I am testing and practicing making sample covers for  Art Camp for Women. See below for previews!

Stenciled and Collaged Art Journal Cover

This cover uses a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stencil, Pan Pastels, and a collaged bird all sealed with gloss gel medium.

Stenciled and Sculpted

First I put down a layer of gesso, then stenciled with modeling paste. I used a stencil by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer from The Crafter’s Workshop, colored with Pan Pastels. I then tried some sculpting with an old credit card for more texture to the left. Then sealed it all carefully with gloss gel medium.

Textured and Stenciled Cover

On this cover I textured the gesso first and then stenciled with modeling paste. Again used Pan Pastels for the color and sealed with gloss gel medium. This stencil is an Artist Cellar design. I get The Crafter’s Workshop stencils and my Artist Cellar stencils through the ArtistCellar online store.

The first class I did was Wonderful Watercolor with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. I am a big fan of Julie’s work and know that she always gives value for your time and money.

The Autumn Leaves Drift by My Window

The picture is for your interpretation. I see a house in the woods in the fall. My husband is from Europe and he sees a train passing in the evening all lit up. What do you see?

I’ve already started to delve into my next class. I’ve chosen Word Play with Christine Mason Miller. Christine is a friend of a friend and I’ve seen her work in various magazines so I want to check it out.

This may be the real secret (and fun) inside of 21 Secrets – getting the flavor of each teacher’s individual teaching style. Stay tuned…

Her blog is Dispatch from L.A. and the link above takes you there. You can see a promo piece about the class Remains of the Day to see if you want to take the class. Once you sign up for the class you can take as long as you like as the class will remain up and open for the foreseeable future.

Born March 7, 1893 Elta Carse DeBruyn aka Gramma DeeDee

Today is the day my grandmother was born, 119 years ago.

She graduated with honors from the University of Washington in 1915.

She was married to Paul M. DeBruyn in 1918.

She was one of the first women in Washington state to get an automobile driver’s license.

One of her first jobs was driving her father-in-law around the state to sell seed. Ferry Morse seed company.

She was widowed and left with 4 teenagers to raise and she ran her husband’s trucking company to feed them through the depression.

She loved Iris and Whidbey Island.

When she was my grandmother (1950s) she was a character actor (Gramma) in a live radio show in Seattle.

She presided over our family when Mom was out of commission with baby deliveries.

I stayed with her for a week in 1955 when my brother Pete was born. The quilt below was on her bed then.  She worked on the quilt with her mother and her grandmother when she was 10 years old, in 1903.  See the Quilt Story here.

A little over 4 years ago, the quilt was passed on to me. Deciding to refurbish it was with the idea that – as someone that couldn’t sew – it wouldn’t matter much. Either I worked on it and it worked OR I would toss it as I originally planned.

For the last four years whenever I was a passenger on a road trip I worked on stitching around the panels. We went to New Mexico last month and on that trip I finished the last panel!

I loved my Gramma and I thank her for her gift to me – the opportunity to try and succeed – in an art project that I would never have attempted without her quilt. Happy Birthday Gramma DeeDee.

Panels pinned on the wall for inspection -

Here are some detail shots of my favorite portions.

Some of my favorite stitching-remember I only did the outer edges

More favorite stitching

The corner I started on

Purple Phoenix Flowers - when I made this flower it was a breakthrough-I remember thinking-I may never finish this project - but this is going to be pretty!

The Phoenix Flowers Panel - From Denver to Phoenix to Tucson to Tombstone to Demming, NM, to Socorro, to Springer NM, back to Colorado to finish this panel!

Lori gets carried away!

The bottom half of the carried away panel

The odd panel - so called because of the funny light patches seen below

The odd panel - lower half

The hummingbird panel - top

Flowers & Spiders - top - My favorite panel

Flowers & Spiders, lower part, my favorite because of the spiders story

The first attempt - the first panel I tried - before I knew if I could do it.

Pieced corner detail - rebuilt a corner from small scraps! Cookin' now!

