May Intention: Honoring the Importance of Family

As one variation on New Year's Resolutions or choosing "One Little Word" for the year, I have declared an intention for 2001.  My intention is to be "Fabulous at 50." You can read more about it here.  Each month, I'm making an art journal page around my intention.  This month's journaling reads: "From attending Cynthia's Quinceanera to working on my heritage/genealogy album, in May I was fabulous because I acknowledged the importance of family."  I created this with a couple of stencils from Club Scrap sprayed with Adirondack Color Washes. Paula at Journal Artista is running an stencil challenge right now - check it out here to see other wonderful stencil art. 

Grungy Monday 3: Adirondack Color Wash

This week's Grungy Monday Challenge at the Studio L3 blog features Tim Holtz's Adirondack Color Wash.  I love these sprays and use them often with stencils.  Since I needed to make some birthday cards, I pulled out a Club Scrap flower stencil an got started. For the card on the right, I used the stencil with butterscotch, cranberry and plum color wash.   For the card on the left, I took the ink-covered stencil and pressed it onto the paper to capture the "negative image."  For both cards, I then used a Dina Wakley technique, using a paint brush dipped in water to pull out the over-spray to create a subtle water colored background.
I love how these sprays can quickly create beautiful, unique images.  While I was at it, I made a simple, but (I think) striking friendship page.  The stencil is from Ed Roth.

 Thanks for stopping by!

My Resolutions and One Little Word Art Journals

{I had a few technical difficulties posting this weekend, but I did complete my art journals and wanted to share them with. My apologies for not posting sooner. Thank you for your patience.}
As part of a year long, on line sharing project called "Art Journaling Intentions and Resolutions" that I will be hosting, today I am sharing the art journals that I have made to record my progress toward completing certain resolutions and toward focusing on my "one little word." I will also make a journal that will help my track my intention to be "Fabulous at 50," but that will happen later this month.  My plan is to pull out these journals once a month, update them, and share them with you.  My hope is that you will do the same.  My plan is to host the share on mid-month, on whatever weekend falls closest to the 15th.

To make my journals, I started with 11x15 pieces of heavy duty watercolor paper.  Each journal required four pieces of paper.  I folded three of them in half (to 7.5"x11") and cut one in half for the cover.  I decided to make my "Resolutions for 2011" journal square, so I trimmed the three interior pages to 7.5x7.5. I decided that I wanted my "One Little Word Journal" to have a horizontal orientation.

The next thing I did was to decide on a treatment for the covers.  I decided to add gesso for texture and then paint them using Michael DeMeng's color wash technique. I decided on this treatment because it makes the covers sturdier than the plain watercolor paper and because I like the way it looks.  Other approaches would be to color with watercolor paint, acrylic paint, cover with patternerned paper, etc.

I decided to go ahead and create backgrounds for all my interior pages before binding the journals. I did them all using variations on Dina Wakley's watercoloring with spray ink technique.  For my resolutions journal, I picked stencils that had various nonspecific geometric shapes (but that I mean they weren't related to any specific resolution).  You can see some samples above.

For my "one little word" journal, which focuses on healthy, I chose to use botanical and nature images throughout.  You can see some of the pages above.  Remember that I'm working with three pages folded in half to make a total of 12 pages, so sometimes I've working on two facing pages at the same time and other times I'm working on one side/page at a time.

The next step is to bind all the pages together.  You have lots of optins, since it's such a simple journal - three folded pieces of paper and two covers. You could punch three holes and tie fiber, twine or ribbon through the holes or use a bind it all or probably even staple it! I chose to use a basic coptic binding technique because I like the way it allows the pages to lie flat.  If you google coptic book binding, you'll find a variety of tutorials.  I kindof like the abbreviated but well illustrated one here or you can check on a longer one at this link. Since this is such a small book (without book board covers) and just one folio per signature, it doesn't require the fancy equipment in the links.  You could also find coptic binding videos on you tube.

The next step is decorating your cover and deciding on a journaling strategy.  You can see my covers at the very top of the post.  For my resolutions journal, I titled it "To Do:  My Resolutions for 2011 and stamped the numbers 1-12 in stayz on ink.  I wrote a quote from T.S. Eliot on top with a white Sharpie poster paint pen.  It says "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."  I wrote my 12 resolutions in white poster paint on the inside cover of the journal.  I decided not to do anything else on the inside pages for now.  I plan to treat them as backgrounds and create art journal pages (one a month) about whatever resolution I have accomplished.  I just choose whatever background calls to me at the time.

