Happy Birthday Patti!!

It's my dear friend Pattio's birthday today and I hope it's been one long day of fabulousity!
Everyone (all three of you who read this blog ;) go on over there and wish her a Happy Birthday after admiring her journaling and arting prowess.

Aunt Linda and Tags

I was out at Patti's yesterday with some plain manila mail tags. They are no longer plain!
And as is usually the case I came away even more inspired than when I started. You'd think that 5 straight hours of arting would leave me wanting to go play table tennis or something, but no. I went home and finished up a portrait of my aunt Linda that I'd started a while back and got stalled on. Somewhere on the road home it suddenly clicked in my head and I knew how I wanted to finish it. I love when that happens!
I used some of our Mad Hatter's Tea Party paper as a border... I sure get a lot of mileage out of our homemade papers.

Quick Lily

I was on a roll tonight and just wanted to keep playing with the acrylics. So I did.

I know it's bad...

... it's an aggressive, invasive and non-native species that should be eradicated from our Island.
But to me it will always be part of the eternal background of my childhood summers along with khaki-coloured lichen, dark grey granite, ochre grass and cerulean skies. When it was hot enough to make the road shimmer we'd start hearing the POP POP POP of the scotch broom seed pods. We would take the flower buds and coax them open to use as puppet heads, and we used the sticks as swords or magic wands or roof arches, as the need arose.
I know now that it's a horrid weed, but I loved them as a kid. Isn't that always the way?

Anyways, I was stuck home today with an ill husband. While he moaned dramatically on the couch I painted in my little, almost-all-done journal.

Professor Snorq - Another ATC

Just finished this one tonight. Scanning it was a challenge because it's covered with iridescent gold, and the little edge squares are metallic red. Shiny doesn't render so well with my scanner, alas.

No title for you!

I had a gigantic blast with Seth's Buried Treasure hunt. I now have far too many new blogs to keep tabs on because there were so many talented folks taking part in this. Thanks again Seth, you art enabler!

Playing with ATC's yesterday was fun and relaxing when it was so very hot outside. I'm also showing a spread from my journal where I played with scrap paper and paint and a ballpoint pen. I don't think any of these are "done" just yet, but they are at a good stopping point for now.

Resurrecting a fun post

Seth from The Altered Page put out a request for bloggers to repost a favourite of their creation.
"Cat-Like-Thing in Tree-Like-Thing" is mine at the moment. It was fun to make and I still smile when I look at it. C&Ping the original post below:

This creature was inspired by a doodle from the sketching I did at the Vic Poetry Slam, oddly enough.
The media is so mixed that I can't quite recall all the steps I took with it. The original background that you can see peeping through the aurora strip was, if I remember correctly, a watercolour and chalk wash with chalk overtop and was done months ago. It sat in my book waiting for inspiration to strike. After the poetry slam, I knew I needed to draw the little creature, so I did and that sat for a couple of weeks. The bluey-purple nightsky and leaves are acrylic and I did that at Patti's place last weekend. The rest I did last night with my fave white pens and Prismacolor pencils. The photo sucks, unfortunately, but I can give the gist of it at least.

Art to soothe my aching head

I was down and out with a horrid sinus headache yesterday (and still haven't quite shaken it today, but it is better) and didn't have the oomph to do much of anything except lay on the couch with pencils, paints and paper nearby.
So here's the rather-bare-bones illo for "chapter thirteen" done in acrylics, sepia ink and Prismacolors.

A Drive-By Posting

Before rushing off to work I thought I'd share the first two pages of my new journal.
Oh, and don't forget that Patti over at Jazzgoil is having a give-away! Go take a look, it's awesome.

A new journal is like...

... discovering a whole new world with creatures and plant life that you've never seen before!
I realized last night that it's been one year almost exactly since I first started working with art journals. Pattio and I hit Island Blue Print yesterday at lunchtime and I bought the successor to the first little hemp journal I bought in July 2008. I was tempted to get another just like it, but then Patti and I found some awesome, ready-made half-lined/half-blank hardcover books from Daler-Rowney's Cachet line. Mine's an interesting 7"x10" size which is bigger than the hemp one, but still smaller and more manageable than the rest of my current "stock".
I had meant to not do anything with it til I went to Patti's place tomorrow for some arting, but... BUT... Last night the cover called to me with an inspiration I couldn't ignore, and since I do have this wonderful new black gesso that does NOT smell like it's associated with the devil's nether regions (see my post about Jo Sonja's black gesso ewwww), I went ahead and played.
So first is the new cover where I taped off the outer third, sanded it to get rid of the shiny and then painted it with the black gesso. Then I took my favourite Speedball nib and some white acrylic ink to draw the main outlines and finally a very sharp Sky Blue Light Prismacolor pencil to do some of the detail. Eventually I'm going to wrap the dragons and clouds around the inner side of the cover as well, but by the time I'd finished this much, it was 2am. Oops!
Second is the cover of my first art journal, where I discovered the joys of phthalo green, blue shade, for the first time. It makes me remember being in Patti's studio and being in awe of how comfortable she was with EVERY single art medium known to mankind. Heheh.