May Art Calendar Journal

My May art calendar journal spread is ready for the journalling.  I started by using various spray inks to give the page a gently mottled look.  I then added a variety of old silk flowers and a few paper flowers to create masks for each of the days of the month and I sprayed over them with green.  I removed the flowers...getting my fingers all inky :o)...and let that layer dry.  When that was totally dry, I came in with my Micron pen and did the lettering and a bit of soft sketching around the flower shapes.  After stamping the leaf shapes and the birds, butterflies and dragonflies, I used my Micron again to draw in stems and swirls to connect the leaves.  Finally, I did a bit of colouring with my Peerless watercolour pigments...and you have May flowers to follow the April showers.

April Calendar Art Journal

Yesterday I was able to finish the watercolour painting of the April calendar page.  I was a bit unsure about the 'cheesy' idea of using raindrops for the journalling shapes, but I'm really pleases with how the page turned out.

I used a 'light' hand lettering font since April is a month of new beginnings.  The long dark winter is over and everything just seems to lighten up.  

 I found this cute little girl in a magazine add (in a March issue from 2009...sometimes being a bit of a pack rat comes in handy) and I thought she'd be perfect since I used to love playing out in the rain.  Realistically it would never have been warm enough to do this in April, but it still makes me smile.

 I also found these two pairs of legs so I gave a couple of the raindrops legs.  And, since they had legs, I also drew in a couple of pairs of eyes so they can see where they're going :o)









In addition to drawing in little lines, circles, triangles and squares to represent rainfall, I wrote, in very tiny letters, using a Micron 01 pen, a variety of phrases such as, "it's raining cats and dogs; rain, rain go away, come again another day; it's raining, it's pouring the old man is snoring..." etc.

I used the Peerless watercolours to do this page.  They're wonderful to work with!  I wasn't sure what to use as my background colour since it was raining but I didn't want it to be too dull and dreary.  I settled on the Bismark Brown (one of the colours in the Joanne Palette Colors - a palette made up of 15 colours specifically selected by Joanne Sharpe for her Color Love online class) and I couldn't be happier.  It's a lovely warm colour, yet not too bright for my rainy day page.

Work in Progress...

Yesterday I was going between a few different activities in my studio.  I can't seem to stay focussed on one thing for very long these days, so I've been starting a lot but not finishing anything...'sigh'.

Back in the Spring, I started to photograph numbers while out on my cycling trips.  It made for some disjointed rides since I was always stopping and pulling out my iPhone, but I ended up with a great collection of numbers from everything from road signs and telephone poles to rural mailboxes and house numbers.  I'm now starting an art quilt using my recently marbled fabric and those photographs.  Here's a bit of a preview of it.  So far I've transfered the images onto fabric and started to piece some of it.

As you know from previous posts, I've also been setting up a calendar journal for 2013. You can see the first three pages by clicking on these links: January, February, and March.  Well, today I got started on the drawings for the April page.  I'm afraid it's a bit cliche since I've gone with raindrops as the shape, but I've also added a few fun bits cut out of magazines.  I'm planning to use the Peerless watercolour paints to colour this page.

Hopefully I'll have some finished work to show you soon...thanks for your visit :o)

March Calendar Journal

The March calendar page is ready to go.  I decided to play with the technique I learned in Joanne's Colour Love class using my Tombow markers.

I love the bright, vibrant colours they give you!...perfect for March when the world still seems to be a bit dull and dirty as winter lingers on and you're yearning for the bright colours of Spring.  The transition from the flat black and white page to the coloured page where all of a sudden those triangles seem to float above the surface is just so much fun.

 I was inspired by a comment left on my February calendar journal post by Danielle, in which she said she was considering using triangles for one of her calendar pages.  I loved the idea (since I tend to gravitate toward circles) and thought they'd be perfect for March.  They sort of remind me of little kites and that image seems to remind me of March winds.  Although, any kite flying I've ever done has been in the warmer summer months...



Linking up with Orange You Glad It's Friday

Calendar Journal in the Works

In a previous post I mentioned that I was starting to work on a calendar journal for 2013.  In the last couple of days I've added a bit more to the first couple of pages.  As you can see, for now I'm using circles as my little journalling spaces for each day.  That may change, but for now I'm just having fun playing around (oh, that's awful...sorry).

Here are a few pictures of where I'm at right now.  I think they need more texture or something, but time will tell.

 I've been using a variety of media, including, pencil crayons, Intense pencils, Caran D'Ache Neocolour II watercolour crayons, gesso, a black Pitt pen and a white Sakura Jelly Roll pen.

And, in case you worry about me being lonely while I work, rest assured I have my assistant  very near by at most times...