Green weekend

I've got a watercolour landscape on the go right now which is taxing my limited patience, so I take breaks where I just play in my journals.

 

Thanks once again to Patti, I got a much clearer shot of this cover.  

Spring has finally arrived. I went for a nice hike with Bean this morning and I think I've got some more reference shots for later.

Far Away

 The cover of my newest sketchbook was blank for too long. Here's the back cover, no longer blank.

Mixed media with text pages, acrylics, watercolours, oil paint pen, gel pen, Pitt pens and pencil crayons.

Patti says it looks like he's spreading space cheese on a cracker... not sure I like the sound of "space cheese". o_O

Another productive Sunday afternoon

Good company, good music, and happy dogs makes for great arting.

A detail from the inside cover of the large Strathmore mixed media journal

From my large hemp journal... I think he's related to Madame Frostbeetle.

A batch of new stuff

Thanks to Patti for the use of her home-made photo booth and awesome camera.... these spiral bound books hate my scanner so much.

Pan & Syrinx in my small Strathmore Mixed Media journal... stamp pad, acrylics, watercolours, pencils, pen&ink.

Binary girl in the same journal... acrylics, paint marker, pen&ink, pencils.

Grumpy Hippy in my large hemp journal... honestly don't remember all the media I used on him, but trust me there was a lot of it.

A sketch of Janelle Monae turned into fun with gel pens and pencils in my large Strathmore mixed media journal.

Little forest dude in the small Strathmore journal... decorative paper from the Papery, pan pastel, watercolour, hand-made stamp, stamp pad, pencils.

Busybusy

I have a couple of projects on the go that I can't share, but it's keeping me pretty busy. I signed up for the Strathmore free workshops (in the sidebar, there) before I knew that I'd be offered the latest project. Good thing, or I might have skipped the workshops and I'm enjoying it a lot! The gesso and pastel thing probably won't be something I use very often, as I find it a little anaemic-looking, but the texture sure is interesting. The idea of using my old artwork, though, I'm loving so much! The first one is in my Strathmore watercolour journal with fluid acrylic background, some die-cut paper and the sea monster is a print-out of one of my old pieces. The second one is in my little hemp journal. The page sat with just the paint on it for many months, but playing with the die-cut paper inspired me. :)

Strathmore Visual Journal Workshop 1

I joined Strathmore's series of free workshops (see the link in the right-hand column) and week one of the first workshop with Pam Carriker started on Jan. 1. Collage isn't something I've done a lot of, and I don't think I've ever given thought before to recycling my own artwork, but that's what this workshop is all about.
I found it's a fantastic way to re-use my digital art... a lot of which has never seen the light of real day, due to a lack of decent printer. The only time I had anything printed off was for commissions, and it was a little expensive for just a couple of prints.
The other use I found for it was getting copies of spreads I've done in some of Patti's journals so I can have a completely different version in my own journals. Too cool. :)
I went out to Patti's studio yesterday and we spent about five hours playing with that recycling theme. As usual, it was incredibly productive and I came home with three journal pages for the week one prompt. All the images are my own, except for the dog tarot and text pages (which I got from Patti!).

Flying into the New Year

It's a very chilly night, here... I'm tucked up on the couch, playing with the dog and doodling. I hope everyone's tucked up somewhere warm, if not now then soon.

Flying into 2011... here's a mixed media journal spread done with acrylic paint, decorative masking tape, Sakura paint pen, gel pen and Prismacolor pencils. I used a very dull x-acto knife to cut out the birdie.