Word and challenge number 2 has been posted, and the word is HOPE, the challenge is to use some kind of a stencil in your work.
I quite enjoyed getting out my stencils and making lovely flourishes with gesso and then again with spray inks. The gesso is a subtle textural element where the spray ink almost looks like a stamped image on top of the words.
This image shows some of my journaling that wraps around my blue bird.
A close up of the bird and the magazine clippings I used as a banner.
A close up of the word HOPE and the subtle gesso texture behind it.
I am participating in the Paper Traders Art Journaling Challenge. I am working in a handmade art journal done using Teesha Moore's 16 page watercolor journal instructions. Basically we will be receiving a word prompt and a challenge to incorporate into an art journal page, every two weeks. I finished my page today. It was a ton of fun putting it all together. I am finding it difficult to photograph these pages, so you will see a couple of close-ups of certain details.
This is my page with the flap closed.
This is a close-up of the flap with the flowered lace edging.
This is the page with the flap open.
Close-up of the key and key hole assemblage.
Close-up of my journaling. It is difficult to read because it is done in lavendar metallic gel pen.
I am participating in a couple of swaps with the Paper Traders yahoo group, and both were making little row houses. First was Keron's swap, and the theme was to make tiny little chipboard decorated houses. Here is what I came up with.
Second was Connie's swap which is Creepy Cottages- we were to make the same little chipboard decorated houses, but this time a spooky feel or Halloween theme. Here are my houses:
Both swaps were a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see what everyone else created.
I made these arches for a swap in the Paper Traders Yahoo Group. The topic was Renaissance Women, and we were to use the Gothic Arch template provided. I made a set of these a few years back, so these will go nicely with the others I have. The photos are not very good, but that is what I have. It makes them look a little crooked, but they are tall and narrow (7 1/2"h x 3 1/2"w) I sure had fun making them, and may find time to add more to my book.
Well, I know I don't blog out of obligation, but I feel like I have left you all hanging for quite awhile. I just haven't been doing much with my blog, yet I have been creating. I have just felt rather overwhelmed, and just didn't feel like I could catch my breath much less take the time to post regularly. So here is going to be a huge long post with tons of pictures of what I have been doing. Down at the bottom will be some sketches in progress, and ones that I have done just for fun, that I have been doing to practice my face structure and placement. I WELCOME any critique or suggestion, as I have only been sketching for a few months, and am picking this up on my own, and am by no means a seasoned artist. Many of these are in progress, and I feel I am "stuck" as to where to go next. I think you will see what I mean as you view them. Here at the top is my first comfort doll- created for a Paper Traders swap, it is going to a special lady, who has been through many trials this past year, and was completely done by hand. Not one machine stitch! I purchase hand-dyed batiks for the materials, and hand-beaded the body of the doll. Then stamped the face, and beaded around it with two different tones of purple beads. (hard to see the different colors in the picture) Once I got all that done, I was able to sew the body shape together and stuff her. I then beaded her arms, and added a teapot for her to hold. I sewed some cream and gold ribbon around the seam where the front and back meet, to give it a sparkly edge, and to cover the stitching, and then gave her some keys for legs. Added a filigree heart for a pocket, and a special little poem inside. It sounds quite simple, but I worked on it for 2 weeks straight. (I know I am kind of slow) The next project is a Tip-In Round Robin page that I did for a friend (also a Paper Traders swap) the topic was the Romance of Train Travel. I have to say this was not an easy topic for me and the first couple of cracks at it Did Not turn out well at all, so I was way behind at getting this done! I am lucky that she was patient, and kind enough to wait for me to get my act together. I decided to go a totally different route, and I was so glad I followed my muse, because I am so happy with the results. I ended up using a really mucky painted background, but I think it really added to the aged look of the pages. The sign in was to be a train ticket, so there is a picture of that as well. It ended up being a fun project once I got my head around it.
Ok~ Here are my sketchings. (click on the pictures to see the details) If you have any comments please feel free to express them. I welcome any help, as I am learning, and need so much guidance right now, so that I can progress and grow. Thanks so much!!! ~Letha
Well, I have been busy creating art, I just have not been posting here on my blog. I guess I have just been busy. I feel bad for not posting, so I am going to try to catch-up and share a bit.
This is a journal page, that I started by water coloring and then using a rubber band printing over the top. The challenge was to use rubber bands in your art process in some way. I plan to alter it still, and then to journal on it.
The next challenge was to make painted papers. We were able to do anything we wanted with the painted papers. I plan to adhere mine to some journal pages. At the time I was working on a swap for another group, Paper Traders, the swap was Anything Zetti, so I used a bit of my painted papers for the backgrounds of my ATC's.
