House of the Past - Art Journal Collage and Paint

I don't throw out much. I used to throw out mistakes, wanted to scrub them, forget them, move away from them.  Now I think mistakes are generally lying in wait, ready to be cut up and made into something that makes them even more awkward and even more terrific.

This piece didn't involve mistakes, per se, but proof prints with colors that weren't what I wanted. Printing greeting cards particularly seems to result in a lot of "oh, crap!" moments. I intend to get through this pile eventually, adding them to journal pages like this one.

Journal Page - a kind of Gratitude

It's been ages. I'm dusting off, though, and getting into blogging my journal/mixed media practice some more in this space. I feel like I kind of need a playground just for my journaling, versus my portfolio site or pattern design, or things like that. Even though eventually everything comes together, a lot of work starts out kind of personal and precious and I am very grateful that there are places for gentler sharing out there on the same web that can be pretty cruel and hard at times.
 

A peek inside my 9x9 superdeluxe journal - I'm going into the blank pages of old journals I haven't completely filled and doing the job right.

Some people have been really wonderful to me lately, allowing me the luxury of being vulnerable and not exactly my finest. I'm very grateful for that, and it feels like a huge gift.

She's got handmade stamps, acrylic, watercolor, an old stamped image and newsprint at the very beginning, posca pen, stabilo All (which I have mixed feelings about, but whatever) and lyra pencils.

I'm gearing up to make some videos. Any tips out there for a nervous first-timer?

Finished Up

So here's the finished spread from a few days back. Some changes, but not too major. I find I'm waiting for a lot of things in my life right now, one of them is the end of a steroid taper, that's the most concrete of them. If you have ever done a long one of these, you'll know the feeling.

I've also  been playing with watercolor. Everything they say is so true about it - it's hard. It's wildly uncontrollable. It's so easy to create hideous badness. And it's fun.

In Progress: leaving well enough alone.

The biggest pitfall, I find with the free-flowing everything is right and nothing is wrong dictums of mixed media, is that it's far too easy to overdo things.

I do it a lot. 

When you draw observationally, you are in a constant state of push and pull with the thing you are referencing. You simply don't have a choice about whether to stop and analyze what you're doing - drawing observationally is a kind of analysis in itself.

When you don't, you have to make yourself stop. Step back. Analyze.

If everything is right simply because it's you, you have no criteria to use to decide whether you should or should not do something.

It's true that an art journal should be a place of experimentation - but for me, it's also a place to learn lessons, to make mistakes and also to learn how mistakes were made so that not making them repeatedly becomes habitual.

So this is a spread at midpoint.  I have a few regrets in it already - that's OK - but it's a good time to take a breath and listen and look.

A Finding Place

This quote really engaged me, so I made some space for it.

“I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me. So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.” 


― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

I found a lot of my thoughts about the value of education and the place of literature perfectly articulated here. Which is her point - literature lets the disconnected, the discontent, the marginalized person to know that others have been there before.

You could also switch out "art" for "poetry." Why not? Go for broke, right?

Journal Page - The Difficult

I got out the gelli plate the other night - monotype with a press is my "thing" - years ago I had an artist residency at MN book arts for my monotype work.  It's completely different without a press, but I think I'm going to enjoy wrestling with this little silicone blob until I like the results.

 Her crown and dress are some very subtle mossy gelli printed papers. Collage, watercolor, stamping, drawing - other than the water color washes almost all the paint is applied with a tsukineko fantastix foam stick. I'm still crazy for those things.  I should keep a running list of supplies I find "worth it."

Mixed Media on Loose Fabriano Watercolor

I am trying not to go ape and throw poo be bummed about YET MORE SNOW. Enough. Any time now.

Well, even if I'm kept indoors at least I can play. This is like the rainy day activity that never ends.

