Learning some new stitches......

 

Friday, Diana Trout released her on-line, longstitch bookbinding class!  Most interesting.  Like many things, I know just enough to be dangerous and bookbinding is no exception.  So, I am looking forward to getting past the pamphlet stitch and on to something a little fancier.

So far, I have made the cloth/paper for the cover and cut a big piece of paper in to little pieces of paper and gathered them to make signatures.  Now, I've got some holes to punch and some thread to use!

I hope to get back to this project this evening after dinner.

Earlier this week I came up with a journal page I like.......using gesso, watercolor, pen and pencil.

Journaling can be a great way to vent your frustration.....we took the dog to groomer on Monday and on Tuesday he went out and rolled in the smelliest, nastiest "stuff" he could find.  Oh, yes, I was very happy!  NOT.  So, I wrote about it here.

 

 

I like the look of watercolor over gesso that was spayed with a bit of water and dabbed with a paper towel.  

 

 

 

Then I started another page......a this point, I'm liking this background but I have no idea where it goes from here!

 

I hope things are improving for the folks on the east coast and that your week will see less frustration and more optimism........and an end to political advertising!  

Whoa! November First?

 

My how time flies, as they say!  Here it is the first of November and time to share our monthly calendars with the other "calendar girls" at Kathryn Wheel's HERE!

These are my finished October pages.  Note I did try to conform, a little, I made circles to represent the days for the first part of the month.

But, for the last half of the month.....I was back to writing in lines!  Sigh!

I've been helping to teach a class, sold some things at our show at the bakery, accomplished a lot of yard work early in the month and made some time for art!  It was a good month.

On to November.........with turkey day and Christmas just around the corner, and I've signed up for Diana Trout's bookmaking class that starts this Friday....I have a lot to look forward to.

In my hast to write this blog before the ghost and goblins start arriving at my door, I notice that I have not identified these pages as November....but that's what they will be.

I'll do it tomorrow, I promise!

These are a couple of my favorite pages in my journal.  On this page, I think I see some more circles in my future.

Thanks for stopping by and for sharing you calendar, if you did.

....and I quote!

 

I love quotes, don't you?  I am always amazed at how much can be said with just a few words.  H-m-m-m, not by me, but some folks have that skill.

BTW are you aware of a app, now available, for iPhones and iPads that was designed by Hope Wallace of Besottment by Paper Relics (to learn more check out her blog).  For a mere 99 cents you will receive and endless supply of quotes, I downloaded it yesterday and I love it!

So, these are just some ideas I played around with in my sketchbook using a few of her quotes.

 

 

 

Just  brainstorming some ideas for simple Christmas gifts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can add some color or some zentangles or maybe not.  Just ideas!

 

 

 

 

 

More ideas and more quotes.  This could be fun!

Black gesso........

 

I've wanted some black gesso for a long time!

For those who don't know what gesso is, it is a substance similar to thick paint that is use to coat a canvas before you start painting.  It helps the artist's acrylic or oil paint adhere to the canvas by adding a slightly gritty surface.   White is the most often used gesso color but it, also, comes in black.  I've wanted back for sometime!  Then it becomes that "want" vs "need" thing, 'cause I sure didn't think I NEEDED it......!  However, now, I'm not so sure.

I painted these pages with several coats of black gesso, to get the density I was looking for, and then painted over the gesso with a liquid blue acrylic paint before I embellished.

Yep!  I NEEDED it.

To my east coast friends, I'll be thinking and praying for you to stay high and dry over the next few days.  Stay safe.

Fall leaves.....

 

I know, everyone is doing leaves right now, there's a reason for that....they are beautiful and inspiring!  There is a saying that goes something like this: fall leaves are spring flowers, so true, beautiful color every where you turn.

Sooooooo, I had my go at leaves and a poem I really like.

This page was done using real leaves to mask the page then I sprayed the page with ink and stamped with hand carved stamps using acrylic paint.

........and just a few of the things I am thankful for!

Rainy days and journaling.....

 

It is still raining, I am still journaling and I still being inspired by my new book 365 Days of Journal Fodder and my class discussing Julia Cameron's book Vein of Gold.

