It's on the way!!!

I'm posting over on the new website now, but I thought I'd pop by here too... The ZINE is on the way to homes across the country!  Link to post ----> http://aweebitwarped.com/2014/07/29/its-on-the-way/

It's LAUNCH DAY!

With excitement (and nervousness), I'm proud to announce the launch of my new project - A WEE BIT WARPED - The ZINE.  What is it?!??  Details at http://aweebitwarped.com/thezine

Hope you'll take a look and join in on the adventure!!

Just ONE MORE DAY!!!

One more day until my new project launches!  Excited!  All the details will be over at www.aweebitwarped.com tomorrow.  Don't worry...I'll remind ya.  HAHA :)

TWO DAYS!

If you follow my Facebook page, you may know that I'm counting down!  Just TWO DAYS until the launch of my special project.  YAY!!!

P.S.  I'm going to be posting more often on my new website/blog than here most likely.  (www.aweebitwarped.com)  Hope you'll join me over there!

Awake

Well, I couldn't say what woke me up around 2:30 AM this morning, but I knew I wasn't going back to sleep.  At least some good came out of it...

And in an awesome, completely last minute burst of spontaneity, I'm headed to Mississippi on Sunday to Art-Is-You Dixie art retreat.  I can't wait to see everyone, and to get in THREE WHOLE DAYS of art and fun!  WOOHOO!!!

Rescuing Ruth

I got up this morning exhausted from being woken up repeatedly by large crashes of thunder that sounded like they were right on top of our roof.  The worst one was around 3:30 this morning, I think.  Not the best way to wake up.

 

Anyway, I woke up tired, so to wake up a little, I headed into the art closet.  The journal was still open to this page, so contrary to what I thought yesterday, I decided to try to rescue it.... mainly because of Ruth.  Ruth is the woman in the photo.  She's a relative of my Dad's, and my Mom helped take care of her and her daughter.  When Ruth passed away, my Mom gave me a lot of her old travel ephemera, greeting cards, and some duplicates of photos which now occasionally show up in my artwork. 

At any rate, when I looked at Ruth this morning, she told me to power through and make her proud.  So I'm working on it.  It also helped that when I'm tired and pre-caffeine in the morning, I have the patience for painting a little more, well... patiently.

 

I still have more rework to do, but it's getting closer to where I want it to be.

The one that got away

I really only like to work on a journal page a couple of times.  When it starts to get too fussy or too detailed, it no longer meets the purpose (for me) of journaling.  This one has gotten about four turns.  Way more than the allowance.  I pretty much know what needs to be done to "fix" it, but because that doesn't sound fun, I'm moving on.  Maybe I'll come back to this train wreck someday.  There are some good parts here and there.  Orrrrrrrrrrr.. maybe not.  P.S.  The words are from the Wake Me Up song by Avicii.  I'll have to add that somewhere along the way.

Art breaks are better than lunch breaks anyway

Lately it's all been work, work, and more work.  Today I decided I needed an art break to do some journaling.

So I started with my usual journal.  I don't know if I've ever shown what these pages start like, but my journal is a Victoria's Secret limited edition set of 3 books that I found at Goodwill a few years ago for $10.  The pages start out something like the one below, so I immediately throw down some gesso (primer) or paint to cover up the half nekkid ladies.

 Ack!  Too much gesso...

 I used an old credit card to take some off and flatten the gesso out.

Then I painted with some inks and messed a tiny bit with Pan Pastels.  At this point, I had no idea what I was doing and left it.

When I came back, I decided to dig in the paper pile and chose whatever colors made me happy.  After digging a bit more, I found the Archiver's ad on the right which had the same colors.  Coincidence, I suppose, but I'm attracted to bright colors, so I guess not really.

 After some paint, cutting, gluing and drawing, a journal page is born.

Look away! Look away!

Ok, perfectionists, you've been warned to look away.  Glue gun stencils... not for people with control issues.  Cindy Mayfield asked how the bird she spied in my journal in the last post was created.  I think I saw glue gun "stencils" first from Traci Bautista.  Easy enough to make, but I believe she sells the ones she makes on her website too if you'd rather do that.

Anyway... I was in a circle making mood this morning.  Hopefully you have a better glue gun than the sad little one I have.  I did these on parchment paper.  You could probably do them right on a cookie sheet.  Don't be mad if I'm wrong about that and you're scraping glue off of whatever you put it on. :)

Make shapes.  Let cool.  Peel off.  Use.

 Put on whatever you're going to decorate.

I used Dylusions spray ink.  I probably should buy more colors than the pink and orange I keep using over and over and over.

Voila!  I'm too impatient to wait for any kind of drying to happen.  I now have pink and orange fingers.  YAY!

Houston, We Have A Problem...

Ok, ok... it's nowhere near a rocket ship catastrophe, but I did have a problem.  I was working on the cover of my latest journal.  The journal decided that it would have "A Journey" on the front.  I didn't decide that, the journal did.  Usually I manage to leave enough space for my lettering, but I guess I'm out of practice.  I *could* have just painted over my mistake, but immediately an idea came to mind that just could not be put away.  The journal decided that it needed a tab to open.  I don't know why.  Suddenly it just did.

So I cut a tab using the two circles of some kind of pressed board ornament thing from Michaels.  And of course I couldn't be bothered to use one of the several saws we own.  I used a steak knife.  I probably wouldn't recommend that if you have other options, but it worked fine.

Now it's glued, clamped, and drying.  I'll be gluing the larger (back) part to the inside front cover of the journal.  We'll see how it turns out soon!

While that's drying, let me introduce you to my latest favorite thing.  WIDE Copic markers that were on sale at Michaels.  I would like to have all the rainbow now please.

 Happy, happy, happy...

Until next time!

And then there was light

Thanks to some chalkboard paint, wooden boxes, a lot of wall anchors and screws, my art closet has come together. Hoping some more art happens in there soon!

 

This girl was home quite a bit last week with the flu.  When she started to feel better she dressed up as Princess Leia in honor of the school dress up as a character (it was supposed to be a book character, but oh well) day that she missed.

 AND she lost her first tooth on Sunday!

It's about time!

We're still busy little bees around here.  Busier than ever, in fact, but I'm taking the time to get things wrangled into some kind of order around here.  It's been far too long.

 

So that meant... a new, clean office...

 

A straightened up and purged kid's room.  (She still hasn't noticed that four big bags of stuff have disappeared from her room.  Keeping my fingers crossed that continues.)

 

And even more wrangling... getting my art world in order.  I'm planning to make my office closet into an art space.

 Starting with some ART!