In an inspired moment, before our last trip, I thought to contact my Facebook art friend Maggie, who lives in New Mexico. From Maggie and other sources I gleaned several points of interest for art supply shopping!  Of course this activity was cloaked in the need to leave PR pieces for Art Camp for Women at appropriate art places in New Mexico, ensuring the cooperation of my man and chauffeur. I crack myself up!

Artisans was a wonderful store, with a diverse selection of supplies that made this mixed-media artist’s heart sing! They were out of gold gesso, but they normally carry it and were willing to order it for me and mail it…The staff were so friendly and checked in on me and looked up things and knew what I was talking about when I asked about different companies etc. And BONUS they were delighted to put some Art Camp postcards on their counter, having already heard about us through Oprah! That was a first.

Permapague Markers by Sakura

We were traveling in the small car so I managed to only buy pens. But these were Permapague markers that I have been looking for (in a casual way) for a couple of years. I know I could get them online, but I still like to shop and hold things in my hands from time-to-time. And I was looking for big markers for my Strathmore class.  Can you see that they are double ended with 2 sizes of tips, one chisel and one round?

Then we hit Old Town Santa Fe. My man loves to video the street vendors and I was hunting for Guadalupe’s Fun Rubber Stamps.

TIP: Call ahead as many small stores move. I hunted and he video-ed. It was not that warm as Santa Fe is a higher elevation than Denver.  I gave up and we headed out and spotted Guadalupe’s around the corner from where I had been looking. Sheesh.

It was almost lunch time and my driver was getting anxious to head south. Since I now knew where it was I was willing to come back on the way home. We made the same call for the Uncanny Artist.  I phoned Laura the owner of Uncanny Artist and talked with her, but as her shoppe was North, I again bargained with my driver for hitting her place on the way home.

I could go on and on about our wonderful, warm trip, but I did that on my other blog, An Adventure a Month, so suffice it to say that as we headed south we negotiated the return trip so that everyone was prepared to go shopping.

Papers Albuquerque

Papers is another extraordinary store – that has moved around the corner from the address we found on the internet. It’s newly smaller space was chock full of gorgeous papers. They carry other stationary and cards, but the paper had me transfixed. I browsed and fingered and sighed, but again in deference to our small car, managed to hold myself back to a few purchases.  Besides, my cabin fever was abated by several days outside in the sun.

We hit Santa Fe much later than we had planned and went straight to Guadalupe’s Fun Rubber Stamps and met Lee, the owner.

Dreamweaver Stencils from Guadalupe Fun Rubber Stamps

This store was indeed fun and Lee stopped everything and did demos on anything I asked about.

Luckily everything she sells is small, because Anna was sitting on my shoulder, you know Anna right? The one in the red satin devil suit? Sorry – digression…

I also got some Distress Ink that was on sale and a dabbing tool and some felt pads and, and, and I spent all my spending money.

So I had to pass on the Uncanny Artist, not to worry, we’ll just have to go back!

Somehow before I left town, the shopping bug had already bitten, so I went to my favorite online store ArtistCellar and treated myself, well I would have to say lavished myself with self-love, in the form of Inktense Blocks and Inka Gold. To die for.

Inktense blocks & Inka Gold

So if you are pining for spring – distract yourself with my remedy – LOL. I promise you will enjoy it!

Santa Fe to Bosque del Apache

Here is the journal spread I’ve been working on this week for Revel in the Moment. I realized when I saw it on the computer that I am not finished with it yet.  It needs at least two more layers-LOL.

I’ve been struggling a bit with my collage journaling. I get a piece made and then get all nutty about where to put the ‘journaling’ so as not to mess up the collage. With some input from Kelly and my classmates this is not bothering me so much now.

For myself, if I make a page to a subject or a prompt, the journaling just fits in. So I started with a prompt this time and had no trouble getting something said-without feeling like the page was wrecked. I knew I was over it when I wanted to add ‘more’ to the pages…thanks folk.

Goldleaf Book

I’m working through “Making Handmade Books” by Alisa Golden with A.R.T. Artists of the Round Table an online art group. First of all this is an amazing book. In fact many books are amazing, this one gives you the experience of a lifetime for less that $12.00 – somehow it doesn’t compute!

