The End of My California Journal

Hi everyone. Happy start of the weekend to you.

It's going to be (or so the weather people say) rainy and wet Saturday here in New Hampshire, but yesterday we had some gorgeous weather. Spring is hopefully getting the upper hand over winter.  It' Maple Weekend here in New Hampshire. I'm off to my daughter's future in-laws home today to help process some maple sap into maple syrup, which should be fun.

I want to wrap up this week's posts with the rest of the pages from my California journal. I finally finished it off (it took me awhile to get back to it). I had hoped to finish it before I packed up my workspace, but that didn't happen, so one day while I was waiting for everything else I was working on to dry, I decided to finish it.

I'm not quite sure if I've posted any of these pages before; I think maybe just this first one was in an older post.

We're wrapping up the trip at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In the top page I did a bit of stenciling and cut these otters off a card I bought specifically to make this page. Funny, when I saw it at the aquarium's gift shop, I knew what I wanted to do with it.

And below, I cut up the info on the free map they give you and also added this sticker, plus some tapes, metallic trim and doodling.

It even has a little flip up part.

I used this scrap of paper from an earlier page and added the free little seafood watch folder.  

My next page describes the last hotel we stayed at. We had a 6 AM flight Friday morning, so we needed to stay near the airport. This hotel was maybe 8 -10 minutes away from the airport, and it had good reviews. Plus it was a bit cheaper than the chain motels, and since we'd need to leave our room in the middle of the night to do all those end of trip airport things you need to do (return the rental car, check  suitcases, get through security), I figured if I could save some money, I would.  I booked the room online before we even left on the trip.

If you are ever flying out of San Francisco airport, I wouldn't recommend you stay at this hotel. The hotel itself wasn't horrible, but it was right on the main drag. Our room was right on the road so it was loud. Thankfully running the AC somewhat helped with that. Our room was clean but rather dark and cluttered with big pieces of furniture so there wasn't anyplace to put our suitcases except on the floor in the corners. There was also this sketchy teenager selling little plastic wrapped packages out of a  Dunkin Donuts shopping sized bag in the back parking lot and out in front of the building.  We ran into him twice in the elevator too. I can only suspect what he was doing.

 The hotel didn't work for me, and I was glad to head to the airport just after 3 AM. 

At the airport, "things" went  off without any hitches, and we got on our flight and were headed back east.

Here I used some old travel stickers in my stash and this postcard also in my stash. I could flip it open and write about the flight home.

On this next page I used one of the 2 boarding passes for the 2 flights home, the back of a playing card, some stickers and some travel items I cut out of a magazine.

And finally, here's the end of the book.  On the left I used all the luggage tag stickers as paper, as well as some washi tape as a border. I put a bit of gesso over the luggage tags, used an old photo of Maddie and Pete, a New Hampshire sticker, some letter stickers, as well as my tea stirrer from the flight.

And on the right I added a small paper bag (the otter card came in it) so put in a few other items I wanted to save but that were either too hard to add to the book or didn't fit.

Voila. There's my journal my this trip. I'm trying to talk my husband into taking some time off in May or early June for another little journey, but so far he keeps telling me he's too busy at work. It might be too late to get cheap airfare, but we could do a small driving adventure, if gas isn't too pricey by then. I guess I'll have to keep mentioning it to him a bit more.  Ha ha ha ha.

I hope you do something fun this weekend.  And as always, thanks for visiting my blog.

More of My California Journal

 Hi everyone.

I am back once again with more of my California journal. I mentioned last California journal post how I didn't have as many bits and pieces to make these end of the journal pages, so I had to take a different   approach to create them. I must say I am loving my pages as well as having lots of fun making them, even if they do take some thought how to put them together.

These pages today are from the end of the trip.  At the beginning of the journal I kept pages  more chronological.  With these last pages in my journal, as had an idea, I made that page.

My first page goes back to the ride along the Pacific Coast Highway. We watched this sunset just before we got into Carmel.

That view inspired me to make this next page.

I painted the sun and the orange sky on some plain rice paper. Then I cut and tore that image out, and after gluing it down on a book page, I used some watered down black acrylic paint to tie it into the whole journal page.

My next page  is made with paint and a stencil on a Gelli plate. Since Monterey, where we spent the last day of our trip,  was in the past a huge sardine canning town, I thought these fish on my Gelli  print would make the perfect page. (The words are straight on the page, but my book is so fat I can't lay the pages flat to photograph them.)

We also saw school of sardines at the aquarium too. This is not the best photo, but these fish are my inspiration.

With this next page we're back to Carmel with a few bits and pieces that I did have in my travel stash. I added a lift up tag , some stenciling done with a Sharpie, as well as drawing the border on my page. This is the same style border I had used earlier in the journal for some consistency. 

