Lilies

Here's my latest journal page:

The background is sprayed with a homemade spray I made with reinkers.  All the pieces are glued down with matte medium (I used Daniel Smith brand, you can\find it here) .  The very back paper is some round ephemera pieces I have, I cut it half and glue the pieces down, then adhered the lilies magazine image I had fussy cut.  The leaf is an actual leaf I had dried between the pages of a book.  "LILIES" is hand written with a Sharpie® pen on a scrap of watercolor paper I painted Lime Green.  And the text is hand stamped (a Printworks rubber stamp).  How appropriate as what has a more wonderful fragrance than Lovely Lilies?!?
Thanks for taking a look!
I hope you are having a CREATIVE weekend!

Journal pages - inspired by nature, of course

It's been awhile since I posted journal pages so I'll do a little catching up here.

 Here's a collage I made using photos I took in my yard and my brothers' yard.  Also used a pic out of a USPS catalog and photo copied a couple stamps I have from the State Flowers and Bird series.  Then I printed the text out on ledger paper.  The small words you can't read (might be able to read them all if you click on photo to enlarge) are words inspired by gardening like sunshine, rain, cultivate, etc.  The background is deli paper painted with acrylic.  I now always have some near me when painting and clean all the paint off my brushes and sponges before cleaning them.  I love how it goes down on a page.  I cover the back with gel medium then stick it down.  It always gets some tiny wrinkles which make for a great texture. 

Here's a two page spread I did of Oregon Grape.  My mom painted a couple murals at an Oregon State Park near Shedd, Oregon this summer.  The park is called Thompsons Mills State Park.  I drove her back and forth to work on the murals and had alot of time to spend there while she painted.  I took my journal and a small bag of art supplies.  I had a sample set of watercolor pencils with me - 5 pencils.  There is Oregon Grape growing all over the park.  So, since I'm trying to work on my drawing skills this summer, I decided to draw a branch.  And since I was using the colors I had on hand it is non traditional colors.  I printed the words for this page out on ledger paper and glued them down.  While I was there I also made a background on the facing page, not having a definate idea for it at the time.  But ,as we were packing up to leave for the day I found a branch of Oregon Grape on the ground and put it in my journal.  A day or two later I made a leaf print from it using Golden Fluid Acrylics ( I'm pretty sure it was Phtalo Green).  Oregon Grape leaves are pretty stiff to start with plus this one was dried out from being on the ground and in between journal pages for a couple days so the print is not real intense.  Because of that I outlined it with a black Micron pen.  I stamped the words on this page with rubber stamps.  I think Oregon Grape is one of my favorite plants and I'm really happy with how these pages turned out.  I tried to think of something else for the drawn page as it seemed sort of plain, but finally decided it showed the "bones" of the Oregon Grape better left that way.

This next is a drawing I did with black Micron pens on a background I painted with acrylic paints.  I used cheap craft paints in various greens.  I had seen some note cards that were stylized prints of Acacia in various colors and liked the look of the plant.  So I looked it up on Wikipedia and found a lot of varieties!  Found an image I liked (it doesn't grow around here) and printed it out and drew this picture from it.  Realizing, of course, that you can't duplicate nature I did go for an exact Acacia but my own version in black ink.  In keeping with the ledger paper theme in this journal I again printed out the title on ledger paper and glued it on.  I think this is one of my fav journal pages so far.  But then, perhaps I think that each time I complete a new page!  Ha!  Well, it's hot here today.  A good day to stay inside and work on art! 

Hope everyone is having a creative weekend!  

Nurture Nature Journal Page

Here's a collage I made in Carmen Torbus' Spill It Revisited online class.  I used Golden Fluid Acrylics and Golden Gel Matte Medium. It was a great class and I learned so much about fun ways to use acrylic paints!  You can check out Carmen's class here.  I highly recommend it if you like to play with acrylics and want to learn a fun technique for using them.  I really enjoyed it!

