Calendar Journal Page - November

I thought I'd give the Kate's calendar journal challenge another go.Here's a link to her colorful and inspiring blog- the Kathryn Wheel.  I keep seeing such beautiful pages, but I haven't created one in months. The problem was writing in the tiny little spaces- so I decided to make a big calendar page in a Teesha Moore style amazing 16 page journal. So this space is approximately 24 x 10 inches.

Update- I am having so much fun with this! ....love how the black journaling adds to the page.

I added a tutorial here, about playing with masking fluid,  if you want to see how I made this page . 

Lynne Perrella's Class at the Ink Pad in NY, and a Hurricane

This past Sunday, I went to Manhattan to attend a class taught by Lynne Perrella and hosted by the Ink Pad.  I have always admired Lynne's use of color and pattern, and was very much interested in learning some new techniques. Actually, it was her stamps that caught my eye about 13 years ago that first got me interested in collage and mixed media.

(Feel free to skip-  Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep all night- I must have woken up every 45 minutes, so I was tired, and anxious, as I am prone to be when I do not sleep well. On top of that there were storm warnings- it was announced that the transit system was going to be shut down at 7 to prepare for Hurricane Sandy, and since I took New Jersey Transit to get into the city, I was anxious about getting out. Long story short, I left early. Before I left the class, I got to have some time with Lynne- she went around the entire room giving assistance (and provided a handout- woohoo!) and she helped me solve a layering problem in a way I never would have figured out. Anyway, I haven't touched it since I left Sunday, but here he is:

Next up- Hurricane Sandy, new friends, and collaging by candlelight.

Altered Bottled Class- Art Is You 2011

I'm a little bummed that I'm not going to Art-is-You this year in Connecticut. This would have been my fourth year attending and I will definitely miss seeing all of my art friends and looking at all of the different artwork produced. Last year was my second workshop with Michael deMeng- I can't remember the name of the class, but we altered bottles.

 

Here he is demo-ing the proper way to cut glass-

 

 





 

 

The proper way to cut off a doll's head...

 



 

 

 

And here we have some of the other students work....  I just love them- so inspiring!

 

Just loving the pipe fitting on the tall bottle

 

 

 

And ....tada! Here's mine. Getting that little spout on was a problem.... I cut out a hole in the bottle, inserted the victorian gas fitting into the hole and then tried to get it to fit snugly by shoving apoxie clay into the extra space. The only problem is that it was taking so long for the clay to cure that it kept going sideways on me. So, it's a tad lopsided... However, I did learn a great trick with the Aves apoxie clay- did you know that you can get it to harden quicker with a heat gun???? 

 



DeMentriloquism Class at Lemoncholy's Studio

I took just a few photos from this weekend's workshop, and since I never posted last year's (ok, or the year before's- but I have an excuse- I forgot my camera that year) , I figure I'll start with this weekend and then catch up. First up is a picture of the class sample he brought to show us....

and here's a cute one during one of his demos....

and of course we have the (in)famous critique session.... 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' - if you haven't taken a Michael workshop before, here's the deal- when he plays that song- it's pencils down and you put your project on the table time. The critique is actually a great part of the process- you get to see everyone else's pieces and talk about the different elements that make it work.It's always very positive and fun. I took a critique class with Michael and Keith Lo Bue last year that was great. Anyway, I digress. Here' a qick pic. (notice the good, bad and ugly shirt)

you can't see my piece well in this photo, but I have  a hint- I didn't alter a doll head- I went ahead with my robot plan. If you would like to see much better photos, check out Kecia's blog and post about the class here.



Michael deMeng Class Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am taking a class with Michael deMeng! That's the exciting news- the not so exciting news- we are making ventriloquist type heads. Now, originally my plan was to go up to Art-is-You in Connecticut and take the class there where he is making little framed talking heads. Those were kind of cute. But this weekend's workshop is full on ventriloquist type dummies. I had nightmares for YEARS about my Charlie McCarthy doll, so I'm so not into making a doll head based project. Instead, I'm going to try to make a robot. I've been hankering to make an automata type sculpture, so this might just be just the class to get me going. Either way, Michael's classes are always fun- so even if I just sit around watching his demos and eating m&m's, I'll have a good time. Here's SOME of the stuff I'm bringing...

 

 

and a close up....

 

 



Page Re-do

The challenge over at The Art Journal Cafe is 'Save Your Page'. hmmmmm- I have lots of pages that I started and then lost my direction in my journal. Here's the page I'm starting with.

