New Art Journal Enteries

Cover for Coptic Bound Journal

Jumping back into art has been such a great experience for me. I feel so much more happier and fulfilled so to speak. I know it is not the kind of art that is considered "art" by the art world, but I'm happy just fiddling about. Interestingly enough by teaching and supporting my daughter that all art is beautiful, her free style drawing over anything and everything has in turn taught me not to be worried about being judged.

Not to go over the past, but I must admit I am fairly wistful and wonder what my life would have been like had my parents actually supported my natural passions and talents. Sigh... but what is done is done which is why I support my children in their endeavors.

Anyway here are some recent journal entries for the class I have enrolled in. This first image is the cover for my journal that I made by hand of all things. It has fantastically expensive watercolor paper hot pressed 140lbs., but so worth it when I try all these new mediums.

Improvement and confidence... a slow, but sure process...

Side View: A study in Watercolor

Pencil Sketch

Final Pathway Lesson

Suzi Blu Faces ATC swap

ATC Cards

Haven't done these in years, but I was fortunate to be involved in a fun swap amongst the gals over at the Suzi Blu community. The artist that I have been following and most recently taking a few online classes.

ATC (artist trading cards) are 2.5 x 3.5 (size of a baseball card), sized art. Traditionally a way for artists to create art and trade, thus creating in a sense, an art collection.

When I originally found out about these 6 years ago on yahoo groups, I had the lovely experience of trading with people all around the world. I received beautiful watercolors from Australia, graphically gorgeous ones from Taiwan (the artist with whom I still keep in contact with), as well as beautiful art all across the U.S.

What was and is quite nice about the whole experience, other than a connection with other like minded individuals, was experiencing good ole snail mail. Many times the cards came with little personal notes, hand written. I know the information highway is the quick choice for correspondences, but the thrill of receiving a hand written note and art... not bills or junk mail... is quite a thrill!

Looking forward to mail... how refreshing!

Suzi Blu Faces, ATC Swap 1/4 

Suzi Blu Faces, ATC Swap 2/4 

Suzi Blu Faces, ATC Swap 3/4

Suzi Blu Faces, ATC Swap 4/4 

Playful Learning/ Poetry in a Jar

It was one of those nights when web surfing wasn't a fruitless deal. I happened upon information that pointed me to this wonderful blog www.playfulearning.com. I decided to start with creating a station for creative writing, in particular poetry. Although I'm not quite sure if this was one of her ideas, the premis is the same. Create fun, creative spaces for children to learn while playing. 

For this project we started with the creation of the Jar. This was a great craft project for Amelie. Here is what we used:

1. Old Kimichi Jar (minus the stinky Kimichi and several good scrubs)

2. Gesso (to cover the label)

3. Magazine (for letters)

4. Stickers, cut outs, thread, origami paper (what ever gets the kids excited to decorate)

Then we took old magazines and cut out words to fill the jar. I also printed out some high frequency words and descriptive words. If you have a paper cutter it make life quite a bit easier, but scissors work as well.

I put the jar on a tray and put it next to a few books on poetry we got from the library: 

'Smelly Feet Sandwich and other Silly Poems' by Allia Zobel Nolan

'Run Away Opposites' by Richard Wilbur

'A Child's Book of Poems' by Gyo Fujikawa

After the initial glow of making the jar and cutting out the letters, this little 'Poetry Corner' sort of went unnoticed for a few days. Just when I lost hope, the kids went in for some creative time. 

Russell illustrated his with a pencil drawing and Amelie went for the whole nine yards and painted a little spring scene. A success! Although I do want to caveat, incase they get frustrated with the process of finding words they want, I told them they could supplement with writing their own words as well. 

The Pretty Rhyme

by Russell 

Ring, ring, what a dream

Beauty at midnight dream

Would you look for happy eyes

and have a happy dream.

Spring

by Amelie

Growing pretty flowers

the beauty of spring.

Birds come out of nests

to flap their wings.

Definitely want to try more of these creative space journeys with the children. Happy creating everyone!

New Beginnings... New Journals...

Alphonse Mucha French Journal 160 pgs. 

Peacock Blossoms French Journal 160 pgs.

