The Art Journal: Uk'otoa

 So I watch a show on Twitch/YouTube called "Critical Role". It's a bunch of voice actors playing D&D. It doesn't sound like much of a show but it is, even if you don't know anything about D&D. It's a good story telling time.

Anyway, they recently released a new game and the promo that goes with it just stuck in my head as an earworm. (as good promotions will) So I decided to make an art journal spread about it. I'm pretty happy with it even though the song is still stuck in my head. (if you want the song stuck in yours, too, you can find it HERE.)

I did another video scan over of the spread since it's so large. It's uploaded to YouTube so I can embed it here. But I've got some still photos below that. This spread is done with mostly spray inks but there is some acrylic paint in there. This is in a large Dylusions journal, the flip style that is landscape, mostly. I mainly was ripping pages out of this to use as single sheets but now I'm just trying to do up the journal as I don't really like this long landscape format. (I should have just ripped it ALL apart but I already had done some pages so....) 

Have a great weekend!

-Wy

Quick Journal Flip

 The constant motion of life has swept me away from the blog. But now that February is upon us, I will attempt to add more content. I often lose my path during December and January so thank you for your patience.

Here's what I have accomplished amidst all the crap I haven't finished. I did a Dyalog journal for the Holidays. From Thanksgiving through New Year's. Here's a little flip through of it.

It is what it is. My main goal was to finish it and use up some Christmas themed stickers and ephemera I had in my stash for a long time. Mission accomplished. I'm only just learning the video side of things and this was filmed on my phone. It's a learning process there, too.

If you're wondering about my YouTube channel, it's not anything I'm pursuing right now. I'm basically using it to upload longer video clips to this blog and elsewhere. When I feel more comfortable with the video process, I may be uploading more content there. I'm hoping to film at least one thing a month and upload it, just to get comfortable with the process. Then, I may start a YouTube channel under my brand name. (Hey, ya gotta have goals, right?)

I often lose my motivation during February so I hope you'll stick with me this year. Crossing my fingers it will be better than the last.

Cheers,

Wyvern

Global Pandemic: Day 37

I've been ornery the last few days and little things have been ticking me off. So I dedicated my time to just coloring today. I did get a few pages done with just some colored images. I felt better.

I haven't been posting a lot of this little journal as I don't tend to like the end results of the pages. I think its partly due to the fact that the backgrounds I did aren't really my palette. I don't like them overall so I'm trying to adjust them as I go along.

This is the Dyalog Day by Day challenge journal. It's hard for me to do it every day but I'm trying. I have other creative projects I'd like to do as well so this little journal is falling by the wayside. But here's a few pages I got done today.

Just a quick page using the challenge page quote. It says: "I'd love to go out but the cat and I have plans for this evening." I love the creepy look of this cat from Dyan Reaveley.

For the April 17th page, I went way off the rails. I just jotted down some of the main things from the challenge. My notes included: silhouette, collage girl, and gatherings of people. This spread didn't really follow the outline but I like it better than most pages in this journal. And that's probably why. Those images are rubber stamps from Stamper's Anonymous. It's a Tim Holtz set called, The Chemist.

Stay home.
Wash your Hands.
WEAR YOUR MASK WHEN YOU GO OUT!!!
(I'm looking at you St Lawrence County!)
Stay well.
-Wy

Global Pandemic: Day 22

Weather wise, it's a beautiful Spring day! I made up an Easter Egg tree. (You know, take those plastic eggs and hang them in a budding bush. Yup, nailed it.)

I awoke early in order to get through to Unemployment on-line. Managed to file. I will see what comes of it.

But I still stayed inside most of the day and I didn't seem to accomplish much for having gotten up early. My mind took a turn into the future. I began considering when exactly the end of this is? Is it when the state allows non-essentials to go back to work and schools re-open? Is it when my local area meets a certain number of cases and recoveries? I mean, I think it's when my parents are allowed back into social gathering areas, right? If they are going to venture out then I can. But isn't the risk of infection still out there? Just because the major cities have seen an "apex" what does that mean for all the rural areas of this country?

That's where my head went today and I began to wonder about going back to work. And that just put my head in a spin. So yeah, I don't have much to show for today.