In GOOD news, it is the anniversary of Paint Party Friday! PPF has introduced me to many talented and friendly bloggers/artists, and it's one of those nice blog parties that makes a self-employed freelancer feel just that tiniest bit less like a cave dwelling hermit. YAY PPF. Here's to many many more!

Journal Page - The Possible

I've got a Moleskine A4 that I've been kind of precious about using because it's expensive watercolor paper and a nice binding and blah.

What a mistake that was! It's nice to get out of the square format of my usual journals. I do love Bee paper recycled 9x9's quite a lot, mainly because I find them heavyweight enough for all that I throw at them AND nicely portable.

But the Moleskine? There's obviously a reason they're popular. I believe these to go in the "worth every penny" category. It's just really pleasant to play with water media on the right kind of paper, and still have the option to keep things bound.

What's all this then?

Watercolor, my own carved stamps, pigment ink, commercial background stamp, acrylic, gesso, caran d'ache crayon, acrylic ink with a crowquill pen, charcoal, washi tape, alpha stamp. Whew!

You probably don't need a psych degree to tell that things are turning around a bit for me, too. The hopeless malaise of a flare that lasts for unknown amounts of time is over. I'm moving away from misery - for how long who can say, but my experience tells me I can now dig in and get on with the rest of my year, with any luck!

The body may be a step behind, but the mind is light and ready to say yes to things.

Chronicles Project week 5 that is not week 5

One of the hidden joys of doing 29 was finding the Chronicles Project over at Wonderstrange. Sarah's prompts and journal concerns seem as if they were tailor made for my brain.

Let's break it down - say you see a journal page with the word "dream" on it.

What does that tell you? What does that actually cause you to do?

I tend to get anxious. The problems in my life are not caused by a lack of vision, rather by a poor sense of implementation, sometimes within my control - just as often NOT within my control.

Results: look at happy pink spread. Feel miserable.

Chronicles is not about writing down "awesome!"  - it follows that best of literary rules.

Show don't tell.

So, my awesome. Let me show you it.

These are the parts of the week 5 prompts I decided to work with:

1. Write about your favorite thing that happened this week.
2. What song do you love this week?
3. Take a picture of the thing that is making you really happy right now.

1. This is not a banner week. I know a lot of us have horrible autoimmune diseases, mine is making my life less than fabulous, though better than hospitalized, so not all is lost, right?  The wife made cookies and made things not completely implode all around me. That was awesomesauce.

2. Easy.  Avant Gardener. It's so awesome to me because it both deals with being sick in some fashion AND having that outside-of-yourself ability to laugh at the first-world-problems nature of being sick and outside the "old enough to be sick" demographic and the way that other people look at you or your worries about the way that other people look at you.


Also "The neighbors must think we run a meth lab. I should amend that, I pull up weeds" is particularly awesome.

3. I don't photograph my life. Which is funny, because photo was a huge interest of mine in art school daze past. I opened an instagram account, and took a picture of one of those little things in life that's making me SUPER happy (yeah I know wheat and sugar are inflammatory, but if a coffee and a cookie are going to kill me it's not worth it anyway.)

This would ordinarily go under the journal rubric "it's the little things." Amirite?

 

 A little repurposing of my own stuff. I printed a card, it misfired, I cut it up.

I don't hoard scrapping stuff, but I do have some, and since everyone has some psycho IP insane Angel policy for every sticker now, it can just go live in my journal.

Ask/Ask - Art Journal Page

No matter how old you get, you and your mother will probably have this dialogue.

.....

technical sidestep of further navel-gazing time!
There's some of that tasty hand stamping, you can see where I started.

Gelatos again. I think they're a definite candidate for my next BRUTALLY HONEST PRODUCT REVIEW segment - will they pass the test? As always, it depends what you are testing!

Also used - 99 cent alpha stamp, posca, charcoal, pencil, gesso.

Getting messy again....gelatos and inktense journal pages

Peace of mind? Really? How journal schmournally. It's a well-trod sentiment. But peeps, my dear peeps, how I really really could use some in my life this week.

