I made some hearts for Valentine’s for my readers.  This is a small image to show you what they look like, but to download the hi-res ones, go here.  The hi-res hearts are about 4 x 4 inches.

Every February thatMister and I have been together, we have found something in nature that looks like a heart.  Here’s what he found a few days ago.

Yep!  It’s a potato.  Isn’t that funny?

Last year it was an onion.  Love is everywhere!

When you’re young, a new year is more about the party the night before than thinking about what a brand new year actually means.  As I gather years (don’t you love that phrase? It’s what my hero, Clarissa Pinkola Estes says) I realize how precious a year is.  And I honor the rite of passing into a new phase of my life.  The symbol of wiping the slate clean and starting over is a powerful one.

A lot of blogs I follow have offered exercises for reflecting on 2011 and having a positive attitude about the new year, as opposed to making unrealistic resolutions.  I am enjoying the process of looking at what came my way last year, determining what I want to repeat, and what I want to change in the new year.

My word for this year is Joy.  Here is a canvas I made to hang on the wall above my computer.

Aging has its advantages but it also brings a certain amount of cynicism.  When you’ve lived through many moons, you lose some of the wonder of youth.  I realize that along with aging and gaining wisdom, I’ve lost my joy.  So, this year I’m on a mission to reclaim it.  It’s my personal belief that as a child of God, who I believe is The King,  I am a princess.  And it is my birthright to have a joy-filled life.  So, instead of wishing or hoping or attaching my happiness to some person or event, I am just claiming it full out.

As a part of the joy process I am taking an online, year-long class called Move More Eat Well.  I am looking forward to having a teacher and classmates to help me work toward a healthier lifestyle.  The activities for the class are designed to be kept in a looseleaf notebook.  I am doing thiem in an art journal instead.

I started this post on Jan 8th and am just now getting back to it.  My search for joy is coming along nicely.  I feel more joyful than I have in a long time.  I can’t say I’m 100% yet, but I’m getting there.

You would not believe what all I have made in the past month.  I really wish I could show you pictures.  But they are Christmas gifts for my family and friends so I don’t want to spoil the surprise.  But trust me, it’s a LOT of stuff!!

I would not have had nearly this much fun if I had been shopping for gifts.  And I would not have spent that many hours thinking about each person as I made their gift.  I thought about them with the gift and then I had memories of our times together.  I said prayers for them while I worked on their gifts.  This Christmas will truly be about love.

I hope that all of you have a Christmas filled with love.

I wish that I could stay interested in any style, motif or color combination long enough to actually create something unique.  I know my tastes are ecclectic in everything – clothes, home decor, music, food – not just art.  But I wonder if that’s an indication of who I really am or a fault.  Shouldn’t a person have more narrowed tastes by the time they’re my age?

When I’m asked a question about my favorite anything, I can never answer.  C.S. Lewis once said his wife loved more things and loved them more than anyone he’d ever known.  I’ve always identified with that description.

I have always gone around loving.  So I guess if you do that you just end up loving a lot of things.  Because narrowing your tastes down would require that you reject some things.  I’d rather include than exclude.

I am finding this challenge to be … well, challenging!  About 6 or 7 years ago, I did collage almost solely.  I sold my collages and found it very satisfying to create them.  Over the years I quit doing them and was more interested in art journaling, painting and drawing.

In my art journal, I often do a sort of collage effect coupled with painting techniques or stencils and spray ink.  So, I think the way I approached collage must have changed.  I keep wanting to use paint, but I set out on this challenge to do pure collage, using only paper and the results I’m getting are just not satisfying me.

I know the key to getting better at anything is to practice, so I’m going to keep on, but this sure is frustrating!  I’m going to spend some time today looking at the work of collage artists and see if I can find some inspiration.

