People, Places, Things

I got most of the projects in the Layered Impressions workshop with Katie started enough to learn the processes, but didn't take the time to finish them at the time. Now that the workshop is over, I'm finishing up what I started in class, plus I've started a few more. This is a page I've just finished using people, places, and things, plus some words. The place is nature, and the word that the scanner cut off is tranquility.

Notice the rabbit head in the sunglasses. I put that there! Katie showed me how. I love it! :)

The page is nowhere near perfect, but I like it just the way it is, so it will go into my journal that way...as soon as I figure out how to combine the pages into a book without punching holes in them. But first I have a few more pages, a cardboard book with several pages, and a record album with six pages to finish, so I'll worry about the journal of finished pages later. I may combine this workshop and the pages I did in the 21 Secrets workshops all together in to one large journal.

You know, when I look back, I've done a large pile of journal pages in the last year, and I'm very proud of myself. I truly appreciate the generosity of, and all that I've learned from, all the amazing teachers in both workshops.

Sending you all a huge smile. :)

Intuitive Collage & Painting

A page of intuitive collage and painting inspired by Katie's workshop. I love doing art intuitively, and am constantly surprised at the outcome and what the images and words mean to me. This is a combo of magazine images, drawing, painting, and whatever else came to mind while I was playing. Everything on the page symbolizes something in my life, and I like it a lot, plus I've given you a glimpse at how wonky my brain is most of the time. :)

I tried glass bead gel medium on the wings and the whitish egg, but it was too much, so I scraped it off the egg and re-painted, giving it sort of a muted marbled effect, which I like. Still not sure about the wings, but I guess they'll stay that way, and I learned something new with the glass bead gel.

Hope something on the page made you smile!

Collaged Face 3

Here is the third collaged face that was inspired by Katie Kendrick's workshop. Unfortunately, the scanner didn't pick up the glitter and metallic pen very well, and the tiny stars in the background look like black dots, but nonetheless, here she is.

I love the Pierrot clown faces, so I tried to do my own version. The next finished page will be something totally different!

Collaged Face 2

This is my second attempt at a collaged face journal page in Katie's workshop. The words haven't come to me yet. They will be added when they do.

This one kind of shows how chaotic and busy my brain is.

Working on finishing the third one, which is totally different from the first two!

Collage and Waxing

I finally finished another of the mixed-media projects from Katie Kendrick's workshop Layered Impression, which I really hated to see end. I learned about collaged faces. I thought I was finished with this one, except for the words, but yesterday morning I started tweaking things and wound up revamping much of the background, and I like it much better now.

It's funny how I pick out things and place them intuitively on the page trying not to think too much about the outcome, and then when I call the page done I can see a lot of repeated symbolism that relates to me in a personal way. For instance, I tend to use tulips a lot since my dad died seven years ago. They were one of his favorite flowers, thus in my journals they have come to represent him. It's not intentional. They just seem to appear. It's the same with teardrops. They started appearing about the same time.

Lately, eggs have started appearing in some of the pages, I think they represent the children we never had. The tear, on this page, is for the ones we never had and for the one we got so close to adopting before the mother changed her mind. It was a long time ago, it wasn't meant to be, and we have had a blessed life. Despite all the blessings and chaos going on in the background, there is still a kind of sadness in our hearts that will probably never go away. So this page turned out to have deep meaning for me, even though I wasn't aware of it while working on it.

The little penguin is a quirky doodle drawing that I did a few years back in watercolor. One of Katie's classes was in putting a wax topcoat on pages, book covers, etc. Since I didn't have a project from Katie's class finished to practice on, I used this one and, also, one that I have shared before from the 21 Secrets workshops with Connie Hozvicka.

This is my first attempt at waxing. The wax kept having dull spots and shiny spots (still does). I thought I was doing something wrong. It finally dawned on me that I hadn't prepped the paper with gesso before working on it, and the paper was absorbing the wax. The back is also waxy. Lesson learned! lol

Yep, I can relate to the little penguin that I pulled out of a bunch of random marks and squiggles. I am an only child, and I have often felt like he looks. :)

This is my second attempt at waxing. The paper had been prepped with gesso, plus several layers of collage, paint, and medium. Unfortunately, there were a couple of dips in the page, which allowed the wax to be thicker in a couple of places. I attempted to fix it after it dried, then decided to leave well enough alone. Waxing takes practice! I still love the page and can totally relate to it. :)

That's it for now!  Back with more as I finish them! Hope something on here brought a smile to your face! Happy creating, and don't be afraid to try! :)



WIP Cardboard Book

I know it's been several days, but I've been very busy with a lot of projects, all still wips, which I will share with you as I can. Hope you enjoy my first handmade book tour, even if it is in a prelimanary state! :)

This was the last project in Katie Kendrick's Layered Impressions workshop, a cardboard book. My book is very much a learning experience, so there are boo-boos, but I am very proud of what I learned and accomplished. The covers and pages are out of brown cardboard, and there is a fabric insert of four pages. The whole thing still has a lot of stuff that I want to do, but I thought I'd go ahead and share it now, then again when it's finished.

Above is the cover with a niche and carving in the cardboard. The niche has a background and a wild turkey feather with a copper band within it. I now know that I should have used a light background so the feather would show up better. The "window" is made of mica stitched on with copper metallic embroidery thread, because I couldn't find my bookbinding thread. I also didn't have cheese cloth, so I glued fun yarn to the page and cover edges on three sides and used cotton fabric on the spine, which will be covered with something else when it's finished.

This is the back cover, which will have more work done to it when finished.

The first two cardboard pages with the basic layer done...The scanner bed is not quite long enough to pick up the whole page, but you get the idea. The pages are all already stitched into the spine. The face was drawn with my non-dominant hand and will look much better when it's finished, I hope. There will also be text on the pages at the end.

The next two pages, cardboard on the left, fabric scraps on the right. I plan to add buttons, stitching, and other elements to the fabric pages before hand stitching the sides together. I love my polka dotted cat!

Next two fabric pages: The one on the left is an old hand embroidered picture that was in a basket of stuff I bought at a yard sale years ago. I knew it would come in handy sometime!

Fabric page on the left and painted cardboard on the right. Part of it is cut off, but it's a large tulip. For now, it's white, but who knows how it will transform as I work on it!

Painted cardboard pages: The face was drawn with my non-dominant hand and has a long way to go. The right page has magazine images, which will be transformed as I go along, pasted to a painted background.

The last two painted pages with a germ of an idea and more left handed drawing, plus a hand cut paper dog.

That's the tour! At least for now! I've had a ball getting the book to this point. Closed, it is almost two inches thick, and I love all the hairy turquoise yarn on the edges! So happy that Katie included this in her workshop, and I am so excited to finish the pages and make another one!

Hope something on here made you smile! :)