A Bit of Art (being swapped)

I have been dabbling in a bit of art lately, and just finished a project for a swap I am participating in for the group Paper Traders that I am a member of.
It was a one for one swap, and we were to contact our partner and get a general idea of style/type of the kind of journal they would like to receive. My partner is Shelly, and she was drawn to the Nick Bantock style. I have not ever made anything with his art as inspiration, but did a little research, and found most of his art is rather quirky, with few specific topic based projects, and found many of the elements he uses in his art are vintage travel elements, so I ran with that as I created this journal for Shelly.
I actually tried doing a process video for my YouTube channel, but it was not meant to be, as I started the video, my memory was full, so I stopped and tried adding another memory card, but discovered it was not compatible with my video cam, so brought out the other one, and got another 1/2 hour in, and the battery died- tried recording while charging, and that was not going to work. It had to charge by itself, so thought I would just switch to taking still shots as I went along, but learned as I was finishing up on the project, that I forgot to stop in between stages to snap photos, so it was a dismal failure.
The journal was to be made using a manilla envelope for the covers- folded in half, and using the closure flap as a front cover flap to close the journal with. I did play with the technique a bit before hand, so that I could be comfortable with sending out a quality product to my recipient, but wanted to add my own design to it a bit, so i made an inside pocket for both the covers.
I had used white envelopes for my trial journals, and so when I went to use the manilla colored one, I coated it with Gesso. It was not the look I was going for, so was kind of a waist of time, and ended up covering almost all of it with decorative papers, which made the covers way more sturdy anyway. I trimmed a 1/16 of an inch off the bottom of the envelope, and then lined the envelope with some scrapbook cardstock in a vintage map pattern, and then adhered it to the inside of the envelope to sturdy it up a bit. then folded in half, and added paper to both sides of the closure flap, and then cut two pieces of card to insert into the front and back covers once the journal was completely decorated.  Here are a few photos of how it turned out.

This is a photo showing the inside covers, you can see here on the right side, one of the pockets I created.

Here is a photo after the book was completed showing both the front cover pocket and the back cover pocket, where I made a 1/2 circle opening so that the card insert would be easily pulled out or put back in.

This is a photo of the finished journal all tied up and ready to go, I attached several glass beads to the binding to spice things up a bit.

This is the finished journal flattened out, so the back cover is on the left and the front cover on the right, with the beads hanging on the binding. I used Gafer tape, to reinforce the folded edges, so the binding wouldn't tear out, or so the front flat would not tear off with use. I am thinking it is pretty strong and secure. :)

I hope Shelly likes it!

Feast or Famine

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

Gypsy Women

Well, Finally I finished these Tip-In pages for Susan. I hope she will forgive me for my tardiness. She is such a lovely artist. With having been sick, and then the holidays, I just could not bring myself to throwing something together just to get it done. In all of this, every time I tried to do the transfers, they would not work out correctly. I can not count the number of times that I tried and failed, but I was determined to make this work.
There are times when the vision you have in your head is what is going to come out on paper no matter how you have to get it there. This was one of those times!

I have hand beaded the outfit on the gypsy on the right page, and added copper punchinella to the left side and red punchinella to the right side. The words are also transfers, and then painted with white pen. I have also added a plethora of luscious fibers. My favorite. The whole things is distressed with walnut stain- along with my hands, and clothes. (oops-perks of the job)

Purple Tree

My first Page for the Milliande Artist Dates, is Purple Trees.

















I started by drawing my tree and then coloring it with watercolor crayons. I am really trying to use these more. I like the soft look of them. I then covered it all up- go figure. :0)

I added a fluffy sparky eyelash type fiber for the large branches, and then seed beads for the smaller branches. I used dyed purple cultured pearl beads for leaves. I think they were really fun to use for this project, as they are just different and unique. I used the brown fibers below the tree, because all the grass has died off for the winter here.

I am trying really hard to work on my sketchings, so I wanted to add an owl in the tree. It is late fall here, and if you listen carefully just before night hits you can hear an owl hoot from one of the trees near our house.