I did figure out a card I can do as a card class with the proper materials and that had been a goal of mine for a few months. But no photos of that.

Here's my daily journal page. Nothing too complicated. My head space was complicated enough.

So take it a day at a time.
Don't overthink it.
Wash your dang hands.
STAY HOME.
-Wy

Global Pandemic: Day 21

I felt pretty productive today.

My sister dropped off a few homemade masks for us and the neighbors today. She stayed just a bit to say Hi to my parents. (They talked through the glass door.)

I'm refraining from news outlets and social media commenting. I'm trying to get back into my "little world" where I don't feel like this is as stressful as the "big world" makes me feel.

If that makes any sense.

I made a couple art journal pages today. These are part of the Day to Day Dyalog "challenge".

These are April 3 and 4.
Not sure how much "art" I'll get done tomorrow. I'm still trying to get unemployment and it's an all day affair to try to get through to anyone either on-line or by phone. But hopefully, I'll get my Easter Egg tree done tomorrow...a real one. Out in my yard.

Stay Home and Stay Safe!
Wear a mask when you go out.
Help wherever you can.
Don't be an idiot.
-Wy
(Those last two are good advice all round!)

Global Pandemic: Day 20

Hey, I managed to do a page today!

I'm trying to stay away from the news this weekend and focus on my own little world. Back to the global stuff on Monday.

This is my page for April 2. It's okay. I'm trying to use this to spark some creativity for larger projects. (I keep telling myself I need to start more Divination Cards!)

Have a good weekend!
Stay home! (If 90% of us stayed home, the virus would be gone in 14 days. Just do it!)
THANK YOU, Essential Workers and Healthcare workers!
Wear a mask! It can't hurt.
-Wy

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

Global Pandemic: Day 16

Nice day today.
I got a great start on my Dyalog. I've decided to try to use stuff from my hoard that has been kicking around for a while. When I abandoned my craft space in the basement last Fall, I left a lot of my art journaling supplies down there, like paints, and spray inks. I haven't opened a jar of Dylusions paint since November last year. So I wasn't too surprised to find some of it was dried up or unusable. But I found enough that is good and that's what I'm using.

I know I have to clean out that space before I'll ever use it again. I have to pull out every item, every piece of furniture, every single piece and organize, sort, and decide whether it stays or goes. It's a huge project. I literally want to remove everything from the room so that I can clean the carpet or remove it or something. (Let's just say, I've got to do something with it as it's beginning to smell a bit like cat piss.)

That means, it's a HUGE project. Not just sorting through my stash. It's a whole shifting of stuff.

But hey, what else have I got to do?

Anyway, I took a few photos of a few pages that I've got started in the Dyalog. I'm using a dot grid and it was the only one I had that wasn't started with something. I knew it was meant for great things!

 I'm going to add a few notes just for my personal interest, and in case I need to remember what I used. I'm trying to use up the 4 bottles of Distress Paint I have.
So my warm colorway is: Abandoned Coral (Distress), Fossilized Amber (Distress), and Vanilla Custard (Dylusions).
My cool colorway is: Lucky Clover (Distress), Mermaid Lagoon (Distress), and Mushy Peas (Dylusions).
I used mainly a palette knife to apply the paint so that it would dry relatively quickly as I don't have a gelli plate or brayer. This is a bit new for me; my pages have a lot of white space left on them. I don't usually do that. I like to have a base color(s) but because I needed them to dry quickly (my heat tool wasn't at the ready), I decided to give this a go. I figure if I get too stuck on it, I can always spray it with inks later.
I used mostly smaller stencils, a variety from my stash for various companies.
Three single pages, I coated with black paint. I did stencil a bit on one of them.

I haven't gotten to the frames or the calendar part yet but I'll try that tomorrow.

See? Just get a start. The rest will come about day by day.
Stay well and STAY HOME!
-Wy

The Ladies: Art Journal Pages

In general, I just play with stuff in my art journal. I play with scraps, with ephemera, with colors, with stencils. I test out some ideas for other projects but it's mostly just my play time; a time to download from a busy week or just relax. Having said that, I rarely spend days on a page spread. I try to finish up in a single session unless I have to wait for texture paste to dry. (Mostly, it's because I'm not sure when I'll get back to it and I forget what I wanted to do or the direction I was heading. Not always a bad thing but unless I leave myself "clues", I tend to forget where I left off.)