This page started with a hand stamp I carved. I call the pattern "cairn" - you can't really see a lot of evidence of it here, but I'll be showing it off a lot.  I'm LOVING carving my own stamps as a starting point - it's a great way to lay down a bunch of information onto that intimidating white page, and it's a nice way to keep the image vocabulary your own.

The flowers are collaged deco paper, though. I thought they went so nicely with the background I worked up with plenty of gelatos dripping. They do tend to migrate down the page in a different way from watercolors, it's hard to explain but you'll notice the difference if you try both.

Used inktense, gesso, posca, acrylic pen and ink, and lots of prismacolor here. It's nice to get messy again and get lot of deep saturated color.

40 - lost your way? Art Journal Page - Art Journal Every Day

A good time to reflect on your mortality. Keeping it upbeat and valentine-ish though. Vintage label scans, acrylic, distress inks, tattered angels mist in some kind of pink color. I included a wry little reference to "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock." The meanderings of the narrator as a contemporary list.

1. part hair from behind
2. eat peach.
3. mermaids. wth?

liquitex Acrylic Inks and Journaling.

Hi friends.

I love to shop. I love to buy things as much as the next person.  Hence my expanding stash. Ever ever expanding.

But I am also pretty hard on products for the mixed media market.  I'm kind of a manufacturer's design team nightmare, but the one who takes me on and gives me good product will love me forever.

I've actually got more formal training than I'd like to discuss, and I tend to compare crafter's products to the things I used in school - and usually they do ok.

But in the case of pens, they often come up short. Pens, what gives?

Wanna know the *only* pens that get me hot and bothered?
1. Uni Posca. Good luck finding these babies, but when you can get them in a 1 mm tell me you're not in love.
2. Uniball signo white. But it was a bad ro-mo-ma-ha-ha because it has gummed up on a dry ground that had a tiny bit of watercolor crayon in the mix.  ET TU SIGNO???
3. PITT - but generally for lick your finger and intentionally smear that stuff applications only.

I don't like seeing people caught up in the hype of product wasting money over and over.  OK I'll speak for myself -  I feel like I did, when it came to pens which are either not archival at all  (sharpies, gelly rolls I have doubts over) OR they're just cranky and terrible to use and you go through a hundred nibs. (Sharpies! A million sharpie carcasses ALL OVER. Copic likes to die a seven dollar death over any kind of paint or medium. Coloring stamps has to be the ONLY great use for a Copic, or under watercolor or something really transparent and inky and washy and too pretty for me to have made, ha!)

 Like a lot of art journalers, I'm often on the quest for a better pen.

One that won't dry out. One that won't gum up and make you cry the second it might touch wet paint. One that you don't have to shake like a maniac.  One that covers. You hear me pens? COVERS.

 One that is KIND to my left handed chicken scratch inscrutable handwriting. Blah.

Well, I found my pen! Actually what I found are my inks - Liquitex acrylic inks, to be exact.  I use a good ol' dip pen. Why?

Control is terrific - if you're a lefty like me, you have to watch out for smearing, but other than that, your line quality gets 1000 times more interesting in just one easy installment, ha.

The white ink (how I love it) allows you to mix opaque pretty colors with great coverage - and you can get the exact shade you need without having to run out and get another six dollar pen that is only going to die the second it encounters gesso (I'm looking at YOU Copic!)

Honestly, don't be intimidated by brush and pen and ink - really. The simple speedball set which comes with a tiny crowquill pen is the way to go, for me, but I'm probably going to want some calligraphy tips too.  The sets are about 9 bucks, and the ink is about 20 in a primary color plus brown black and white set - but the life that you get from this setup seems MUCH longer than a lot of the journaling pens I've collected, all of which disappoint me except for Uni Posca.

What do you think? Have you played with traditional pen and ink? Any mileage with the liquitex inks?

