New little handmade sketch journals

I really enjoyed making these little handmade journals to add to my sketch journal travel pack. I had so much fun making them. I love to sew books and this is a type of a 4 needle coptic stitch that I did. I would show you the simple stitch but I think where I learned it from is copyright protected. But there are many ways to sew a book in a coptic stitch where you journal will lay flat.

I used paper that I had in my stash that I sprayed with my many stencils and Adirondack spray inks. I even did some lettering on them. It was fun!

Happy New Year!!
# Liz Steel,  #Kilimamjaro

Spray painted page and journal pg

Well, I just couldn't stand it... even though it is way too hot, I had to go out to the red shed and spray. I must be addicted to the fumes. The mosquitoes were on the attack even though I had my eucalyptus on me (apparently that doesn't work). But I sprayed two large sheets of Arches Text Wove so Lori can make more journals. I scanned them as best I could so I could print some off for my journals and play with them in Photoshop. The lettering on the top is a digital stamp of my lettering that I made in Photoshop. That is SO FUN to make those digi-stamps(they are actually brushes).

I will be leaving for the weekend so I just wanted to say thank you (always) for your sweet and encouraging comments. I won't be able to visit your blogs to see what you have been up to but have a wonderful weekend everyone and I will see you all next week!

Sunflower Journal Pages and a Copic girl

She is colored with copic markers and my calligraphy was added in Photoshop. I wanted to see how Sharon's class techniques would work with copics. I am rather out of practice with the blending of the copics but I think they would work great for this technique.
I hope everyone has a sunny day!!!!!

Muse Flash

The red heart is dried oil paint from my pallet. I like working in this small journal but I haven't put anything on the cover yet. In Kelly Kilmer's journaling class she uses a focal point which is usually a magazine image of a person but I am having trouble finding an image of a person that is this small size. Focal points are so important and sometimes they are the hardest to get right---at least for me. There are rules that can be applied like the rule of thirds which I try to stick to somewhat. But it's all great fun to make journal pages.

Mother's Day Giveaway

Happy Mother's Day! I thought I would do a quick giveaway so if you would like this little 3x5 list book then leave a comment and Mr. Random.org will do his thing on Tuesday at 8:00 pm EST. This little list book is bound with the Rubicoil and the cover is hand collaged and painted and the first page has a little sewn folder for receipts. SO if you are living in the US (only) then I will send it on to you when Mr. Random picks your number!

Another cover---while I was at it...

I decided to make another cover just so I could solidify in my mind how to make one. I decided to do some lettering for the inside cover. I was going to use this for the outside cover but I got going with the writing and hated to cover it all up with fabric strips. I have started gathering for the pages and it truly is wide open what you can do at this point. But sometimes wide open can be harder than-- not wide open (for me anyway)...too many choices and decisions sometimes. That's when I just have to rely on intuitition or I get a huge pain in my head trying to decide. Oh decisions decisions...The lettering is upside down on this one. Note to self...c'est le vie!

Lollipop lollipop oh lolli lolli..

This is the last spread. Just the very last page left in the red journal. I will do a little video of the whole book soon. I think I will draw a face on the last page from my new class, All Norah's Art, and yes, I am still doing Misty's class too. By the time I finish these two classes I should have convinced myself that I can paint a face. I have had so much fun doing these classes but I need to stop now with the classes (yeah right) and just practice what I have learned from each teacher. Each one has a different way of painting. "Real artists" out there in the real world who have never visited or spent anytime in blogland don't know what they are missing--or that they might just learn something if they knew about some of these fabulous teachers. I am grateful for each one of them.

Peace like a River

I am debating whether to put more writing. I will leave it for now. She is another girl I sketched on the sofa while watching "24". It's intense so I like to sketch when I watch it. Don't we all hope that there is a "Jack Bauer" working out there under cover for our gov't? Some of you probably have no idea what I am talking about! I glued her into the Moleskine journal. This is how I heard someone pronounce that:
Mole-ska-na: with a long "a" over the second "a" and the accent on the second syllable---but who knows. This person seemed like she knew.

Have a blessed Sunday everyone.

More girls and a "Flapper"

I painted the girl yesterday. I am trying to paint or draw a face a day for practice using different techniques. I decided to place her on a couple of backgrounds because it is fun to do that. I could have gotten out my DJ book and done something more " el manipulation de la extrema" (new Spanish art word I just made up :) but that's for another day. DJ's class is great but I know for me that to learn something on Photoshop and retain it you have to do it alot--and have a need for it so for me I will be referring to her book quite often!

Now for the journal page---ok---don't gasp...



