Monday Musings

  The journal I started making during the power outage last weekend is all painted, collaged and bound. I don't usually fully collage one before working in it, but I wanted to spiral bind it with the Zutter so having it filled with images before hand was the way to go. I wanted the collage to come all the way to the left edge on many of the pages and there was simply no way to do that if I bound it first!  It is rather nice to have a full journal all set for pen work and writing that I can grab any time I'm walking out the door.
  The entire time I was working on creating this journal the words "personal and potent" kept running through my head. now I'm referring to this as my personal and potent journal. I tend not to name a journal because then it feels like I need to stick with a theme, but this one obviously demanded naming!
  This is a skinny journal, only 4.5" wide by 8.5" long. I find skinny pages more challenging to work on, but am always up for a challenge as I feel it causes us to be more creative. It's the same reason I limit the amount of images and supplies I have near me at any given time. If I work with a smaller a mount of images, say a decent sized Ziploc full, it forces me to dip deeper into my creative pool. Plus, I find too many supplies, be it collage fodder, stamps, tools, whatever to be creatively stifling. If you have too much around you it can be overwhelming. Better to push the creativity by working with less than sit there going "Where do I start? What do I use?"

The front cover. the back cover has the same paper on it. I've had this wrapping paper for a while now and wanted to use it for something just right.  For whatever reason, this journal was that "just right" piece.

The inside front cover. I haven't added my contact info yet, something I always do just in case a journal goes missing! I'm also going to add the words "Personal and Potent". Or maybe that will go on the outside cover. Not sure yet on that one.

I've been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving and planning my menu. This page has a bit of Giving Thanks in it. It also has a 60's psychedelic feel for whatever reason. I don't question what I do, I just do it!

The cool and slightly odd snail lady got me thinking about how slow moving I am thanks to pain. It also got me thinking how moving slow is often a blessing. You tend to notice a lot more when you go slow. As for the skull, well I just like skulls and add them in as much as possible!

Favorite Friday's

    My favorite this week is the visit I had yesterday with my art buddy, Raine. We hadn't seen each other in eons so a visit was long overdue. As usual we chatted, laughed and acted like our goofy selves, all the while sharing art work while sprawled in her living room. I love the fact that we hadn't been together in ages, yet it was like we'd seen each other just the day before. That's the beauty of a real friendship. No matter how much time has passed you can walk through the door, kick off your shoes and feel at home!

    After the requisite ooooing and ahhhing over each other's journals and art works we then hung out in her back studio. Raine has an amazing amount of art supplies, many of which I hadn't seen yet, so we spent a long time looking though them, talking about ways to use them and brainstorming new ideas. There is nothing quite like a day spent with another Creative Soul to get you inspired and fired up. 

Raine's Living Room Bookcase. Love the displaying of her own creations!
Art is meant to be seen and she definitely shows it off!

Some of Raine's journals

More of Raine's journals

and yet more of Raine's journals!

Raine's back studio

Some of Raine's back studio storage.

The back studio bulletin board with a nice display of her art.

The sign outside the door. LOVE this!!!

The full view of Raine's studio sign

The pile of grunge board Raine sent home with me. Am I lucky or what?

 FAVORITE EYE CANDY INSPIRATION: Teesha Moore's Journals

Decorative Tape Photos

Here's one pile of the decorative tape I have for sale. It doesn't look like a whole lot in the picture, but there's a dozen each of the narrow tape and 6 each of the wide tape for a total of 96 rolls of tape. I also have another bag full of different designs, but I can't seem to find it at the moment!!!

Wide tape is 2" wide by 25 meters (approx. 75 feet) long $6.00 per roll

Narrow tape is 2/3"wide by 25 meters (approx. 75 feet) long $3.00 per roll

Shipping is based on number of rolls and destination.

UPDATE 7/3/09: You can shoot me an email at vesta116 at gmail dot com if you're interested. SUPPLIES VERY LIMITED!!!

