bar with the beautiful blue eyes? And who knew that I’d still be married to him after 23 years? Ah but marriage….The only work harder than being married is being a parent.  I don’t think you can have a really good solid marriage without some messy times. Times when you don’t agree on anything but decide that it’s worth the hassle to be together.  It’s hard a hard lesson to learn that you should both strive to work out your differences so that each of you gets a satisfactory result at least 1/2 the time. To be true partners because when you can work it out…well it is very lovely!!

 

Thanks to the Eagles for the use of their lyrics to Hotel California. As for the postcard, I found it when going through some old photographs and memorabilia. I bought the postcard in 1980 during a trip to San Francisco. Seems like an appropriate use for the card considering that was the year I graduated from college for that career path not taken. 

The photograph of the waves was one I took this weekend after our anniversary trip to Stinson Beach.

Do you ever pull out stuff from your scrapbooks and use them in your art?

Art in Bolinas

My husband and I spent Saturday and Sunday on the coast celebrating our 23rd anniversary. I can hardly believe it’s already been 23 years that I married the love of my life, my best friend. But because things haven’t been easy recently, we were really looking forward to some badly needed stress relief in the form of a ocean visit and together time getting reacquainted with the things that made us fall in love all those years ago.

Saturday we left home and drove two hours to Stinson Beach where we were going to spend the night at the quaint Sandpiper Inn. We enjoyed each others company, the sunshine, and always gorgeous Stinson Beach. We got there early and spent almost the entire day on the beach. First we walked and talked for hours and hours. Then had a few drinks, ate dinner and went back to the beach to watch the sunset. What a lovely day it turned out to be!!

Sunday after breakfast and another brief walk on the Stinson beach, we hopped in the car and drove a few miles to Bolinas. We found several art galleries and a wonderful museum but what really WOWed me was the painted beach wall.  It was a free form, ever changing wall of organic art. Hand painted art, stencil and graffiti art and even a face carved to a rock.  Take a look at all the beautiful photos I was able to take with just my IPhone.

This is the Gothic Dolphin:

 

Surfing Frankenstein

Surfing Raquel

Pack It In, Pack It Out

Stone Faced Girl

 

Aren’t they awesome? I came home inspired !!

Adversities – letting go of the fear

The quote is “Adversities do not make a man either weak or strong, but the reveal what he is”….by Faith Forsyte

When you’ve been through a lot bad things in a short period of time, don’t ever ask….’What else can go wrong?” because, ha ha, you’ll soon find out.   

My guy and I have been going through some financial and family adversities recently and I’m sure there are more to follow.  My guy, I’m sure, fully expected me to be freaking out by now as I would have in the past. However, about 8 years ago, when going through a different hardship, I learned that there are some things you can’t do anything about. And if you can’t change it, there is no sense in freaking out. So I, the control freak, learned to let go of the fear of failure, the fear that If *I* didn’t do it it wouldn’t get done. It was a liberating experience.

I’ll bet it has my guy wondering why I’m so calm. And I’m sure he’s wondering if I’m holding it all in and am ready to explode. 

No, I’m really not.

Frankly, I’m still hopeful that things will work out in the end and so I’m not ready to throw in the towel and yank my hair out just yet.  While I hate the gray in it, I’ve grown partial to having my hair on my head.

Plus my art journaling helps.

In the words of Kurt Cobain

 

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”  Leslie Herger from the Art Journaling ning came up with this great quote as a journaling prompt.

It’s a simplistic face but I like it for the quickie it is.

 

 

So what’s up with you?

Cutting up my credit card

Thanks to Beverly at the http://artjournaling.ning.com/ I am back to art jounaling on a regular basis.  I told myself after Kelly Kilmer’s class that I should be working on my own prompts. That choosing my own was the best way to work on finding “My Style.”  But after the slump I have been in, I decided to get my mojo back any way I could and if it takes someone else’s prompts to do it, so be it.  Some of the prompts strike a cord right away, some take a bit longer.

March 2nd Prompt: Credit cards

This prompt came at a very opportune time.  Chase Bank, who took over after WAMU went belly up, had just sent me a replacement card for the WAMU card. So I had one to cut up for this prompt.

March 3rd & 4th:  Blue and Doodles, respectively. Not much to say about this one, except the background is watercolors instead of my usual acrylic paints. The flowers are colored with watercolor pencils and/or Intense pencils.

March 5th & 6th: Past and Present.

Yes that little girl is me as a child. Since my mom passed, I’ve been going through old photo albums and I found this kid picture of me I wanted to use. Today was the perfect time to try a new method of image transfer.

I used an ink jet transfer method to get the image onto the journal page. after testing, I think I prefer the toner based method more. The water based Ink jet image is easier to mess up. 

The Here and Now side was done with a stenciled image of me that I created a few months ago after taking Mary Ann Moss’ Stencilery class. I’ll probably use it a few more times because I like how it looks. :)

 

I’d love to hear what you do to get out of a creative funk.

Rev’ing up the engine

 

This is the journal challenge prompt for March 1st at Art Journaling Ning site.  The page is based on a photo taken by my dad on one of his many fishing trips. I scanned the photo and enlarged it from it’s original 3.5’ x 5’ size. I tore the edges of the photo and I glued it down to the page. Then used acrylic paint, markers and rubber stamps to finish it off.

Don’t you just love the out of whack perspective on the tracks?  LOL.

Handmade Journal

Today is the start of the March Art Journal Challenge at http://artjournaling.ning.com/ Yesterday, I realized I didn’t have a journal to work in. So what to do? I looked around at Micheal’s for a journal  with watercolor paper but they only carry journals with sketch paper. I like to scrub my pages and I’m always afraid that the sketch paper will tear.

I really didn’t want to drive to Davis to the Borders bookstore to buy a moleskin so next best thing?  Buy a pad of watercolor paper and make one. The last journal I made had only one signature and I wanted to make one with enough pages for 30 days of journaling so I needed 15 pages or between 3 and 5 signatures. I opted for 5 five signatures of 3 pages each.

My book cover was made from illustration board and painted Pink with Brown polka dots.  But I made a newbie mistake when creating the holes for the stitching. One, I was in a hurry and I didn’t let it dry thoroughly. and two, I used a awl instead of a Japanese screw punch to make the holes in the cover. So as I was punching the holes, the edge split. I think the eyelets will keep it in place. If not, oh well, lesson learned. But I like the way it looks.

Another thing I would do differently is use thicker thread.  I used quilting thread so I think it will hold up but I would look nicer with thicker thread.

I found this really wonderful illustration of the Coptic stitch on Youtube. I recommend it highly.

 

Here it is! By the way, the brown dots are scrapbook paper glued on the pink cover.

I love it. Can’t wait to start using it.