Fun With Doodles on a Rainy Day

This is what it looked like on our greenway walk today.  Gray, beige, and wet.

Kasey and I were the only idiots out there.  Hope SHE enjoyed it! 

I decided it was a good day to work on fun, colorful journal pages.  First, I got out my hardcover watercolor journal and turned to a page that I had previously painted with some orange/pink watercolors.  This month's theme for The Sketchbook Challenge is DOODLES.  So, I used two widths of Sharpies to add some doodle designs.

Doodling is also the theme of the first of this year's Strathmore Online Workshops.  If you have any interest in mixed media or art journaling, you should sign up for this free series of online classes with well-known artists.  The first series of videos is by Traci Bautista.  In the first lesson, you make marks with a variety of paints, markers, and stencils.  Then you use India ink and white-out marker to add more marks.

Here is my first lesson.  I hear the Seventies are calling, and they want their Flower Power back!

Since I had an extra sheet of watercolor paper handy, I made another one to use up the extra paint.

It is my understanding that these are to be cropped and cut up in future lessons for use as journal covers or other mixed media creations.

I also started Lesson 2 with Traci, which involves painting big shapes with watercolor paint, then adding stamps.  When this is all dry, I will write all over it with transparent ink colors- probably my Tsukineko inks.

I highly recommend color therapy for a dismal winter afternoon!

Happy Turkey Day!

Here is a very sunny turkey, made once again from the leftover paint on my watercolor palette.

He started out to be another "Imaginary Animal" for The Sketchbook Challenge theme this month, but he got turned into the guest of honor of the traditional American Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow Charlie comes home, Thursday Dave and Emily will be here, and Friday Bryson and Melissa and their kids will come for the weekend.

The candlewick quilt has about one-third of the binding hand-sewn on.  I will work on it tonight during the finals of Dancing With the Stars.

Mimosas

The mimosa trees are in bloom here in North Carolina.  This is a rather invasive tree that easily deposits its seeds in unwanted spots in gardens and lawns.  The trees can get rather large, like this one that blocks my neighbor's house.

                            

The leaves and branches are fern-like, and here in our area of North Carolina, the blossoms are light pink.

The flowers are long and feathery, and blow off in the breeze.

While I have been laid up today with my sprained ankle, I got out some watercolor pencils and used the back of a page in my hand-made journal.  It had some color leaking through from the other side.  I did not add any water.

When I get back to my quilting machine, I might try to do some quilting motifs that mimic the fluffy blossoms.  They look kind of like the floating seeds in Avatar.

Here is another journal page that I entered in this month's The Sketchbook Challenge.  The theme is "Element."



The Element of Surprise, 2011, Jeanne McBrayer

There are a few surprises in the drawing if you pay close attention.  The text says, "We are not always what we seem."





I Won a Sketchbook Challenge Prize

I just found out from one of my fellow students in Pamela Allen's class that I won a prize in the May Sketchbook Challenge!  It is a book by Jane Davies called Adventures in Mixed Media: Collage, Stitch, Fuse, and Journal Your Way to a More Creative Life.

I will be sure to give a review when I receive this lovely book.

I will be doing some collage, stitch, and fusing this weekend at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium.  I am taking two landscape quilt classes. One is with Joyce Becker, and the other with Frieda Anderson. 

Today I served as a scribe for the Symposium Quilt Show judging.  We had three judges.  Each one got three scribes and three "fanners."  The fanners lay the quilts in a pile on the table and turn up the ends one at a time for a preview.  The judge then looks carefully at each quilt, and can ask for them to be held up.  She then goes through the checklist provided by the guild, rating each item excellent, good, satisfactory, or needs improvement.  Some of the quilts are then "held," for further ribbon consideration, or "released." 

After each judge completed their categories of quilts, the three judges got together to view the "held" quilts.  I could not always hear their comments, but it seemed that they very carefully evaluated each quilt.  If all other things were equal, quilts with "issues" received a lesser prize.  It was a very interesting process, all in all.  I recognized a couple of quilts that I had either quilted or participated in making as a group quilt, and excused myself from the room during the judging of those. 

