More spray painted pages

I should be drawing 3/4 faces but I still have the spray paint bug. I didn't have my large post it notes out there so I had a bit of overspray for the black ---but it's ok.

These are 1/4 of a large Bristol sheet (14x17) that I sprayed front and back. Some were better than others.

I have learned that I don't like the gloss paint and I have several cans of it. I think I will just get rid of them. What in the world do you do with cans of spray paint that you want to throw away? I hate to throw them away into the earth. "Hurt not the earth"---(actually that statement in Revelation is not talking to us) but never the less--hurt not the earth anyway.
And I received my Alisa Burke DVD! Have you all discovered Alisa Burke yet? I am loving her funky graffiti chic style of painting.
So, I went out to the red shed and sprayed away. The weather is nice and the mosquitoes aren't out too bad yet so I put on my new mask and sprayed. Most of these have some calligraphy on them and more stenciling and copic spray after I tore them down to see what they needed. I will use them for a journal maybe. It's just fun to make them. It's an exercise in layout and design for each page and making the page work. I probably should be drawing the 3/4 face but that is so hard...I'd rather spray. More tomorrow...

A Babe is Born in Bethlehem

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season. We will be driving to Greenville, SC, to see baby Marc and his sweet mama and daddy. It will be a blessed Christmas with all the family together. I do hope yours is blessed also.

PS This is suppose to be Bethlehem but I am afraid it looks like something else... but--you get the gist! Be joyful!!!!!

She is Thinking about the REASON

And what a wonderful REASON it is! I enjoyed doing this more festive page. The window in the background is one of my new stamps that I love. I have had my grand niece, Jane Lowry,5, and nephews , Zachry,9, and Malcolm,7, here this weekend from Peachtree City, GA, and I gave them all one of the covered composition notebooks with their names on it along with some Crayola markers and told them to start journaling! Jane Lowry, caught on immediatedly and she watched me do this page. She even suggested that I put dots on the presents and swirls in the tree. Her journal was getting quite full when she left and it was so adorable. A fun time was had by all! Can't wait until baby Marc can do art!

More in my favorite journal...

I am into the journal thing these days...and I actually do better when I have detached pages and put them in but so far I have enjoyed working in my favorite journal with these pages. In the page spread above I colored the face with copics and painted the flowers with dabs of acrylic. When it dried the face was very flat looking so I painted over her with gloss ModgePodge which, by the way, I LOVE! So now it all looks as if it was all painted with acrylics. And below, as you see I have a bit of Pam Carriker flair. Her journal pages are really nice and I enjoyed her class on Shades of Grey. I turned the writing backwards because I was whining a bit so I did not want to subject you to that. If you are interested feel free to read it backwards! :)

This page below (and above) was sprayed with my copics air compressor sprayer (man, so ever love that toy!) with a stencil and I used stamps for the Scripture. The two girls are transferred with Sheer Heaven which is the transfer that works best for me most of the time. I really have a love- hate relationship with transfers! Apollo Transparency paper with inkjet printer and Golden gel mat medium works pretty well also...sometimes...

The page below has a pocket as you can see with some spray painted tags that I painted in the red shed the other day. The weather is cooler so I can spray again. The tags come in a bundle from Office Depot. I just made a little pocket for the tags. The girl is drawn with copics and the lettering is a calligraphic lettering called Blackletter. I think it can an an interesting element to a journal page. I am thinking about offering a little online class on it in the new year. Surprisingly it is very easy with no prior calligraphy knowledge required. Kids can do it. This page probably needs a little more but I will come back to it.

And below are the tags. Some are better than others but most of all--it was fun. Isn't that the main purpose of our creativity anyway?? I have to keep reminding myself of that. Well, with that in mind, have any of you ever read The War of Art? Our son, Zach, the Renaissance man, had read this book a while back and thought it would be interesting for me---and it was. I am not necessarily recommending this book but I think, at least for me, it held some truths about the resistance we all experience as artists. I had some trouble with the book, the Artist Way. I guess because I was just lazy and wasn't faithful in completing the morning pages but I might try it again because so many people have had their artistic lives changed by this book. I guess for me, and this is just me, if I was going to spend that much time on morning pages I should be reading my Bible and meditating on God's Word as my morning pages. Again, that's just me. And whose to say I can't do both? Lazy again... I know saying that is not PC these days... but actually I am PC... I'm Pursuing Christ.

Aspire to be True--Journal Page

Doodling in the journal sometimes brings unexpected things. Like, I didn't expect that her doodle hair would look like snails in her hair! But I am loving the copics for the face and I have finally gotten the colors that I think work for faces. This is in journal #7 or 8. I have that many floating around. I am a journal junkie, I admit it but my favorite one right now is the one I journaled in the other day which is this one.

Journal pages that were very fun!

Well, I finally did it...I cut stuff out of a magazine and pasted it in and boy was it fun. I put down some paint first and kinda followed the Teesha Moore's model of putting a border first then just add words and things. I tried not to over think---that is always my goal to not over think creative journal pages. I think that is why I have such a hard time journaling---I have to think! I don't mind thinking but when I start getting that cramp in my brain I know I'm thainking about it too much. You know that cramp don't you?

Lost Sleep over Journal Pages

Well, I am trying to do the "no pressure, no think" journal pages. Can anyone tell whose book I am reading right now about journaling? Hint--it's "Blissful". Anyway, sometimes I just try different things and usually it ends up going into the "can the journal page be saved?" mode. And unfortunately I can't leave it for the next day if I didn't save it--it has to be fixed RIGHT NOW!! Is anybody else out there as crazy as me about this? I can be trying to go to sleep and I can hear that pitiful little journal page crying and whining and Mama has to get up and fix it. Then, I can't get back to sleep. Oh, how we artists do suffer!!! Anyway, one of these pages was the whiney one that kept me up. And actually, looking at it now, it wasn't worth the lost sleep. Sorry little journal page.

Age is just a number...

Well, yes it is just a number isn't it? And I am getting where I think mine will be unlisted also.

This is an example of the Italic letterforms that I am teaching in my upcoming "Italic Calligraphy" class where I will take you through the steps to teach you "the art of beautiful handwriting" and then I will help you to figure out just what in the world to do with it! There are so many things you can do with your beautiful handwriting but you just need to have some knowledge of how to do that. For example, when you have written out a quote like this you can scan it and with some Photoshop knowledge you can put it on any background you have saved in your files...and voila!! finished piece ready for framing! If you can do this then that opens up a new world to you with cards, prints, collage pieces...it goes on and on. Or you can put it directly on to your background or your journal page. I will show you how to do that! This is a background from an art journal that I used this scan and paste technique. Really very simple!

Greenville Journal time

While we are sitting around and baby sleeps I have some time to paint in the journal. I have set up a little table where I keep my art supplies. It has been a wonderful time up here in Greenville with the new grand baby but I am so glad that I can paint here too. I have to create---it must be part of my existence because if I go too many days then I start getting the art shakes!  I will be going back to Jacksonville on Sunday to leave the new parents on their own. I am sure they will be just fine. All is well.