Global Pandemic: Day 19

I knew I should've kept those last couple bandanas I had instead of throwing them out because I never use them for anything!

Ah, well. My sister is making some masks. I ordered a few bandanas from Amazon to make those little no sew ones but who knows when that package will get here. Maybe next week, maybe not.

I can't make masks but I can make some journal pages! Caught up a bit on the Day to Day Dylusions journal. #daytodaydylusions

This is my Isolation calendar. Not sure if I'll be adding much to the days but ya never know.

My intro page and my April 1 page. I'm trying hard to use up stuff like stickers and die cuts for this journal.

STAY HOME.
Wash your dang hands!
Get a mask and wear it out when you go get groceries...because that's all you should be going out for is food! Unless you're essential then THANK YOU!
-Wy

Art Journal Adventure: August 2017

So in between my October projects, I managed to complete my August pages.

The Art Journal Adventure is hosted at Joggles.com and they have a Facebook group for sharing. Find the details on the link.

Let's dive!

Week 32: Water: Octopi:  With the theme of water, I just decided to pull out all the octopus stamps I have. (and wouldn't you know I did forget one. On the up side, it's probably too large to make it into a single page layout along with all the rest.) I'm not a big fan of fussy cutting so I knew I wanted to stamp the octopus on the page directly. I'm also not a big fan of coloring in a background around focal images. Sooo...I stamped the octopi directly over the blue background. I used Moonlight Sakura gelly roll pens to color them in. It worked way better than I thought it would. Those pens are really opaque so they came out well on the colored surface. (I did lose some color intensity as it dried but I didn't mind that as these sea creatures are supposed to be underwater.)    

Week 33: Mythology/Fairy Tales: St. George and the Dragon:  This was just a quick page with nothing special about it. I just wanted to preserve that sheet of paper I've been hoarding for years. Remember that Once Upon a Time paper pack from DCWV? I think you can still get it. The papers are so cool that I don't like to use them. So why not just preserve the stuff I like.

Week 34: Patchwork or Mosaic: Luna:  I called this page Luna because the sticky snippet in the center (on the yellow square) reminds me of the moon. It has a lot more detail to it that the photo suggests. All these bits of paper came out of my scrap pile and I used up some old stickers as well. The doodling is done with a metallic gelly roll pen.

 Week 35: Collage:  Butterfly Kiss:  When I decide to do a collage, I generally start with a color palette. I had just received my new Dylusions colors so decided to test some out here. I used Rose Quartz and Lilac paint on the background then added stenciling with the Lilac spray. I really liked the soft pink and found the photo of the woman (as seen below) to match it well. That led me down a victorian, romantic, shabby chic, floral, soft lilac and pink path. All my collage elements were arranged in a horizontal line then I added the vertical. 

Even though I have a page of similar color in this journal, I decided to add a butterfly just like that one. Well, almost. This is the new butterfly stamp I have...the one from the new Dyan Reaveley set. The set with the tentacles. (I have no shame in admitting that I bought the set for the tentacles. I've got a million butterflies it seems but I had to have those tentacles! Those will be showing up soon.) I cut the butterfly from some scraps of already sprayed paper and just glued her down. These might be Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays...leftover from my Masquerade page.

So that's August. Not sure when I'll get September done as I'm using my art time for October projects. We'll see what September brings. Have a great week.
-Wy

Craft Time

I think I need to move to a country where you get paid well for working fewer hours. Where is that country? Neverland? Narnia? Middle Earth? Canada?

This past weekend I did get some craft time with my niece. Since I haven't blogged in a while, I decided to share her wonderful work.

I have a box of stickers, scissors, and a glue stick that are designated for craft time. I brought out a box of washi tape and two stamp sets. She started with the "critters" as seen above and since they had party accessories, she threw them a party. She colored everything in with Crayola markers.