New Art Journal Page - Also Available as ACEO

Got to play again the other night - I'm not a huge fan of cold press paper, but she was done on cold press. You can see the texture of the paper. Undecided on whether I like that.

It's going to get cold again, after a balmy couple of above-30 days. Blergh.  This is me, trying to cheer myself up.

She's available as an ACEO for now @ my etsy shop. 
You can request a full size print if you want!

Harbor Lights

Mixed media on paper.

Journal page - The Garden of the World

Some stamping and stenciling with abandon, and a quote. And --- green. Finally broke 40 degrees here!

Simon Says Stamp and Show : Quotable Challenge

Dolls and Tales - Art Journal and Flat Art Doll

Cat Flat Art Doll

Another one of my flat art dolls. This one was tough, because of the edge. They're too thick to leave raw or blanket stitch, and they're too fussy to bead around if I cut the limbs separately. However, as I stitch down like this the backing likes to travel out of line with the top layer. I need to find the right fix for this issue!

Anyhow, I may leave miss kitty well enough alone, or I may do an owl companion.  Not sure.

It's inktense, beading, embroidery, and it's backed with cotton duck - showroom sample scrap I purchased at SE Harris warehouse.

While we're on the subject of children's stories (maybe)

Queen Of Hearts Art Journal Page

I've started a small journal (5x7) and I'm not sure if it's going to be themed (I keep trying to do this) or just random. 

I think an "antagonists" gallery would be kind of neat and unusual. I could also write into the theme a lot - thinking about different obstacles.

Should I go for "antagonists" or stick to something more open, like faces or fiction or nothing in particular?

From my surface journal and about stamps in mixed media

All the pages in this journal start with surface treatment. I'm trying to do things I normally don't - in this case really vibrant color and stamps, which I'm generally opposed to. They're great for applying text - my own lettering capabilities are awful - I'm left handed and it shows. So stamped in are some letters.  the rest is watercolor, acrylic resist, Distress Ink, a cut up moment of artistic FAIL in inktense and artbar and acrylic, some inktense pencils, blickcrylic gel (it is a journal page after all.)

Ok, I'm about to drop a snob bomb. Please don't be hurt - if you create with stamps, designer paper, inkjet printouts - more power to your badtastic artistic self - but it's hard for me Momma. HARD. I have hangups.

I know this will sound snobbish in the extreme, but there's something I don't like about using the same imagery as other people, readily available, just ink and press.  I don't like it. I love other people's work that uses stamps sometimes - like any medium, some is great, some is good, some is less so but as long as people are creating, yay.  I don't generally like mine. I've never felt enough connection to the imagery.

Buying a lot of the repro "ephemera" and designer papers feels to me like solving a visual problem by throwing money at it.  It's not that I don't spend money on vintage papers and books that I'm willing to give the chop - and I'm lucky to be near the ULTIMATE source (more on that later) - I find that I think harder and more about what I'm buying.Limiting myself to really having to hunt though things and decide which old things are right for repurposing - which feel "too good" for being remade into art, which have an interesting backstory - this is part of my art process.  I can't get that from a digital collage sheet.

I've even been resistant to using the distress inks - it's not a dis on Tim Holz, whose work is great, I just don't like the whole thing of "and now I shall make a Tim Holz project" that follows from grabbing up the whole line of offerings.   There's a ton of distress ink in this though, the greens and some tea stain tones.  Yes, they're fantastic to use!

Overall, this is probably something I should get over, but it's definitely something I find I think about a lot.

So for me I guess a good challenge piece would be to use only materials from designer lines or something.

Journal Page

I'm starting a surface driven journal. All the pages in this one, I think, will start with surface treatment and build from there.  I've been restless for spring, tired of getting slammed with all the winter weather in one month. That's what I thought this little entry was about.

After adding the text, I realized this has nothing to do with seasons at all, rather someone dear to me who was lost out of the blue.  It's interesting how the mind and emotions have their way with you when you let them open up.