Art Look Back-Part 2

Hi everyone. Happy first Friday in January.  

My daughter's been on vacation this week and visiting, and I knew there wouldn't be much time for art or posting, so today's post is scheduled.  And some of you asked how I had time to make art and visit with my daughter. I haven't made any art, but I did have a pile done already.

 I thought  as we wrap up the work week I would do another Art Look Back to 2021. If you missed the first post and are curious, you can find it here:Art Look Back 2021 part 1.

My first 2 pages are an ode to DNA day in April. I had a lot of fun using my few science themed stamps to make these. They were also a way to celebrate my first DNA day of retirement when I didn't get to teach about it in school.

My next 2 pages have an Asian theme.  The top one was me playing with the vertical page and the second one was me playing with the horizontal aspect of the page.

No matter whether you are going horizontal or vertical, you need a bit of both to balance the page.

Elizabeth has asked me if I would recycle something for her April bearthday  month, and I had this opportunity to do something with the plaster fish my husband found for me at the "dump". I covered him up with printed tissue paper and paint.  That got rid of his rather garish tropical colors. Now he is sitting proudly on my living room bookshelf!

And since I am a water lover (maybe because I am a Pieces), here's a couple of water themed pages I made. 

On both of them I used my hand carved seaweed stamp. Note to self: make some more hand carved stamps. I love more "rough" quality.

And another technique I should remember to do more of is to use some white modeling paste over a colored background.

And I should use more book print for a background too!

Stitching and especially using my forgotten embossing folders (back from my card making heyday), as well as stamping on tissue paper,  need to be used more often. 

For these next 2 tags, I used a paper clay item. I have a  shoebox with items I made with one or two packages of paper clay early in 2021.  I need to dig them out. They make interesting embellishments.

Probably the biggest thing I need to work on is that simple can be better, as this next page demonstrates.

But sometimes simple is not always what works.

I need to think about  keeping the balance and not thinking I need to keep going on every page. Let the art speak to you, right?

This cow page is in my top 10 if not my top 5 of all the pages I made in 2021. I just love that cow face stamp.

Stamp Diva was an online stamping store and when it's  owner  Susan retired, she closed down her shop. I think it was one of the last independent shops online that limited most of their inventory to rubber stamping. (Sigh-There used to be so many.) Stamp Diva was one of the few places left where you could find a big selection of metallic paper trims and images, and when the shop ran a 30% discount for about 6 or 7 months before it closed, I would make a small order for a few of these metallic paper items each month.

You might have noticed a lot of them in my art since summer.

And the last piece for today is a salvaged piece that turned out to be a favorite. I made this last summer for a Try It On Tuesday challenge.

That's enough for today. I have enough art left to squeeze in one more post of 2021 look back pieces, which I will probably/possibly  do another day this month.

Hope your first week of 2022 is going well, and enjoy your weekend ahead. 

My Thursday Art Is All About the Ladies

Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

This week has been flying but then I've had my daughter here, and she definitely has kept me busy.

Today I have both a tag and a journal page to share with you. I'll start with the tag.

Michele's challenge at Tag Tuesday is "Time and Clocks", and you can certainly see plenty of clocks on my tag.

I cut this tag from a time punch card, and I decided to use the printed side as my base. I stamped some little clocks on it, and then I painted  over the clocks with some blue acrylic paint.  I also added a piece of paper tape up along the the middle to cover a dark green line on the time card itself. The line was a bit distracting, and the tape is hardly noticeable. You can't see much of it once I added the woman and the clock face, except for a tiny bit of the top.

I then stamped the partial clock face. I also colored and fussy cut it for the bottom corner. After that I added the TH lady,  my clock, some dots and the sticker quote. Even though this lady's hair flips are all inside her hat, she would be pretty disheveled if her hair was partially falling loose.

One thing I noticed about this lady is how small her waist is. She must have a corset pulled so tight she can barely breath. No wonder why she has that slightly far off look on her face. I am glad corsets (and girdles) are long gone. Hurrah for that.

And for the latest "Let's Face It" challenge at Art Journal Journey, I have this page that I call The Face in the Mirror.