 She then decided to use the stained glass window sticker to  make a church. She couldn't resist the cat stamps from Dyan Reaveley. The bird in the middle is the pastor and the cats are two families; the Sassys on the left and the Buttons on the right. She colored them in with Crayola crayons.
She used washi tape to detail both scenes. She glued them together with glue stick and wrote this on the back:

Once this was done, she decided to make some more scenes for the cats that I had stamped and colored with crayons. She made good use of my old sticker pile.

Cats in the Flower Garden:  I stamped, colored, and cut out the cats and my niece drew the scene and added the stickers. She was greatly inspired by the large flower stickers on the right. I like the fence she drew in with markers and how she left the sky very open so the viewer can focus on the important images. This was a great composition.

Cat Carnival Craziness:  Inspired by some stickers of the fair, my niece decided that the other set of cats I had colored should be at the carnival. These cats, we decided, look a bit on the creepy side with their button eyes and tilted heads...just perfect for a crazy carnival. Because we needed to clear our dining room table for lunch, I didn't get to cut out the littlest cat but she added it in by tearing around it. She knew that a carnival wasn't complete without a table for games and a snowcone stand so she drew them in.

We had a great time creating our little scenes and she even added a travel sticker to the back of each to let people know where in the world you could find these scenes.

With limited supplies and a good imagination, art springs forth.
-Wy

Art Journal Adventure: June 2017

There are those times when you tell yourself you're working too hard. I'm kicking myself as I realize this is my first post for July. But...meh...I do what I can. Don't we all?

Art Journal Adventure for June was a bit tricky. The prompts weren't exactly my cup of tea but I finished them. This journal is a large Dylusions journal and the prompts can be found at the Joggles blog or Facebook page.

Week 23: Color Gradations: Fantasy Flower:  My plan was simple: use Gelatos for the background gradation and use up the red paper scraps I had from one of my canvas creations. (Look back and guess which one.) I ended up with this large fantasy flower and the blue/yellow/green combo is one of my favorites. I just added a bit of wording and called it done. This has to be one of my favorite pages so far.

Week 24: Something Old/New/Borrowed/Blue: Regretfully Yours:  This week was challenging but it started with "New". I had the new Gelato colors from Faber-Castell; the iridescents. But since I had done the background last week with gelatos, I decided to use them differently. I used them to stamp the butterfly and it worked great. I tried pink as a background again, hoping to redeem myself from the "fantasy fiasco" of a few weeks back. I don't think I gained much ground. I needed blue so I went with a "chipped sapphire" tone. The page came together under the wedding theme.

So here are the elements: New; Iridescent Gelato, Old; photos, Blue; blingy butterflies and squares, Borrowed; the quote, "I can hardly wait to regret this" (Dyan Reaveley set) that seemed quite appropriate. (Note: the page was neater until I did the next spread. I used spray ink on the other side and some seeped through the spine and the edges. Fortunately, the color matched the blues already on the page. So it's more of a "happy" accident.)

Week 25: Borrow Supplies: May:  I borrow very few things from my sisters because I have more supplies than I can ever possibly use. But my sister does have a die cutting machine and I don't. She cut me these two birds and I just had to use them for this page. This page isn't actually in my journal; it was a separate sheet torn out and used as a mop-up page. This will probably appear in a calendar I'm working on to represent the month of May.

Week 26: Mystery: The Hound of the Baskervilles:  This was a theme I could get behind and since I had just ordered a new paper pack, I went with Sherlock Holmes. I needed another paper pack like I need a hole in the head but when you're a Sherlock Holmes fan, there are some things that you simply must have. It's elementary. I knew I'd use the paper pack's ephemera to collage with but I wasn't crazy about the colors. The orange/green scheme seemed too "Autumn" so I hoped a deep blue and jade would contrast. I think it looks okay but I'm not entirely satisfied with it.

