DLP 2015 Week 11 - Borders

Art Challenge - Borders
Journal Prompt - Borderline feels like I'm going to lose my mind

Well I did last week primarily because of the miserable head cold I had! Fortunately I have pretty much recovered but oh it was difficult to get excited about working in my studio - it happens.
But I persevered and after SEVERAL runs at it finally came up with my pages (it was flub city for a while LOL).

To create my borders I decided to start with a black gesso technique I read about in Cloth, Papers and Scissors Pages Summer 2014.Jacqueline Newbold shared the way she prepped pages for her art journals. One thing about black - it sticks on your hands for a few days  :) After I created the border I stamped and coloured in the flowers - but I still was not sure what I was going to do on the main pages. I actually tried a couple of different things which ended up getting painted over.

I looked around and found this graphic from an old children s book which seemed appropriate for the black background. 

A few weeks back I had experimented with stamping using bleach on black card stock. It turned out neat but it is rather toxic to do (so be careful!). I was inspired by a Carolyn Dube tutorial. Thought it would make a good background (and also cover up flub number 3, or was it 4 ha ha)...

Wrote the poem that accompanied the graphic over the trees - I like how they still peek through. 

So here it is. Lots of blending with black paint. Made my mark with different stars and stencils.

Enjoy. Jewels

Asemic Writing with Jo

The We (heart) Mail Art girls have been at it again. Jo, Lenna and I decided to do an Asemic writing mail art challenge. Everyone's piece has arrived safe and sound so time to share. This post will be my exchange with Jo.....

Jo has such a great sense of humor - here is her card and envelope.She did writing on both...

Pretty sure I know what Lenna received from her! Thinking this may go in my office at work LOL.

 
I had a LOT of fun with her's once I got started. I need to remember to take pics of the graphics that inspire me. This announcement is on the back of the envie  - what the heck is a Micromanipulator?

The front of the envie provides a clue...hmmmmm inventions. The chess graphics were a happy accident - I've been experimenting with combining things that are not necessarily related a lot lately...

The question answered - how bizarre - I found this article in an old Popular Science. The background was a scrap from a postcard I made last year. I just went to town enhancing it with stamping and writing.
Love how it turned out. Off to research Micromanipulator! Enjoy. Jewels

DLP 2015 Week 10 - Doodling

March Theme - Making your Mark (Doodles and Mark Making)
Art Challenge:As a Layer Element
Journal Prompt: Surviving the Elements

Hmmmmm

Okay so having a very short attention span I got overly focused on one word - doodle - and that just set me off. I probably should have read things more carefully but that's okay. All I know is that I seem to recall I flunked Zentangles so was curious to know if I was going to figure this one out LOL.

I had actually found instructions on taking a picture and doodling on it for an ATC in Bernie Berlin's book Artist Trading Card Workshop. I found this picture and thought I could do something with all those polka dots. By the way, did you hear that polka dots were in fashion this summer..but I digress.

So I started with the background - layers of paint, stenciling and my, ahem, doodles....

I then added her in and started painting and doodling some more.

So here it is - bring Week 11 on as this one is DONE! Enjoy. Jewels

One Staple Collage - Beautiful

A few weeks back I actually had time for a full out artsy weekend (sigh, those were the days)....everything done was mail art, mail art, mail art...

I asked one of my peeps, Mo, if she would be interested in doing a swap and she agreed to try a One Staple Collage. Both of us have been waiting patiently for hers to arrive over the big pond (come on Postal Service, what's going on?).

Mine did find it's way to Scotland - Mo lives near Moray Firth which sounds extremely romantic to an inland bound soul like myself living in mid Michigan LOL...I did Google it and, like any place in Great Britain, it has a rich history. I actually found in one of my vintage travel books a map of the area which I used for the back of the envelope - seemed perfect. 

And the lady on the front is looking between North America and Europe....

I loved how this one turned out - and of course it was not what I had originally planned (it NEVER is).....I really enjoyed doing these so if anyone out there would like to try let me know....would love to do again (though I can't guarantee when lol)...Enjoy. Jewels

DLP 2015 Week 9 - High Five For the Birds

Well this past weeks challenge was Using at Least Five Layers (check)and the Journal Prompt Give Me High Five (mmmmmm not so much lol).

Are you like me? I have an idea bubbling (sometimes multiple) and it never ends up the way I started! I do know that I wanted to create layers using tags and I landed on a bird theme. I started with creating the tags.

This is such an easy thing to do - I think I found the original instructions on the Michaels website. Just crunch up your paper...

Smudge ink all over it - I use the Distressed Ink walnut all the time - just like the colour - and then spritz with water. 

I never stop at the first layer - I actually repeated the process 3 times to get it to the colour I wanted. Then I added layers of cyan ink, light magenta acrylic paint and stamping with black ink  (you might be able to see the music notes...). I then ironed to flatten out...
Once that was done I started building layers for the background. Paper, acrylic paint (used one of my new Master of the Arts tools from Walmart for the green streaks which I love), stencils and stamps using the walnut ink...spritz some orange acrylic paint to make it pop...

This could have been the "cover the good stuff" challenge - 
I quite liked it as is...

Dipped into my vintage papers for the birds and the old Arm and Hammer Beautiful Flowers cards - they actually came all cut up but I think they work - found over at Gathering Dust...

I also used the music stamp for the border...

Wish the colours were more true in the photo - but this will do (I am filling my Cloud with bad pics LOL - need to go clean out)...Looking forward to March's new theme and challenges. Enjoy! Jewels

DLP2015 Week 8 - Repeat, Repeat, BULLSEYE

I ran three different approaches through my head for this weeks DLP Challenge:
Art Challenge: Repeating Elements
Journal Prompt: It's Worth Repeating

Finally settled on the use of circles and squares. I had come across this circle technique last year thanks to Mary Brack.

Not thrilled with my initial background but I had "committed" so time to make lemonade!

Here are the circle incorporated into my layout...

I found this Amazon Woman image ages ago and sadly can not give credit for source. She made me think of the bulls eye looking at all those circles LOL.

So here it is - neither love it or hate it. On to next week. Enjoy. Jewels

DLP 2015 Week 7 - Cover the Good Stuff

Can you believe we are half way through February already! Holy smokes... Anyway, the challenge this week was Cover Up Good Stuff and the prompt was Going Undercover...I have to say I was not thrilled with this week's challenge. But I think that is to be expected. We are not all going to like every week. The funny thing is - I quite unintentionally ended up doing it anyway lol.

You can see my background which I actually quite liked (ignore the orange leaf - I was experimenting :)  ). I used one of those round plastic scrubbers for cleaning dishes to get the scratched effect using gesso mixed with acrylic paint. Lots of stamping and painting.  (Sorry about all my pics - none are spot on with the real colour)

I've been pulling pages from my old magazines and found this one in McCalls. What's amazing is that it was painted in 1502 by Albrecht Durer. I got inspired to frame him in a vintage picture frame so he covers a good chunk of my nice background. The “tree” beside him is packing material. 

Yes that is the title of a chapter from an old science book. They were covering how the brain of animals work (or at least how they thought it did back in the 1930s LOL).

In the background you can see “asemic writing” (google it) that Leslie introduced me to last year. I like to believe he is thinking too himself about his next meal, the wily fox chasing him, whether or not I can see him :). Great for filling in space and good practice for a couple of postcards I am working on for a swap with Jo and Lenna.

I was going for the effect of deep in the forest by a stream with light dabbling through. Not sure if I quite got it but it was a lot of messy fun….and pretty sure I am going to regret that button when I start next week’s page!