An Artful Day

Yesterday was an artful day for me, meaning that I accomplished a lot artwise. I finished up 29 inchies, made the two ATCs you see here, started an art journal page and did some materials testing for a future project.

That's not to say that I only worked on art yesterday. I also completed some ordinary (read "not-so-fun") duties, as well. We won't get into those!

There were off-and-on thunderstorms yesterday, so I stayed away from the computer, otherwise I wouldn't have had so much art time. That means today is a writing and computer tasks day, so I won't be immersed in art today - at least not unless I get a huge amount done! Well, we'll see about that! Wishing you artful days in your future :)

Painted Pages Revisited

After receiving a comment on my recent post about painting journal page backgrounds (Thanks, Jeanne!), I thought I'd show some more pictures of painted pages. The post and comment can be read here.

The magenta/blue background shown here was painted by dabbing a generous amount of acrylic paint on the background first, then scraping it across with a credit card. The yellow orange background was painted by dabbing some of the paint on and scraping, then adding more paint and repeating. The page shown on the earlier post was when I running out of paints from the little pots, so I had to keep dabbing the paint on the page, scraping it, then more dabbing and scraping, trying to fill the page while using up the little bits of paint. In other words, there are lots of different ways to do this simple background technique. Every background page will look unique. This means that if you find a look that you really like and want to repeat it, you might want to write down how you did it!

Red AB Pages

It's been hot, so I thought a red project would be perfect for my hot summer theme today! This is a two-page spread in a red-themed altered board book. I filled the pages with red items and pictures of red items. Red iron-on metallic thread from Kreinik spells out the words "Seeing Red", and also is swirled throughout the two-page spread.

Time Lost, Altered Book Pages

It seems like these are the "lazy days of summer" - to me, anyway! I do the things I have to do, but sometimes it's hard to get many of the other things on my list done.

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time taking apart a book of images. I cut out the pages and individual images I liked and disposed of the rest. It took a lot longer than I thought!

The picture here is a two-page spread in a rose-themed altered book. A niche is cut into the center of the left page, and it holds "real" three-dimensional silk roses in a halved container. The right page sports a large Texas-shaped puzzle piece, also yellow rose and Texas postage stamps. The embellishment on both pages is Kreinik's iron-on metallic thread.

Artful Blogging Party

I was very late to ArtsyMama's Artful Blogging Party, but I went anyway, I viewed a ton of artful blogs with great tutorials and other interesting information! (Since I was late, I didn't get to post a tutorial for the party, but my earlier post below has my non-tutorial for making acrylic paint backgrounds, if you'd like to look.) If you didn't get to the party, or you'd like to go back and check out some of the links again, here is the permanent link to the party page:

Messy, But Fun!

Yesterday I painted a bunch of background pages in my art journal. The page here is the last one, when I was trying to use up the colors from a little set of paint pots!

Here is a non-tutorial for how I paint my art journal backgrounds: 1) Cover work surface and place scrap paper under page to be painted (I'm very messy!); 2) Dab or squirt acrylic paints on the page (do this randomly or in a pattern); 3) Scrape paint across page with old credit card or gift card (you can also use a chunk of heavy cardboard); 4) Rub excess paint off card onto scrap paper or another surface to be painted; 5) Repeat scraping, if necessary. TIPs: If there was enough paint to cover the whole page, more paint can be added and scraped at any time. You can also dab a little paint, scrape it, dab a little more, etc., untill you get the look you want. I tend to use lots of paint, so my work area gets super-messy, LOL!

While I was being creatively messy, I thought I'd also paint some cardstock pieces with the excess paint from the background pages. I'm going to use the painted cardstock pieces for inchies. I also alcohol-inked some cardstock for future inchie projects, and laminated some tissue to an altered book. I like to do a load of messy steps all at once!

Great Finds

This past weekend, I found some very interesting items at garage sales. I got two packages of cardstock, two packages of blank greeting cards (more cardmaking in my future, to be sure!), a large amount of postage stamps (some of those seen at right), and several books. Among the books were two books about movie stars and two song books (like music sheets but in book form).

I already read one of the movie star books, it is about silent movies, and has lots of interesting photos. It's fun going to garage sales; I never know what I'm going to find. It's also fun to think about what I'm going to make with the items that I found! (Now I just have to find a place to put all my new goodies!)

New Journal Page

I usually don't put my journal pages on my blog. There's nothing wrong with that, put I always put my journal pages on Flickr, so I don't want to have the same pictures posted everywhere.

Anyway, this is the first journal page I've done for a long time, so I thought I'd post it here, like a special occasion! The background was already painted with acrylics (I painted a bunch of backgrounds at the same time). I've been wanting to use this background, and I thought it looked sort of summery. It reminds me of lime- and banana-flavored popsicles!

I added some words around the picture; in case you can read them, here's what they say, starting on the top and going clockwise: "breeze softens velvety grasses", "luxurious green", "evening's face aglow", "luscious range of color greatness".

Missing My Art Journal

I've got to start posting earlier in the day....last night, when I was going to post, there were thunderstorms, and I couldn't do it! (Didn't want to get "zapped" or "fried"!)

Today I visited Kira's blog, and also looked at the journal pages on "Journal Junk" at Flickr. This places reminded me that I haven't done any pages in my art journal in a L-O-N-G time! I haven't had an art journal for very long, and I typically don't do much writing in it, mostly art, because it's relaxing and makes me feel good! As you can see, there are two more greeting cards pictured above, one of the reasons I haven't done any journal pages lately, LOL! In fact, I've made so many cards lately, I wasn't sure if I had psoted these two before, ha! (Well, you're probably so sick of see cards that they all look the same to you, anyway, LOL!)

What Would You Choose?

Anyone reading my posts is probably sick of seeing cards! Not to worry, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I've just about run out of cards to post. Cardmaking is a favorite of mine, so there's sure to be more cards on this blog in the future!

Speaking of favorites, what art/craft project type would you like to do all the time? Pretend for one minute that you have to choose just one type of project to make for the rest of your "art life". I know, it's unrealistic! And who wants to choose, anyway? But if I had to choose right now, I'd choose cardmaking. The reasons I'd choose cardmaking are as follows: 1) I could make cards using many different techniques, 2) I could use tons of different materials, 3) I could vary the types and styles of cards I made, and 4) there's always a person and occasion to make a card for! So, if you had to choose only one project type to do, what would you choose?