Alternatives to Rubber Stamp Carving

On Black Friday, I treated myself to some discounted online workshops from North Light Shop, which carries products and classes for Cloth Paper Scissors.  Among the {ahem} eight downloads I purchased, was Playful Printmaking with Dina Wakley.

I've been putting her class instruction to use in my art room, finding some interesting alternatives to carving my own rubber stamps for making original prints on papers for my art journaling and collage creations.

Without giving away all of her workshop secrets, I wanted to share some of the new things that have found their way onto my work table.

First, I created some monoprinting tools by cutting shapes out of thick watercolor paper (Dina used tag board, otherwise known as manila file folder, but it didn't prove thick enough to make a good print for me so I opted for something thicker) and gluing them down onto pieces of tag board.

My experiment with tag board-on-tag board

My experiment with watercolor paper-on-tag board

By applying paint with a brayer, the tag board creates a kind of stamp for monoprinting onto art paper.

My first run was more about trying the technique than producing something I plan to use for a specific project.  Some of the papers were kind of pretty, though some were a bit of a hot mess.  I think I need to spend some more time looking at Dina Wakley's work to see how this style of printing works with her art journaling style.

Next, I tried using a pen to press designs into regular old foam, like I find in the kids' section at the craft store.  I found this technique a little more promising. I could use some of the same designs I've used when carving stamps into rubber, only this process is MUCH less labor intensive!

Both of these are designs I've carved into rubber before.

It sounds like these stamps should last for quite a little while, making impressions for months and even years to come (whereas the tag board stamps don't stand the test of time quite so well).

The main thing for me has just been getting back into my art room!  I'm not sure what causes the procrastination; what crazy person puts laundry and house cleaning ahead of art time?!?

At the risk of dooming my intentions to failure by making them into New Year's Resolutions, I'd like to see 2017 be a year of increased art-making, even if it's only an excuse to get my hands into their preferred state of paint-y and glue-y-ness!

Art Journaling Circles: January Meet-Up

Last night, I attended my first meet-up with the Journaling Circles group that meets in my area, led by the author and artist Rosemary Augustine.  The group meets once a month at a local Panera to work in our art journals:


Our facilitator Rosemary leads the group, providing the exercises and theme for the night:

I found out about Journaling Circles on MeetUp.com, while looking for art-related groups in my area.  I was so excited to discover that these like-minded women are pursuing their creativity and artistic expression just a half-hour from my home!

We all came with our own stash of markers, paints, water-brushes, washi tape, and other basic supplies, not knowing exactly how Rosemary would direct our evening.  We started out with a moment of deep-breathing to center ourselves, so we could breathe in our creativity and breathe out criticism, judgment, and expectations.  I often underestimate how valuable such moments are before launching into my art.  I can feel a real shift when I take a moment to relax, switch gears, and focus.

Then we did some loosening-up exercises in our journals, just to get our arms stretched and our hands moving--both dominant and non-dominant hands!

Then we set to work on our evening's prompt.  We were thinking about "DIRECTION," and creating some sort of map for our new year.  For awhile, we worked independently and quietly, but soon we began to talk and share about ourselves as we worked.

Lisa couldn't resist a smile for my "candid" shot of the table!

I worked in an art journal that I've used on-again/off-again for a few years now.  It is a 1964 calendar with a Venetian theme.  I created my flow-chart style spread over top of a reproduced painting of one of the grand waterways of Venice.  I made twelve boxes to represent the twelve months of the year, but my goals are not restricted to any particular month; they will be present to carry me throughout a creative and healthy 2015.

My finished art journal spread:  Direction, 2015.

A couple of the women allowed me to photograph them with their completed pages.  Here is Megan, who is a software consultant by day, and a talented artist and blogger all the time.  I am very excited to check out her blog further, as what I've seen so far is a great read.

Here is Lisa, a career teacher now pursuing her degree to become a college English professor--a girl after my own heart!

We were a diverse group in our 30s, 40s, and 50s, including an art therapist, a children and youth director, a stay-at-home mom (that's me!), a project manager, an author and artist, and others I look forward to learning more about at future gatherings.  I came home feeling energized and inspired...and, after all, isn't that what it's all about?





2015: My Year to FACE IT!

My elderberry syrup failed me this holiday season, leaving me with a sinus infection over Christmas and plenty of time to rest and consider the upcoming year. 

