AJS Lesson 13

The week's lesson for my online class is slide mounts. The slide mounts were created with much of what I had on hand from sand and glitter glue to texture paint and embellishments. For once I like all of them. Three were sent out as part of a swap.

AJS Lesson #3

For Lesson #3 of the Artist Journals and Sketchbooks, the lesson was to mimic one of the pages in the book.

I took a class several years ago called Cartooning and Caricature. A lot of the assignments were to copy cartoons. The best way to learn techniques is to study them and to actually copy them.

The following piece is based on the original from Lynne Perrella's page from her book Artist Journals and Sketchbooks (look closely for the second face).

(Based on original by Lynne Perrella)

There was only a short paragraph on the technique, so I just jumped in with my own ideas. Here is how I did the page:

1. Strathmore 400 series drawing paper (which amazingly held thru the 13(!) layers.

2. Completed covered page with turquoise acrylic paint (I used Liquitix Heavy Body throughout).

3. Mixed yellow and yellow cadmium paint with glazing medium and applied almost all over the turquoise. Splattered water over this glaze and let set for two minutes. Used a paper towel over the glaze to remove glaze leaving water patterns.

4. Blended yellow, gold, brown and titanium natural paint stamped patterns with bubble wrap, shelf liner paper, foam stamps, bottle caps and a stencil of squares.

5. Repeated #3 using raw sienna and primary red paint.

6. Gessoed page, thinned with water, leaving about a inch border.

7. Used gel medium to adhere newsprint and handmade tissue paper.

8. Painted a blend of yellow hues painted over the newsprint and tissue paper.

9. Repeated step #3 with red hued paints.

10. Repeated step #4 using browns, natural buff and yellow paint. Used foam stamps of numbers and diamonds.

11. Used gel medium to adhere and coat a stamped image (I just happened to have the stamp of the image Lynne used), scrapbook paper, a thesaurus entry for the word "clown", red and white handmade tissue paper.

12. Used purple, magenta and brown paint to stamp diamonds and circles and stenciled squares. Used a carmel apple stick dipped in paint for the small dots.

13. Mixed titanium buff, turquoise and silver paint with a liberal amount of water, pained numbers over surface.

14. Took a white gel pen (recently discover this pen - Inkssentials Opaque White - its stays on over layers of paint) to highlight the letters, face, collar and hat.

I am working on a more original version of this technique and will post when done.

Moleskine Madness

I have way too many Moleskine Journals.

I first started using Moleskine at work as a notebook but soon purchased more.

Last year I thought I would start a "green journal". The idea was to do a whole journal with green as the dominant color. That became boring real fast. The following layout from this journal is six pages cut, painted and laminated. I couldn't figure out how to photograph it. If I do I will post it later.


At that time, I took up knitting again. The journal on the left is for the year of 2008 and one the right 2009.

I glue in the pattern, a photo of the completed project, the ballband and I piece of the yarn used to keep a record of the project.

I learned how to make socks last year and couldn't stop making them.

This August I began a small moleskine book. The intent was to create a small art journal I could paste and paint in. The first step was to gesso one side of the paper and leave the other available to paste paper and photos. I had an old bottle of gesso I wanted to use up. It was so old that it had become kind of lumpy. I worked with it awhile before I realized I could add water to smooth out the consistency. I had used this brand of gesso in the past to prime wood pieces to take the paint better.

After I gessoed the whole journal and started painting I noticed the pages were very glossy. Then that little light bulb went off. I read the bottle and it was glossy gesso. I had just thought that it was the moleskine was smooth and the gesso reacted to it. But it is really glossy. I like to use water soluble oil pastels blended with baby wipes. Only on this surface the pastels comes right off if you are heavy handed with the blending. I solved that issue by using a lighter touch with the baby wipes and coating it with a light lay of clear gesso (which gives it "tooth").

The first three completed pages:

Acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, scrap from another project, water soluble oil pastels, clip art colored with color pencils, PITT pen.

Acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, stamps, sticker, bubble wrap and ink jet copy.

Scrapbook paper, water soluble oil pastels, clip art colored with color pencils, PITT Pen.

AJS Journal

I joined a workshop - Artist Journal and Sketchbooks in the Yahoo Group Artists of the Round Table. The workshop's first lesson was to create a journal. One of the suggested book covers was a composition book. I had never thought to cut out the pages before. I had recently gessoed a composition book cover, I cut out the pages (so easy), used some scrapbook papers to cover it along with some tape to cover the original black binding and hold the sewn pages in.

Front (excuse the wax paper on the surface of my worktable)

Front and Back

I found an old Strathmore drawing pad with three sheets in it which I took out and folded in half. One sheet from old pad of tracing paper (which had yellowed edges that was perfect), a thin paper bag and a piece of scrapbook paper complete the inside. I used DMC linen embroidery thread to sew the pages to the spine and painted the inside covers with heavy body acrylics.

I may paint and over-stamp the inside and outside covers later after the workshop is done.

About six or seven years ago I was altering composition book covers, but I always left the papers they came with inside. I never really liked the paper.

Below is one I made for my DH after a trip to Eugene, Oregon. DH is a MS Flight Sim freak, hence the airport/plane theme. I punched a hole in each page to fit the compass and then positioned the sticker with a real photo of the sky so where ever you are in the book you can see them.

Cover of the above.

The two composition books below were also made for DH. Only the one with the old truck is upside down on back cover not where is should be on the front cover. I was also using crackle medium which is not very visible in the photo. The plane picture is a photo transfer.

This last one is a small version composition book covered in a copy of a stamp collage I made. I made a larger version for a co-worker who just loved it. It has a little steampunk vibe I never noticed before.

Marin County Fair 2009

One item from my list of goals for the year was to enter something, anything, in the Marin County Fair. I had entered a couple of cross stitch items several centuries ago. One received a third place ribbon.

This year I entered six items. Only two were completed by the application deadline. I had to create titles, styles and dimensions for the remaining four. It forced me to have a deadline and a format. The two scrapbook pages took days. For reasons unknown to me, I entered two rubber stamp pieces. I hadn't done a full page stamp pieces in years and it was never one of my strong points. My "Stormy Weather" piece was actually a draft and completed from start to finish in about ten minutes two days before deadline.


So image my surprise when I saw a blue ribbon on it.

It took me a while to find my work. The displays were in no real order other than color.

Four were displayed together.

And my lone knitting project was in the Christmas display. There was a pink display where I would have expected it.

Final total:

First and Second Place, Adult Hobbies, Miscellaneous, Rubber Stamping

Third Place, Adult Hobbies, Miscellaneous, Heritage Scrapbooks

Third Place, Adult Hobbies, Miscellaneous, Outdoors Scrapbooks

Third Place, Adult Hobbies, Knitting, Hat or Cap

Fifth Place, Adult Hobbies, Miscellaneous, Paper Arts

Ribbons for all entries - woohoo