Thinking of the places you have lived is one of the exercises in Julia's book! That started my thinking of the house I grew up in.  My Dad built it, with some help, just after World Was II had ended.  Materials were still difficult to come by so they had to work, almost as hard, finding the boards, plumbing and electrical supplies needed, as they did building.

Sorry, for the glare on the left side....I wrote in black and white ink to make the page look more interesting and blur the content, just a bit.  On the right, under the numbers, there is a flap............

 

 

Ta da!  Picture of the simple little house in Beaverton, Oregon where I lived between 11 and 20 years old.  The map shows the location of the house, which by the way, was torn down several years ago to make room for apartments.

Oh, how I wish these were the blueprints for the house but....they are not!

 

 

My other pages are devoted to the only piece of my art that has been saved from when I was a kid.  In 1951, I made up this story and drew the "photographs" to illustrate it!  Now days, if I had drawn this and given it to my friend at school.....the school would have gone into lock down! 

There really was a Barbara, my BFF, she really had a boyfriend named George but, as much as she might have liked to....she did not own a sexy strapless gown, opera length gloves or a long cigarette holder (an outfit, so, totally, influenced by the movies of the day). 

Barbara had kept this for years and returned it to me about ten years ago.  I'm not sure why the murder plot!  But, the format foreshadows my adult career of working for newspapers for 30 years.

Sadly, Barbara passed away in 2005.  I so appreciate that she saved this.

The other side of the page reflects just a few of the many memories I have of Barbara and some of the things that were important to us in our teen age years.

It is fun to look back and it is interesting how much longer the good memories last than the bad.  The bad memories are still there.....the edges are just softened by time.

I'm linking to Mary Walker's "Show me what you got" Art Link Up party.  Join me in viewing more cool journal pages.

Woo Hoo! New Book........

 

I think I'm in love!  For whatever reason, I am finding this book soooooo INSPIRING!

 

 

Journal Fodder 365 by Eric Scott and David Modler is, now, my all time, favorite journaling book!

I love the format and the suggested ideas for building a journal page.  I like the journal prompts because they are making my brain "pop" with ideas and I love their suggestions for incorporating words into the page design.

 

 

I'm, also, helping to teach the class based on Julia Cameron's book "Vein of Gold".  Between mining my past life and the new book with its cool ideas for incorporating writing in to the pages.....I can't stop!  I'm enjoying it while it lasts, cause it won't last forever.

For those who have read the book "Vein of Gold", you are aware of Cameron's use of the term "cups".  She refers to cups as the places, in our memories, where we store our good and bad experiences.

I wrote about the wonderful woman who encouraged me to start oil painting on canvas and filled my cup with "sweetness and sunshine".  I was doing tole painting and teaching, she was in my class.  One day she suggested to me that I try painting on canvas!  Well, I said, "I can't do that.....I'm not an artist"!  Sound familiar?

Fortunately, she kept after me until I took oil painting classes from her and several other teachers over the years.  I owe this lady, who past away just last year, a lot.

I liked the idea, from the journaling book, of writing my story with a watercolor pencil and then went back over with a brush and water to blur the writing a bit.

I used this page to talk about my love of paper dolls, rather for my love of drawing and designing clothes for paper dolls, when I was a child.  I would cut figures out of catalogues and magazines and then I would spend HOURS drawing clothes for them.  In the fifth or sixth grade,I remember sitting in the back of the classroom drawing clothes for my friend's and my paper dolls instead of studying.

On this page I wrote my story with a bamboo pen and acrylic ink, trying to make it look like it had been written by my "12 year old self".

 

 

I believe I could get back into drawing clothes for paper dolls and I'd still love it, cause this little exercise felt really, really good.

Have you ever heard the Frank Sinatra song "I'm going to buy myself a paper doll"?

I wrote the lyrics around the drawing and the "paper dolls".....now, you've got the words stuck in your brain, too.....don't you?

 

As if this wasn't enough.....I have a third page close to completion!  I need to finish journaling about the house I grew up in and then, that page will be finished, too.

I'm loving this "spurt" of creativity and wish I always had this much excitement and enthusiasm.  As, I said I'm enjoying it while I got it!  And now, I'm off to post to a brand new linky party being hosted by Mary called Show Me What You Got Art Linkup!