First Project

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m participating for the third year in the NaNoJouMo.  Click that link to learn about it.  Want to join in on the fun?  If so, let me know and if you blog about it, I’ll follow along this month!!  So, as I mentioned, I was having trouble deciding what kind of journal I wanted for it, and now….three journals later, I’ve finally made one I like.

The first one I made was 8 1/2 x 11 inch and I bound it with spiral binding using an old Christmas book’s covers.  I used cheap kids’ art pad paper in it.  It was fine really, but something just didn’t feel right.  For one thing the cover was purple and siad something about Christmas, and that’s just wrong!  Especially for a November project!

Well, yesterday at Hobby Lobby I discovered that the company that made my binder, Cinch, now is selling coil binding!!!  It’s much cooler and way easier to use than the pinch kind of spiral binding.  So, of course I had to bind a book to check it out.  I made the cover by gluing the two sides of a file folder together. Then cut out a piece of cardboard from a board game box for the back.  I am completely out of watercolor and sketch paper but I found a package of nice linen resume paper.  So I cut the paper in half making 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 in pages.  I bound it with purple coil binding and it rocks!!  I collaged the cover and I’m all ready to go on the first!!

Second Project

An online friend, Ardith Goodwin, is a wonderful, inspiring artist.  I’ve been following her as she’s been doing a collage a day all year.  The more I saw of her work, the more it made me miss the days when I used to do collage.

As usual, I couldn’t just start doing it, I had to worry and futz with where and how and what size.  Ha! I drive myself crazy.  I finally decided I wanted to do it journal style, in a book, but I wanted it in a separate book from my regular journal.

I considered doing them loose then binding it, but that always drives me crazy having the loose pages to keep up with.  And, of course, I considered binding a book for it, but since I’m almost out of any type of paper, I didn’t want to waste good paper that was just going to be collaged over.  So, I went on a search for an old, used book of some sort.

I found an old photography/art text book that I had saved so I could cut some images from it. It has a hard cover which a dog apparently chewed on (I bought it at a garage sale).  So I covered the chewed areas with masking tape, painted it then collaged over it.

Here are the 4 collages I’ve done so far.  It had been a long time since I’d done collage, so it took me a few to get warmed up.  I look forward to trying some different collage styles as I go along.

It probably appears that I don’t really want to write blog posts.  That is not true at all.  I keep a list of ideas to write about and I get excited when I think about the topics.  But when it comes to the physical work of posting, it overwhelms me.

I feel like I always need images.  Then I have to find them.  And edit them to make them web-ready.  Then upload them.  Then get them to work right on the page.

Because I have fibromyalgia, I have a limitied amount of energy each day.  Many days, even the thought of doing all the things I mentioned above, saps all I’ve got.

So, today I am writing to tell you that I think of all you readers every day.  I’m working on a way to psych myself into writing more, using less images and really enjoying this blog.

NaNoJouMo is approaching. For those of you unfamiliar with it, NaNoJouMo is a challenge to work in your art journal every day of November. Dawn Sokol hosts it on her blog. In fact, here’s a short description from her blog:

Each day during November, I will post a word to get you art journaling. A journal jump of sorts—one word a day to inspire or get you thinking. The goal is to journal SOMETHING in your art journal. DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A FULL PAGE…can be a doodle, maybe painting some backgrounds, doing some collage…just SOMETHING every day in your art journal during November. Even if it’s just moving a pencil across the page in a crooked line…

I have participated in NaNoJouMo for a couple of years and I like knowing that so many other artists are all journaling along with me.  So, I was looking forward to it this year, but for the past couple of weeks I’ve been unusually bored with journaling.  Normally I write 6 – 10 pages daily, but lately I’m not writing much and have even skipped a few days.  So, I wondered if I’d even be up for NaNoJouMo this year.  Then I discovered that the problem has been that I just don’t like the journal I’m using right now.

I have long admired journals I see others make that have lots of found papers in them. So I finally made myself one.  It’s a really cool journal.