Decorative Tape

I have a HUGE supply of decorative tape for sale! Woo Hoo!!! It actually arrived a few weeks ago, but since I've been having my annual Winter Is Over and I've Gone Nutty Spring Fling I haven't gotten around to mentioning it yet. Although, the day after it arrived my Art Partner In Crime, Raine, did come over to go through the box with me and pick out what she wanted. What a blast that was, the two of us oooooing and ahhhhhing over all the different styles.

I'm hoping to get images of all the tapes on here ASAP because you HAVE to see this stuff!!!! There's wide tapes, narrow tapes, tapes with skulls, shoes, cats, designs, Russian nesting dolls, you name it. I am in tape heaven and I want you to be in tape heaven too!!!!

New Banner

All morning I've been monkeying around with my graphics programs trying to create banners for my Art-Fire store. Their banners are so narrow it's hard to come up with an image that looks decent. The one I added at the top of my blog looks just terrible compressed to the 100 x 760 Art-Fire requires, so I won't be using it there. Though I like how it looks here, uncompressed the way it should be!!!!

I did finally come up with something to use, made from a digital collage I created, seriously cropped down & with text on top.


Here it is:

I also made up a bunch of collage sheets. I started with vintage postcard & cabinet card images, super-imposed them over my own landscape photos or journal pages, sized & retouched for quality then created full size collage sheets. It's a time consuming process, but I love doing it!!!! I'm out of my 28 lb. paper that I like to use for printing so getting to use them in my work will have to wait until I hit a supply store.

The little guy is spending the day with my mom & I hope to have a highly productive day because of it. There are at least three charm bracelets I need to finish, a bunch of items to photograph, journaling I want to do and a few supply orders to be placed. If I want to do all that I'd better stop playing with Picasa and get moving!

Art-Fire Update

I just finished adding two mono-prints to my Art-Fire store. You know, I am finding writing descriptions, scanning or photographing items and getting it all listed very time consuming! At the rate I'm going I'll never have a full shop!!! I hope that deco tape I ordered comes with photos of each kind otherwise I'll be spending days and days getting it ready for viewing.

Anyway, these are the two prints I added:
HEART THEMED MONOPRINT

FLORAL THEMED MONOPRINT

Decorative Tape

For a while now I've been contemplating selling decorative tape via my Art Fire shop. After much back and forth with myself on cost, setting up with wholesalers, etc. I finally made up my mind. I just finished placing an order for an outrageous amount of tape and will be selling it soon!!!!!! You hear that KELLY??????!!!!!! I'm gonna have a boat load of tape for sale. Just what you need right?????

I can hear some of you now, "Tape, why tape????? " Because it is one of the hottest, coolest art/craft items out there and you can never, ever have too much of it.

When the order gets here I'll post a photo of the enormous box of tape I foolishly, I mean WISELY, bought..........

Updates

It's been a busy time around here lately. A few days of warm weather had me outside working in the gardens. I love being able to get out and do some work in the outdoors. My crocuses are blooming and the daffodils are all budded. Even though the temperature has dropped the past two days just knowing that those flowers are out there makes my heart soar!

I've spent the last few hours adding supplies to my Art-Fire shop. I had a bunch of unopened silver clay that I never used so thought the store would be a good way to get it to someone who will actually use it. My adventures with Art Clay silver and PMC were short lived. The materials are too expensive and you have to be conscious of every little bit of the clay and make sure not a speck of it is wasted. Scraping off my fingers, Teflon mat and tools just to save a minuscule amount of material, but a large amount of money, is just not my thing! Not that I'm wasteful, but I don't feel my creativity benefits from having to be so exacting and material conscious. I'm more of a wild, seat of your pants, live in the groove type of creator, ya know?

I have a nice journal all made, tagged and ready to be left in the wild. I think I'm going to leave it in the art section of the library. I figure if someone is in the art section they might have an artistic streak and would probably love to find an art journal there waiting for them. The journal itself isn't very large, but it's pages have been painted, an inscription is inside and a tag hangs from the binding saying 'Take Me'. Very reminiscent of Alice and the 'Eat Me' tags on the cookies she found. At least in my mind that's the way it is!!!!

