Our house, in the middle of our street…
A cold and miserable rainy day,
The perfect time to art and play.
Printed out the grid doodle I made yesterday, glued it into The Book with Mod Podge. Collaged some little houses made from my fabric paper. Printed out the words (Betsy Flanagan font) and collaged them onto the page. Added the angel postage stamp and it is done.
Wild
In the spirit of ‘more is more’, this page has been layered with paper torn from an old atlas, bordered with black acrylic, shaded and tinted with Neocolor lls, stamped and stenciled, painted with more acrylic, doodled on with Faber-Castell Big Brush Artists’ Pens and corrector pen, collaged and a little more Neocolor lls scrubbed on. Phew!
Fly
Two posts in one day – amazing. Only because I forgot to post yesterday’s after I scanned it.
This one used one of my ‘girls’. Printed her (not very well as printer running out of ink and left some stripes on her). Gessoed over her and reworked with Inktense crayons. Stamped, charcoaled, Tippexed and journaled. Done.
Zenspirations
Sandy Steen-Bartholomew mentioned in a recent blogpost that she’s become enamored by Zenspirations by Joanne Fink. I’ve seen this little book on Amazon and I think it’s going to find its way onto my already cluttered desk. At first glance it seems a little simplistic, but sometimes simple is very good.
On the previously painted background I just took a marker and Zendoodled.
Today’s page was created with an acrylic background, collage (fabric paper again), and doodles. I added charcoal for shading and drew over the bird that was already printed on the page. There’s room for more here.
I Love Flowers
Page gessoed, painted with acrylics – semi mixed because I love the streaky look. Covered with craft tissue paper to add texture while wet. Stamped through some sequin waste/punchinella. Collaged on some pieces cut from previously made fabric paper. These were doodled on and stitched, then highlighted with oil pastel. The flower isn’t completely stuck down but has a 3-D look. More oil pastel added around the border. Then I rubbed two stamp pads across the flower to grunge it down a little.Finally rubbed on some lovely gold powder I discovered in a drawer the other day.
I’ve done the same background on the opposite page ready for… I have no idea as yet!
Harry Catman has improved immensely – thank heavens and the Goddess of Cats.
Get Well Soon, Harry Catman
No creativity happening here, none. One of our cats was hit by a car thee days ago. He’s going to be fine. He has a fractured pelvis and is obviously bruised and sore. He was wandering down the lane when it happened. A wonderful couple out walking their dogs found him and carried him home to us. Friday was awful as we had no idea if he would make it or not after we said goodbye to him at the vet’s. We wrote prayers for him and lit a candle. At 6pm we were told he had no internal injuries and his bladder was intact. Hooray! We were able to bring him home the next day. He’s had to go back once as he finds urinating difficult but this morning he managed all by himself. His next appointment is tomorrow evening.
Our daughter drew this little picture a couple of years ago after Harry decided to move in with us. We had no choice in the matter. He spent 6 months establishing that he was going to be part of our family and was prepared to make the ultimate male sacrifice to do so. Unfortunately, he never got out of the habit of wandering off wherever. Our other three girl cats never leave the house and garden.
We love Harry Catman.
Simplicity in an Altered Book
Two more pages to show you. Really basic techniques. The first has a border created with acrylic paint and gold marker pen. It’s just a little ramble about the wonderful weather we’re having here in the UK right now.
The second is more interesting. I laid down some torn strips of masking tape close together on a plastic surface and rubber stamped them all over with a single stamp in one colour. Then I laid the strips on to the journal page, leaving some space between them to add text. I made sure that the gaps were varied. Then I just journaled in the spaces with a marker pen. I wish I had prepped the page with some paint or ink first, instead of leaving it white. Never mind, there’s always another page.
Recycle
Another quick recap if you just landed on this page. This blog is (currently) assigned to a project inspired by the book, 365: A Daily Creativity Journal. Mostly my daily postings are of my attempts to alter the book, from a commercial, prompt journal to an experimental art journal. It’s where I try out new materials and supplies and where I make mistakes. It’s not pretty. Sometimes, my creative endeavors take place away from the book so I post them instead. Today I made bread… but that doesn’t count, does it?
I’m not sure whether this is just a background or if I will leave it as is. It is a simple torn collage of printouts of old journal pages. I’ll let it dry and see. I often print out previous pages and tear them into strips for borders or cut out an element that I know will be just perfect for a new page. Using your own artwork like this is much better than using other people’s. I’ve never seen the appeal of purchasing commercial collage sheets, although I do have some in my stash of papers that were included in kits that I bought a few years ago. Kits… why? It’s so much more fun to build your own treasure trove of resources.
Here, there are scans of collages, watercolors, rubber stamps, drawings by my daughter, buttons and journal entries.
Textures and Tangles
Apologies for not posting for a couple of days. Creativity continues regardless.
I carried on with with my dryer sheet collages, this time using a brighter color combination. Here are some close-ups.
I love the chalky, scrunched up textures of torn paper, kitchen paper, tissue, netting, etc. The paint is diluted acrylic (Pip Seymour Fine Acrylics).
It’s Mother’s Day, or, more correctly Mothering Sunday here in the UK so I made a Zentangled card for mine.
Messy Time
Prompted by the glorious “How to Be Creative in Textile Art” by Julia Triston & Rachel Lombard (ignore that 1* review; the woman seems to be describing a completely different book), I spent an hour experimenting with dryer sheets. These collages were created by soaking washed drier sheets in diluted Mod Podge, then anything and everything was stuck to them. I used foil, bits of packaging, fabric, silk, taffeta, netting, thread, tissue, scrapbook paper, torn up sheet music and even strips cup from the top of dried cat food bags. Drizzled on some acrylic inks and sprinkled on some fairy dust. They are still damp, otherwise one of them would be stuck into The Book.
I’m thinking I might make more and stitch them together. Maybe add some more stitchery on top of them and glue them to a large canvas.