Once I got the torn paper, mesh and acrylic paint portion of the collage done I did a leaf print using Golden Fluid Acrylics in Phtalo Green and leaves from a Japonica Pierias shrub in my yard.  And added the Nurture Nature words which I had printed out on ledger paper.  The original collage was 9 x 12 but I cut it down to square to fit into my art journal and glued it to an existing page.  I think I'll use some antiqued brads in the corners to add a little interest.  Just haven't decided on the color yet.  I have some small square brads I think will be just right. 

I hope you are staying cool wherever you are!  It's been pretty warm here in Oregon.

Thanks for taking a look.  Go create something!

New growth and shadows

It was a beautiful sunshine day here in the NW Oregon Friday. While spending some time at Thompsons Mill State Park I was looking for photo ops for some green pics for a color journal page honoring green.

I found these leaves and really like how the photo turned out. I think they are from a Marionberry or Blackberry bush - berries were still very green so couldn't tell for sure.

Enjoy!

Hope you are having a creative weekend!

Background papers

As I stated in my profile, I sometimes enjoy the process of making art as much or more than the actual art I create. Lately I've been making background papers and really having fun! I've been using drywax deli paper (holds together when wet and paint doesn't soak through) and was inspired by Marilyn's post on her blog with video . Thanks for the inspiration Marilyn!



The one to the left shows 3 papers, one made by dragging a toothed tool I made by cutting notches in an old credit card and dragging it through we paint. The bright green is over a turquoise color and various techniques then used to scrape some of the bright green off so underneath color shows through. Blue with white is layers of colors for the background then splotches of paints on a foam roller to make the splotches. I used craft acrylic paints for all of these.






These next two were made by putting down a layer of color and letting it dry completely.
Then applied another color over the top. While top layer was wet I applied a dry clean stamp to it and picked up the top layer of color leaving the image in the underneath layer of color. I love how these turned out!





















I have a few more to share but blogger and I are not cooperating with one another with downloading photos tonight so I'll share them another time soon. (sometimes I'm just a low tech gal in a high tech world - lol!)

Thanks so much for taking a look at my blog!

Journal pages - tropical leaves

A favorite theme for me, always, is leaves.

Here's some I did for my journal. Having spent quite a bit of time in Hawaii, on Maui, tropical leaves are some of my very fav. Here's a couple I drew on ledger paper with colored pencil, cut out and stuck on journal pages with acrylic gel medium. The backgrounds are acrylic and I was experimenting with light and dark backgrounds with similar subjects. Which do you like better?

Journal and Zentangle

Here's a Zentangle page I did in my journal. I used Pitt brand black pens.

My Journal

I started a new journal earlier this month.

I made the book using my BindItAll. The covers I made using some fav scrapbook paper I had been hanging onto cuz I liked it so well. Decided I should use it if I like it THAT much! Especially if making something for myself!

I used a tablet of ledger paper for the inside cover, I also cut 1 inch strips and folded them over the edge of the pages before I punched the holes. This give the edge a little more thickness to help allow for the thickness I'll add to the book by working on the pages. Also, then I don't have a stark white edge where the binding is when I paint the background. The journal has 40 pages, so is a big book. I used 10 of lt gray cardstock, 10 lt weight watercolor paper, 10 white cardstock, 10 of India watercolor paper. The working area of the pages is 8 1/2" square.

Once the book was made I started painting backgrounds on various pages. I never start on the first page and work my way through. I randomly pick which page to play with next. And I really like doing backgrounds so go ahead and start there without even always knowing what I'll put on the page. The worse that can happen is I'll have to paint over it if I can't figure out what to do with it! So far I've just used gesso and acrylic paints.

Here's the first page I did. I don't know yet if all the pages will be nature themed but it is a definate possibility. Again I used acrylic paints, and I printed the words on a piece of ledger paper (same time as I printed "journal" for the cover), drew around it with colored pencils and cut it out and glued it to the page with gel medium.

Thanks for looking!

Enjoy!