Circles and Walls

In my last post I mentioned that I was taking a class by Tammy Garcia at Daisy Yellow Art that was introducing me to new products and techniques. I have loved painting with my fingers ever since I started painting circles (see post here and tutorial here). So when Tammy introduced her technique called The Wall, and she did it with her fingers, I was hooked! I thought I would share a few insights and tips on the pages I made from this technique. I didn't plan on doing this post so I didn't take pictures along the way. I also will not share many details of the actual Wall technique in order to not infringe on Tammy's class material.

This was my first attempt at The Wall technique:

I loved the grungy look that resulted from the technique, but I don't think I used enough paint on this one. In figuring out the differences between the heavy body acrylic paint I was introduced to in this class, and the craft acrylic paints I usually use, the opacity of the heavy body acrylic requires using it a bit more and in layers to achieve the look I want. I tend to like the text of my background paper to peak through the paint. I usually get this effect by painting the paper with gesso before I paint it with color. However, it was recommended in the class that for these techniques that we NOT use gesso. At some point, though, I will experiment with gesso and the heavy body acrylic paints.

The next session added circles on top of The Wall technique. Now, if you have followed me for a while then you know how much I like circles. They pop up often on  my art journal pages, often without any forethought or planning. So, I was all about this project!

As I played I decided to put my own twist on the project - also no big surprise for me! But I think that is the beauty of taking classes or using tutorials - we learn new techniques and then add our own unique styles to them, rather then making cookie cutter copies of the artist's original. In the class we are using an altered book art journal for our class projects. I decided to do this piece on a loose piece of paper. One of my favorite types of paper to use to make background pages for my art journals is index pages from older atlases.

There a few reasons why I like this particular paper:

• It's large - anywhere from 9x12" up to 12x16".
• It's heavyweight, especially those from the older books. The weight of the paper holds multiple layers of paint well. And I enjoy building on layers of paint to achieve the types of backgrounds I enjoy.
• The text is tiny, like in a dictionary, but dictionary paper is usually fairly thin. Tiny text makes for a wonderful subtle background. 
• The older books generally used a cream paper, which ages to a nice tan-ish patina, while newer atlases use a brighter white paper. I'm sure it doesn't really matter too much what color the background paper is since I cover most of it with paint, but in my mind I think that the whiter paper affects the paint color. I'll have to test that theory at some point. Besides, I just like the patina of aged things!

I played for a long time, layering the paint, until I achieved the look I wanted. Then I tore the finished Wall page into strips and glued them slightly out-of-line onto a page in my class art journal. Although it's subtle, I like the effect of the torn, out-of-line strips on the background. I then added my circles using my favorite types of vintage ephemera, and used both a black Stabilo-All pencil and a black Neo-Colors II watercolor crayon to get the shading around the circles. The finishing touch was spattering paint in black and white.

I was quite happy with the results, and for a change, I didn't add any words to this page. I think words would actually take away from it rather than enhance it.

I had enough of the Wall paper leftover to make a background page in my Traveler's Notebook.

As always, you can find packs of ephemera papers in my Etsy shop. I may even create packs of vintage index pages since I have SO many atlases! Give me your thoughts on that in the comments below.

Thank you to my friend, Diane Kundrat, for encouraging me to write about some of my techniques and tips on my blog. Diane lives in Arizona and we have been online friends for 5-6 years as a result of my blog. A few weeks ago we finally got to meet in person in Cleveland where we spent an afternoon art supply shopping together!

December Art Journaling

Since I devoted the first 25 days of the month of December to daily Advent art journaling posts, I thought I would share the other projects I tried to fit in. Since I had started my Advent art pages in October in preparation for guest posts and daily December posting, by mid-month I was able to add some other projects into my art time.

I really wanted to do the December 30 Days of Lists challenge since I love making lists. But that project did prove to be more than I could handle early in the month alongside Advent prep for my blog and for the blog at church. The pages I did complete were a lot of fun!

I'm not totally ruling out that I may do more of the list prompts in the month ahead. Since I am so driven by the calendar and deadlines for my job, I have made a rule of giving myself permission to be more free-flowing with my art time and projects. I do strive to finish the projects I start, but the higher value for me is simply practicing creativity and enjoying the energy and refreshment it provides.

Caylee Greyvenstein from the Get Messy Art Journal community had a class that began on December 16. The start of this class coincided perfectly with school beginning its Christmas break on December 15, and my schedule slowing down. So, I jumped right into it! I am taking my time working through the project and enjoying the tips and techniques that Caylee and the other artists provide. I used an old cardboard photo folder from my dad's hometown as my journal cover. I then  added sewn in pages from a variety of materials, such as watercolor paper, vintage map pages, end-papers from old books, etc.

