Almost 100th Blog Post

I am slightly surprised this is my 100th blog post. My original intent for the blog was to post knitting, belly dance and my art work.

I ramped up my blogging in October when I began the Everyday Matters challenges which led to other challenges and online workshops.

I began the blog and the year with continuing my addition to sock knitting. Though I have slowed down with my knitting considerably I did finish 42 projects. Not bad as only four projects were completed in the last four months.

Belly Dancing and the troupe I belong to, Rising Stars, are still important to me. We had our last performance of the year for a private party at the Falkirk Mansion. We danced in the main parlor. It was different and very fun. I like to perform for people who are not familiar with belly dance.

Mostly my focus has been to regain my actual drawing and painting skills. I was looking over the pieces I created this year. For several years I have been using a distress, vintage look. My color palette primarily was in the brown, orange and yellow range.

6 in x 8 in Canvas panel, acrylic and clip art

Around April I started painted more acrylic backgrounds using muted shades of pink, green and blue. Around July I began to get more in to various painting backgrounds.

9 in x 12 in Canson 90 lbs watercolor paper, acrylic, scrapbook papers

My color palette became much brighter as I started using heavy body acrylics and oil pastels.

8 in x 5.5 in Canson 90 lbs watercolor paper, acrylic and Sharpie Poster Paints

I had a few false starts with art journaling as the books/journals I was using or creating just wasn't work.

In the last two weeks I found I needed a larger sketchbook (9 in x 12 in), a smaller sketchbook (6 in x 6 in), and a journal (purchased several years ago, forgotten and unused). The sketchbooks allow me to work on sketches in pencil, pen and ink as well as acrylic paint. The journal is now for my everyday lists (grocery, errands), lists of books I want to read, quotes I like, doodle pad, remainder calendar and ephemera/articles I want to keep.

Bottom - 9 in x 12 in Canson 90 lbs watercolor sketchbook, Middle - Nick Bantock Journal, Top- 6 in x 6 in Canson Sketchbook

Left - Large sketchbook, Center - Nick Bantock Journal, Right - Small Sketchbook

Therefore, a couple changes are coming to the blog soon!

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.