my new art journal

I bought this awesome 100% recycled-paper Ecojot journal at Dandelion Mud Pie yesterday.



I love the sturdy coils and thick, cardboard covers.



Last night I started prepping the pages - randomly pasting in scraps of coloured paper and ephemera. Later I wrote notes to myself on some of the pages.



This morning I finished the inside front cover spread. The collaged paper on the right side was actually the first page, describing the journal. I ripped it out and tore it and pasted it back into the journal on one of the sturdier note pages.



This is the second spread that I completed this morning. What I love about this journal is that it can stand on its side, which will allow me to display one page at a time. I'll have to remember that when I'm composing future pages.

more recent sketches

Most of these were created the same weekend as the ones in the previous post. A lot of these sketches are spontaneous images - suggested by colours or forms that I've pasted on the blank pages. I rarely start with an image in mind, but let whatever wants to unfold happen. All images created using collage, Crayola wax crayons, coloured pencil, pencil and china markers.





The above image started as an exercise with Crayola washable markers.

increase

This is another drawing based on an I Ching reading. The image was created the same way as that in yesterday's post.

art cards - florals

I created these original art cards a couple of nights ago to send out to friends. In total I made ten unique cards - easy enough if you do it assembly-line style. I worked on all the cards at once, completing each stage on all of them before moving on to the next stage.

For most of my art cards I first print out the contact and bio information on sheets of white cover stock. Then I fold the page in half widthwise, so that the entire outside spread or "cover" of the card can be worked on as a unit (I like the images to flow onto the back cover of the card as well as the front cover).

For these cards I first drew an incomplete Spirograph "flower" with coloured pencil in varying shades on the front covers. I then chose cancelled postage stamps that matched the colour schemes suggested by the Spirograph flowers, and glued two or three on each card - one or two on the front cover, and one on the back.

With an HB pencil, and using my non-dominant hand, I drew the stems and leaves underneath each stamp, plus a few extra stems to make a row of flowers.

With coloured pencils that matched the colour schemes of each card, I drew in the tulip heads. Then with varying shades of green coloured pencil I re-drew some (but not all!) of the stems and leaves.

With Crayola wax crayons I "scribbled" colour fields over the flowers. I like to stick with pale colours that let the other lines show through, but sometimes (depending on the individual card) I chose darker colours and simply coloured in the tulip heads.

Afterwards I went over each of the cards with china markers in red and green, picking out certain lines in the tulip heads and stems.

summer end

I'm getting really frustrated with my scanner. It just isn't reading many of the pinks and yellows that are part of my artwork. Weird.

Anyhow, this is another page from one of my art journals. It includes a collaged scrap of paper that had some Spirograph "flowers" drawn on it with coloured pencil. I coloured over the image with Crayola crayons, and china markers in red and green.

happy flowers #2

This is the other page from the journal spread that includes yesterday's page. The collaged wrapping paper was from a gift that a client gave me. Also collaged are some used Post-it Notes. The image is coloured with Crayola crayons.

happy flowers

You must transform yourself into the person for whom the possibility of great things happening increases.

Deepak Chopra

The only collaged element on this journal page is the inkjet printout of one of my favorite quotes. The other half of the open spread that accompanies this image contains a scrap of floral wrapping paper that was my inspiration for the floral theme.

The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and china markers in various colours.

blue tulips

Sometimes I love how really random scraps of paper ephemera can suggest a colourway, or give a punch to what might otherwise be a pretty uninteresting drawing.

Here I've collaged the label off a skein of knitting yarn and a schedule of choral anthems from my former church choir.

The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and china markers in various colours.

my green life

This is a page from one of my art journals. I pasted a used greeting card envelope and scraps of other paper to the page, then coloured everything with Crayola crayons. A scrap of graph paper with a floral illustration sits inside the envelope.

art cards

I've been creating handmade art cards for years. I give them to friends and family with gifts, or as hasty notes and thank yous. I like to combine collage with drawing, and sometimes include quotes or inspirational words. Often the front cover ends up being some sort of floral design.

starflowers

This is one of my favorite art journal pages, and I've used the floral motif in a lot of my handmade art cards. The background was a sheet of graph paper on which I had made a list of phone messages. I later scribbled on the paper to try out different colours of crayons. Finally, I coloured the entire page with crayons and added the flowers.

green grasses

I have been feeling much better in the last couple of days - probably due to the sunshine. What is it about springtime? You can't help but feel happy with green things growing...