And then it's back to the Pacific Coast Highway for the next page. While walking around Carmel, I picked up this free magazine with lots of Impressionistic art in it. I cut this image off the back cover. It's beautifully done, and unfortunately I didn't get the name of the artist of painted it to give them the credit they deserve.

I would love to be able to paint like this.

And lastly, here's some pages from the aquarium in Monterey. That was the last attraction we did on our trip, other than driving.

For this first page, I took a tag I had (I didn't make it) as well as the words off a paper bag from the aquarium. I stamped the quote, painted the circles, added the green metallic paper trim and also a small fish bead. I thought the tag worked great as we saw both an octopus and lots of squid.

Then I created a page to remember we needed proof of Covid vaccine to get into the aquarium.

And finally, I had bought a blank greeting card with these cute otters on it while at the aquarium.  Notice the design on them is a map of the area. I picked up his particular card out to cut it up for my book. I liked how it not only had the map, but had the otters. We saw a couple of otters in the aquarium, as well as some wild ones in Monterey Bay.

Can you pick out the otters in this photo? 

I'm getting very close to being done with my journal. I wasn't sure when I made this journal how many pages I would need, so I have a few pages left to complete. I think there will be one more California journal post on my blog too. 

As these pages are examples of my styles, I am linking up to Bleubeard and Elziabeth's "What's Your Style?" challenge at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks so much for visiting.

California Journal

 Hi everyone.  Happy Friday. I hope you've had a nice week.

Today I'm back with more of my California journal. Yes, I am getting close to finishing it. In fact I am ready to be done with it and  to move on. I didn't bring home as many bits and pieces from the latter end of the trip, so making pages actually became harder to do. Not hard in the sense of making the pages, but trying to figure out what I wanted to put on the pages to represent the trip was a challenge.

Today's  pages have to do with the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway-route 1 from Ventura to Carmel. Here's 3 photos (I've shared these before) just to refresh you memory what my pages are referring to. 

One item I have repeating through the journal is circles. In my emptying of my studio closet last week, I cleaned out my little sticker shelf, and  I found a few chipboard stickers that would work well in the journal. You can see them on my page below, as well as an acetate sun I had. Sorry about the glare on the California route 1 sticker.

I put the above page next to this page.

It took me forever to make this page (above). I might have been a bit too ambitious. I was trying to catch how there is a big drop off from the road along this stretch of route 1, and how there are mountains on one side of the road, and how the road gives you some amazing views.  I didn't have a photo from the trip in front of me when I laid this out, so this is more a collage of what I remember of many views, not one actual view.

I used acrylic paint, Gelato crayons, water color paint, stabilo pencils, white ink and a regular pencil.

Drawing the drop off was tricky, as well as making the steep mountain sides have a bit of texture. It works for me though, even if it did slow me down as there were so many steps that needed to dry before I could move forward.

My pages in this next spread  is about driving along this section of the California coast.  The left page is made with lots of torn pieces of some sheets of printed paper. You'll see this technique and style again a few photos down this post, and that next page was actually made before this page. I liked it so much I decided to copy it here.

I stenciled the quote, added a few stickers as well as stamped the month.

I made the writing tag by stamping  a line image a few times on white paper and cutting all the lines out as one piece. Then I hand wrote in my story.

Below I made a pocket to hold the info page I picked up when we stopped to see the elephant seals.

To make the pocket I used a strip of kraft paper, and added a scrap of this photo paper to it. Then I doodled in some lines and added the stickers. I stamped bits of the arrows  and added the dots.

And lastly, here's my other page made with torn pieces of printed paper.  I added the acetate hummingbird (found while cleaning out the studio closet) because  I had watched an Anna's Hummingbird while walking in Carmel. Hummingbirds and flowers in November was such a treat.

I can't say my pages all flow because their similar, but since these pages are a few examples of my various styles, I am linking up to Elizabeth's "What Your Style?" challenge at Art Journal Journey.

Have a great start to your weekend!

More From My California Journal

 Hi everyone.  It's almost the weekend. We've had a couple of chilly days and very cold nights, and I am ready for some warmer weather where I don't need to huddle by the woodstove. Maybe next week, if you can believe the long range forecast; they don't ever seem to know.  As I write this Thursday to post on Friday morning, it looks like we could  will have a big snowstorm coming out way for Saturday. When I looked this morning (Friday), it looks like we could get more than they said last night. My town is right on the line between 6-12 inches and 12-20 inches (15-30  and 30-50 cm). I've even heard the word blizzard mentioned, but I think that is more right at the coast.

The good news is I am getting my hair cut today. I was supposed to go a few weeks ago but my hairdresser came down with covid. Now she is better and can squeeze me in. Some months my hair grows fast and some not so fast, but of course, this month it's growing like it's just been fertilized, so I'll be happy to get it chopped.