Happy New Years 2012! New Year... New Beginnings... New Journals. I recently bought these two lovely journals from Laughing Elephant. The blue one on the left is lined for my daily musings and the yellow one on the right is blank, I will reserve for my process journal. With these two I will also be keeping an art journal, that is if I can successfully do a Coptic Journal Binding with some fabulous hot pressed water color paper 140lb.

Why all these journals you ask? Well besides the fact that I have an obsession over collecting notebooks/journals/ sketchbooks... you take your pick... hey in defense, I'm not the only one... www.notebookstories.com (more about this on another post). But I regress... now the reason why I have made all these new purchases... as I have mentioned before, I signed up for an online workshop or class if you will, called a Lovely Dream: Art Journaling Extravaganza. I was feeling a little nutty and went and bought myself some wonderful art supplies and more... notebooks.

I'm not yet quite versed in the texture of papers nor all the amazing pens, nor how the pens react to paper, but today I tried in my hap hazard, 12 am addled brain, to find the right pen for my daily journal. These French Journals are about 160 pages by the way. Now after a bit of research I found that French or Italian notebooks usually have great quality paper, and this one in particular has some tooth to it. In other words they sort of grab at your ink, so I noticed most pens bleed. I've tried everything from the Micron to the everyday ball point pen. So far my Pentel Fountain Pen, doesn't bleed, but after four pages of detailed writing, I find that it is not very smooth and my hand is paying the price.

My fear of the everyday ball point is that it will dent the pages and thus make it difficult to write on the other side. Ha... all of these irrational considerations for something as simple as writing in a notebook of all things. Is anyone else as hypodermic in focus as I am over this?

In general I'm guessing that is why most of those journals you get at places like B & N have thin/ smooth paper. Move on you say? Nah... I love the feel of this paper. Now if only I can find the right writing tool...

So here is a little update. After trying loads of pens and I do mean loads... I found the best one that goes over the page smoothly and does not bleed. The winner was the uni-ball Med 0.7mm rollergel pen. It is fab.

Pursuing New Endeavors

Recently enrolled in a few online art courses. A free spirit, one of my favorite online personalities that inspire me is this artist named Suzi Blu. She is fairly quirky, but her truth, and ability not to take her self too seriously, puts a smile on my conservative mid-west face.

I've probably mentioned before the veil of fear I've always had about not only outside critique, but the most brutal... the inner. I tried a few times on and off to attempt drawing, but eventually cheesed out. Such is the norm it would seem.

In the spirit of resolutions... although I've always baulked at them since they seemed bound for failure... haha self effacing? Hmm... anyways in the spirit of resolutions, I have decided to try to dig deep and re-surface that creative critter that I have suppressed.

And so I hope my journey begins in a positive light and here are a few pics. from my art journal as they are.

Sketchbook / Art Journal

Strawberry (Trident Commercial) :: Ball Point Pen

A few more installment of the sketchbook / art journal. I found an old Paper Mate ball point pen in my stash of old pens and started playing around with it. As you can see it is a tool that creates an interesting gamut of shades. Who would have thunk?

Stirred :: Ball Point Pen

First SketchCrawl

Stepping out of the comfort zone... definitely an ongoing theme with this au natural hermit...

There are these sketch groups all around the world that I heard about towards the end of my stay in London. I was vacillating about whether to go or not. As you can see by the title, I did not which, by the way, I dearly regret. I forgot about the group for a while, then happened upon the group site for the San Diego version and thought... why not?

The meeting was set for Friday, March 18, 2011 at the Spanish Village in Balboa Park. I awoke to a fabulous sunlit morning with a very obliging 65 F. The Spanish Village is a colorful, happy area with local art shops all around. I met a group of very kind souls who knew and cared much about each other. Their witty banter and all around calm, non- judgmental demeanor put me instantly at ease.

I hadn't really done out right sketching in that manor at all. My fear of the white paper, the inner critic, and of course of others always made me weary of such endeavors. I'm sure age has something to do with it, but this time around I am trying to break myself of this debilitating thought process.

So manned with an old blue Paper Mate pen.... yes you hear right a ball point pen, and a sketch book. I made my way to this great little outing.