The Master's Touch

These are some Round Robin journal pages that I did for my sisters book which is entitled Hands.
I chose to do a bit of a spiritual type page, so have included the images of the hands from the painting Creation. I printed them and then cut them out and adhered them on top of my own background.
I call this background the "Stucko" technique, because it always looks like there is a layer of mortar on top of rocks. It is a fairly easy technique, which yields some amazing results.
First is a layer of old book pages, and then on top of that, torn pieces of decorative paper. In this example, the paper looked like old wood slats, but the tone was good, so it worked.
Once the decorative paper is adhered, (I used gel medium to attach it) then with an old plastic gift card, I scraped gesso over the entire surface, and then continued to scrape it till the paper started to show through again. You have to work fast, so the gesso doesn't dry on you, but if you do one side at a time it works pretty well.
Once you are happy with the amount of gesso, you just set it aside til it is good and dry, and then I took a distress ink pad, and smeared it across the whole surface, and then with a paper towel, I rubbed the ink around, and also it rubs some of the ink off. It makes for a lovely subtle aged color and pattern. Just perfect for this page.
Then I adhered the cutouts to the backgrounds, and then with my brown watercolor crayon, I outlined the cutouts, to help seat them into the page, and give it all a cohesive look. I also ran the crayon around the outside of the pages to give them an aged and vintage look. Then wet them with a small paintbrush. I added the lettering with some tiny alphabet stamps and a brown StazOn pad, and voila!

Tribute to Jackson Pollock

Getting some more art journals done, I was able to incorporate the same subject into two different books.
(remember to click on images to see them larger)
The first book is Karen's and it is on Freedom.
I chose to do Jackson Pollock, because his outlook on art is that of expression, not necessarily completion.
He created his works out of feeling, not a predetermined idea of what it would end up like.
To me I feel that is 'Freedom in art'. I created these pages without any idea of what they would look like when they were finished, and it was an amazing experience.

The second journal belonging to Abby was titled 'American Idol', and we were to incorporate someone we look up to into the pages, so I was able to stay with the Jackson Pollock theme.
Even though he grew up in New York, he was born here in my home town of Cody, WY.

Both journal entries were done with acrylic paint. Some thinned with water, and painted on with a straw, a stick, and a paintbrush. Something that Jackson often did was use unusual items as 'brushes'.

The fist pages for Karen were done with pastel colors on a black background. (directly in the book) Then the paint was let to dry for 2 days. (it's thick in places) Then I printed actual works from Jackson Pollock onto Canvas paper, and then heat set and sealed them so they would not smear, then adhered them around the quote from him.
The quote reads:
'I like to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. There is no accident just as there is no beginning and no end...The painting has a life of it's own.'
Jackson Pollock, New York, 1951.
The second pages for Abby were done with earth tones, on a metallic brown linen texture cardstock. Let to dry, and then I added a transparency where I put Jackson's photo, name and life dates on as an overlay to my painting. On the right side, I added a print of his painting 'The Key' done on canvas paper and sealed, matted with the same metallic brown cardstock.
I was really happy with the way they turned out, and how different they look, when still using some of the basic drip technique.

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

Here Kitty Kitty

These are the Tip-in Pages I made for Teri.

They are little quilties.

Her topic was anything with a cat or kitten on it somewhere, so I decided that I would design a pattern, and incorporate fabric into my pages. I ended up making the whole thing with fabric.

The cat and the mouse are quilted down, and then the "meow" is written in stitches. The mouse's tail is a little pink ribbon. The kitty's wiskers are made with threads, the eyes are jewels that I made to look like cat eyes.

I had this really strange bead, that looked like a ball of yarn, that has been "rolling" around my house for a year or more. When I got to thinking about making my pattern, I remembered that bead and wanted to incorporate it into the piece, so I made the cat batting at it.

Funky Birds

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.

Slowly Getting There

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)

:0)

Super Hero

In an effort to try and catch up, I have finished the pages for Fred's RR Journal from last year. This is one of the journals that was lost somewhere in transit, and has finally shown up. Now if the other 3 would just get here, we could get them finished and back to the rightful owners.

Fred's topic was super heroes. This was a really hard subject for me, because I never watched tv cartoons about super heroes, or read comic books, I never even saw the Spider Man movies! I know I am probably strange, but it is just not my thing, and my husband really doesn't know much about super heroes either... so I was a little blocked but I did the best I could think of.

The best super hero I could think of was my little man- Kota... He is my 7 lb. Shih Tzu. He is a tiny little thing, but mighty. He wears his bowtie with pride. He will bound several feet in the air if he smells a french fry, and will talk to you plain as day "nummy, nummy" if you have his green jar of "nacker begger" treats.

