Summer, Lifebook 2013, and WOYWW

It's another beautiful warm sunny evening in Alaska so we are off to the Mat-Su Miners baseball game.  The Mat-Su Miners are a semi-pro team made up of college students from around the US who come to the small town of Palmer, live with families in the community for a couple of months and become a team. There is nothing better than a nice night at the ball park. This is the view.

I took a quick picture of my desk before I left, because in Julia's world it's already Wednesday, and so it's time for WOYWW. For an explanation of how we bop around the world looking at different work spaces stop by the Stamping Ground, Julia Dunnit's blog and she'll explain everything.

Not much on the desk except this journal I'm making. I was introduced to the combination of neo-color crayons, gesso, and water and WOWZA what a great background that creates. I used it a lot on the journal. I'll show you the whole thing if I ever finish it. 

I wanted to show you my new brush holder...or vase by any other name. There's a lot I like about this addition to my desk, but the thing I like the most is my sweetie found it and suggested the use. Just love it. I also loved this past weekend which is spent almost exclusively in the FUN ROOM. It was wonderful and the time just  flew by. I've mentioned that I signed up for Lifebook 2013 and I've done a few of the lessons. I think it would be great if you have lots of time - each week you get very detailed videos, but since I work full time time is hard to come by for me. But I did two lessons this week.

I learned to really look at eyes. The eye itself is collaged with acrylic paint and gesso. I have a ways to go but I've not drawn before and now I'm thinking that might be fun to learn too! I loved this lesson  by Kelly Hoernig who is just an excellent teacher. 

After that lesson was done I did another by Tam Laporte about honoring your emotions -- which are all under the background. Amazingly I felt better after I did it. Who knew? These aren't really my style, but I did learn a lot. 

I did two versions, because.....well, I'm not really sure. I just did. Lots of neo-crayons and gesso. LOVE those crayons. I like them - not love them - the girls look totally soulless, the bunny and the cat are much cuter! Maybe I should just stay with little creatures. I have to say I learned tons about shading tho. 

So that's what's been on my work desk lately. Now I get to go on a little trip around the world. Thanks Julia!

Catching Up on Journal Pages

Earlier this year, I took a great on-line glass with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, 30 Days in Your Journal and it added a new dimension to my art journaling. I do lots of things in my journals, play with color, test out techniques, write, remember quotes, etc. etc. Here are some of my recent pages.

This page was based on Dina Wakley's Art Journal Freedom and the scraped and painted technique she  demonstrates. I used a silhouette from a magazine and while I was writing came up with "Book of Troubles"...there's been a lot going on in our lives lately and I kinda like the phrase. I bet I use it again. The white birds are an old Tim Holtz stamp that I embossed. 

Have I mentioned I love color? This was a play day with garden colors to honor my Aunt Jane who founded Quarry Hill Botanical Garden, a wonderful garden in Sonoma, CA. I used gesso, neo-color water soluble crayons, and Dylusions white spray through a crafter's workshop bamboo stencil. 

Our summer, while very late in starting, has been awesome. I drive by a lake every time I leave my house where there are lily pads. It kinda looks like a lake, huh? I like the colors in these pages, but I can't spell and that's why there is a 2013 in the word solstice (because I added an extra i) and seriously need to play with perspective. I used water colors, twinkling H2Os, ZIM pens and a couple of copic markers. 

I made this one day as an antidote to creating a totally white piece. I also wanted to play with the "of the moment" neon orange which I picked up at Michaels for a whopping 79 cents! 

So many of my journal pages are just an excuse to play with colors that speak to me that day, which is how this page started. It's also any example of stamping the Donna Donney flower stamp on tissue paper and then affixing it to the journal page with multi-medium. The stamp rocks! 

And finally the oldest page....full of twinkling H2O's and a new Tim Holtz stamp. I love Tim Holtz stamps!!

Hot Time Summer in the City - WOYWW 211

There is an old tune by the Little Rascals that goes something like

Hot time, summer in the city
  Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

Which has been playing in my head for the last week. Although I am certainly not in a city or particularly gritty it has been a hot time...yesterday was 88...in Alaska. Not too much indoor time - lots of outdoor time tho...so. much. fun.

This was taken at Rocky Lake last night about 9:45. Earlier last night my friend and I sat in these chairs for a couple of hours after work and it was pure bliss. Which is why my desk looks like this

  

You can see the big blue squirt bottle in the upper right corner - I call it my Big Girl Squirt Bottle. I had been using a tiny mister...this is OH SO MUCH BETTER. It actually gets things wet the first time, not the 10th. What a concept. I'm getting close to finishing one of my art journals so I have put down the background for the cover. I used some silk acrylic glazes and you can see the sparkle. I love them!

  

Since I have been busy enjoying our short summer and I still have to work for a living (so limiting!) I missed last week at WOYWW or What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday hosted by Julia Dunnit each week. She explains everything over on her blog, Stamping Ground. It's tons of fun!!  Three weeks ago we celebrated four years of WOYWWing by trading ATC's. Here are some of the amazing min-works of art I received.

I received four - yes four! - ATC's, a beautiful card, AND a CD full of her designs for acetate from Gill (and my package is really on finally on the way Gill!). Marit, Nan, and Bella sent me fabulous creations and I was lucky enough to get Andrea's first ever ATC. I absolutely love WOYWW....such amazing people. Thank you!!

Buried Treasure

Seth Apter hosts an annual look for buried treasure in our own blogs. I looked and debated and in the end I decided to go back to the beginning...Tim Holtz and his 12 Days of Christmas tags were the reason I started a blog. Little did I know what I was getting in to! So glad I did though. Although I've explored other mediums and media and love to experiment, there is still something appealing about tags. So my buried treasure from 12/4/11 was called:

Day 2 - Tim Holtz's 12 Days of Christmas

I was really excited to see the tags that Tim made with the Christmas Kraft Resist....since I had quite a few tags ready to decorate.  One day I was upstairs in the "fun room" and pulled the 12 x 12 sheet out with all the words on it. I started with Picket Fence Stain as the first coat and then used all the pretty colors of the distress stains to color each word. It's all about color for me.....and lately texture, but that's another story.

So if one is good, four are certainly better....and here's what I ended up with:

I like the Snow Man the best. I like the other ones too, but he's so simple and clean....

I don't always pay attention to what side is which at the die cut machine, hence why my dear is looking right....I really enjoyed working on the canvas. It's great with the stains.

And just to round out the group, here's a picture of the tree. The perfect pearls snowflakes make the pictures a bit tough to take, but add a glimmer to the card that is just one more layer of interest.

I learned a lot with this tag and can't wait until I have more time up in the Fun Room.

Underwater World

I remember (was it really just a year ago?) that I thought ATC's were kind of beyond me. Now I have quite the little love affair going on with these miniature pieces of mixed media. The current challenge at Fun with ATC's is underwater. I was working on a piece inspired by Dion Dior last night and it was a big AHA moment. One of the techniques I thought would be great for making seaweed!

Dion works a lot with Twinkling H2O's, a watercolor paint with mica crystals embedded in the paint. They are very sparkly. One of her techniques is to get the paper very wet, lay down some color  and then put stretchable strips of bandage down and let it dry in place. Didn't have that, so I substituted regular first aid gauze.

First I put down a combination of yellows, greens and blue greens on some very wet paper. They I curved strips of the gauze and pushed them down into the paint.; partially dried it with my heat gun and then put a tad bit more water and color on top.

The next step required patience. Darn it. I covered the whole thing with a piece of sran-wrap and put a huge, heavy book down on top it and let it dry overnight. 

I thought it was kind of magical this morning when I peeled it apart before I took off for work. And as an added bonus was I really liked the colored gauze which had become significantly stiffer than when I started the project. 

When I got home, I started playing the waste gauze, some shells and beads and this is the end result. I hope you can see the sparkle. One of the nice things about using so much water in this process is the entire paper isn't sparkly so you get some good contrast. 

Let's pretend they're shells or air bubbles, or whatever you'd like them to be. 

I've been turning a lot of these into magnets and I'm guessing that's what will become of my entry into the underwater challenge at Fun with ATC's. 

Here's hoping you get lots of creative time soon! Enjoy. 

Messy, Inky WOYWW 209 Desk

Greetings oh fellow Deskers!! I just love that term - thank you Julia!

What a great week it was last week with all the sharing and learning that if you send anything outside the United States you must fill out a customs form. (Goes to show how international my life was before I joined up with WOYWW). And if you are wondering what the heck WOYWW is, please click here to be directed to Julia Dunnit's blog.

I'm a tad bit boring this week.

I got to play for a bit on Sunday evening with Distress Markers and all thing Tim (what FUN!!) and if you are interested, you can see some of my creations here. On the desk above you can see a couple of dragonflies in different color ways, lots of markers, blending tools, stains and ink. At one point I think I must have had about 15 different ink pads open....big smile. 

I was working on my entry for the June Tag in Tim's 12 Tags of 2013 and here's a couple of the experiments. 

Way over on the right hand corner of the desk is my big art journal - partially covered by a bag of ribbon - you can meet Sparkie Bird. He's a work in progress. 

Thanks so much for stopping by the Fun Room as we start a new year of world-wide snooping!! Hope you have a great week and you get plenty of creative time!!

Summer Dragonflies - Tim's Tag Plus

I've been on a real orange and yellow quick lately....so I decided to use those colors to work on Tim's June Tag. He used the dragonfly stamp again!! I was so excited. I am a TOTAL fan of dragonflies: I have a dragonfly dress, dragonfly earrings, dragonfly necklace, well....you get the idea. Plus he brought out the distress markers and we all get to pretend like we know how to watercolor! Actually I am starting to learn more about that, but this is so fun and easy. You should try it.

This is my rendition....

I did have to add some sparkle to the wings, because I think that's one of the coolest things about a dragonfly is their iridescent wings. 

And then I thought I should add a little something to the bottom and it certainly did turn out to be one of life's little moments. 

As I was sprinkling little drops of orange on another project, well, it sprinkled here too. I've decided it gives it character. Yeah, that's the ticket. Character.

I was having such a good time with the markers I mad a couple of other things using the technique including this card for my Uncle.

And because I was really in the "TIM ZONE" and I LOVED last month's technique so much I made a birthday card.

I played around with fragments last month - using the rub-ons, alcohol stains and foil on the back and loved how it came out - I was even one of Tim's May winners - so I thought I would try it again. This time I used his little stickers. With all the black I think it worked out fine. (Pretty sly how I worked that in, huh? LOL).

If you haven't joined the 12 Tags of 2013, give it a go....it is TONS 'O FUN. 

And speaking of fun, thanks for stopping by the Fun Room to see what's up! I appreciate your visit and your comments.