I'm back today to share a few more pages from my California journal.  Although I can't say my pages cover  every trip detail, I am going along in  relative chronological order of our trip. My book is getting quite thick, and I can image how much it will be bulging by the time I finish it.

Today I'll start at he Channel Islands. This was actually just past the halfway point of our trip. (Photos are here if you are interested: Channel Islands blog post from November.)

You might remember the pelican photos I shared (post is here:Pelicans). I had never seen so many pelicans together in one spot. The day after our boat trip out to Santa Cruz island, we went to National Park store (mainly because we didn't have time on our travel day to stop there). I like to support our parks. I saw this pelican sticker and thought it was perfect for a journal page. I added the circles just to give the page a bit more interest.

I also picked up this postcard in the next photo.  This was the boat we traveled on and where we docked at Scorpion Harbor out on the island. I never had a chance to take a photo of the actual boat docked because it literally came in for a few minutes and then left, and it was the only boat for the day, so there was no time to snap a photo from down on the beach. 

A highlight of the trip (in fact one of the nature highlights of my life) was seeing the super pod of dolphins on the way back to shore. In my journal I tried my hand at drawing dolphins. I used a bit of paint, Stabilo and wax pencils as well as Gelato crayons.  We saw the super pod near sunset, when we had some very colorful skies and when Santa Cruz Island was a still just visible on the horizon. (Photos are here in case you are interested: Dolphins.)

And here's a couple more pages using bits and pieces as well as some very old items from my stash about our day at this National Park island.

We stayed at a hotel right on the harbor when we visited Ventura.  It was close to the boat out to the Channel Islands, and we had an early start on the day we traveled to Santa Cruz. It was also  nice after a day with a lot of walking as well the voyage out and back (to the island)  not to have a long drive at the end of the day. We did have to pay to park (crazy), but since the hotel was relatively empty our room got upgraded for free, and that helped with sting of paid parking. 

My husband managed to lose the first parking pass, so putting this one in the journal registers a memory.

I also decorated the little paper folder they give you with the room keys. Inside I added some details about the hotel and trip.

You might also remember the trip to see the Monarch butterfly wintering in Pismo Beach (post is here Butterflies).  The big butterfly sticker is one I bought that supported the park where the butterflies wintered. I also used lots of small butterfly stickers I had in my stash to finish off the page.

And lastly a fun page to wrap up this post.  It was good to use some stickers I've had for years. 

As there are lots of faces in this post, I am linking up to the "Let's Face It Challenge" at Art Journal Journey. This challenge runs through  Monday.

Thanks for reading through my post. Hope you have a wonderful Friday and start to your weekend also.

 

California Journal- A Few More Pages

 Hi everyone. I hope your week is going well.

Today I have some more pages and photos from my California trip journal. My book is getting thick and hard to lay flat, so please ignore my not-so-perfectly-flat-page photos.

This first photo is a left over page from my visit to Palm Springs. I cut this image out of a travel brochure. These 2 people with their sunglassed poodle represent the vintage movie star glamour  of this desert city. I can't say it looks much like my husband or myself though, even if we are vintage. Smile.

In case you're wondering why there are stars on the sidewalk, Palm Springs has its own walk of stars, so I added some stickers to represent them.

I am linking this page up to Art Journal Journey for this month's Let's Face It challenge. 

Next we're onto our drive from the desert back out to the coast. 

Whoops, I forgot to take a finished view of this next page. What the underside of the tag says is that we turned off in San Bernadino and drove up through the National Forest that wound through the mountains.

I used this stencil (repeating it several times) in the next page because that's how it felt to drive on those switchback roads up into the mountains. All of a sudden you would come out of the forest onto a beautiful view, and then you would wind through the forest some more.

These photos are not in my travel journal, but I'll share them here. This is the route we took up through the mountains, past Big Bear and Arrowhead lakes.

These signs were at the picnic area where we stopped for lunch. Even though we passed through a couple of communities, we didn't see anyplace we wanted to eat. That was OK as we had lunch food in the cooler.

On our way out of the National Forest we drove through the northernmost corner of LA County. This was the area of the 2020 Bobcat fire.  I remember seeing images of it on the news. What was amazing was how many of the homes the firefighters and others had been able to save. Many of those people had signs out thanking the firefighters, which I included in my sketch page of my journal.

Once we got out of the mountains we came out onto this flat area. 

Then it was over the Coastal Range, and into Ventura County. When we got to our hotel, we were totally fogged in.

On this page I used another brochure. This one has an inside harbor map where I could mark info about our trip.

This all happened on Monday. On Tuesday we were off to Channel Island National Park, and I will share my journal pages another time.

Thanks so much for visiting.