He has some very special tools of power- his fruity & sketti spiders, (they are actually kitty toys, but the cat had NO interest- so Kota, "Bubby" claimed them as his own) woven potholders that my girls have made- great teathing toys I might add & of course his shop towel that he wears as a cape, that has been worn out and has holes in it so it has now been named "Holey Shop Towel".

His favorite place to sleep is definitely under the bed covers. I think that comes from when he was a puppy and I was trying to potty train him and he would not stay in his little box next to the side of my bed. He would jump out of it and onto my bed and under my blanket. When I would force him to stay in it he would just cry. He has been sleeping under my blankets ever since.

First try at Zetti

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. I actually wrote something on the 16th, but I just couldn't post it. I just figured noone wanted to hear me rant and rave about my mundane life crap, so I deleted it before I posted it, and yes, everything worked itself out like it normally does, and I am over it for now.

Anywho-
Here are the pages that I have made for Marion's Tip-In Round Robin Journal. I will be mailing them out to her today, so I thought I should post them for you all to see. This is the first time I have ever done anything with Zetti. It was interesting to say the least, but was really fun. At first I planned everything out, and decided basically how I wanted everything to look, then as I started to put it all together, I started changing things. Now that is how I think Zetti is supposed to work. At least that is how I think it will work for me, because I had so much fun letting it just take it's own shape, and boy did it come out weird, and in a good way I think.























I love the way the rock/egg eye with the face turned out- that was probably the hardest part. It took several trys to get that right, but the final result is exactly what I was after. I wanted that eye to look like it was coming right out of her lips, and the rock/egg eye, is cut out of cardstock and adhered to the background paper, but the stamp of the face with the ribbon hair is over the top of the rock/egg eye, and onto the background. Then another partial image (just the face part) is cut out of another piece of cardstock and adhered on top of the original stamped image, so it would be a perfectly clear image with none of the rock image showing through. It was pretty involved, for as simple of a look as you get, but when you see it in person, you can see that it is not just a simple process. The background is done with watercolor crayons and a wet paper towel, and the border is a Zetti stamp block of eyes. I stamped it several times and cut each image out, so that I could place all the faces with the noses pointing in wrapping around the pages.























One of the things that Marion asked was that we include a number somewhere on the pages, so I used 7 and 13. They are my two favorite numbers. So these pages are titled appropriately 7 & 13!
This was so fun! I can see how this can be addicting- I will definitely be making more Zetti art.

Bog of Eternal Stench

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.

"Owls"

I am posting a couple of pages that I have done lately for a Round Robin Journal swap, for Paper Traders yahoo group. Below is the "Owls" I did for Marion's book Deep Sea of Poetry, and then the "Chooks" I did for Jenene's book Backyard Chook Shed.

I have been busy lately trying to catch up on some Round Robin Art Journals. There was a bit of a mailing mix-up, and the journals got stuck over the Christmas package overload. Anyway, I received three to work on, and to get done quickly. I have finished the second one which is for Marion. (The first was Jenene's chook shed.)
I chose to do the pages with these beautiful pictures from an old childrens educational book. The images are gorgeous, but had absolutely no color. They were just rather flat, so I spent some time chalking them oh so carefully. The eyes are a rich gold color, and the feathers are several tones of browns. The beak is a grey and brown mix, and the branch is a sage and grey mix. It was a lot of fun to see these birds come to life.
The background of the page was also a ton of fun to do. My mom taught me how, by taking white gesso, and brushing it on with a prickly paint brush. It was fun how the bristles make the cool stroke look. Then when it was all done and completely dry, I distress inked the edges, to give it that old look.
Then I added the birds and the fun owl poem.

"Chooks"

I finally finished my pages for Jenene's Round Robin Journal. I loved the topic of the Backyard Chook Shed. In Australia, the chicken is called a chook. I really enjoyed doing these pages. The background images are from 1913. I thought they were perfect for this topic. The roosters in the forground are rub-ons. I thought the quote was quite funny as well.I included with the book a little gift for Jenene. It is a small stuffed rooster. I tied a tag around his neck in case she wanted to string it on the book. I also added a rub-on to the tag, and included the following poem on the back.

Chook-Chook-Chook

Chook, chook, chook-chook-chook.

Good Morning, Mrs. Hen.

How many children have you got?

Madam, I’ve got ten.

Four of them

Are yellow,

And four of them

Are brown,

And two of them

Are speckled red—

The nicest in the town!