A Little of This & A Little of That

This is the large goodie bag I received from Sarah Whitmire. Visit her at http://www.souljournaling.com/

So I have been neglecting my blog. Maybe that's a good sign that I am enjoying life!? I have recently joined Facebook. I am not sure why. Maybe to get my artwork out there. I have a myspace as well and I have not signed into that in ages.

I am trying to become educated on the use of Photoshop Elements. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLatestTrendsinMixedMediaArts/ is where Cindy Powell is giving basic instructions.

I just got The Artist Way by Julia Cameron and am liking what I read so far. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Blissfully_Art_Journaling/ is where Kim Owens is leading group discussions about this book.

Overwhelmed?

This Art Journal spread is in response to Kathryn's prompt at True North Arts http://collagediva.typepad.com/truenorth/2009/05/creative-kindling-quick-easy-ways-to-get-your-creative-mojo-heated-up.html

http://christinekane.com/blog/ Christine Kanes blog is really interesting. Go on over and take a look. I have signed up for her emails. It is nice to get something positive in your inbox!

Scavenger Hunt Results

Over at http://sarahwhitmire.blogspot.com/2009/05/soul-journaling-prompt-tools-and.html you will find the items needed for your own journal spread. There are 17 items to hunt for and use to create with. Here are just a few: something plastic, something shiny, something that starts with the letter A. Can you find those items in my journal pages?

For my Soul Journaling yahoo group journal I decided to use the binder clip & cereal box journal. I also use some of the junk mail to make pages. I will see where Sarah takes us this time!

Hopes and Dreams

This is my interpretation of Kathryn's prompt http://collagediva.typepad.com/souljournal/ Dream Weaver. I wasn't real happy with the end result of my weaving. I didn't find any "sweet spots". I attempted to make it look like a basket. The top blue strips are part of the weaving. I added flower pics behind them. It is a pocket, but I felt that small items would be hard to retrieve from it, so I added the brown bag to the other page. In that I have some left over weaving strips with my "hopes & dreams" written on them. I backed them with a purple paper and added fuzzy yarn. I figure I can use them like bookmarks.
While working on this I got to use my new toys-water soluble oil pastels! I used them to color the "basket". New toys are fun!! My sister (my WONDERFUL sister, if she is reading this) gave me an AC Moore gift card for christmas. So I bought a few fun items! I found a water pen to add to my supplies. The one thing I couldn't find was glossy card stock!!! I wanted to try a technique from the arttechnique yahoo group's 08 fat book technique swap. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find!!!

Gesso, Texture & Shaped Pages

This is the result from latest prompt at

http://www.collagediva.com/souljournal/ . I used cupcake liners. (side story - I have a lot of these because my youngest son used to work for a restaurant and they were getting rid to these. So my son brought home a box full because he knew I could use them!!!!) So cupcake liners, paper doily things & a net bag from oranges. I glued these down first. Let that dry and added a layer of gesso. When I was using the heat gun I found that it scrunched up the netting. It was pretty cool to watch!! Then a couple more layers of gesso. I shaped the edges of the pages. I left a section at the top of the first page because it looked unusual. I realized that I need to change the shape of more of my pages!!! I will most likely do that in my recycled journal first. I have found that I am taking more "risks" in that journal. I think because I know if I don't like the result I can easily remove it and even (oh no!) throw it away.

My Advent Calendar

This is my twist on the Advent calendar. You can see my twinchies peeking out from under there. I don't feel that this is completely done but I need to take a break from it. Any suggestions??
I was thinking about changing the edges of the flaps or adding .....something!! I think it may be to linear for me.....

Gesso is the duct tape of the art world

This is before and this is after!!!

This is the taped pages in Sarah's soul journal prompts. I had alot of trouble with this spread. It has been many things. I would work on it and not like it so I'd leave it alone for a while. Finally I pulled off most of the tape (which now included many layers of paint, gesso & stuff), gessoed (again) and used watercolor crayons and it was so easy this time!! The word love on the right was from what we were to write before the tape went down. The prompt was "I forgot to tell you....." http://sarahwhitmire.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html take a peek for your self!

I wasn't able to create over the holiday - family & not feeling well. I did finish my teesha moore inspired piece. (I'll post a pic later when I find my camera) And I have figured out how I want to do my version of the Advent calender!! Now to just start that!!