I cut the covers off an old hardback children’s book and bound all sorts of papers into it with my cool Cinch binder that Mister bought me last spring.  What I’ve discovered, though, is that when I open a spread to do art, I like both sides to have the same type of paper, which this one doesn’t.  Also I like a big journal, and these pages are approximately 6 x 9 in.

Although I feel a little guilty to not finish using this book when I’m only half way through it, I know that I need a journal I enjoy working in, so I’m trying to decide what I want for NaNoJouMo.  I thought back on all the things I’ve used for journals and realized wow! I’ve used a lot of types of books for journals.

I have used magazines, novels, Time-Life books, children’s board books and bound a lot of my own.  I’ve sewn some and coil bound some.  This is one that I sewed using game boards as covers.

My most favorite is watercolor paper pages, regardless of how it’s bound.  But I don’t have any watercolor paper right now, so I’m going to have to make my new one from some other kind of paper.  A while back I found a pad of paper at Dollar Tree for $1 that I like.  It’s like thick newprint.  I made one journal from it and I liked it.  The only draw back was that the edges of the pages tore easily when they were wet.  But, for the price, you can’t beat it.

I bought a pad of acrylic paper at Walmart the other day.  I’ve never used that.  It might be a nice substitute for watercolor paper, but I’m not willing to make a journal from it when I haven’t played with it yet.  So, I will play with it and see how it takes all the media my journal gets thrown at it. If it works I’ll use that, otherwise I suppose it’s the Dollar Tree scribble pad.

So, what type of books do you use for art journaling?  Will you share with me in the comment section?

I want to share with you about the new Martha Stewart craft paints and gesso.   These products are really good quality for such an affordable price!  I was able to get them while Michael’s had them on sale for 40% off, thank goodness.  But even without the discount they are very reasonable.

The two oz. bottles of paint are regularly $1.99.  They have them in glitter, metallic, glossy and satin.  The ones I got are the satin.  They have such lovely colors, too.  They are very creamy, not chalky like a lot of craft paints are.  And it takes a lot less than most craft paints.  I suspect it’s because they have less water than most do.  They are like working with butter…. just so dreamy!!  The colors I got are: Piglet – a perfect baby pink that’s translucent but will cover completely with a couple of coats; Pink Carnation – a hot pink that isn’t gaudy or flourescent; Lake Fog – a lovely taupe. I’ve found so many uses for this color!; Root Beer Float – a nice, medium brown; Porcelain Doll – perfect for flesh tone!; and Wedding Cake – a nice, creamy, translucent white.  I’ve used them quite a bit and find that they blend well with each other, as well as with other crafts paints and with heavy body acrylics.

I also bought the gesso.  In fact, I went home and used and went back and bought two more bottles since it was on sale.  It’s a pure white – so bright!  It, too, is creamy like the paints are.  If you use one coat over text, for example, it’s translucent enough to allow the text to be seen through.  But if you apply a couple of coats, it covers nicely.   It blends perfectly with the craft paints.

The line of Martha Stewart Crafts by Plaid includes lots of other things besides paint, but I didn’t buy any so can’t vouch for the quality.  But they have some neat looking tools and stencils.  They have several times of transfer papers, and I can’t remember what else.  In my Michael’s store it’s a whole section that takes up about half an aisle.

So, check it out.  I am so pleased that those of us who don’t have a lot of money can finally use a nice quality paint and gesso!

Michelle’s Crusade for September is called The Disappearing Act.

“Paint a background using two colors and allow them to blend in
several locations.  Using the same colors, paint onto a large
stamp and press to your background.”

This is my frist attempt.  Meh.   It’s okay but I was inspired to try with other colors.

So here’s the second one.  I love this one!!  (Sorry about the waxed paper that in all the scans.)

And the last one is my fav!  I used a stamp I carved and it melded into the background in such a beautiful way.  The color on my monitor doesn’t look right in this image.  The medium color is yellow ocher and the dark is black, not gray as it appears here.