That was my silver lining for spending over a week feeling sick and tired!

I read an essay by Julia Roberts (not that Julia Roberts) entitled, "Be the Mother of Reinvention" in the book Forty Things to Do When You Turn Forty, edited by Ronnie Sellers.  In Roberts' chapter, she suggests having an unpregnancy--nine months to give birth to a new you, and to a life that fills you with "curiosity, excitement, and energy that can only be achieved from a true sense of purpose and a giddy enthusiasm."  Just as a woman's life changes dramatically during the 40 weeks of a pregnancy, a woman's life can change in equally dramatic, though completely different ways, during the 40 weeks of an unpregnancy. 

I was intrigued by Roberts' nine-month model for success, transformation, and reinvention!

Right after reading the essay, I discovered a half-price opportunity to sign up for the online art course entitled Radiant: Faces, offered by Effie Wild.  It was pretty uncanny: a drawing class with nine teachers, nine styles, nine characters. 

I decided right then that in place of a Word for the Year, as I have done in the past, I would have a nine-month artistic journey to learn how to draw radiant faces.

 

2015 will be my year to FACE IT!

 

(In my head, the phrase ABOUT FACE comes to mind about equally, so that might end up being how I think about my focus.)

I have already watched a valuable lesson from Effie about using a notebook to get the most out of the online art courses that I take.  The photo above shows my chosen notebook.  It has a gorgeous aboriginal design on the cover, and was a gift from Australia brought to me by my niece-in-law.  The first several pages of the book contain images and messages from the various family members who celebrated New Year's Eve 2013 with me, when I received the book, and the rest of the book will contain my notes and sketches from the 18 lessons of Radiant: Faces. 

 



The following pages from my art journal have nothing to do with the class, since I haven't begun the lessons yet, but they are two little ladies I drew using ideas and images from my Drawing board on Pinterest, which has been a helpful drawing resource in these, my pre-instruction days!

I have already begun to watch Jane Davenport's workshop in the Radiant: Faces class, and am willing myself to not feel intimidated before I've even begun.  I have nine months for this journey, and can't wait to see where I am, come October!

Good Advice from Dina Wakley

Isn't it great when someone offers a piece of advice that is SO obvious and SO logical that you should have been doing it all along, but you needed to hear it in THAT MOMENT to really hear it for the first time?

I read an excerpt from Art Journal Courage by Dina Wakley in the Create Mixed Media eNewsletter about taking the leap to draw in your art journal by starting with simple shapes: circles, petals, leaves, hearts, stars.  "Get your hand in the habit of moving and making marks on your page," she writes. "You're not making a masterpiece here, you're practicing your drawing on a journal page."

If I want to start including personal drawings on my journal pages, rather than my usual "go-to" collage approach, then I am going to have to pick up my pencil, pen, or paint brush and start making marks on the page!

Obvious.  Logical.  And something I have NOT been doing!

So I used the background pages I have been painting, and drew a leafy vine with a black Stabilo pencil (which I didn't even realize I had, and completely love using!)

I used a mix of acrylic and watercolor paint on my leaves, and wet the Stabilo lines with just a little bit of water to darken and solidify them.  When I finished, I realized how perfect the design of a little plant and the sentiment "hold on to life" were for that day.  My girls were watching "Wall E," where a little tiny plant growing out of an old shoe holds promise for new life on a dying planet, and calls people back home to Earth to start their world anew.  And in the midst of some troubling medical information that sent me reeling into "worst case scenario land," those words carried a special encouragement for me.

Sometimes it really helps to hear the obvious.  If I'm going to draw, I need to pick up a pencil and put it down on the page.  I need to move it around.  I need to go to the next page and move it around some more.  "You're not making a masterpiece here, you're practicing your drawing on a journal page."  Thank you for the reminder, Dina!  My little leafy vine is a lot more satisfying than a painted page with nothing on it!

Painted Journal Pages

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been playing around with paint up in my art room over the past week or two.  I was re-reading through books like Daring Adventures in Paint by Mati Rose McDonough and Painted Pages by Sarah Ahearn Bellemare, and there was no way I could look through all those photos and techniques, and not pick up some painting tools of my own!