I'll snap some pictures of the journal, both before it's dropped off and once it's in among the library books so everyone who comes here can see. I'll also get some new art work photos uploaded--journal pages and paintings--so you have some eye-candy when you pop in instead of just my blathering.

OH! And I NEED to get back down the road to get a photo of the car I saw the other day. The entire side had been spray painted with Shepard Fairey's Andre/Obey image and beneath it the words 'Free Shepard'. As some of you may know, Shepard is my *favorite* graffiti artist so seeing that car was a real hoot for me. Not that he did the work himself, but finding out another Shepard fan lives near me was a kick!

Enough with the fleeting thoughts for one day, I'm off to create.............

New Journal Pages

I've been having a severe pain week so haven't felt like blogging much. At one point yesterday I was trapped flat on my back in bed. I couldn't roll over or sit up. I ended up staying that way for almost 2 hours until hubby came home and was able to hoist me into a sitting position. The real bummer was that my art journal supplies were on the bed next to me but I couldn't use them! If I'd been trapped sitting up at least the journaling could've continued! Maybe I'll paint something cool on my ceiling so the next time I'm trapped on my back I'll at least have something decent to look at instead of peeling paint and ceiling cracks.


These are almost the last pages you'll see out of my current journal because there are only two unused pages left! It's going to be a bit sad to see it full as I've been working in it daily since January 1!!!! That's a whole lot of journaling in one book. A whole lot of my life if you think about it.

But, I have a new journal waiting in the wings. I ended up changing it AGAIN. I realized it was too big to fit on the scanner bed so lopped the top off to make 1 big square journal and 1 small rectangle one. The moment I did it I knew it was right. It felt right, you know?

Update on Glaze Pens: I emailed Sakura to let them know about the issues I was having with the glaze pens leaking. They got back to me within a few hours and told me to send them all back for replacement. the woman said they had a seal issue with them, but that was over a year ago and she didn't think any of those would still be out there. Well, obviously they are and I received a bunch of them! I'm just glad they've offered to replace them and even said they'd add extra product in the return to cover my postage costs! Woo Hoo!

Recent Journal Pages

Some of the journal pages I've done this month. I've been doing two each day, one for each of the two journals I'm currently working in. The pages shown are all from one journal. When I get a chance I'll snap photos of the ones in the other journal so they can be uploaded.

PEN RANT: What the heck is up with Sakura Glaze pens???? A month or so ago I received an entire batch of them that were leaking from the top of the pen barrel (where the pen and tip are put together). Those were replaced and had been OK for a while, but tonight I grabbed a few out of my bin and discovered that they were leaking too. I've NEVER had this issue before with Sakura pens and am not amused to be having it now.

The Soufflé and regular Gelly Roll pens are fine. It's just the Glaze pens that leak. Very frustrating as I have a TON of these pens and use them ALL the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Studio Revamp

Saturday morning around 10:00 AM, approximately 3 hours before I'm due at my niece's birthday party, I decided to take everything out of my studio closet. why that particular moment I have no idea, but it's something I'd been wanting to do for quite some time.

I hated the shelving unit I had in there and wanted shallower shelves along the entire length of the back wall. I also wanted to add peg board to the side wall so I could get a bunch of stuff off the shelves and hanging the way it should be.

Before leaving for the party the closet had been emptied, but there were massive, truly massive, amounts of art stuff in my bedroom. That was a problem. Especially since I hadn't sent hubby to get the supplies needed for the new shelves and there was no way I was putting all that stuff back on the shelves until I did have the supplies.

I ended up moving enough stuff back into the studio so we could at least make it to the bed without tripping and breaking our necks. hubby did go get what was needed for the new shelves, but by the time he got back it was too late to start working. The poor guy was over-tired as it was so really didn't need to start a project at 9:00 at night.

