2013 Favorites

As I'm not sleeping I began to think back on 2013 from an artistic point of view. My word for the year was Artist - as in this was the year I would become one. Sometimes I own that, sometimes it still seems  far away, but there is no doubt I grew....as an artist. So here's my top ten of the year.

Tim Holtz issued a tattered flower challenge in March. This tops my favorites list because I really played with colors, mediums, and textures. I had never done anything on a a piece of metal either.

I used grunge board, cheese cloth, plastic, paper, and screening, with paints, stains, metallics, glue (to stiffen the cheese cloth), texture fades and some favorite buttons. The finished piece is hanging in the Fun Room. Original post.

















The next piece was a birthday gift for a dear friend who has been nothing but encouraging about my art work. Not only was it a gas to make - she loved it! Original post.

From canvas to ATC, the next project was for an ATC challenge of underwater. I had been playing around with some Twinkling H2O's and salt a couple of days before and this kind of fell together.  Original post.

I participated - somewhat - in Lifebook 2013. It's a great, year long course, but it takes a lot of time - something I rarely have. This lesson was entitled Quirky Birds. Indeed. Original post.

The tag is another Tim Holtz inspired project. He's what got me into this after all. As I recall this was either the second or third attempt at the colors and layout, but I just love how it came out. It's incredible vibrant...and hangs within my field of vision at the office. Original post.

My daughter turned 21 this year. One of the things I started doing for the kids when they came into my life was silly birthday riddles - I'm made some very unusual rhymes over the years. This year I was informed she would like a BIG card. So I made her a canvas, and turned it into a card. Based on Christy Tomlinson's style...another find from Lifebook. Original post.

Another Lifebook project by a great teacher, Kelly Hoerning. I learned a BUNCH about eyes...even managed to draw a couple. Great techniques as well. Original post.

These little notebooks were Christmas presents I made for sisters and friends. What makes me laugh about them is I started to make them with scrapbook paper and then realized, duh, I make paper....I got good and inky with these! Original post.

These are a recent project as well. Affirmation Cards for the Brave Girls Club. They make the list not because they are such great works of art, but for how consumed I was in making them. I stayed up until 1:30 am and was back at my desk at 7:30 am. Quite unlike me for a Sunday morning! Original post.

And finally this rounds out the list...because it was another first. Really the first time I played with canvas....there's going to be more of that in the new year. Plus the colors are Yummy. Original post.

Thanks for taking this little journey with me....both this post and the whole creative ride. I really can't imagine doing what I do, learning what I have, getting a fraction of the inspiration I have, without all you folks in blogland. I am thankful girl!!

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!!

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.