To get myself back into the painting "groove," I pulled out the tried and true tools for making colorful background pages in a journal that was not in the least intended for wet media:  a 5x7 notebook with thin brown kraft-paper by Paperchase.  First came the bubble wrap, with some scallops and swirls with a paintbrush:

On another page, I played around with a brayer and different colored craft paints, and then it got the bubble wrap treatment, too:

Then I used a fabric doily as a stencil for this page:

I scratched into my layered acrylic paints on the page, which is something I never thought I liked the look of, but I kind of do like it here:

I love making circles (maybe a little too much) with milk bottle lids:

And there is always the trusty outdated credit card for making straight lines and grid lines on the page:

After using a brayer to apply some paint layers to this page, I used one of my favorite stencils to create the top border:

And, of course, a page with sewing pattern scraps adhered with gel medium:

I decided to try a "poor man's gelli print" on a couple of pages by applying paint over a stencil onto a plastic placemat using a sponge applicator:

It's definitely not perfect, but it was fun to try.  (And it led me to put a Gelli plate on my last-minute Christmas wish list!)

Finally, I used that same sponge applicator to make some solid circles on a multi-layered background:

I may have gotten just a little too carried away, because all the paint build-up on my notebook's spiral binding is making it virtually impossible to get the book closed again, especially the thick cardboard cover!

Without a lot of coaxing, this is about as far as I can get it closed:

That's a task for another day; right now I need it open anyway!

Probably even prettier than the pages themselves are the palette papers I placed underneath my notebook to set out all my paint for brayering, dabbing, and mixing!

Initially, after watching some videos by Roben-Marie Smith and her Art to the 5th cohort, I thought I might use these pages as the basis for a Documented Life 2015 project.  Now I am thinking I would like to use them as the backgrounds for some drawings and paintings, and I'm gathering ideas for what those might look like in my sketchbook.

 

I'll keep you posted!

 

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Come back by soon, because I will be showing you a very cool painting effect using rubber cement, watercolors, and a black Sharpie fine-tip pen!



Glue Sticks and Stitches

Sometimes a paper crafter just has to hole up in her craft room and play around with paper, scissors, and glue for awhile.

Add in in my sewing machine, and I'm in paper crafting heaven!

On Friday, I found a big stack of Project Life 4x6-inch grid cards on deep discount at Jo-Ann, as well as some 7Gypsies journaling tags marked as Clearance.  I've tried to steer clear of random clearance purchases, but these were too good to pass up!

Every time I've managed to slip away for a moment into Studio 791, I've put another layer of paper or another row of stitching into one of these collages.

I envision them in my art journal, with writing added in any open spaces.

Sometimes when time is tight, it's nice to have a big focal element for a page already completed.  Then I can focus instead on a fun background paper, or the journaling, or a border, or something like that.

My husband came in as I was taking this photo of the aftermath of my collaging, and he said quite seriously, "So, what exactly is the purpose of the far away shot...?"  I said, "Crafters love to see each others' messy desks after they've been working on projects!"

He tries so hard to understand me, dear man, but I think that what I do in here still baffles him!

Sketches from Paradise

I haven't quite developed the "sketchbook habit" that I am hoping for, but I have completed a couple more pages since I last posted with the leaves from my walk by the creek.  This time, I worked from photographs from my summer vacation in Hawaii. 

My inspiration photo

First, I sketched a bird-of-paradise plant from our hike up to Manoa Falls.  Following a pencil sketch, I outlined it with a thin black marker, painted it with watercolors, and strengthened the ink lines once the paint dried.

Following Alisa Burke's lead, I added a black-marker border and some journaling to capture a few notes about the subject matter. 

I get the most amazing feedback on my sketchbook pages from my budding-artist daughter, Katy.  When she saw my finished page, she threw her arms around my waist, sputtered a moment over what to say, and declared, "I love you, Mommy!"  If that isn't incentive to keep up my sketchbook efforts, I don't know what is!

Once I finished the bird-of-paradise page, my daughters wanted to watch me do a second page, and "voted" on the lizard we saw at the Nuuanu Pali Lookout on our trip. 

My second inspiration photo

Animals are clearly not my strong suit, and the girls clearly saw that, but enjoyed watching me work on the page and were gracious about my results!

 I always think I should point out, "in my defense," that most of my work is completed on the sofa with a five-year-old on my right side and a six-year-old on my left.  Not a whole lot of freedom of movement for this artist's elbows, and certainly no fear of drawing with an audience allowed!

I think I better stick to leaves and flowers for awhile!