This last one is the Artist Date challenge called Belle of the Ball, and it was to invite the Strawberry Princess to the Christmas Ball. I am still working on mine, but I have my Princess drawn, and I am not sure yet how I will finish painting her, or making a background. It might just stay as a solo princess painting.
I have finished Teri's Round Robin Journal pages. Her topic was the journey of the White Rabbit. I am not terribly familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland, other than that Alice is lost and wants help getting home, runs across the white rabbit who can't help her because he is always running late for something or another.
Well, I twisted it around a bit, and made a little play on the words of him being late for a very important date, and he is now late for his important date with Alice!
I had this "great" idea to make this little love birds page, and I found the cutest papers and embellishments, that all coordinated, but they were pink, hot pink, silver, black, gray, totally modern if you know what I mean. Not vintage at all, which is what Teri's journal is. But they were all coordinating, and they had the "feel" that I was after. So I was trying to think of a way to make them work and I was throwing ideas around with my mom, and we decided that a bit of gesso and some distress ink would do the trick. What do you know- It worked! Would you ever guess those background papers were hot pink, black and silver???
These are the close-ups of the pages, and the right page with the door open to show Alice. The pages are painted over the gesso and distress ink treatment with both watercolor crayons and watercolor pencils. The path is mostly crayon, and the weeds are mostly pencil. The mushroom is done with the watercolor pencils.
I have then added some paper flowers that were actually a gift from Teri herself, and then added some seed beads for centers and set them with crystal lacquer. The White Rabbit is carrying a bouquet of peach flowers for his "sweety". The teacup is the sign-in that we were asked to put our name and email on.
I have finally gotten a bit of my muse back. I have had a bunch of things that I have been needing to get finished, and I just couldn't get my head around them. I think I just had to keep at it until I got through the slump.
I created these two pages for Pam- she is in the Tip-In Round Robin project with Paper Traders. Her theme is Birds, Nests and Eggs. I did not include any nests or eggs, but I did the birds instead.
These birds are made with a real feather coming out the top of their head, and flourish stamps for the tails and decoration on the wings. They have little black brads for eyes. The background is done on heavyweight watercolor paper with watercolor crayons. I have not done a lot with watercolor crayons yet, but am really learning to like them, and the look that they create. Inspired by Claudine Hellmuth, the background is highlighted with penning.
I have been working on getting my Paper Traders Round Robin Journal ready to go out for more than a month now, and it just has not been coming together as I had planned, but that is just how things work for me. When I am down to the wire, and I don't have enough time for the paint to dry, then that is when my muse shows up, and it all falls into place.
My Round Robin book is titled:
Monochromatic Me
The gist of it is for each person to create a two page spread in a color scheme that best describes who they are, or that they best relate to. If they don't FEEL a specific color, then to pick their favorite color or to just go to the paint store and grab a paint chip and design a page around that paint chip. It should be interesting to see what colors show up!
I have my cover finished and I finished my sample pages today-whew!
(I am green- and Chunky- tee-hee)
I love green, I always have, and I absolutely love, love, love a ton of junky, chunky stuff all over my pages. The more junk and ribbons the better. I seriously don't think you can have too much. I hope that everyone working in my book will enjoy junking it up as much as I have.
(If you click on the picture above which is the left page or the picture below which is the right page, it will get bigger and you can see the detail much better)
Finally Finished! Well, I guess stewing over things seems to be a regular for me lately. I guess my muse is on VACATION! I am so frustrated that I can't get things together like I have planned. I have a picture in my head, but I go to get it out on the paper and it turns out like crap. I can tell you I have printed the base image at least 6 times, because when I went to paint the wings, I messed them up so many times I couldn't fix it, I had to start over, then I got the wings right, and messed up the leaves on the tree! What a nightmare! That is just the way things have been going for me lately. I just can't seem to get my art to come together the way I want it to. Now that it is finished I am happy with it, but getting there was rediculous.
Anyway, the wings are painted with shimmer paint, VERY thin! I won't go into detail- LOL. The leaves are individually painted with metalic green watercolor, and then I streaked metalic copper watercolor into the water, to give it that dimmensional shimmer that you see when the sun hits water as it is going down. (if you know what I mean) The quote and the flourishes are printed on transparency and layered over the top of everything else. I think the transparency makes it hard to see the sparkle of the metalic paint, but it is there, and I think Linda will really like it. (I hope so anyway) ;0)
Well, enough blog drama! Even though it is still a mess, I think I am just going to get some art up. I am try to just work on it a little at a time, and hope you all just work through it with me :0)
I hosted a swap with Paper Traders, where the only requirement was to include natural beeswax in the ATC somewhere, or in some way, shape or form. That's it. It was amazing the wonderful pieces everyone made.
