What's on my work table?

What's on my work table varies moment by moment. Here's some of what's on it right now:

   Lots of Dia de los Muertos & sugar skull images for ATC's and cards, Latte pens, ink pads and paper scraps. And that's just in one tiny section of my 6 foot table space! 
  What's on your work table right now?

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.

Tuesday Pages

Every Tuesday night I take my journal to my favorite little hole in the wall. There's a certain battered wooden table, worn smooth by time, that I sit at and journal while I listen to the trio of acoustic musicians. The bar is quite dark so it can be difficult to journal. Many weeks I do a "doodle" type form of journaling.  These are a few of my Tuesday Pages using the doodle format instead of my usual collage form of journaling.

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!!!!!!

Happy, Happy

I'm a happy, happy camper today--My glaze pen replacements finally arrived AND Sakura sent a 10 pack of Soufflé pens to cover my postage costs and to compensate me for the hassle. WOO HOO!!!!!!!!

Hubby and I are married 10 years tomorrow. We've been together for 20 years, owned a house for 15 years, been parents 7 1/2 years and married for 10 years. That's a whole lot of time and experience together!!!!!

My favorite journal page from the past week:

I LOVE the colors, the focal and the way everything came together so beautifully.

Sakura Glaze Pens

It's been over 3 weeks since I returned my 22 defective Sakura Glaze Pens to the company and I've yet to receive replacements. Each day I walk to the mailbox with hope that they'll be there. Only to be disappointed once I open the mailbox and see that there's nothing interesting there except the usual bills, bank statements and flyer's. SIGH I hope they come soon. My journal pages are feeling the lack!!!!

A Few Pages

The last of my March journal pages. Actually, there are more but these are the last ones I'm sharing. I'm working on two journals this month so there will be lots more pages to come!
I jazzed up the focal image using my Latte pens. I LOVE those pens! the colors are so vibrant and the pens themselves flow nicely. I wish they'd come out with more colors. I'd buy them all!!!!!

I've been having some glum moments lately. This page shows some of what I've been feeling. the under-layer of writing is done in red. A great way to write freely, but still maintain privacy because red is so hard to read!

This page is smaller than the others. I love having various sized pages in a journal! It keeps things interesting!!!!!

April brings another month of Kelly Kilmer's A Prompt A Day classes. A lot of the journal pages I show on my blog were done using the prompts from her classes. If you haven't done so already, check the classes out. Seriously, you NEED to be a part of these!!!! Go sign up. NOW. You'll never regret it.

March 21-25 Journal Pages

Even though I haven't been busy blogging it doesn't mean I haven't been busy creating! I've been making charms out of found objects, painting journal pages, cutting images, collaging, journaling and cooking up a storm. My boy and I have been spending some serious time on Wizard 101 so I've been busy slaying banshees, cyclops, fire elves and other denizens of malice too. I'm just doing my part to ensure the cyber world is kept free of malicious beings, as any kick-ass Artzy Diva should!!!!

Here are five of my most recent journal pages:



The focal image in this one is odd indeed. But intriguing because of its oddness:

The focal image in this one is from a photography show invite. The photo is one my friend Tasha took then digitally edited. I'd painted the background of this page using a floral stencil made from a piece of scrapbook paper (those new, fancy ones with the cutouts). I was thrilled after the image was glued on and I noticed the flowers in the background and the one on the image matched! Serendipity in art is a wonderful thing!!!!

The Final Five

The Final Five pages in the journal I've been working in since January 1. There's 80 pages of emotion, laughter, tears, memories (both good & bad) and attitude in there. Lots of my personality and personal life. I didn't share every single page, but most of them. Which is fine because holding a little something of SELF back is the way I am. The way most people are I believe. Do you know anyone who shares everything about themselves with the world??? I don't.

Anyway, here they are. The Final Five in the BIG journal. Though, this journal won't seem so big once I'm done with the new one. It has even more pages. I didn't think I'd want to work in one with so many pages again, but I do so I am!

UPDATE: My boy's Lyme test came back negative. That's both good news and not so good news as it still means we have no idea what's going on with him & his health!!! He was definitely more lively today and managed to get through the week of school (no school tomorrow--teacher's only day) with no absences. A bonus for us as he's had more than his fair share of those lately and we're starting to get letters from the school.

I don't want to get my hopes up that whatever he has is gone now because every time I do his fever comes back and he gets all listless again. So far we've only managed two days in a row without a fever spike, but his temperature is still above his norm on those days (99.5 is the lowest it's been since Feb. 2). It's all very baffling.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Making Things Right

In my last post I mentioned that the GellyRoll Glaze pens I'd just gotten were leaking. I'm happy to say that I just got off the phone with Rex Art and they are sending me out a new batch of them!

This was my first time buying from them and I did so because they had the Sharpie Poster Paint pens and the Sakura pens that I love for such a good price. Plus, one day last week I spent over 3 hours going from store to store looking for the Sharpies only to come up empty handed. It is so frustrating when a product that you love and buy regularly disappears for all the stores that use to carry it! Anyway, I had to find a source for my pens and stumbled upon the Rex Art site. They absolutely had the best prices on the items I wanted so I placed an order.

What a bummer it was when I went to use the Glaze pens and they were a mess. All is well though because Rex Art has great customer service and were very accommodating about making things right. Forget the big box chain stores. If you need something and want to be treated well go with a small company. They appreciate your business and know how to treat a person right.

A Page In Progress

I thought it would be nice to show one of my journal pages in progress. I have many different ways of working, so this example is just one of them. Sometimes I start adding images to a blank page, other times I write or paint first.

Here I've painted the page using multiple colors of acrylic paint:



Next I did some journaling using Sharpie Poster Paint Markers. I turned the page in a different direction each time I changed colors so the text becomes more of a design element than an expression of words. This is a good way to write when you have a lot to say or if you don't necessarily want everyone being able to read what you've written!




I've added my main (focal) image and a few accent pieces of decorative paper to help draw the eye toward the focal:

Finally I add more journaling using a regular Sharpie and a gel pen & create some accents around the focal image. The accents help draw your eye to the focal even more:

And that's it! A completed journal page.

Addiction

I have a horrible marker addiction. For whatever reason I can never have too many markers. Sharpies, in all their many & varied forms (especially their poster paint pens!), Sakura souffle, pigma & gellyroll and Staedtler Triplus Fineliners are just a few of the markers I consider a must have in my studio. I have them in every size, shape and color. Truly, it is an addiction!

Just today I received yet another box of markers in the mail. As if I didn't have enough.....

Today's addition to my addiction: