Color and Texture, Texture and Color

Like a magnet, I am attracted color and texture. Smack! A beautiful color combination or an interesting patch of texture can draw me in and make me want more, and more!

After painting or gel printing, I can create interesting leftovers when I clean off my brayer, stencils, or other tools on various papers. Love the randomness and unintentional designs that appear, as if by magic.

Although I enjoy trying different things, when I use paint I come home. Mainly, I adore acrylics. Last Sunday I focused on painting over a single page in my new little handmade one-signature 6” x 7” book. My intention was to create a background for attaching a fabric trim. This page was already painted on hot-press watercolor paper but I gessoed over it which created a nice base for what happened next.

Here is my original inspiration. If it had been larger, I would have simply glued it in. But it was a little short.

  

Not sure which exact paints I’d used in the original, I began using both fluid and high flow acrylics and then branched out and invited some acrylic inks into the mix. Using plastic cards, palette knives, a comb, and an occasional brush stroke I got interesting effects since some of my fluid acrylics are pretty old and drying out, making the paint thicker.

Now I really like this page. Will I leave it just as it is or add the 3-D element (green trim with beads I sewed on)? Here's how it might look if I attached it.

More of the Celestial Journal

 

Accordion Fold Mini-Book

 

I love to make prints with various gel plates. Recently, looking at 3" square prints in 9" x 12" Mixed Media paper commercial coil books I had an idea that I could fold a page into a little booklet.

This is one page with a black line showing the way I cut it to use all the images:

Celestial Journal

First spread

 

Last October, I made an 8” x 8” art journal to play with a cosmos theme using black Strathmore Mixed Media paper. This is thick paper (184 lbs.) so each signature has only two folios for a total of nine signatures. I began it the same month I made it and worked on the spreads slowly.

Outside of Journal

2nd spread

 

As a child witnessing humankind walking on the moon, I’ve long been fascinated with space travel, science-fiction, and astronomy. That interested has waxed and waned throughout my life but when I started to try photographing the moon with various cameras, my interested waxed again. Last December, my annual holiday card had a celestial theme also, using black cards, white paint, and a small round gel plate.

3rd spread

4th spread

5th spread

This paper is quite different than the usual watercolor paper I am used to. Experimenting with various paints, water soluble crayons, ink, collage, stamps, and stencils, I learned what I can and cannot do within the page spreads.

 

Brand New Year

 

Wishing you a happy, healthy, creative New Year!

Paper and Fiber Journal

 

Here's something new. A journal I made for my friend Elizabeth's birthday. It has a mixture of papers and fibers and intereresting inbetween folios.

As I was making this, I thought that the various interesting pages could be cut and used on the more sturdy watercolor and mixed media papers. It is like a kit where you can use various elements already there!

I want to make one like this for myself, but I just completed another journal which I'll share later.

Happy bookbinding and art journaling!

Goodbye 2020!

 

This has been such a challenging and difficult year for so many people and I doubt many people will mourn it coming to the end at midnight.

But I have been very, very fortunate that I have been able to work from home since mid-March. My creativity has continued and I have even blogged more this year than in the last five.

I wish you a very Happy 2021. There is new hope with the COVID-19 vacines beginning along with a brand new administration in the White House. 

Stay safe, everyone! 

Holding 3-D Items

From left: a Connamara Worry Stone from Ireland, a stone from Beachy Head, England, and a shell & pine cone from Portmeirion, Wales

These three items were in a travel journal I made about my first overseas trip but they were so bulky, I removed them from the pages. It took me a long time to decide how to use them. Accordion book? No, it would still need more room.

I glanced around my studio and saw my little Altoid tin shrines and a light bulb when off. A great solution! 

From left: Childhood is but a Day, Artifacts, and Disconnect

Selecting a tin that once held spices, I saw how nice and deep it was inside. I cut up some acrylic paintings on watercolor papers into rectangles and used eyelets, Irish linen thread for the first two items, and tiny brads for the clear acrylic medium holding the pine cone and shell.

For the outside, some Tim Holtz numbers and a "Remnants" word band.

The inside front inside lid has part of my acrylic painting that adorns the travel journal, tying it to my 1982 Journal as well as hiding the brads.

The 1982 Journal (bound in April 2018)

Fluid Art class

Fluid Art is hands down the best art or craft class, in person or online, free or expensive, I’ve ever taken! It’s filled with so many levels and layers and I’m excited not only to do the lessons but also bursting with new ideas.

The above photos show one of my little accordion books holding some of my first “mini-masterpieces.” It's very minimalists but I love it.

Amy Maricle of Mindful Art Studio is the teacher—warm, open, kind, and very present for her students. We have a private Facebook group as well. Although I’m taking the class two years after it was unveiled, Amy and fellow students are encouraging and helpful.

We are working with Golden High Flow acrylics, which is a new paint for me. Up until now, I’ve mainly used heavy body acrylics. High Flows have an ink-like consistency that, with Amy’s guidance, can do amazing things. I was attracted to the class by the wonderful video promo and was hoping it would return me to my first love--painting. It has far exceeded my expectations! Not only am I learning new things, I am feeling different. More enthusiasm. More excitement. More focus. More discoveries. More painting!

Leaf Prints Journal

Here's my newest journal. I was inspired by other artist's small books and thought I'd cull some already made pages from my stash of acrylic paintings.

This one is just so cute and feels good in your hand. I experimented using an old cotton t-shirt for the covers and it turned out great.

Most of the leaf prints were made in 2008, 2009, and 2010 with a brayer or gelatin on 140 lb. watercolor papers.

Some leaves are from trees that are no longer around and bring back a memory, such as the Ginkgo trees near the front of the library where I work. 

There are still many blank pages awaiting a swirl of new leaf prints.