Sunday one shelf was put in place before the drill broke. We have two cordless ones, but of course neither was charged. So, as one was charging I started to sort. Piles and piles of art supplies were divided up into yet more piles. One that's the Must Have items, one for donating to the local art guild and one to donate to the school. Another one for recycle or trash depending on what it was. By the time I was done (it took a full two days to sort through the majority of the stuff) I had a lot less than when I started, but still too much. Now I have a pile of supplies to sell. All of it items that cost too much to just give away.

Monday the shelves and pegboard were finally in place and the task of organizing the supplies began in earnest. I've been at it off and on for over 24 hours and things are looking just great! I love the new set up and I think this may help me find things I want much easier than the old way. The old way consisted of shifting piles of stuff until you found what you were looking for because the shelves were so deep and spaced so far apart that you had to do a lot of stacking. It was maddening!!!

There's nothing like a long overdo session of sorting and revamping to bring new life into a place. And new life into your art!

And, no, the stuff in the photos is definitely not all of my supplies and things! I have 2 shelve units, a rolling cart and a desk full of the stuff in the studio itself and there's also a big pile left in my bedroom. Also, in the photos you can't see the small shelf unit full of pound blocks of clay, the bottom of the peg board where my spools of wire hang or the bins of supplies kept beneath the bottom shelf. What 's in the closet is a heck of a lot more organized than it use to be and that will make my creative endeavors a heck of a lot easier!

A Few Days Off

I took a few days of from blogging. Not entirely intentional, but that's how it worked out. The past few days have been FULL to capacity so I never seemed to get to booting up the computer.

Most of the week I've been in extreme pain. And you know what? It SUCKS!!!!! Not being able to sleep, no chance at getting comfortable at all and limping around the house are big time downers. The winter has been brutal pain wise so naturally I've been dreaming of warmer climates where my pain would diminish and I could feel ALIVE again. As happens every winter I ask myself what the heck I'm still living in New England for. There's a lot of reasons but the major one is it's home. Plain and simple. So I go along, trying to make the best of each day and waiting for that warm weather to come. And that's enough of my bitch fest. On to the creative stuff!

Our Cub Scouts Blue and Gold banquet is in another week and our den was given the task of making centerpieces for the tables. We have a whopping budget of $25 to make 25 centerpieces with. Hello, that's only a buck per table! What the heck are we suppose to do with that??? You can't even buy a bud vase and a flower for 25 tables for that money. So, we had to get creative.

The theme this year is 'The Magic of Scouting' and we managed to bag some plastic black top hats for less than the budgeted amount. Throw a can of blue and a can of yellow spray paint in and we've hit the budget mark. But, there's an abundance of dried grasses, grapevine, bittersweet and other plant life outside just waiting to be harvested and that's where the materials for filling the hats comes from. I had some Styrofoam balls that served as a base for the dried material, which we cut in half so they lay flat inside the hats.

I've been on the back porch for two days now playing with our goods trying to come up with something that the boys can help do and that doesn't look like total crap. After playing, arranging and rearranging I came up with something that looked halfway decent. Once it was spray painted half blue and half yellow it looked almost totally decent. They won't win any prizes and they certainly aren't fit for anything more formal that a Cub Scout banquet, but considering our budget and what we had to work with they came out alright.

Friday I spent the day working on some stencils for street art. Its been a while since I went out tagging and I've had the urge lately. But, walking around with stencils and paint or even posters and wheat paste in the cold weather is no fun at all. Art should be fun and street art should be double the fun because there's the risk element involved. After some brainstorming I decided to create stickers instead. Something heavy duty that can withstand the weather. A few test runs with the printer produced so-so results and blew through a ton of ink so I realized that wasn't an option. So it was off to google to see what help I could find and boy, did I find help. I found a company that will turn your art into vinyl stickers for very little money. I'm getting 250 of them to start and will order more if I find I'm going through them fast. Pretty soon the city will be plastered with my art and maybe, just maybe, what I've come up with will inspire someone else or make them stop and think. The design is based on the stenciled journal page I did, but will be in black and white only.


I finished a bunch of journal pages and will get those scanned in and posted later today or tomorrow. I love my journals, love working in them and love the fact that you can work in them absolutely anywhere!

I've finished the journal page I started the other day. The inkling I had about what the writing would be about pretty much came across as I expected. Sometimes the writing portion of a page doesn't manifest the way you think it will. Once that pen is in your hand and you touch it to the paper your thoughts take over and the results are sometimes surprising. Obviously the phrase that had been running through my head (It's none of my business what you think of me) was strong enough that it ended up making its appearance on the page like I thought it might!




I love to create all different types of art. One of the things I do on occasion is wood-burning. The piece shown is one I burned free-hand, with no pattern at all. I started with a nicely sanded wood slab that still has the bark around the edges, burned my design into it then completed the piece by adding color with fluid acrylics. I like using fluid acrylics with wood because they add nice color while still allowing the natural wood grain to show through.

Once I get a hanger mounted on the back of this I'll be adding it to my new shop. I hope someone loves it as much as I do and decides to make it a part of their home.

2/1/09 Journal Page

I forgot to post this journal page, the first one for February, when I scanned it in yesterday. I need to get the ones from 2/2 and 2/3 scanned and posted too.



I've been looking at decorative tape for hours now. I absolutely drool over all the different kinds. We need a big American manufacturer to make more of it because I don't like sending any of my money to Japan, Korea and China. They get enough of our money already, thank you very much. It stinks that all the best decorative tapes come from those countries because I could buy a ton of it!!! HEY, American Manufacturers!!!!!!! We've got a HUGE market here, all ready to go and buy your American Made art/stationery products, so get off your duffs and start making some cool tape for us to use!!!!

(think they heard me????)
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UPDATE: Funny that I was going on about buying American. Seems our new government economic package is proposing the same thing. And, of course, other countries have a problem with it. Hellooooooo, we have a right to buy products made in our country and our Government definitely SHOULD do it!!!!

I received a nice, fat envelope full of paper ephemera in the mail yesterday. I can't wait to use some of this stuff in my art journals!!! There's this cool piece of Warhol-esque Jesus wrapping paper in there. I'd seen the decorative tape before, and wanted it, but hadn't seen the paper anywhere. I am totally psyched it was in that fat envelope!!!!



We're having another snow storm here and the winds are howling as well. I'm getting to the point where I want to jump on a plane and head to the tropics!

Someone left SPAM comments on some of my posts so I've switched things to moderated comments. It's a pain in the rear to have to moderate each and every comment, but it's better than having a bunch of crap left in the comments section!!! Go get a real job SPAMMER!!!!

I've added some half pound ephemera packs to my ArtFire shop. I'll be adding more as soon as I can and will also be adding more art work, decorative tape and other supplies. Slowly but surely I will get the shop built up with cool items for sale!!

Graffiti Stencils

I love the graffiti look and I also love working with stencils, so naturally I've come up with my own graffiti-like stencils to use in my art.

The one shown below was made by photocopying an image from a hairstyle book onto card-stock then using an x-acto knife to cut it out. A tedious process in itself, but well worth the results.

The page it's shown on was one I had heavily collaged, then decided I hated the way it looked. So I added layers of paint over it to cover most of the collaging. Then I applied the stencil to it using a round brush and light blue paint.




Yesterday my son and I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening making journals and painting pages. While we watched a movie in bed, jammies on and snacks by our side, we worked on adding images to them. He decided to work on his pages unbound and I decided to work on mine bound. Either way is fine, it's just a matter of preference.

With a big box of collage fodder between us, some UHU glue sticks, scissors and a couple of bed trays we spent hours pasting papers into our journals. It was great to see what images he choose and how he arranged them on the pages. There's nothing like working side by side with a seven year old to keep your art feeling loose and playful! Blessings come in all shapes and sizes and having art time with your child is definitely one of them.
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My favorite swimmer, Michael Phelps, caught smoking pot . As far as I'm concerned, the only regrettable thing is that he was foolish enough to be photographed while doing it. He is just a college kid after all and can't be expected to act "perfect" all the time. Not that I'm saying a top notch athlete and role model should be doing illegal drugs. Or that anyone should for that matter.I'm just saying that he did something that a lot of younger (an older) people do and it isn't the crime of the century.