I have one more project that I'll save for my next post.

Advent in October

For the past few months I have had the pleasure of being a part of a launch group for a new book from author, Kris Camealy. Come, Lord Jesus: The Weight of Waiting is an Advent devotion with 25 daily readings and reflections. The book releases today on Amazon in print or electronic versions.

At first it felt kind of strange to be reading an Advent book in August and September, but Kris' daily readings, though focused on the waiting of Advent, really are a look toward God's faithfulness in keeping His promises. Looking to God with hope in the waiting is a reminder we can use each day of the year! 

Please visit Kris'blog where you can find a free gift, download the first few chapters of the book, read the backstory behind the book, and enter some special giveaways. I will share more about my reading of the book in the weeks ahead and even have a special project coming up for the Advent season using Kris's book. So stay tuned! 

You can also view this trailer for the book:

The wonderful quote artwork was made by Crystal Stine.

Meandering 2.26.2016

"Meandering: adjective; the act of following a winding or indirect course. Ramble, roam, zigzag, circuitous. A blog post about a variety of things; a little bit of this and a little bit of that."

I have a "thing" for office supplies. I love to walk into an office supply store and wander the aisles and ponder all of the new crisp papers and folders; the variety of planners and products to organize my life; labels, dividers, envelopes, pens, pencils - the list goes on and on. I don't exactly get what the appeal is, but I'm hooked! It is no great surprise then, that office supplies have made their way into my art practices. I shared previously that a stop on day one of our sisters road trip provided a wonderful supply of new and vintage office supplies. So once I was home I started playing and using these new found items in my art journaling projects. One of our great finds were two dusty boxes of old ledger paper. I had fun the other day stamping and stenciling on it.

Along with the ledger paper I have used some other office supplies in my art.

Hole reinforcements decorated with ink and paint

Mailing label, plus ledger paper as a background page.

These office supply goodies have made their way into my Etsy shop too. I now have a few Office Supply Ephemera Packs available here.

I have written posts about my recent road trip with my sister  here and here. I didn't get much of a chance to visit any parks and do any birding while on vacation, but I did see some birds. One of the highlights for me was on a walk on the trail behind my daughter's when I spotted an Eagle!

I saw a few birds that we don't have in Ohio:

Northern Mockingbird

Best I can tell this is a female Boat-tailed Grackle

And then it was just nice seeing some of the water birds again since they have migrated from the north for the winter.

Last Sunday after church Sai'Vion and I and my friend Rox went to the Window on Wildlife to watch the birds for a while. Sai'Vion is very interested in animals and is really enjoying birding. He is doing a great job of remembering the birds names and how to identify them. I, of course, am a biased god-grandma, but I'm pretty impressed with how engaged he is for a nine-year-old! We're ready for Spring to come and bring the migratory birds back to our area.

Well, that's all the meandering I have for today. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Let's Start This Road Trip!

My sister and I have wanted to do a road trip together for almost 25 years, but one thing or another (mainly parenting related) never made it possible. Sure, we took day trips and weekend adventures with our girls, but the two of us traveling across multiple states for a week-long adventure ~ that just never happened. This past summer, however, we were determined that now was the time and we scheduled a week in 2016. On January 29th we began our adventure to Charleston, SC to visit my daughter, who is the only one of our kids to live far away from us. We took two-and-a-half days to make the trip down so we could meander and shop along the way.

Our first stop was just two hours into our trip at a great shop called Hollo's PaperCraft in Brunswick, OH. They have rows and rows of paper, envelopes, craft supplies, and office supplies to explore. Here is just a sampling of things I found:

I made travel journals for our trip and many of the above items will make their way into them.  The rest of day 1 was mainly driving as we made our way through Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia to Greensboro, NC where we stayed the night.

Our first stop on day 2 was a wonderful shop called Betty's Creative Studio in Greensboro where we spent a few hours combing through paper and art supplies. Then on to Durham, NC where we spent the rest of our day. Our original plan was to go to a large flea market in Raleigh, but Durham turned out to be such a wonderful town that we stayed there all day. We bounced around to thrift, antique, and art stores. The Scrap Exchange was the best! A warehouse full of recycled items - everything from old books and magazines to old paint and paper.

Durham has done an incredible job of restoring and repurposing historical buildings and downtown districts. The area we stumbled on was the Central Park district.

There we found restaurants in restored auto dealers and old filling stations as well as the original Durham Bulls baseball stadium where the Kevin Costner movie, Bull Durham, was filmed. 

We chose to eat at "The Pit" for North Carolina barbeque.

Delicious Pulled Pork!

We will have to return to Durham someday. There is so much more to explore! Day 3 was a four hour drive down to Charleston .... but that begins a post for another day. :)