I Really Need Some Discipline...

My plan for yesterday was to do some sewing.  I've got several art quilts in process that I really want to finish (honest!).

Enter Joanne Sharpe and her Letter Love 201 online class...  I know I can do these 'lessons' whenever I want.  I don't have to keep at them because as Joanne always reminds us, "You bought the book! You have these lessons forever!" But they're just so much fun.  I can just sit at my desk with my pens and watercolours and play all day.

After dinner I finally 'forced' myself to spend an hour sewing... and then you won't believe what happened... Yup, I was back at that damned desk with a pen in my hand...

Anyway, here are a couple of pages I did.  I love both of these quotes. In fact, if you look closely at the page with the white writing you'll see that I used these same quotes under the large focal word on the respective pieces.


Can you tell that Valentine's Day is coming soon?

Collaged Greeting Cards

This is just a short post today to share some new greeting cards I made using acrylic paint, some bits of old leftover pages of text from a previously altered book, tissue paper and a black sharpie marker.  I start by using a 9" x 12" sheet of watercolour paper which results in 6 cards since the window on my trifold card blanks are 3" square.

Preparing a New Journal to Go

 I've been preparing a new journal to take along with me on a bit of an 'escape'.  I started with 9" x 12" sheets of watercolour paper.  I folded them in half (one at a time to get the best crisp fold), nested them into one another and then sewed them together by stitching down the centre fold on my sewing machine (I used the longest stitch possible and a good strong thread).

The next step was to pull out some stencils and my watercolour paints and just start to play.

I love the tone on tone effect of these numbers overlapping one another in various shades of aquas and blues.




This page got a bit dark at one point so I used a dampened paper towel and brought it back to what you see here.  I also like that it resulted in softer lines and shapes.

 I started this page by stamping the stamp using a deep brick coloured stamp pad.  I inked the stamp once and then stamped it five times, letting it gradually fade out as it went up the page.  I then reversed it on the facing page so that the dark image is at the top fading down to light.

 This page was all about creating lines and streaks in those beautiful pink tones.  I can see using some of those lines for some beautiful lettering.

 I see some Van Gogh 'Starry Night' coming out of this page.  I went a little further with this page, already adding some more stamping to get more texture.

 Simple pale blue with a bit of brown stamping.  I love that stamp!

I'm craving a Tequila Sunrise...hmmm, I haven't had one of those since my misspent youth! LOL

 I was playing with colour mixing here, but the green really didn't come through as much as I might have expected.

Not sure what happened here, but this page might end of being a close-up of some weird face or something.  I feel some funky eyes looking at me...

More stamping and a fun bit of striped gaffer tape on the spine of the journal.  

The next step is to add more elements, texture, stamping, etc. to the pages before I actually start to journal.  Of course, it's been made to fit perfectly into my 'Journal on the Go' cover so I can take it with me while I'm travelling, pens, markers, homemade washi tape and all!

Playing With My Markers...

Today's post is just a quick one to show you what I've been up to in my Letter Love class.   I've pulled out all of my various types of markers and I'm exploring what each can offer me as I play with colour, size, shadows, etc.

In Kim's most recent post in Beyond Layers she used this great quote by Gandhi and I just had to incorporate in my journaling.

Thanks for stopping by!

Altered Book / Journal

An old credit card was used to scrape
the paint.  Also added tissue tape in a
long strip and short pieces (these had
a calendar on them).

A while back I started playing with the idea of altering a book to make a journal.  My first obstacle was to overcome my horror of defacing a book.  Having said that, I decided that using an old hardcover (fiction) picked up at Wastewise (a wonderful recycling depot in town) wouldn't be too terrible (unless of course you are the author, in which case I give you my sincere apologies).

The first step was to remove some of the pages (randomly throughout the book - not all from one section) to allow for the added bulk that the paint would add.   I then glued together 3 pages at a time and stitched around the edges using a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine.  You can get to within about 1 1/2 - 2 inches from the binding.  This gives you good sturdy pages with which to work.

Brick pattern was created using a stencil.  

Circles (look like page reinforcers) were

made using the wooded handle of an old

foam brush (remove the foam and plastic

part and you're left with a short dowel 

with a hole in it!

The next part was the hardest for me because it required a lot of time and patience.  I covered each page with gesso, but because you don't want the pages to stick together you have to wait for each spread to dry before you can go on to the next.  At this stage I used a light covering of white gesso, allowing some of the original text to show through.

Stamping was done using rubber
stamps with acrylic paint. 

Inktense pencils give wonderfully
vibrant colour.

Now the fun begins.  Using acrylic paint, Inktense watercolour pencils, markers (I like Copic markers), white gel pens, black gesso, etc. I began to play.  Again this takes patience because you have to wait for pages to dry before you go on to the next spread or before you can begin to journal on the fun backgrounds that you've created.

Background ready for some sketching 

and journaling.

I love using white printing on the black gesso for a change of pace.  I really like the effect.  (Note: I found my white gel pen worked much better on the black gesso than it did on black acrylic paint.  I also like the more matte finish of the gesso.

Markers were used to colour in some 

doodles on this page.