 I wanted to create the Hound but my drawing skills aren't the best. So I went through my magazine cut-outs and found a jaguar snarling. I decided that I might be able to paint it into a dog. Whether or not I was successful is debatable. I think I'll have to come back and look at this page after a month or two and decide. I kept the mouth and eye and covered the rest with black paint. Then went back in with a white pen to add details to the darkness. I also highlighted the outer line with a bright yellow/green gelato to give it the phosphorous glow.

Hound or jaguar, monster or shadow, it is quite the specter of the novel and I rather like it.

More to come soon.
Have a great week!
-Wy
"Where there is no imagination, there is no horror."

Artist Journal: The Grand Finale

Over Christmas and New Year's, my modem died. So I used the time "off-line" to finish my Artist Journal.

Yup...FINISHED.

Do I like all the pages? Not especially. But are they done? Yup. The Artist Journal was never about making great art or even sharing it with others; it was about trying out some ideas to see if they'd pan into anything. It was always about just sitting and decompressing from the rigors of the day. Art journaling is my escape whether or not anything comes from it.

So here's the final pages of the Artist Journal: (I apologize for some of the fuzzy photos. I was trying to rush to get the pages photographed to share and didn't want to retake them.)

Feathers:   Being stuck for ideas, this page came about from the decision to used Hot Pink and Bright Blue paint. I cut out the little photos on the back of an extra bird calendar to use as collage. I've used them on a few other pages but picked out the ones with a mostly pink color to match the background. Stenciling with blue and some bright orange dots added for layering. I ripped some extra patterned paper into feather shapes and glued them down but not on the edges so the feathers have some dimension. Black spatters to finalize the page. (I'm going to remember the torn paper feathers. They were easy to make and have a great look.)

Life is Art: Next decision was to play with some "new" Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals. I wondered if they would work in the same fashion that I've seen Brusho work. I wondered if they would give similar results to the pigmented watercolor so I just tapped some on and sprayed with water to see what would happen. Results were very attractive so I just added some collage elements to finish it off. The large butterfly is a stamp from Stampin Up, the quote is a stamp from my stash, the tag was a mop-up leftover sitting nearby, and the music was the only thing I actually went looking for. (I think I might have been going to use some song lyrics on this page but when I found the quote stamp, I went a different route.)

 Fluffy Yellow Birds:  Added music paper to the page then added white gesso to prime it. I used three pale shades of gelato (Faber Castell) to make the wide striped background. I had these scraps of brown paper strips that I used for the branches and a coral shade of cardstock to use for one of my favorite quote. More torn scrap paper (a soft yellow bubble pattern from the stash) to form my little birds. I cannot believe how well this page turned out. I originally planned only three birds but the paper was tearing so well that I figured I could get 5 out of the scrap. I just added the little faces and feet then defined the wings. I used Glue-N-Seal (Ranger) to adhere them and outlined them with a soft yellow gelato. (Butter is the color, I think.) Definitely one of my favorite all-time pages! (This year might be the pastel year for me. I find myself more attracted to it lately.)

 Never Forget:  I was stuck for ideas and just told myself to go with what I know. I love how black makes colors pop...especially a rainbow of colors. To a gessoed page, I made three rainbow circles from the bright set of gelatos. I scribbled the color directly onto the page then blended it with my finger. (This is my favorite way to use gelatos. It keeps the color bright but they still blend over a gessoed surface.) I didn't add any sealer over that because I knew I was going to add the black. I decided to go with the Glossy Embossing Paste in Black from Dreamweaver. I wanted the glossy shine to contrast with the matte finish of the gelato. I applied it through a stencil and let it dry overnight. Then, I was stuck again. I added a black tag (I just took a manilla tag and painted it black.) with colorful circle stickers that seemed to match. Then doodled with a white Signo pen. The tag covers up a bit of mess I made with the stencil which is good. But adding the tag with Matte medium probably wasn't so good. The Matte finish dulls the embossing paste along the edges of the tag. But...I don't really notice it that much. Still love the page!

