Pot of Geriums

I finished my Matisse painting. I was very pleased with the finished painting.





I coated card stock paper with acrylic ground. I sketched with charcoal and added in the darks with charcoal. Then I did the under painting with archival re- inkers caramel, denim and pitch black. I used Golden's Dioxazine purple and titanium white. Then went back and did the final painting using the same products. The colors were mixed just using the 3 inkers and white. Purple was added where desired.


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My little Owls

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Matisse

I've been working on my Matisse "Geraniums" piece. This is the undercoating stage. Sketched in the basic shapes, put the dark areas in with charcoal and then began the under painting. I did this mostly with three Adirondak re-inkers and two colors Golden fluid acrylics. This limits my color palette and allows me to mix my colors.

I am very pleased with it so far. Leaving it alone for awhile to dry and cure. I'm excited to continue. Tried some new techniques for me and am so please with the results.








The Matisse is the top picture in this first photo. I actually found the print in a thrift shop. It was already matted and framed. So i made a copy to work from. I left the original in the frame. It gave me a great reference for my attempt to create it.








This is a close up of my under painting.

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Mrs. Pumpkin Man

An oldie but now a classic Fall decoration. I did this one back in 1999. It is acrylic done on slate. I love her and display her every Fall!




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Breathe

This page was built around the orange/rust colors in this girl. She was on a piece of junk mail that I got. When I saw her I knew I wanted to create a page in my journal around her. I just loved the colors.




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Flowers fever

I've worked in my journal a lot this week but haven't had time to post any of the pages. It is more fun to paint than to post. LOL
Here is a page I did in acrylics and used some Pitt pens and charcoal for shading and outlining. I love to feel a page after it has been painted in acrylics and coated in gell medium.
This is a technique I saw Donna Downey do and I wanted to try it. You create a wild background, paint your focal points and then paint over your original background letting some of it show through. Add some textures for interest and you!re through.
I think I'll try this again. It was fun.




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Colorful Tag

Challenge for this was to make something colorful. Use the neons if possible. I love birds so I decided on this colorful little tag.




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Mail Art Swap

Joined a mailart swap. The theme was use one color. So I decided on pink. You could use white and black also. Mailed off my little pig today. I hope the recipient enjoys her.




This is the comment from the girl that received her mail art. "Hi! I received my mail art today, too! Well, actually, it may have arrived sooner, but I just went to get the mail today, so it was a great surprise! It's so colorful, and I love the texture! Thanks for all of your hard work. Yes, it's funny we both chose pink! Great minds think alike! Haha!".

Of all the colors to choose from in the color palette, we both chose pink. Thought that was kinda funny.

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Day at the Beach

This AJ page was inspired by a background page I did earlier this summer on book paper with paint swirls. Sorry I didn't remember to take a picture before I got started. Today when I looked at the background it reminded me of water. Using a picture I took of my daughter earlier this summer at the beach as my inspiration I created this page. I was sitting behind her on the beach and thought this would be a cool angle for a photo. I did change her hat to something from my imagination. It was done with more book paper pieces and painted with heavy body acrylics. I love my little seagull. He has such dimension I feel like he's going to fly off the page.




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Rainy Day Fun

"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them."





We played with paint this morning. She painted a dozen masterpieces.


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Handmade Journal

I handmade this journal. I used the covers from an old hymnal that I altered.

The cover: I cut out a niche in the front cover to place the gelli printed girl. The binding piece is an old paint brush with beads wired around the handle. The binding fabric I used is from a negligee I received as a wedding gift so many, many years ago.

I made the frame out of pieces of cardboard I cut with my Cuttlebug and dies. I covered them with molding paste and aged with paint. I also used some lace pieces given to me from a friend.

The crystal piece on the bottom of the frame is a crystal from my mom's old chandelier that had been ruined in hurricane Bonnie. The jeweled piece for a closure is from my grandmother's broken earring. Since neither my mom or grandmother is still alive, both of these pieces make the journal mean even more to me.

The papers: I cut pages from various types of papers. They were old book pages, used envelopes, water color paper, music pages, library cards, tags and anything else I could find to use if it appealed to me.

One of the pages is a color copied portion of a letter that my father wrote to my grandmother when he was stationed in the Pacific during World War II. You can see the edge of the letter in the picture.

Many of the pages have already been gelli printed and ready to use. Some of the pages have already been completed.

I'm very excited to work in this journal. I love so many things about this journal. It makes me smile every time I pick it up.
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Findings and Trinkets Challenge

Marianne from PAO inspired me to try a Finnabair technique. So I looked at her tag video again and attempted to make a tag sort of like hers. Learned a few things that would make it better next time. First picture is how it looked before the spray, spray, spray process. I should have let the spray layers dry a little more before adding more. Oh well.







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Indian Princess

Did another two pages in the journal. Drying time again. Just couldn't get the shine out of the picture but will be gone once it's dry. I'm really liking the journal. The background started out as a gelli print. This is in the challenge journal.




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Challenge Journal

I did this little journal to practice one of the binding techniques. It is the Coptic binding technique. This binding is done with dental floss. It was a little slick but I wanted to try the technique. I have some heavier and better binding thread for the next journal. This one began as a practice journal, but is coming together very nicely.

The cover was gelli printed and then I used the same stencil with some tinted molding paste for texture. Every page is gelli printed. There are 18 pages so I'm not taking pictures of all of those pages.





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Front and back of challenge journal

Here's the back and front covers of the journal. The whole journal is gelli printed. The cover is on the right side of picture. It is opened out for drying. I may go back later and add a quote. Haven't decided yet.




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Altered box

I was cleaning the other day and came across my Gypsy box. I needed another straight edged box to hold inks and thought this would be perfect. The bottom has a divider. I altered the bottom with gelli printed deli and tissue printed papers. Covered with gloss medium. I will do the top the same way and use for something else. Recycle and reuse!

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AJ journal challenge

Ok, so this is my first attempt at a page following the directions in our PAO challenge. You just can't hurry the drying. I probably would get a very different effect I had waited between stages for the drying. But a gal has got do to go what a gal has to do. I don't have much time to play so I just went for it. Pam said if we like it then it's alright. I am satisfied with the result. BTW, the background started as gelli prints.

The paper across the bottom is from a color copied letter my dad wrote to his mom during WWII while he was in the Pacific.




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Washi Tape

Art Journal page using washi Tape as part of a challenge.
I love the quote "Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander".




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Awesome Pig

The background pages are gelli prints and I glued them into my journal. This particular journal is an old altered book. I copied the pig in b/w from the original canvas I painted before I gave to my GD, knowing I'd want to use again at some point. Since the background is so colorful, I wanted to show the gelli prints and I did the rest in b/w. I found this quote on Pinterest and thought it perfect for the page. "Weird is a side- effect of Awesome".
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Paris Dream

I'm working on making a journal using the front and back from an old book. For the inside I am working on the pages to be included. Some of the pages will just be backgrounds, some will be finished. I will have to bind it since all the pages are loose. This is one of the finished pages from a quote I saw and liked. The page just evolved from there. I used some of my gelli prints in this one.

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