The blue paper in this collage came from a concert program that had featured my singing teacher in London, Ontario. After pasting it on the page I wrote a journal entry in pencil, and then added the crayon. The blobs of colour were chosen instinctively. This is one of my favorite ways to work - not knowing ahead of time what I will create. I let the process unfold the way it wants to. Sometimes something really striking results.

blue flowers

I'm feeling a little better today. I'm a great believer in the power of positive thinking, so I'm taking advantage of this difficult time to put some of my beliefs into practice. A couple of my favorite e-newsletters are great inspirations for me. Check out The TUT Adventurers Club and Abraham-Hicks Publications. Both of them offer daily inspirational e-mails that I love.

This is another drawing from my afternoon with my niece and nephew. I think it's my favorite of the "abstract flowers" ones.

gratitude

Former clients gave me a small journal when I moved away from my hometown. I decided to use it as a gratitude journal, although I keep forgetting to make entries in it.

This collage has bits of wrapping paper and a scrap of a pastel drawing. Sometimes I print out the gratitude lists on the computer and then paste them into the book as collage elements as well. Creating the book is a three-step process: I paste in random collage elements ahead of time, then write the gratitude lists day by day, then go back later and colour over the lists to finish each collage.

picasso quote

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Pablo Picasso

This is another drawing from my afternoon with my niece and nephew. The crayons were awful - normally I use Crayolas, but my sister must have acquired some weird, no-name cheapie ones for the kids at some point. They didn't spread well over the page, and I remember being frustrated at they way they were blending with each other. I was afraid the paper was going to tear, they were so "sticky."

easter hangover

It's not a real hangover. I don't drink.

It's not even a chocolate hangover - I don't eat chocolate.

It's the feeling of letdown and restlessness after several days of intense spiritual and physical activity. We can visit the world of the numinous, but we don't live there. The symbols and rituals bring us into communion with the divine energy of the universe, but we can't hold onto the experience.

As I try to absorb everything I've been through since Thursday evening, I feel overwhelmed.

Happy Easter.

The drawing is one I made while colouring with my niece and nephew a few weekends ago. I love putting huge blobs of brilliant colour on paper; they were neatly colouring their colouring books. As I finished page after page of my blobs, I noticed a change in their attention. They pushed aside the colouring books and begged for some of my loose sheets of paper. Then they started making their own blobs of colour. I felt my work as a colouring anarchist was done.

shopping at IKEA

I've decided that my favorite time to shop at IKEA is first thing in the morning. Especially if I have to shop on a Saturday. (If you've ever shopped at IKEA on a Saturday, you'll know what I mean.)

I arrived at the store about eight minutes before they officially opened, and when I saw other customers walking in the main entrance, I followed suit. I didn't want to browse through the showroom - I was on a mission to get a new plunge-pot coffee maker - so I headed straight for the Marketplace. Nobody stopped me.

It was amazing - so empty of people, so full of all the beautiful, simple IKEA things - I felt like I was in heaven. I picked up my coffee pot and then wandered through the rest of the Marketplace all alone, enjoying the absence of crowds. In the rug section I stopped to look at some merchandize, and an IKEA employee called over to me as he passed by with a huge cart of goods.

"Ma'am, how did you get in here? We don't open for five more minutes."

"I walked through the door."

He shook his head and continued on his way as I laughed to myself. How did I get in, indeed? If they didn't want me in the Marketplace, they should have somehow prevented me from getting in there...

The drawing is a page from one of my art journals from last October. It didn't scan very well - the colours are much more saturated in the original, and there were some gorgeous pinks that didn't show up at all. (I tried to fix it in Photoshop, but that didn't help much.) I often make notes to myself on yellow Post-it notes, and I love putting the used Post-its in my collages.