Past Few Days

The past few days have been a bit rough. The pain has been out of control, something that's always a problem in winter. But, I've managed to keep myself busy by working on my art journals while laying in bed. Over the years I've learned that no matter the situation you can always make things better. Or worse, if that's what you choose. I'm not one for having a Pity Party so I choose to make things better. I've learned how to arrange my art supplies so they're within easy reach. Having them arranged this way keeps me from having to move my body too much when I'm having one of THOSE days.

Yesterday I completed 5 journal pages, painted another 10 or so, re-read most of 'What It Is' by Lynda Barry (I highly recommend it!!!), watched a movie with my boy and spent some time laughing over re-runs of Frasier. Not a bad day considering.

The downer of the day is that ALL of the new GellyRoll Glaze pens I bought leak like sieves! I went to use them last night and each and every one of them is drippy, leaking and a total mess. Totally annoying!!!

I tried to get a decent photo of the mixed-media painting I recently finished, but no matter what I did I kept getting a bit of glare. I'll have to get out my trusty Minolta and snap a real photo. But for now, this one will have to do. It's done on a wood panel using acrylic paint, collage, stencils and texturing techniques. The heart image is surrounded by carpet tacks adding another dimension to it.

This Is A Shoe

This is a shoe. The Sea Queen's Shoe as a matter of fact. It's made from an old, ugly bridesmaid's shoe. You know the kind. Pointy heeled, too tight in the toes, shiny satin material. Every gal I know has at least one pair in her closet. More if she's unlucky.



Mine had been kicking around for decades. Stuffed into the box they came in, beneath all my other boxes of shoes, waiting around for someone to don them again I suppose. One day I made up my mind to get rid of those shoes once and for all. Why was I keeping them??? It's not like bright red satin shoes went with anything I had in my closet. Was I hanging onto them in case a wedding party walked by my house looking for someone who owned such a pair of shoes to help them out? Not likely.




As I went to toss them inspiration struck. I could make something cool from them! I could cover them with gook, add some doo-dads and paint and make them into ART! Yes! The shoes would live on in a new, much improved incarnation.



Out came the molding paste, shells, crab claws, fish jaws (yes, fish jaws), crystals, bits of broken jewelry and paints. A mad frenzy ensued, molding paste clung to every surface including most of my arm and hands. But that's OK! I was creating something cool. And when it was over, I heard a sigh. The Sea Queen had finally found someone to make her some shoes. (She's still waiting for the other one because I haven't been inspired to make it yet.)

Collate: A Paper Collaboration

After seeing this on Kelly Kilmer's blog I just had to check it out. Sweet Jessie is hosting this totally awesome paper collaboration where each participant sends in 50-70 pieces of paper and for a small fee gets a bound journal of mixed papers in return!!! Being a total paper whore I joined immediately.

My pile of 6" x 9" papers were cut last night, put in an envelope this morning and will be mailed off tomorrow. Now I just need to wait (impatiently) for the day I receive a bound journal in return. Can't wait to get it in my hands and make those first entries!

Altered Books

I love altered books. Long before they were the in thing I had been taking old books and transforming them into mini artworks. Granted, I didn't really think I was creating art. It was just a wicked cool thing to do. I know a lot of other people of "my generation" altered books too. Again, with no intent to create art just a cool activity, rather rebellious and annoying to those who believed we were a group of juveniles defiling books!

These days we have so many techniques, resources and supplies available that altering a book can be far more creative than it was back in the dark ages. When the dinosaurs roamed all we had was junk mail, some low quality paints, a handful of rather mundane stickers and a few ink pads stolen from the office supply closet! But we still managed to create some pretty amazing stuff.

The supplies available today are amazing and a bit overwhelming. Most of them I can live without, but there are some I consider must-haves. Like the decorative tapes used in the journal page shown above. There are so many uses for it and it can really pull a layout together. If I had a pile of money I'd stockpile decorative tape. And Sharpie poster paint markers. And gel pens, and.......