Gold Leaf book inside - a play on words

The A.R.T. group lead by two women plan to go through the book, project at a time and make every book shown. The book starts out with simple folded books, so I am safe for now. Of course I’m lagging behind, but maybe I’ll get caught up today.  The book has you using 8 1/2 ” X 11″ paper which makes tiny books.  Things have worked much better since I started using bigger paper.

Shorts Book

I am practicing some of the techniques  I picked up in my Strathmore Online Class with Traci Bautista, doing much more texturing and layering than usual.  I will keep these early books free of content for now, hopefully I can use them over time as cards…

Santa Fe Map Book

Last week my man and I went on a road trip – more about that later – and collected maps and tourist information all along the way. I decided to make one art journal with some of the larger maps, using the folding methods from the book.

Aiming at Southwest influence not there yet...

This page spread and the next one will need to be toned down some, I’m thinking pockets and postcards…

I will post more of this book as I go along. What art are you making?

Stamp Drawer with Foam Core Boxes

This week I made foam core boxes to organize my stamp drawer by using the tutorial my business partner, Lorri F wrote. I did not like making the boxes – but BOY do I love having my stamps organized in a way I can find them and use them easily.

The other organizing thing I did this week was to make a small chalkboard to leave my man a message when I run an errand.

Chalkboard message from the G-Kids

I painted the side of the cupboard with chalkboard paint and glued an old picture frame around the  painted area. Then I hung it between my studio & my man’s office.  This was a very fun project and I want to make chalkboards out of everything now.

January - Start the Year Out Right

I  think I am past drawing glamorous dream girls. My Mom taught me to draw girls when I was about 8 and I must have drawn ten thousand of them before I was through with that. Bless you Mom.

But I really did have fun drawing and painting these two.

At the beginning of each week’s lesson I would start out totally disgusted with what I was putting down on the paper. At the end of each lesson, when I finished each week,  I was completely in love with the work I had done.  Especially with the backgrounds ala Traci. Rich, deep, intricate backgrounds always just a little beyond what I would have done on my own.

I do think I will get Traci’s new book,  Doodles Unleashed, next time I’m flush-I suspect she has more tricks up her sleeve than the ones she gave us for free.

At my house winter brings earlier dinners and long, long evenings. Yes, yes I know it’s been this way since Halloween, but I was very busy from October through the holidays. Very busy and often away from home. But now I’m looking at 3 more months of slow, cold, dark days…eeek…I could get depressed!

Instead, almost every year, I come up with a doodle project, which fits in well with making art for 10 minutes a day . Last year I made zentangle ATCs, dozens and dozens of them. You can see some of them in the banner.  This year zentangles seem entirely uninteresting…So for the past couple of weeks I’ve been making journal signature pages.

Blue and Yellow Journal signature page spread

It is kind of like coloring in a color book, but it gives my hands something easy to do at the end of the long evening when I’m tired. The above spread was done with my new Inktense pencils on drawing paper.

Pink & Green Journal Signature

This one I did on Strathmore 140 pound water color paper. Still using the Inktense pencils for this and Pitt “B” pens for the outlines. This is a really good spatial exercise as I had done 3 pages on both sides before it dawned on me that if I put them into a book, they will not be side-by-side unless they are the middle fold of the signature.

This is the back side of the pink page spread.

Thus this red page could conceivably be right beside the fuchsia pink – ewwww.

So I will now  make some spreads that will isolate reds from pinks and still be bold and fun.

I started a new one last night and even though I knew it would not sit in the book as two consecutive pages, I still made it as if it would! Darn. Well I like it the best so far so maybe it will be the centerfold.

Centerfold Journal Signature - Red and green on brown

Most of the art journals I’ve made lately have been collage journals, which give me fits when it comes time to add my written thoughts. I don’t want to mess up a beautiful collage by putting text in the wrong place, or making it too big, or too small – or some way that is the wrong way – that messes up an otherwise great collage.

So I will make a couple of fun journals with places especially for my writing. And then I can add doodles and collage for eternity – after I’ve had my say.