Second on the Second And Friday Face Off

     Happy Friday once again!  It’s August second so I’m posting some second looks for Second On The Second over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.  Since I’m also linking up to Nicole’s  Friday Face Off these journal pages have faces. And lastly but not leastly  I am also linking up to Gillena’s  Friday Lunch Break  .

      My pages are a scattering of pieces from August  of  2021, 2020 and 2019. I picked pages with an overall “wild” theme since yesterday we started a new challenge at Art Journal Journey hosted by Jo called Wonderfully Wild. I'm sure no one needs inspiration, but you never know what might tickle an creative idea.

     For this first page I thinking of wild sunflowers.

And ha ha to this wild lady 🤪

There’s no explanation needed for the next few. 

These last couple of pages are from a trip journal I made about my husband's and my summer vacation in 2019. We had visited  parts of Minnesota, North Dakota and also the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

That’s all for me today. Have a great rest of your week and  hope it’s a nice weekend ahead. 

Second on the Second-Trip Journals

Hi everyone. Happy July 2. I hope your weekend is going well.

It is time once again for Second on the Second over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. Basically this means you just need to repost  something you have already posted before. Easy peasy.

I picked out some pages from 2018 for Second on the Second  this month. My pages go with Alison's challenge over at Art Journal Journey. As this is a new month, we have a new AJJ challenge,  and this month the challenge is Come Fly with Me.

I copied some photos from multiple posts that had to do with my summer vacation that year. We had gone to Newfoundland for a week in early July. Here are some pages from my trip journal that work with Alison's Come Fly with Me challenge.

Notice the butterflies on these first 2.

And then in my daily journal I had this page with the plane.

Back to my trip journal, I had this page with my flight boarding stubs as well as a hand carved maple leaf stamp.

And here's a new page for AJJ from the journal I've been working on about my weekend trip to Charleston back in May of this year.  I had flown down to North Carolina to visit one of my teacher friends who moved away from New Hampshire about 20 years ago but with whom I've stayed closely in touch. We took a roadtrip down to Charleston.

I used a sheet of printed paper that I cut down to fit the small 6 ring binder I was using.  I added tape to the punched edge to be sure the paper held up when the pages were  flipped.

I then added some textured paper I made with my recently refound paper texturing rollers,  some washi tape and a pre-cut square tag that I wrote my info down on.  I then added a punched out Art by Marlene plane as well as the punched out clouds. 

I'm also going to link up to Gillena's Smile Sunday.

That's all for me today. Thanks for stopping by my blog.  

Today's Post is about Red

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday and happy February 2 to you.

I'm here today with some second looks for Second on the Second which you can join over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog . All you need to do is repost something you've already shown on your blog before.

These journal pages are ones I posted in 2016, 2017 and 2018. I chose them because they are very red.  Seeing Red is my theme over at Art Journal Journey this month, and I had been looking back  to see how I've used red on journal pages in the past.

Since it is Thursday, it is time for Rain's Art and Dinner Date. Today her theme is Fruit.

I am showing a few photos of an apple and strawberries, for they are red (at least the ones in my photos are red), and I'm sticking with red in today's post. These photos are from last year (2021) when I went strawberry picking in June and then  apple picking in the fall.

I am going to make a maraschino cherry and walnut pound cake because it was my Dad's favorite cake, and every early February I think of it since it is getting close to his birthday.If he was alive he would have been 99 this year.  I had  hoped I would have made it by now (and the cherries are even red), but I needed cream cheese and only picked it up  later yesterday. I'll have to show that cake some other time. 

And I'll finish my post not with a second look but with a new page for my Seeing Red challenge at Art Journal Journey.

Today I combined red with black,  grey and a big silver moon.  The red really pops against these colors.

I used a stencil and red paint for some of my background, and then I used some black and silver spray ink. The bird section is part of a napkin that I received in last summer's T day anniversary swap. The slightly modified boy is from TH, and I added some red cloth trim as well as the silver metallic die cut moon.

Sorry for the long post today. If you made it this far, thanks .  Wishing you a great rest of the week and weekend ahead. 

Second on the Second

Hi everyone. It is November second, which means it is time for Second on the Second over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

This month for Second on the Second, I thought I would repost  some food and drink related art.  As Bleubeard and Elizabeth are our hosts at Art Journal Journey and their theme this month is Food and Drink or Collage Fodder or Both, I thought these would be appropriate.

I'll start with this  sign which hangs in my kitchen and which I shared after Thanksgiving in 2020. My kitchen seems to be constantly messy lately because I've been having some fun in there, so I thought it would be appropriate.

And here's a page I posted in November of 2019. Since apples are food and since apples grow on an apple trees, here is my painted page.

 

And I have one more food related page today from November of 2017. Here's the original post: Soup.

And since it is November, I am also linking up to Art Every Day Month hosted by Leah. This is day 2, but you can join in as much or as little as you'd like.

I hope the new month is going well for you. Thanks for visiting.

Some Favorite Art from 2021-Part 1

Hi everyone. Happy day 2 of the new year. I hope you can't complain about the new year so far. 

Today for Second on the Second  over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog I want to do  look back and share a few of my favorite art pieces from 2021. I like to look back because it reminds me of all the things I attempted.   It is amazing how much art I made and although it is always "my style", it's surprising all the different techniques and topics I played with during the last 12 months. 

I'll start with this drawing page I made back in January while working through one of the classes at Creative Jumpstart.  I think I did accomplish many of these goals shown on my page, and I really like this idea.  I  will do similar page for 2022.

I spent a lot of last winter drawing and coloring patterns which was not only relaxing but a fun way to play with color combinations and shapes. In this next piece, I used  ink dripped on a piece of  filter paper to make the moon, and then I stamped and doodled the dancers.