I did not stay for the entire day, but it seemed as if they would finish the process before 5:00.  When I left, they were completing the judging on the quilts that I already saw during the first stage.

I can tell you that there are some great quilts in this show!

North Carolina Quilt Symposium, "History Revisited ~ Old is New Again"

 June 2-5, 2011

Peace College

15 East Peace Street,

Raleigh, NC

27604-1194



New Journal Pages

I got busy on the scanner today, and have pictures of some of my newer journal pages.

The first one is for The Sketchbook Challenge.  This month's prompt is "Can't Resist This."  Who can resist a little cutie like this happy baby?

To play on the word "resist,"  I spread some gel medium on this next page and scratched some floral designs into it before painting.  This one is in my favorite journal, my Moleskine. 

The next one should have been done in my mixed-media journal.  Instead, it is on sketchbook paper, and is curling a bit from all the collage and gel medium I used.  The quote by Vera Brittain:  "I thought that spring would last for ever more- for I was young and loved, and it was May."

The next one is an example of a spread where I kept adding stuff and did not know when to stop.

Here is another page starring my dog, Kasey.  I painted the tree first with gel medium to add some texture.

I painted this girl's face and hair with gesso for a first layer, so her hair especially is kind of dimensional.

I have been practicing my Zentangles in my Zentangle journal.  I have going through the  Alpha Tangle book by Sandy Steen Bartholomew and making tiles of each tangle while riding in the car on the way to the mountains.

And, because I have a set of watercolors at the cabin but had no watercolor paper handy, I tried coloring some of the Zentangles with paint.  I 'm not sure how successful that looks.

That's it- I have been working on another art quilt for my Pamela Allen online class, Figures and Faces.  I hope to have something to show tomorrow.

Some Journal Pages

I have been working in my various journals from time to time.  Most of my journal pages are a work in progress.  I'll paint a background, add some collage, some doodles, and some text...not necessarily in that order.

This one was my April entry in The Sketchbook Challenge. The theme was Branching Out/ Out on a Limb.

The background is painted, I added magazine page cutouts, various doodles, and stamping.

This one still might not be finished.  The background is painted.  The portrait is actually a photo of me, printed on a book page, and drawn over with marker.  The drawn tree resembles the one in the small collaged picture.  I went over the page with Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and gold marker.  The word "SUNSET"  is written in white-out pen.

I have been working on the next page forever.  It is almost entirely made of found paper collage. It reminds me somewhat of Dorothy arriving in the Land of Oz. 

Did I ever show this one?  I made it last fall during the 21 Secrets of Journaling Online class.  The background has notes to myself written on paper and torn up, then painted over.  I wrote about all the ways I waste time instead of getting something constructive done...like art projects.  The face was done with a long paintbrush with rapid strokes and no pre-drawing.

I don't think I have ever shown this one.  I did it right after making the above page.  The background has gesso applied thickly, then painted with acrylics.  The face and hair are painted with no pre-drawing.  My husband would call this one "the surly bitch with fire in her eye."  He heard that line in some TV show or movie decades ago and quotes it often.  Maybe I should add that line as the text for this page!

It's so much fun to make these.  Rarely do I know what will end up on the page when I begin.   I just do a little of this, and a little of that, until I get an idea or until I like the way it looks.  It's a great way to try out new ideas or techniques.

Have you tried art journaling yet?

The Sketchbook Challenge- Highly Prized

I decided to participate in The Sketchbook Challenge- not to be confused with The Sketchbook Project.  There are sixteen hosts who share their own work, offer tutorials, and encourage participants to create art in any media desired.  Each month there is a prompt, and if you upload a photo of your project, you become eligible for that month's prizes.

The theme for January 2011 is Highly Prized.  If you have been following my blog, you know that my affectionate new dog, Kasey, is a a good choice for Highly Prized subject matter!

I drew this page in a Strathmore 9" x 12" Sketch book.  This is a general purpose sketch paper for dry media.  I used watercolor pencils and black ink.

The text on the left is embellished with Zentangle-type designs. 

There is a Flicker site with uploaded photos of The Sketchbook Challenge projects.  It is cool to see how everyone has interpreted this theme.