I had never worked with beeswax before, and did not have the best success the first go round.
But,
Here are the results of my second attempt, and the ATC's that I ended up making for the swap.
Below is the birdie I made for the Paper Traders Birdie! Birdie! swap. We were to decorate a Maya Road's birdie book pages front and back. It was a ton of fun, and I had an awesome time making them. The inspiration behind my creation was this YouTube video. PLEASE BE SURE YOU HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON ON THE PLAYLIST TO THE LEFT BEFORE YOU PLAY THE YouTube, OR YOU WILL HAVE THEM BOTH PLAYING AT THE SAME TIME :0)
The front has the black and silver crown and a silver guitar for a wing. The black and silver fiber tail. I stamped the word "Tweet" three times with silver metallic ink and put a metal concho into the chipboard for the eye.
On the back side, I used the pink side of the crown, and I cut out a set of pink metallic lips. I set a bright pink snap through the hole in a silver metal flower and glued it on to make a wing. I cut the paisley shapes out and colored the back sides black, so they wouldn't show white on the other side, and glued them down, added a googly eye, set the big eyelet for the legs, and then the process of the legs began.
This was the hardest part. I must have tried a ton of different things before I found the right stuff. Baling twine was too heavy and thick- it would have held up nice, but I stabbed myself really bad working with it, and it was terribly dirty. Then I tried floral wire- ick. I just didn't like it. I suppose it would do, but I just didn't like it. Bag ties- too flimsy. They just kept snapping, I would get them bent, then- Pop! UGH. Then I tried the scrapbook wire. It kept curling up on me. I would flatten it out, and it just wouldn't hold it's shape. Jewelry wire- that's a joke, not at all going to work, at least not the stuff you can get at our Wal-Mart.
Well, then I had to go get a new sprinkler and lawn hose, and there it was sitting in the middle of the living room, under my daughters bum, and you know those things are tied together with heavy "bag ties" that have a plastic like coating on them. That plastic peals right off. Really it does. The wire inside was the perfect weight for this project, and it didn't curl up or snap or anything, and I could bend it with my needle nose pliers, and I didn't get poked. I was able to make cute little bird "toes" and everything!
I am sure my story is WAY more than you wanted to know, but hey- the most unusual things can be the best and perfect supplies when you are creating art! I could not be happier, and believe me I used more things trying to get these just right, and I found it with a piece of trash!
Well, I guess I liked the ATC that I made for the Paper Traders WTA lotto, a little too much, that I had to make one for myself to keep. So here it is. It is a bit different, along the same lines, with the same products, but of course each one is an original, so it is unique.
Here is my latest little art piece. It is an ATC. I have been really sick the last 3 days, and I think I am going stir crazy. At first I thought it was just allergies, but now I think I have a really bad sinus infection, because I can't breathe, and my throat hurts so bad. Anyway, I can't lay down because if I do, I really can't breathe, so I decided if I am going to have to be vertical I am going to do something with myself. So, I tried doing some art.
I didn't get very far because I am having a hard time thinking clearly, but slow and steady I made this little ATC for the Winner Takes All Paper Traders lotto. I am calling it "Go Fish".
The fish on the left side is set with pop dots, which gives him a little dimmension, and his little bubbles are epoxy letters. The fish eyes have been touched with crystal lacquer and the leaves have green glitter on them. Both fish are embellished with metallic gold pen, to give them that shimmer as they "swim". The entire card is then trimmed in gold as well.
I have not had a chance to put anything up on my blog in quite awhile. I have been so busy lately! I have been doing a lot with art, but I have not actually gotten a ton completed. One of the things that I NEEDED to get finished was the pages for Nadines Mythical Creatures Round Robin Journal for our Paper Traders group. She has so many wonderful pages so far, that I was feeling REALLY intimidated by them, and was having a hard time finding my muse. I ended up doing part of it, and then setting it aside for awhile, and then picking it back up and finishing it. The Hoggle character on the left side and the Ludo character on the right side are raised with foam tape, and there are places on the bog that are brushed with a "soupy" green metallic watercolor wash. The owl is watercolor washed with gold.
In the top left corner I attatched, with green eyelets, a "melted" transparency that was also sponged with the green metallic color that was mixed with gel medium so it would stick to it. Printed on it is a conversation from the movie "Labyrinth" that occurred between Sarah, the main character and Hoggle, her "best friend" but the one who is supposed to be leading her astray, but doesn't have the heart to do anything mean; and Ludo, the large creature who doesn't really know very many words, but also has a kind heart, and is trying to help Sarah to reach the castle in time to find her baby brother Toby.