For my "one little word" journal cover (at the top of this post), I stamped health in brown paint using foam stamps because I thought it went along with the botanical/nature stencils I used inside the book.  On the back cover, I wrote the following quote by Terri Guillemets, which I found through Club Scrap: "My own prescription for health is less paperwork and more running barefoot through the grass."  The internal pages (directly above and below) are different than in my resolutions journal.

For each page, I wrote out one of the specific things I want to do around "my little word" this year.  Since many of these pages already seem somewhat complete from an art standpoint, I may simply add journaling to each page rather than adding more visual stuff. We'll see. I was also only able to come up with 8 specific things to write, but I'm sure I'll come up with four more before the year's over.
So, there you have it.  My art journaling plan for my resolutions and "one little word." With a promise that an art journal for my intention to be "Fabulous at 50" will be coming.  What do you think?  Are you willing to try anything similar?  If so, let me know and post a link.  I'll come check it out.  And I'll be returning to the project the weekend of Jan. 15th to show you what I've done and nudge you along your way!

New Classes are Fun!

I started two classes today: Art Journaling 103 with Dina Wakley and True Stories with Shimelle. Both are fabulous so far, and they work really well together. I made this page in Dina'a class, and it really captures how happy I am to be taking these classes.  Look for many more art journal pages (capturing wonderful, true stories) in the days ahead!

Freeing the Dream (art journal page)

Had fun art journaling today! This page is based on a lyric by the Avett Brothers: "There was a dream. One day I could see it. Like a bird in a cage, I broke in and demanded that somebody free it."  Seemed appropriate for a Friday.

nature walk (art journal page)

I made this art journal page about the wildflower hike I took with DH last week. You can see pictures from that walk here. Background is textured gesso painted with acrylic paint.  There's a picture of a butterfly from one of my collage sheets embedded in the background and covered with a bit of gesso and paint.  Used some Heidi Swapp ghost butterflies as a mask and spritzed with adirondack colorwash.  Added a dark green painted tag on which I stenciled a flower with light molding paste.  I'm very pleased with how it came out.

Banksy and Street Art

Troy Holden of the Caliber SF website took this fabulous photo above.  It's in Chinatown in San Francisco, and if I wasn't so busy, I'd go looking for it. It's exactly the type of  street art that I like to photograph and use on collage sheets.  Doing a little more investigation, I found out that the art is likely done by an artist known as Banksy.  You can check out his art at his website here.  In particular, look in his "shop." It's awesome!  I think this image is my favorite:

There's also a film that's coming out about Banksy and Street Art called "Exit through the Gift Shop."  If you go to this website, you 'll see a schedule of where it's playing and a youtube trailer in the lower right hand corner.  Click on it and be amused.  For more about Banksy, you can go to this extensive wikipedia entry.

You can check out many art pieces I've made using photographs I took of street art in Paris at this blog post.

I really do need to get out and take some more pictures to make some new collage sheets.  I'm feeling a little bored with my current collection!

An Owl of a Different Color

Today I have the distinct pleasure of guest blogging at Nellie Mae's blog,  This Little Blog of Mine.  I've never guest blogged before! (I hope that we get the timing down correctly, but, if not, please return later to check out both blogs.)  My blog post is a celebration of color!  I made matching art journal pages - one in her color palette (posted HERE) and one in my color palette (posted above).  It's interesting how you can get a totally different feel from two pages just by switching color palettes.  Both use the same three stencils and rubber stamp, although I did vary the quotes. I hope you enjoy these owls of a different color.

Stencil Mania

I am taking a fabulous art journaling class from Dina Wakley at Get It Scrapped called Graffiti of My Life. Dina uses lots of paint and spray ink and stencils. I am pretty familiar with stencils because Club Scrap, the monthly scrapbooking club I've been a member of since 2001, always has a stencil in their monthly kit. It's been so much fun to see how Dina uses them in her art journals. On her blog, she recently posted about one of her inspirations in the stenciling world - Ed Roth. When I checked out his blog, I realized that the Paris Street Art I fell in love in Summer, 2008, was actually stencil art. I took lots of pictures of the street art, did a scrapbook page with the pictures, turned the pictures into a collage sheet and have incorporated the images into all kinds of art including the card, fisheye collage, and textured collage seen here. It's amazing the things you learn when you take a new class!

I also think my photography has definitely gotten better, as a result of the suggestions that have been posted so far in response to my weekend give-away. You still have until 9:00 pm. California time tonight to comment on this post to get a chance to win. Thanks for visiting!