The idea behind this page begins with a true story. Back in my teaching days, one of my friends was walking down the hall between classes and said something to a student. She then heard the student (they didn't know each other) say to their friend that the old lady over there told them to stop doing whatever it was they were doing. My friend was in shock that she was referred to as the old lady. 

For some reason when I was thinking of page ideas, that story came to mind. I think we all probably have a certain view of ourselves that may not be exactly what we see when we  look in the mirror.  And of course, other people may see us in a different light than we are or believe we are.  Teenagers especially.

I made this page by first stamping the lady's face on some plain watercolor paper. Then I die cut the mirror frame, glued it down, and put some clear drying glue over the inside of the frame. Once that dried I could used Gelatos and a wet paint brush to color my background. Then I stenciled the little pink x's with some acrylic paint. While that dried I drew the lady, who I'll call Gloria, on some white paper, and then colored and fussy cut her. 

After adding Gloria, I stamped some images and also added some bits of printed tissue paper to my page. I  added my question with some alphabet stickers. Finally, to pull the page together, I sponged a bit of white gesso lightly on parts of the page. 

 Gloria has a new coat and hat that she thinks will make her look glamorous. Whether they really do or not, we won't know, because the magic mirror Gloria has only lets us see what Gloria wants us to see.

On second thought, a magic mirror like the one Gloria has that might be good to have sometimes. Smile.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

 

California Journal

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. 

Some of you may remember seeing some of my other trip journals. When I take a trip, I like to collect paper and paper-ish souvenir bits.  I bring them home and create a trip journal. My journals used to be  scrapbooks, but then even those scrapbooks became more like an art journal, so now my trip journals have a little bit of everything.

I've been slowly working on a journal from the trip my husband and I took in November to California.

You also may remember the cover as I showed you that before, but at that point I didn't plan on using it for a travel journal. I did find this great California sticker on my travels so I added that, and so this journal  has become my travel journal. I'm not sure what else, if anything, I'll do to finish off the cover.

I thought today I'd share a few of the pages I have so far created.

Above is the inside front cover. The white California shape is the peel off part of the sticker from the front. I added the gold glitter to it (after all, California is the Golden State) and put the little paper blobs in the areas we visited. I actually needed to use the glitter because without it my little black location blobs wouldn't stick on the plastic  shape. Even though I wasn't originally going to go with glitter, I'm glad I needed to do that because the glitter adds some extra texture to my page.

The centerpiece of this page (above) is the piece of napkin that I received while on the plane. It was perfect for creating a trip itinerary, even if it went down a bit out of kilter. (grrr) I added the ruler because it was a little over six hour flight, but  I'm not sure I like the ruler now. Oh well.

And below, it is always fascinating how bright cities are after flying some distance and looking down into a lot of dark.

Next is my page for the LeBrea Tar Pits.  The parking receipt lifts up so you can read what the ticket below it says.

The other place we visited (besides doing a bit of sight-seeing from the car) in LA was  Warner Brothers Studio. We took one of their tours.  I wasn't sure about this activity, but it ended up being a lot of fun. 

At the end of the tour they had a museum with some movie memorabilia.  Part of that museum was a Harry Potter exhibit with interactive exhibits and some items from the films. One thing my husband and I did was sit under the sorting hat. 

A long time ago I did the on-line sorting hat "test",  and I came out a Hufflepuff. Under the hat in the museum, I came out a Slytherin.  I don't think I'm anything like a Slytherin, but it makes a good story for the journal. My husband said it makes sense that the hat said I'm a Slytherin since my blood vessels are filled with venom not blood-ha-ha. 

I knew I wanted to create  a page about that event, so I bought these 2 stickers in the gift shop. The little tag on the right page of my journal includes the story, and I drew the sorting hat you see there..

I know some of you are Harry Potter fans, so here's a few photos from that part of the museum. These photos are not included in my journal.

My husband taking a wand using lesson.

Me in Harry's room under the stairs of 4 Privet Drive.

Some memorabilia.

My husband is in the living room at Harry's aunt's and uncle's home when all the letters inviting him to come to Hogwarts arrive.

I really love the flying car scene in The Chamber of Secrets, and here's the car, or at least 1 that they used in the film.

