Because...

...everyone needs to spend their Friday night making 50+ map envelopes. NEEDS to. Seriously.

Ironic

Ironic... that I was doing this journaling page about getting things done while not getting done the other art (for nature journal art swap) that I need to do. I go where my muse leads me... or some other mumbo-jumbo justification like that. REALLY, I'm going to work on completing my nature journal pages next. REALLY.

Watered down Golden Cobalt Blue + SharpieAcrylic paint (Americana Buttermilk craft paint, Liquitex Brilliant Orange, and some cheapie brand of Cadmium Red Medium Hue)White paint pen of the Elmer's variety, I believe.And the two-page spread - mostly done. I'm sure I'll be back here adding images or other flotsam/doodles at some point.

Fallen Off

Stage 1 (Forgot to take a photo of the original pages again - I get too excited to get started!) Gesso + thinned down Golden Cobalt Teal acrylic
Stage 2
Vintage map + white paint pen

Stage 3

Black Sharpie + white paint marker + scrapbooking paper + date stamp + DYMO label

Journaling Continued

All I can think about lately is journaling and reorganizing my art spaces. I was out of town for work for a week, and I think that no art for a week has gone to my brain.

Before I left for the work trip, I continued my journaling. I'm pleased with where it's going, but I'm working on another set of pages at the moment. I can see that I'll probably go back and forth between pages as the ideas and images crop up.

I have some other swap obligations to finish up, but my mind just isn't there right now. Need to put some energy towards that and my Artfest trades ASAP.

P.S. Does anyone know of a marker that writes easily on water soluble oil crayon? I guess I need to try some paint type markers? The Sharpies worked fine on some parts (on the atlas page part in the top right) and not well at all on others.

In My Free Time

In my free time (it makes me kind of laugh to even say that because there is so little of it these days), I've started an art journal.

I've had the books around for a while... yes, bookS! For $10 at the Goodwill store, I found these oversized, heavy weight paper books (3 different ones in that slip into a case) that are actually some kind of not-sold-to-the-public, limited edition Victoria's Secret publication. I saw them being sold on line for up to $595. Yes, five hundred and ninety five dollars. And what am I going to do with MY find? Paint and draw all over it.

Here's pass 2 of my first set of pages. (Next time I'll try to publish the first pass and the original too.) The only part of the original book page that you can really see now is the flower with the "jewels" in it. It was in a model's hair in the original.
And what the work in progress looks like nowSo far, I've tried out some new paint pens, and actually done more than just test my water soluble oil crayons. Pretty fun so far!

Nature Journal Swap

I think this is my next to last nature journal page. The birdies were fun to make!

I'm trying to be done with all of my pages now, because life is going to get hectic again. I still have to do the back of this one.

Size: 5" x 7 "

Materials used: Scrapbooking paper, inkjet printed letters, dress pattern, Ranger Tim Holtz distress ink in walnut stain and tea dye, fine point brown sharpie, rubber stamp from Scarlett Empress, foam stamp, black fine tip pen, metal washer, Stazon ink in Timber Brown, vintage button, embroidery floss, and (0f course) glue

Happy Everything

Fair Warning: These may possibly be the worst, blurriest photos I've taken in a long, long time. Ok, now that that's out of the way...

Here's the front of my nature journal swap page for Susietex. I must be in a springtime mood.

And here's the back. Somehow the lettering seems more serious than I intended. (How can semi-whimsical lettering be serious? Don't ask me, I just accept that it is true.) I want to spend some time expanding my lettering styles, and I plan to make Cindy from Yapping Cat Studio my mentor (shhhh... don't tell... she doesn't know it yet!) :)