Too Much Fun!

I have been the grandest time working with my art supplies. This is a background I made using my PanPastels. I love it and can't wait to make its cool twin!

Digital Design

Way way back when, my friend Wendy suggested a color scheme of lime green, tomato red, yellow and periwinkle blue. I collected some beads in those colors (and added white and black) but never did anything beyond that, until this week. I signed up for a digital design class and am using those colors for my project. The nice thing is that the color translate very well to standard paint colors (carbon black, ultramarine, sap green, green-gold/pernod yellow, pyrrole red/vermilion and lemon yellow):

Now that I have my colors, I'm going to paint more paper to scan and use it to create some art journal pages -- how fun is that? Cheers!

"Kindness": Mixed-Media Fiber Art Journal Page

I just finished this yesterday -- a little art journal sample for an upcoming class. The background started as white PFD fabric that I treated with gesso, painted, stenciled and splattered with paint! The text block was done in Photoshop and printed on EQ Printables.

The motif on the right is a packing tape transfer. I printed the image (Designer Digitals) on the laser printer, covered it with tape, burnished it well, trimmed off the excess and soaked it in water for 5 minutes so the backing paper was easy to remove. Once the paper was removed, I glued it on with matte gel medium. That was my first attempt at this kind of transfer and I love how easy it was and how crisp the image turned out. I particularly like that the background shows beneath the unprinted areas. Enjoy!

My New Fabric Line :-)

I've been feeling a little down since the beginning of the year, don't quite know why. It isn't like me to let my sewing machine sit idle for weeks at a time, but I just wasn't in the mood -- my little sewing muse was on vacation in the tropics, I think!

I feel like I'm out of my funk now, thanks to some design advice from Lura Schwarz-Smith and a wonderful surface design class with Lonni Rossi at Asilomar. I LOVE painting fabric and had such a wonderful, stress-free week. It was heaven! I ordered a thermofax machine so I can make my own screens -- the ideas are coming fast and furious now!

I can't wait to cut into these, just have to come up with a good pattern. Techniques used: stamping, painting, discharging, screening... The dark fabrics were solids or batiks, all the rest started as plain white cotton.

Good Weather for Staying Indoors and Creating!

We got snow all day yesterday so I stayed indoors and worked on my digital art journal -- I spent just enough time shoveling snow (and slush!) that my shoulders are tired. We got about 9" yesterday before it warmed up and started raining, and my little dogs were not pleased! They don't like snow up to their tummies and they really really don't like going out when it is rainy and slushy! Sorry, guys, but it looks like we'll have yucky weather for a week...


I'm posting these art journal pages out of order because I love the last two I made so much! The prompt for the one above was "INTROSPECTION." I'm really struggling with how to merge the different things I like to do: quilting, surface design, hand embroidery and digital expression, and I just can't picture what the final result will look like. I need to let it go and just start working, and this piece was my response.


Today's prompt was "JOURNEY", and this piece follows the same "get on with it" theme. It is interesting that I don't have the same "analysis-paralysis" when I work digitally, maybe because the amount of time I spend on any one project is much shorter. Either way, I absolutely LOVE this one. Enjoy!

I SEE

This one came to me in an instant -- today's prompt is "I SEE"

"What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong:
I see skies of blue .... clouds of white
Bright blessed days .... dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .... what a wonderful world

More Digital Art: HOME

I spent way too much time looking for the perfect background for this, but I LOVE it. If you haven't been out to Wikimedia Commons, there are some wonderful copyright-free treasures out there. Even though this took all day, it was so good for me to just let go and let the page evolve. Enjoy!

Digital Art Journaling class

Hello! I'm having so much fun in my digital art journaling class! I haven't printed anything yet, don't know if my designs will make it to paper or fabric, but it is FUN FUN FUN! The class included a huge download of all sorts of goodies -- vintage clipart images, hand-painted background, etc. I am so inspired to play that I can't wait to get out paints to make some of my own yummy backgrounds.

We get a new prompt every day to stimulate our creativity. Our first was "HEART" and the first image is my response. I love the simplicity of it and think it could make a nice journal quilt.

Yesterday's prompt was "TREASURE" -- that one took some thinking! The text is from a song by John Denver and I'm really pleased with it. I'm trying for my own style, something that doesn't look too "scrapbook-y" but I still have a way to go to feel comfortable that I'm not copying someone else.

I love messing with digital brushes, but this one would look good with real paint as well!

Dance!

My wonderful Mumsie got me an online digital art journaling class for Christmas. Class starts next Monday, but I thought I'd play around a bit now. All images come from "Journal Your (he)ART Out 3" and the sentiment comes from a Dove chocolate. Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Just a quick photo from this year's Christmas Parade -- all three dogs had on new jackets and looked so cute! It was COLD but fun. Our little "Dog Stars" performance group took 2nd place, although we just walked because the crowds made the boys nervous.

I've got new jewelry and quilt photos for you, too, see you soon. :-)