Art catch-up

It's been a while...

First some journal covers.

Back cover of "Dither" a square hemp book I'm fond of.

Front cover of my Global Hand Book. Second iteration because I didn't like the first go.

Front cover of my small Strathmore mixed media book.

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Then some journal pages...

Techniques from the 2013 workshop with Robert Joyner in my small square hemp book.

Exploring the doodleverse. My journal pages are often messy doodles like this.

My current favourite saying.

Tree Troll. Heavy mixed media in my brown paper journal.

 I've been playing with techniques from the 2013 Strathmore journal workshops. I love free workshops. I can take the techniques and do whatever I want with them. No pressure.

Lettering has captured my interest lately, so I've been doing a lot of that too, and digging up interesting quotes.

In between packing and cleaning and more packing and more cleaning...

Fun with Instagram and my phone camera

Bean wonders if flowers are in fact cheese.

A white rose in Devonian Park, left at the bottom of a huge tree

A grey and church-y kind of day.

Her Royal Sushi-ness.

Fun with art journals

A flying grannybug and her prey.

Watercolour sketching

Carving, waterfalls and apple blossoms

Carved lily inspired by Barb's photo

Chocolate Lily - flower & photo courtesy of Barb

Easter Weekend

I am kicking myself for not taking the Nikon with me today. I wasn't expecting to discover a new trail, which is actually a very, very old trail. Can't believe I was born and raised here and hadn't heard of the Barde Knockie Trail before. It was apparently cut through the forest by Sooke settlers in the 1850's and is one of the oldest BC trails still in use. It was amazing and I'll have to go again soon with proper equipment.
So instead of amazing Barde Knockie photos, here are a few pretty Devonian Park photos, the cover of my latest little journal and an Easter imposter.

No, I'm not giving you the easter baskets. You're fooling no one!

Clearing out photos from my camera

... and a bit of art.

Yesterday's hike was a wet one, though I'd been lulled into a false optimism by early morning sunshine. I didn't want to risk the Nikon, and I hadn't properly charged the phone, so this is all I got:

Witty's Lagoon Oct 22 2011

I take a lot more urban photos with my phone and I like how some of them turn out.

Early morning Douglas St

One way... like most streets in the downtown core

Pioneer Square

I've been working in my art journals a lot. Finished a couple and bought a new one to celebrate. Here's the front cover and inside front:

Front cover - extremely mixed media

Inside front - one of my carved stamps and a sketch.

September Sunday

I've been trying to cut back on the amount of photos I take on my hikes. East Sooke Park really tests my resolve... and then breaks it into tiny pieces and scatters it to the winds. I think I took over 200 shots and I still have no photo editing software. Brilliant planning on my part! Good thing I live with graphics geeks.

New carved stamp of some generic carp-like fish... in white ink on canvas book cover.

Part of another book cover that's too big for the scanner.

Blue journal

Patti and I both got one of these mixed media journals from Strathmore and, oddly enough, I've been using its pages for sketching only, so far. I have managed to get a start on the front and back covers and took some shots outside.

The front.

The back.

Gargoyle reads.

just goofin' around, that's all...

(I miss the old This Hour...)


Here's a couple that I painted in Patti's gorgeous leather-bound journal. The paper was yummy! I love the way it took the sepia watercolour and it didn't buckle at all under the acrylics. Smooth, hot-press watercolour paper is my favourite paper evar. I do try to broaden my horizons, but keep going back to it. :)

My thanks to Patti for the great photos!

Catching up

I've been going nuts with the art journal, and kept meaning to post what I've been working on, but by the time I'd let things dry, I'd been hit with a new inspiration (or new medium to try out) and was already back at it.
I'll start with the newest page and the newest medium: a light modeling paste from Liquitex which I LOVE! I love it so much. I cannot believe I spent so much time trying to get the smoothest base I could find when I could have been making my own textures! This is the best invention since Arches hot-pressed paper. Which, by the way, I will be trying the paste on at some point, because the little journal is starting to feel too little. I think the next journal will be the 8.5" x 11".


The one before Anxiety: Schrodinger Koi

A spread where I was really playing around with printed papers, gloss medium and plain ol' white glue.



















I have a few more, but they're not feeling "done" yet. I find myself going back and forth a lot, and even page one is not quite to the point I'm hoping for. I love being able to go back and change and fix or even to paint over it all and start anew. I am so in love with mixed mediums right now it's dopey.