And finally, here's a collection of wands. Unfortunately you can't read which wand belongs to which person. Perhaps they wrote the names in invisible ink. 

And finally, here's one more page from the studio tour in my journal. 

My daughter was at our house dog sitting for the 10 days we were gone, and she is also a big Harry Potter fan. At the tour gift shop (of course they have a gift shop), we saw a Hufflepuff shirt we thought she would like, and we picked it up as a way to thank her. The lady at the cashier wrapped the shirt in this great Bugs Bunny tissue paper. You can see I used part of it for this page in my journal.

And since this "wabbit" has a face, I am linking this page up to this month's challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month I am hosting and the challenge is "Let's Face It". 

Thanks for visiting. Hope your first week of the new year is going well!

T stands for A Surprise Dinner

 Hi everyone. Happy 2022 to you.

Today I had some happy mail in my mailbox.

I got this great holiday card from Chris. Thank you Chris. It might have arrived a bit after the holiday but that doesn't mean it is any less appreciated.  And if I didn't say it, thank you Elizabeth and Linda for the Christmas cards also. I put those away when I was cleaning up holiday decorations, and I realized I never shared them on my blog.  I'm sorry I didn't get to post them.

I'm starting 2022 with a busy week and some fun company for a few days. My daughter has a new job, and she's taking a couple of weeks off before her new employment begins. She'll be here for a good chunk of this week, and we've made a few plans starting with shopping today. Not that I need anything or even want to spend the money, but it will be fun to spend some time with her. Plus I can get some walking in since my road is now a mess with some ice.

Last week between the holidays was fairly quiet for me, including the holiday New Year's weekend when we had a lot of rain. It was a good chance  to pick up most of the holiday decorations and do a bit of new year cleaning.

 On New Year's Day, while I was cleaning, my husband had to drive his mother back to his sister's house in Maine where his mother lives during the winter. His mother had been visiting her sister-in-law's (my husband's aunt's)  all week.  My MIL doesn't get around very well any more, but neither does her SIL, and neither of them spend the winter at their own homes any longer. They don't get to see each other as much as they used to. It sounds like they had a fun week hanging out with each other.

The reason I bring that up, is on their way to Maine, my MIL wanted to take my husband out to lunch. They chose a seafood restaurant that my MIL likes.  My husband was feeling generous and maybe a little guilty he wasn't home to help me clean (even though he did finish taking down the live tree before he left), so he brought me home dinner.

It was a delicious lobster roll (light on the mayo) with home made chips. I had a bottle of water with it. 

It was a yummy holiday treat, and I guess, since it is a new year, I can say it is my first lobster roll for the year. Smile.

And if you're interested  why I have a bottle of water and not a glass of water, it is because we are on a well, and even though we treat our water (it's full of iron bacteria) to use, we don't drink it. I had this bottle and rather than using it just once, I refilled it from the container we have in the kitchen. I like the screw top lid feature, especially since it occasionally gets knocked over on the coffee table.

This is my drink for this week's T day post. Don't forget to visit us over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog where we meet every Tuesday with our drink related posts.

My word for 2022 is gratitude, which fits in perfectly with my New Year's dinner. 

gratitude: noun the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. gratefulness, thankfulness, appreciation, recognition, acknowledgement, credit, respect, regard

Covid has taught me is that we must be thankful for all the little things we have, and my husband thinking of me and bringing home this yummy New year's dinner is a  good example of that.

I hope everyone's new year is starting off in a good way. Have a great week ahead and happy T day.

Some Art Before T

Happy new week everyone.

I thought I would share a little inspiration for the challenge this month at Art Journal Journey. The new theme for January is Let's Face It. All you need to do is use a face (or more than 1) on your journal page.

My page today is pretty basic and is about how the dogs make me smile and often laugh.  

I started my page with some blue paint and a stencil. Once that dried the page felt like a cold winter day. I think its the color of the blue as it reminded me a lot of the blue in a bright  winter sky. 

The lady is a Funky Fossil stamp. I have a summer set which is lots of fun to use, and  so when I saw they had a winter set, I thought it would be good to pick it up. I've had it for awhile and am finally using it on this page. What I really like is the set (just like the summer set) comes with 3 heads and 3  bodies so you can mix and match. The dog image is  from my stash and except for the shape of the tail,  reminds me of Maddie. The lady is stamped, colored and fussy cut, while the dog (Maddie) is stamped directly on the page.