And using cold colors in winter helped me create these next couple of pages ( the one above and the one below). Although I must say I only like about a month or 2 of winter, I do seem to like making winter themed pages.

It had been a long time since I'd done any Citrasolv transfers. I don't usually have very good luck  with that process, but the statue on this next page came out great. It made the perfect base to create my travel page on.

And this next page is one of my more favorite drawing based pages. It does have some stamping and paint added to it. I need to get back to making more drawing pages. Making them is the only way to improve drawing skills, and I still have room for improvement. I really like the big brush on the right.

This sheep page started with a drawn pattern that I didn't really like. Gesso and watered down pink paint  over the pattern gave it a nice look to make this stenciled sheep page. Note to myself: you can make a page you really like starting with a mistake.

I also made some little folded books based on another Creative Jumpstart class.  The books were fun to create, and even more fun to fill in in February.

In one book I watercolored the background and then painted these big black circles with acrylic paint.

Then I made a shape based book that used lots of numbers.

And the cool watercolored background  in a third mini book worked well with red hearts for Valentine's Day.

I also created a larger stitched book with a spring theme since nice weather was calling to me.

I really like the effect of stamping over the light splatter background.

And that project lead me into making another soft covered stitched book with a children and  garden/spring theme.

Another note to self: make  more little books in 2022. 

I'll share a couple more pieces since this post is starting to become long.

Although I really like this (above) page, what I really excited me was using painted wax paper scraps to make the background.  (Along with a black ink pad rubbed over them.) I love the textured look it creates.

And this next page with all the silly dogs has to be in my top 10, maybe even top 5, favorites I made last year. (And the fact that I added my 2 pups, Maddie and Pete to it only made it better.)

And lastly, I can't forget all the fun I had making tags. This one was cut out of black watercolor paper, a favorite supply I discovered in 2021. I stamped in white and with the added details it reminds me to use black and white with only 1 color more often.

Thanks visiting my blog. I always appreciate all your kind comments. I'll be back another day to share more of my favorites from 2021. And I'll be back tomorrow with new art for 2022 too.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Old and New

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend. 

Today I am sharing art for Tracey's latest challenge at Art Journal Journey and also a piece for Elizabeth's 

Second on the Second challenge.

Here's my  second look  piece. I went for Halloween this time, since I always enjoy making a "fun" scary page. (I am really a big chicken when it comes to real scary.-smile)

This first journal page is from 2017 in my Halloween altered book.  It's a little bit dark, but not meant to be scary. I know some of you are not into Halloween at all, and me, I like it in a fun, vintage way. Here's the original link: White Crows.

Here's a how I made my page as I wrote about in this post: So my art today is my brain on the dark side. Or the nighttime side at least. I created this textured background with some modeling past, printed tissue paper, painted deli wrap, dark paper tape and some watered down down black paint.

So I was going for opposites and made my crows albinos.  Ghost crows if you'd like.

And this next piece is a new page I made awhile back.

This page is for Tracy's AJJ  My Favorite Colour is October challenge. It is from my garden journal.

October doesn't have to be about foliage colors. With the cooler, less humid air, the sky can also be so blue in October. Of course the squirrels are always busy with their acorns too.

 This piece began as one of the denim pages in my book that I painted this brighter blue.  There is some stenciling and stamping on it. I then went on to add a thin piece of blue and white paper as well as some vintage lace (a bit embellished with a small white pearl in each whirl), an embossing powder embossed leaf (made last fall from a leaf I picked up off the ground), some stamped fussy cut and colored acorns, as well as a quote block. The squirrel was a bit of a project, as when it was  stamped  on the background, it was rather hard to see clearly. The white part is the original stamped in pigment ink. Then I stamped the squirrel with Staz On ink a second time on acetate, fussy cut it and overlaid that over my white squirrel.  I actually like the 2 tones of Mr. Squirrel now. The leaf branch is a die cut/embossing folder that was made with white paper and inked with a gold ink pad. 

I know you wouldn't find lace during a walk in the forest, but I did like how it looked on the page. I like to think of the lace as some white fall wildflower like perhaps asters that we have here in NH.

I hope your new month is going well for you, at least for these 2 days. Have a great start to the weekend and, as always 

thanks so much for stopping by my blog.

Winter Time

Hi everyone. Day 2 of the month means it is time for Second on the Second over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog .

Today I have a winter page for you which was originally posted on January 24, 2016.  

Here's the link to the original post: Winter Night. It isn't arctic cold yet in New Hampshire, nor is it actually winter yet either,  but I've pulled out all my winter supplies, so I 've been making a few wintery pages.

Yesterday our tempertuates were fairly warm, but the cold that has taken over part of the country is moving on into New England.

This polar bear is one of my favorite pages. I like the sky background and also how I made the snow at the bottom. It's definitely a page I want to see again, and I hope you do also.

I also have a new page today for Tracey's  The Meaning Of challenge at Art Journal Journey

My background represents the woods, the  green for the pine boughs, the cold blue for a winter's sky, the brown for frozen ground. The image is one I came across while cleaning out old magazines this fall. I really liked it, and it reminds of both the holidays  as well as nature. I am definitely a nature person.

I added some die cut snowflakes. I used origami paper to cut them, which is one of my favorite techniques. I like it because it gives the snow a bit more ephemeral almost transparent but not quite quality, which is sometimes snow has when it is falling lightly from the sky.  The quote is from Alison Bomber, but the page still needed something.

I added this bell trim I had, as well as some white lace paper trim. The quote may be about silence, but a buck (or stag) walking through the forest is not always quiet. They can be, but if you listen carefully it is amazing how loud many animals are. 

That's all for me today. Hope your December has started well for you.