Get Lost!

  One of the workshops in the 21 Secrets online classes is titled Get Lost. The course is hosted by Aimee Myers Dolich and, in my opinion, is great fun! The entire course is journal prompts, which I always love. These two pages were done from course prompts. There's a great spread I did, but I used one of my largest journals so getting a decent photo of it is tough. It doesn't fit on the scanner bed and the phone camera doesn't capture enough detail. I'll try to get it with my nice digital camera because it's a spread I'd love to share!

 I spent a good 45 minutes scanning in journal pages this afternoon so there will be lots to feast your eyes upon soon! 

  I've been riding the icky health roller coaster these past few months. On top of the usual Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome I've loads of neurological problems, still undiagnosed. Loads of speculation, but no firm conclusions yet. I'm grateful for the love of my life, Jim, for his support and strong arms. Without him this amusement ride from hell would be a whole lot rougher.  Love that man and thank my guardians for bringing him  into my life when they did. Life may be handing us a bunch of Jokers, but I just keep drawing crowns on them and turning them to Kings and queens. That's what any artist would do, right?

  

21 Secrets

  Last week as I was reading Traci Bunkers blog  I noticed a link for 21 Secrets Art Journal Playground. Secrets?  A Playground?  Yes, I MUST check this out!


  As I read the workshops descriptions I got that buzzy, excited feeling. I knew I had to sign up. 21 online workshops, all with a different artist, all yummy sounding and all for one low price.  I signed up right away and started in on the workshops a few days ago. Nirvana!  I've been in serious fibromyalgia hell lately and this is just what I needed to keep me going, give me something to look forward to and to give me a sense of community which has seriously been lacking. It's tough to feel a sense of community when you can barely get out of bed, never mind get out of the house!


  If you are looking for a great set of workshops for a great price, on sale for $59 right now. YES! That's the price for all 21 Secrets, I highly recommend signing up for these.  You will love what they have to offer.  Photos of my first project, a mini album to house uplifting postcards you send to yourself, will be posted soon. I promise! Oh, the album and postcards are from the 'Personal Acts of Kindness' workshop by 21 Secrets instructor Dale Anne Potter. That workshop was the perfect, positive boost I needed right  now!


 

Therapy....

The bills are piling up. My pain is through the roof. Things are looking bleak. So what's the cure? BUY ART BOOKS!!! Yes, a little retail therapy in the form of art books or art supplies is always a wise cure. I don't understand the logic, but do know it always works. Happy, happy again!

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!

Journal Pages 10/18/11

  I'm counting the days until my new great-nephew arrives. He's due to make his first appearance in the world on November 10, but babies arriving on a specific date is like herding cats. There are no guarantees they'll do what you expect them to. 

  I'm still in cleansing and purging mode. The back of the truck is getting full of clothes, shoes, household goods and books to donate. Tomorrow I'll probably make the drive to the Salvation Army and drop off. I'll try to resist going in to see what vintage coats need rescuing, but as with babies and herding cats, there are no guarantees!

Done while sitting at Vincent's listening to the music.
Collage, Sparkling H2O's, Gellyroll pen, ink jet transfer

Done at Vincent's.
Collage and Gellyroll pen

Journal Pages Jan. 12 2011

Anyone who has been coming here for a while knows I suffer from severe, chronic pain. Today was a real bad day. Flat on my back, unable to move & feeling a bit like Frida as I struggled to work. These pages are an expression of that pain & struggle.

This page has a monoprint over an ink sprayed background. It was embellished with various markers & paint pens and a few Zetti stamps.

This page has an ink sprayed background, some stamping and then journaling with a paint pen.

April 20-22 Journal Pages

Just a quick posting today to show off a few of my latest journal pages. It's cold and rainy here this week so I've been hurting. I'm thankful I can still make art even when I'm in pain. That's one of the things I like best about art, you can do it anywhere! I make a whole lot of art while laying in bed, not just working in my art journals, but also making ATC's, small painted/collaged items, hand-bound journals, postcards, mini art quilts, etc.

I have a bunch of cozy spots inside and outside my house that I regularly create in. One of these days I'm going to photograph all the different places I work just to show people that making art absolutely anywhere is indeed possible!!!!!!

March 14 Journal Pages

The pages I did today. First shown side by side, as they are in the journal.

The left-hand page:

The right-hand page:

Sometimes, no other words are needed.

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!

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.