Here's a few of the pages that helped to complete the journal, but would be more of an Honorable Mention:

 More rainbow gelato fun.

I had to use up paper that was taking up space in my work area! Flying fish bones!

Trying my hand at something more abstract as well as using stamp images inside of smaller shapes. Meh.

A mess of a page. The black acrylic paint went horribly wrong with the small stencils I was using on a terribly non-flat surface. So I threw on the last of some stickers and just decided to leave it a mess. I share the ugly pages, too. They ain't all masterpieces!

Fin:  The last page in the journal but not the last page that I completed. The background is actually packaging from one of Dyan Reaveleys stencils or art journals. Added my torn paper flowers and a strip of washi tape to hide a seam. Complete. Finished. Done. Fin.

Here's the chunky journal that has been TWO YEARS in the making:

Thanks for hanging in to the end of this massive post! But I wanted to just GET IT DONE!
Happy New Year!
-Wy
"The cares of tomorrow can wait till this day is done."  --The Irish Rovers, "Come By the Hills"

Red Carpet Studio Challenge #97: Field of Dreams

"If you build it, he will come."

The newest challenge over at Red Carpet Studios revolves around one of my favorite movies:

Field of Dreams!

The Challenge: Create your own background.

I'm always trying to create my own backgrounds. It's one of my favorite things to do. (But most times, I just gotta use up the paper stash, ya know?!) So I decided to share a little ATC that I made for a swap.
ATC is short for Artist Trading Card. An ATC is a standard size (2.5" X 3.5") and they are traded among like-minded souls. (I mostly trade mine with Letterboxing folks and they require a hand-carved stamp image to be featured on the card.) 

So here's the background I created before I added the images.

The background is created from Dylusions Ink spray in Cut Grass, Fresh Lime, and Polished Jade. I tore a couple pages out of a Dylusions journal and laid down all the green colors. Then, I cut the paper down to my ATC size. Once cut, I stenciled over the top with London Blue and White Linen to add a secondary layer. (I did the stenciling after I cut the cards so I could be sure that each card would have some stencil on it.) The cards do warp with that much spray but I planned on attaching them to another layer of cardstock to hide the messy inky backside.


Dylusional ATC:   The theme of our swap was to make a card in Dyan Reaveley's style. Her style is quite distinctive with bright colored backgrounds, significant doodling, and a touch of snarky remarks. Our swap group was directed to use some of her products but to carve our own stamp as a focal image.

Soooo, I carved a toadstool. (A mushroom, I suppose, but Dyan calls them toadstools and I have no objections.) I also used a smaller rubber stamp that I carved a couple years ago. Here they are on the card before completion:

I stamped the image onto book paper with Jet Black Archival Ink (Ranger). (This is my permanent black ink of choice for paper!) I colored in the tops with Distress Markers. (I could have colored them in with more Dylusions ink but those were two floors down and the markers were within reach!) I mainly used the bright colors of Distress from the Seasonal line and tried to focus on warmer colors to contrast against my green background. I cut these all out to attach to the cards with a tape runner. I used tape here because a liquid glue will reactivate the ink beneath and if it oozes out the sides, it can lift the ink around the image.

So here's the ATC all completed:

 I added the doodled border around the outer edge with a black ultra-fine tipped Sharpie and a white Uniball Signo pen. I taped down the words to finish it off. (I would have liked to come up with something truly snarky but it also needed to fit into my small space! I find this amusing anyway.) 

I'm a big Dyan Reaveley fan and I had a smashing time making up these little ATCs. If you like them, you'll love her work so please check her out and get inspired."Go the distance."
And don't forget to share any projects you make over at Red Carpet Studios! It's the first challenge of April so you've got lots of time to make something! (Challenges for the whole month don't end until May 7th!) I'd love to see all your cool projects, snarky or not!
--Wy
"You may not have lost all your marbles but there's definitely a hole in the bag."  ---One of Dyan's stamps from Laugh till you Leak set.