When I took Traci Bautista's class aeons ago, she told us to make copies of our work so we could incorporate them into future collages, so I had recently gone to the copy store and made color copies. (yes, I could just print them out from my computer, but then they smear  when I go to use them because the ink is water based- I love the quality from the color copier- and the toner doesn't smear- and what's more, can be used for image transfer! wheeeeeeee!)  ok, you get the idea- so I went over and copied some of my previous pages. Here's the front and back of my journal, with some images cut out .....  (I used gel medium to transfer the images to the page- funnnnnnnn!)

 

 

 

Ok, so I'm working on it.....it's getting a little dark..... I am frustrated and leave it for a couple of days at this point.

 

 

(hmmmm.....it doesn't look as dark here as in person, but trust me, you could hardly see my little flying guy)

 

 

So, I painted over the scallops, and the dark red checks, added some stamps, then portfolio pastels,  STILL TOO DARK! ARGGHHHHH! One last attempt- paint! and voila- this is it.

 

 

Here is the top portion only. I like the composition- off to the copy store. I think it will be the new back cover. (That will be my next post.) If you read this whole long wordy post- my thanks to you! :)

 

 









Three Muses Challenge- Turquoise

 I have been LOVING catching up with reading my favorite blogs and seeing everybody's inspiring artwork. I happened to see that The Three Muses Challenge for this week was 'Turquoise'.  Turquoise you say?- well I love that color- especially when paired with rust tones - here's what I came up with....  This was so much fun- thank you Three Muses for the inspiration! Here's a page I made using a collage sheet from The Collage Closet.

30 Minute Challenge- Art Journal Cafe

Ok, so I think I'm on a roll..... I ran across this challenge at Art Journal Cafe and it seemed like fun. What a messy fun time I had. I created a journal page in 30 minutes. (well, a little over by the time I got the batteries changed on the camera) I got to use one of my all time favorite stamps- The Scorekeeper by Stampers Anonymous. I figured it would be appropriate since I was on a time crunch and he would keep score if I went over time!



 



Compendium of Curiosities 2, Challenge 19

Since I just recently started blogging again, I hadn't realized that Studio L3 was doing another Compendium of Curiosities challenge. I happened to run across their post for this week and was so excited, because OF COURSE, I had the kraft resist paper, and (of course) had never once done anything with it other than to look at it. Initially I was going to ink up the papers, and use the Sissix to cut out Tim's Hanging Sign or Hardware Findings and make something from them. But I was working on a canvas at the same time....and needed some collage papers.....and anyway here's how it ended up instead....
 (this was also posted below in Dina's Out of the Journal challenge post)

 

Here's a closer look at the butterfly....

 

 

And now for a picture of the the papers all inked up with distress ink, before tearing and collaging onto the canvas-

 

 

Also, a quick sneaky peeky of an upcoming journal page... my little one was getting all jealous of my gluey fun, so I let her glue down some strips onto a prepared journal page. Looking promising!

 



 

 

Hop on over, look at everyone's work and join in on the fun working through the techniques. I'm planning on trying to do this now that Dina's challenge is over for the month of August.

Out of the Journal Week 5

Hello there. I am really enjoying this challenge, but am finding it hard to post because I want to go back in and tweak my canvases. (for any other geeks out there, I am starting to sympathize with George Lucas a wee bit) But, if I do that, I will never post anything, so here goes.

This week, my daughter wanted to paint my gessoed canvas, so I thought 'why not, I'm just going to paint over it'.  Here's how it came out... if you look in the top right you can (barely) make out a butterfly shape flying towards the square whitish area.

 

 

Here's a closer look....still a bit murky....

 

 

 

 

I wanted to build a collage around the butterfly to get rid of the sea of purple and then pretty much leave it as is. However, the more paper I added, the more the poor butterfly was pushed to the background, so I tore up some of the Tim Holtz craft resist paper that I was using into the same shapes as the original rather difficult to see image and collaged them on also. Here's a close up of the butterfly as it looks now.

 

 

See? There's the butterfly, and the window is exactly the same as originally painted by my daughter -just added a glaze and outlined it with a bit of marker. Here's the whole canvas.

 

 

Like I said, I'll probably fool with it and add some paint here and there, but for now, its done. Please head on over to Dina's blog and check out everybody else's work!

Also, I want to thank Studio L3 for hosting the Compendium of Curiosities challenge. Otherwise, I would have forgotten I had these awesome papers and would have missed out on some serious fun.