I finished off the page with a piece of gold metallic paper trim, a stamped quote and some plastic snowflakes.

It would be just like Maddie to tell me I should take them or let them out. Pete would only ask if he really needed to relieve himself.   Maddie's leash is in a cabinet and she can't get to it otherwise she might remind me all day long. When she is bored and wants to be entertained, she comes up to me and starts glaring at me with her death stare, then if I don't respond, she makes some grumbling noises from her throat. These noises only get louder as time passes, and if the grumbling doesn't work, she finally gives me the full on bark.

What a dog. 

Hope you like my page. 

I also have a tag for you today. 

The latest challenge at Tag Tuesday is Time and Clocks, hosted by Michele.

I have some winter stamps out and saw the snowman and sun stamp and knew I just had to use it for this challenge. If you look carefully at the background, you can see the word block image with  the word spring.  I added the clock and the time quote, to finish it off.

Right now spring seems a long way off, but to use the quote from my tag, it is just a matter of time and it will be here. Somehow it still seems like a long way off. Smile.

Have a great start to the first full week of 2021.

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.

We're Traveling Into the Future

 Hi everyone.

Happy New Year to you. 

And welcome 2022.

It is hard to believe that 2022 has begun. I don't really know where 2021 went to because it certainly  seemed like it "blew" in and "blew" out quicker than I could write this sentence.

And not only is today the start of a new year, but because it is a new month, it is time for a new challenge and a new host at Art Journal Journey.

Thank you Valerie for all your lovely art and fun topic last month. I had a lot of fun adding doors to my art and drawing houses. Thanks to all of you who joined in also.

This month I happen to be the new host. 

I have a lot of rubber stamps, and one of my goals  last year was to use some of the older forgotten stamps. This was part of a process to help me decide what I should purge and what I should keep in a big clean out. I still haven't cleaned anything out, but one thing I noticed (while going through my stamps over the 12 months of 2021) was that I have lots of different face images in my collection. That inspired me to come up with this month's challenge theme:

Let's Face It

This month you should use a face or two on your journal page. It could be a human face, an animal face, or a face on something that doesn't usually have  one like smiling flowers or a mustached mushroom. It might not even be a living thing, like a clock face. Or perhaps instead of an actual face you have another interpretation of this topic. (Like me when I was trying to motivate myself last month to write a stack of Christmas cards, and I thought, let's face it, I need to get this done before the holidays have ended.)

You can stamp a face, draw a face, use a digital face or cut out a face from something printed. You could also paint a face or stencil a face. However you can think to add a face, add one or more.  It doesn't matter the size of the face or whether you include one face or multiple faces. If you're  going for a symbolic interpretation of the challenge phrase, then  somehow describe that on your journal page.

Here's my first page for the challenge.

As it is day one of the new year, I wanted to incorporate time  into my first challenge piece. Luckily clocks have faces and you can see a lot of faces on my page.

I started by stamping the clock faces and the word time on my background, and then I used some watered down acrylic paint to color the background. I knew I wanted to use this image of the  lady on her horse, and I decided she could be the goddess of passing time. I am going to call  my goddess Lady Tempus.

I stenciled the numbers along the left side, since  Lady Tempus is counting down the moments until the new year begins. The Lady Tempus on her horse image and the magnificent building, as well as it's border, are fussy cut from a sheet of printed paper. I also added a bit of gold metallic paper border to the image. Lady Tempus is looking back as her horse, whose name is Future,  is about to bring her into the new year. The magic of that moment is represented by the snowflakes flying upwards into the air from Future's hooves.

Future seems quite anxious to get into the new year and have it begin.

The quote is an old one from my stash, and the stitching is added to be  symbolic of the imaginary line  or moment that separates one year from the next. It also represents how I feel when the new year begins, that I have left something behind and am starting something new. Perhaps you also feel that way.

I hope to see many of you at Art Journal Journey this month, as well as seeing lots of faces too. Maybe I'll even see some selfies too so I can put names to faces. (smile)

I hope you have a happy and creative start to the new year!