So it's very rare that I spend such time on a spread as I did on this one. My Ladies required a lot of attention and a bit of dry time. In all, I spent about 5 sessions on them. Each session averages about 2 hours, I would estimate, not including dry time.

The Ladies:  It all started with a background that I didn't know how to finish. I had wanted to use up some Glimmer Mist sprays that were still lurking around my craft space. I decided to use a stencil that I hadn't used yet thinking I'd put little butterflies all over the page. But in pulling out the butterfly stencil, I stumbled across another stencil I hadn't used in a dog's age: my Fearless Face stencil.

That stencil always makes me feel like I can draw faces. I don't use a lot of faces in my work. (I'm not much of a people person.) I also admit that I don't like many portraits or faces in artwork. I prefer natural settings, floral images, animals, and fantasy type images. Every so often, though, I like to "make a face" and this is the way I like to do it. My idea began with Butterfly Lady. My original design was going to include the butterfly mask (also from a stencil) but her hair would be long and wind-blown over to the other page. I wanted a color to contrast with the background but also to make sense with it. I pulled out a few other stamps that I could use to design her "clothes" and hair style. Her hair changed from long and flowing to short and cropped. But her hair was originally going to be feathers.

But Owl Lady was then born. See, I originally cut out all these feathers for Butterfly Lady's long flowing locks but when I shifted to short hair, I realized the butterfly wings would make a good short hairstyle. But I didn't want to just push aside all the feathers I had already cut out AND with short hair, Butterfly Lady no longer spanned both pages. I had nothing to tie into the other page. So then I remembered that I also had an owl mask stencil and naturally, I could use the feathers with the owl.

I tried to bump up the detail on the masks with liquid pearls and Stickles glitter glue.

While I am happy with the finished product, it's not my favorite. I might have been happier if the colors weren't so contrasting. I much like analogous colors better, I think. And of course, its two faces which always make me feel a bit "meh".  But it was a good exercise for outside of my comfort zone.

Have a great week!
-Wy

Sonic Batman: Art Journal Pages

Ugh, I think I shoveled too much snow this past weekend. But I had to get out of my driveway!

I just get those lame muscles afterward and it makes for a tricky art day. So I didn't get much accomplished but I'll share a couple journal pages that I finished last week.

My large Dylusions journal is getting closer to the finish line.

The green parts of this background had been thrown on there to tie up the mop-up stenciling behind it. Copper glimmer mist next. I added the dark blue drippage to test out something. I wanted the dark color to "cut through" the lighter green. I was looking for a certain effect but it didn't work like I wanted. (I think my page was still too wet.) Anyway, the dark blue matched this image I found in my stash so I ran with it...or maybe rolled with it? As Sonic is a troublemaker, I added the snarky quote, "So when is this 'old enough to know better' supposed to kick in?"

Unlike the Sonic page, this page was built around the cut-out of Batman. I wanted the background to be very busy but I couldn't do it. I just fell in love with the copper stenciling of the circuit-like dial. While I am a bigger fan of the campy, Adam West Batman, this Dark Knight isn't half bad. And how could I not use that quote?!

Thanks for stopping in.
-Wy

Remember my Etsy Store still has some great cards...Easter as well! New sets coming soon!

Halloween Art Journal Pages

What's this? A Friday post?

Let's call it a Frightful Photo Friday EXTRA!
Bonus for you. I got more projects done than I anticipated so my "back-up" posts became my Bonus posts!
So happy Friday! This is a photo post so not much explanation but hey, that's all good, too. All of these art journal pages are done in my square Dylusions journal with black pages.

Old Bones:  Fish fossils are transparent texture paste through a stencil.

A Witch's Kitchen:  I tried to make a scene here. What is hard to make out due to the glare are the two jeweled newts (or salamanders, gekkos, lizards, etc) down toward the bottom.

Pick of the Patch:   This Dylusions girl reminded me of a pumpkin so I rolled with it.

So there's a few more pages done in my "Halloween" journal. Hope you enjoyed.
Thanks for stopping by on this Bonus day! There may be more to come!!!
Have a great weekend!
-Wy