Into Buttons

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Have fun hopping around today and Happy Mother's Day.

Into Faces

As you can tell from my last post and now this one, I'm into faces. I belong to a Facebook group that is trying to do 29 Faces for the month of May. So far I've only done 3 but I may do another one today. I figure if I can do 29 or more they may start looking like something.

This first one is done with acrylic paint on canvas board and the other two are just pencil sketches.

I'm not sure that precision is my strong point for faces so I may go more towards the whimsical. We will see.

Have a great day and enjoy your Art.

All About Faces

More practice. They do say practice makes perfect right? Well, I'm am not perfect and my faces are definitely not perfect but I have a feeling they will get there eventually. I worked on these yesterday. Really love the fashion ladies but my Tangle gal is my favorite... these are just the ones I'm willing to share. You can not imagine the number of faces I made that I threw away or erased.

The fashion ladies were inspired by a book I have called Collage Couture by Julie Nutting. The book looked fun and I had fun putting them together. Kind of like making paper dolls only a little bit more intense.

I did finish another journal today and now I'm wondering what I'm going to do with all these journals I've been making. This was my first one using the Japanese Screw Punch and it worked well to punch the holes but they were too big, so I'm gong to have to order a smaller tip. It's still usable but if using paint, I may have to put tape up the middle of that page to prevent the paint from seeping to the binding or other pages.

Before the signatures were sewn.

Fabric that I put on the spine to add a little interest. I left the cover as it was in good shape but it could be embellished or painted over.

Most of the pages are pastel paper, watercolor paper, scrap paper or some handmade paper from India.

I hope everyone is having a great week. I have to get ready for a show this weekend so probably not so much art but more jewelry designing and organizing for the next several days for me.

Inspiration

I've been meaning to post for a couple of days now but just couldn't seem to get to the point. I've been finding lots of inspiration from an on-line class I'm taking with Effy Wild called Book of Days (BOD). I really am trying to be more free in my painting... if you know me, you know that my background is watercolor and very structured. On Effy's last live stream she painted a girl that was symbolic to the BOD group. Now I'm am horrible at faces but I do plan to practice daily my sketches.

Here is my first one, using Effy's inspiration that I feel confident enough to share.

Effy's class tends to bring out more feelings and emotion than other's I have taken. There is a lot of acrylic paint, some collage, stenciling and I used a black waterproof Pitt pen for drawing the face.

Here is one other small girl that I will probably use as a tip in.

A lot of these paintings I'm doing on watercolor paper and will bind them into a journal when I'm finished along with some extra pages for some writing.

If you want to check out Effy's class here is the link.  http://bookofdays.org/ It's a year long project so you can join anytime. There is a free version and a premium (pay) version. I decided on the free one since I had already taken several classes this year already on-line.

I find I am still struggling to find my voice in ART but the more I do the better and easier it will become.

Sticky Stuff

I'm having his love affair with tape. Did you know that you can get tape in all kinds of patterns and colors now? Since I've been working on my art journals I've been looking and finding so many that I love. Here are  a few of my favorites. I've got some Duck brand tape (love the black and white), Smash tape and some Tim Holtz Tissue tape. I don't think I'll ever go back to regular scotch tape again unless I have to wrap a package and why not use one of these colorful ones?

Speaking of art journals, I finished another one this morning. This one will be a gift.... not telling who for. I did outside binding and added velvet tabs. It looks pretty good but I really need to get better at the sewing part. I can't wait until my order from Dick Blick arrives with my screw punch... I think that will make a big difference.

This was an old hymnal, as you can see, and I salvaged some of the hymn pages and glued them in the book. I figure they could use it as a daily devotional book, take notes at bible study or just use as a regular journal. I'll take pictures of the finished product and post them later.

Here is the kids book journal that I showed you in processing on Sunday and now it is finished. I saved the spine and reinforced it then added the material on the outside. 

My newest one (started working on this afternoon) is also an old children's book with the spine in great shape so it will have a similar feel to this one. I think I'm addicted to making these things. I find it is very relaxing cutting out the paper and folding it to just the right size. The only frustrating part is the sewing and I think that will get better the more I make.

If you are interested in learning all these book binding techniques, I highly recommend Mary Ann Moss's on-line class "Full Tilt Boogie" which is where I learned all this fun stuff. She also has another one called "Remains of the Day" which I'll be starting soon. Sale going on now until May 1st.... so take advantage.

As DH and I were out shopping yesterday at Office Max... don't you just love office supplies, I found these great little tags. I think I'll be able to alter them and add them to some of my journal pages. So cool.

You can see they are quite a bit smaller than the craft ones by Ranger. I can't wait to get started so off I go.

Ripping Things Apart

I don't usually like to destroy things but I think I may be getting into the ripping old books apart mode. I hit the thrift store and an antique store the past couple of days to search out old books that could be turned into journals. The one I took apart yesterday is an old children's book (I like the size) that I found for $1.00 on sale at the antique store. What a deal. I'm still pondering on whether I will keep the spine or cut it out.

As you can see it is kind of ratty looking but I kind of like that look. I do have to say my desk looks terrible in this picture with all my junk spread out in front of me but no matter how much I clean it up, after about 10 minutes of working it looks like this again.

Here are a few more of my book finds.

I think all of these will make fun journals.

This is another journal I finished using some old hard cardboard as the front and back that I covered in scrapbook paper.

I really enjoyed my on-line class by Mary Ann Moss, Full Tilt Boogie. She has some great videos and shows how she plays in her journals.

My goal today is to get all my signatures together for my new little book and then maybe I'll play with my new Distress Markers..... Can't wait to try these out on some watercolor paper.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

A Little Art

I found a couple of great on-line classes and I've been hard at work...okay, just a little work and a lot of play. The first class is one offered by Strathmore and is called Doodles Unleashed. Here is the link if you want to check it out. http://www.strathmoreartiststudio.com/  Great fun and something I needed to do for myself. This one is free and is taught by Traci Bautista.

I usually am not free in my painting or drawing and really needed to loosen up and this is the perfect class to let go of all those old perceptions about art and just be free.

My next adventure just started this week when I found a class called Full Tilt Boogie. It is a journaling and book binding class..... simply awesome. I am in love with making art books. I don't have all the supplies I need to do it correctly such as old books but I'm making my own covers and using cotton cord that I already have as well as some rinky dink hole punch instead of an awl. I am considering these practice books but I will use them. Mary Ann Moss is the instructor for this on-line workshop and she is great. This one does cost a little bit but well worth it. Here is the link if you want to see some of her amazing examples and check out more about the class. http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/dispatch_from_la/full-tilt-boogie-an-online-visual-journaling-class.html.

It's not a big book as it only has 5 signatures and I'm not sure I like two ties but since this was my first one I really just wanted to play with the technique of making a books. As you can see I have added some of my doodle art in the book. I thought this was a great place for them. The binding is exposed and obviously not the best since I don't have the right punch tool, but I'll get better.

I'll be sharing some of my art/doodles/collage from Napa, CA soon. Think wine country and rolling hills maybe even a few wine labels thrown in for good measure.

Cheers, Dana