Oh goodness.....she became a flapper! And I think she might look like a "he" in drag. That's a first for me. "She" was having a bad hair day so "she" decided to put on this headband. Well, sometimes they are beautiful and sometimes--not so much. That's what makes the art-world go round. I am getting close to the end of this little red journal. I only have 31/2 more full spreads. I guess you could say that is seven pages. As you see this page started with a little "Teesha-i-zation" (new word for wikipedia) and the renew today was from a magazine. I did the border first awhile back and then later added the "girl" and the Scripture. I thought it fit rather well...the renew today ad from the mag and the Scripture.

Below is another page spread that I forgot to post the other day.

Artist to Artist....The Doorway to inspiration...what does it all mean? Nothing really, I'm just collagilating again and enjoying the process.

Watch and Pray--Sunday journal entry

I have been taking DJ Pettitt's Photoshop online class and first I would like to say what a wonderful job she has done on this workshop and how difficult it must have been to compile all of this excellent information. I thought I knew a lot about Photoshop but she has given me valuable information and more that just a few---"aha, so that's how she does it!!!" The girl in the journal entry was one I painted and blogged several days ago--- then I added a another layer filled with white then erased with a brush I made out of a sunflower drawing I did. Got it? Well, you will just have to take her class to explain it all! It's rather complicated but yet, once you learn it, oh, so easy...and addicting!

It's a beautiful GARDEN-in the journal

When I grew up in West Point, Georgia, Callaway Gardens was only 25 minutes away and I grew up on that "beach" watching my older brother be the clown in the ski show. He was very good back then! And as I grew older I learned to appreciate the gardens and went there often. This is from my last trip before I sold the house to my nephew and knew that my travels to this place would be very few and far between--or if ever again. I am not sure if this picture is right side up or not but it doesn't really matter. They were the most beautiful Irises growing out from a rock wall with a waterfall. In Photoshop I added poster edges filter and kicked the hue and saturation way up. It just happened to blend with this watercolor page that I had done so !voila!...easy page...done!

--------update----

PS I was informed that these are Orchids. I love flowers but I'm not good at identifying them!

Create Art Journal Page

Here's another page from the little red journal. I have also been doing a new online class this weekend that I will show you on Monday. This online class is probably the most difficult for me to do so far but I am hoping it is something that I might be able to incorporate into my art this year. You'll see...

Fastastic Results

As you see I haven't written this one in yet. Sometimes maybe they just need to stay blank but I like to keep some blank then when something hits me, I write. I enjoy clipping little words out of magazines and all those catalogues that come in. Teesha has inspired me. I bet it would be fun to meet her.

The Very Last Page

I have come to the last page of this little journal. I accomplished my goal--to finish one! Now I will start on another one with the intention to finish it before starting another. Maybe I can do it. I think I can. Things will start to get really busy very soon with family coming into town tomorrow through the weekend and then traveling up to South Carolina for Christmas. Looking forward to seeing my little baby Marc---and of course his mama and daddy too!

Writing in a Circle

I actually haven't written in a circle in a long time because usually it doesn't work out and I am too lazy to write it over and over to make it fit. Somehow this one just happen to fit since it was only two words and I could see that one word was about half of the circle. Yes, I would have been very bummed out had it not fit. Sometimes I just throw caution to the wind. This is actually a book cover that I am making for my Westwind graph pad calligraphy practice sheets. I have come to the conclusion... if I don't know what to do with it or how to file it... make a book out of it! So that's what I am doing with this. The cover is scrapbook paper and I used a calligraphy marker for the lettering.

This is Italic Calligraphy (which by the way is starting November 2nd!) Another shameless plug!

Little Mini Hand Book

I made this little video today while I actually should have been filming Lesson 3 of my online class. I really did want to see how my new light and background would look. I like the green so now I will use it for the rest of the lessons. Then after I made this video and was all ready to start filming I decided that I would be really smart and organize my files that come from Movie maker in the Imovie events. Apparently you can't do that because I lost all of my editing and had to export all of the clips back in one by one and still I didn't get them all---so that required refilming of some parts. I knew things were going just a little bit too smoothly. Well, maybe tomorrow I can get to lesson three. But hey, I just thought of something, if I had filmed lesson 3 then I would have lost that one too. Actually in a strange way, God is looking after me! Of course He always is.

Chunky Arts Book ll

 These books are really fun to make.  As the snippets and the little pieces of art pile up it's fun to put it all together. One of these days, maybe for the next one I will attempt to sew one together.  The only bad thing is that the colors just don't come through on the video as bright or true as they really are---but it is what it is!!!