Journal Covers-a-Go-Go

In a previous post, I chronicled my exploits cutting stencils, fairly complicated, fiddly stencils. Whenever I start doing a project, I tend to go for the most complicated thing possible to start, then I work my way to the easy stuff.  True to form, I did that with stencils. The easiest stencils you can made are the ones where you take a strip of thin cardboard from some packaging, fold it in half, and cut shapes in it. Well, maybe even cheaper is to take those same strips of cardboard and punch holes out of it with a paper punch. To do that, you need to make sure your cardboard, or whatever you use, is not too thick. Here is a sampling of the ones I made:

I used these stencils in a couple of different ways to create two very different, distinctive journal covers. For the first, I traced the designs down the page, painted them with craft paint, then did outlining and marking with technical pens.

I like that it looks like a woodcut from the 1950s or '60s.

Looks even better close up!

The other way I used the stencils was to just go crazy with a few colors of paint and a makeup wedge. I just pounced and pounced until I felt I was done, and then I pounced a little bit more. Then, I took a stencil I hadn't been using (the stars) and colored in the shapes with a white gelly roll pen. I almost forgot, I traced the circles in Inktense Pencils to try to give more contrast. I am not sure it was that successful, but it doesn't really take anything away from the page.

I am finding these stencils of simple shapes very versatile. There will definitely be more to come in the future. They can be used in an overall design, as an accent, or as texture. They can be used with paint, pencils, markers, dabbers, sponges, pastels, or anything else you have laying around. Ad the best thing about it is that you are using materials that are readily available, no extra purchases necessary. And don't forget you are recycling!

One more cover to add, but this was done freehand.

Yes, this was done on materials I received from the doctor before my sinus surgery. If you have any kind of paper, you have a journal surface!

Purging and Painting

I seem to not be so good at doing much on a regular basis these days. Hopefully, unemployment will be one of those things. Yes, it has been 8 months, officially, this time around. Last time it was a week shy of a year, so I really hope to not get that far. I find myself increasingly more stressed and frustrated at my situation, and looking for ways to get out of this rut, you know, use some of that good old American ingenuity. One thing I am doing is going through my countless DVDs and CDs and picking out ones I can live without. Seeing as I am 99.999% digital these days, and most of what I watch and listen to is on my back up drive, I can live without most of them. So, I am peddling and pandering to anyone who will listen. If I figure out how to sell directly through my blog, I will do so. Until then, I started the ball rolling with a friend, and I am selling some of my DVDs through an online service. A few of my DVDs will get a decent amount of money, so for those, I am using that option. When I got rid of all of my CD jewel cases, I didn't keep the back cover, you know the one with the UPC code. So, without a UPC, I cannot sell to those convenient online places. I will have to take my chances with person to person sales or eBay.

In addition to decluttering my media collection, I am looking into what kinds of goods I can have made with my photos and designs. I am thinking about opening an Etsy store. There's so much stuff there, I will have to learn how to market. I also need to figure out specifics, so I can make a business plan and go on Kickstarter to try to raise my start up costs. I obviously do not have the money to take any risks with.  I will be working on reworking some of my more popular journal pages on flat paper, so I can scan them into Photoshop Elements and tweak to my liking as digital images that can be put on t-shirts, fabrics, papers, cards, keychains, calendars, etc.  If anyone has feedback regarding this and what kinds of products you would like to see, please look at photos from past posts and leave a comment.

About my work, it is obvious by looking at my past work, I like simple graphics with bold color and line. I definitely do that best, but I am also interested in growing my skills. I am not a great painter or drawer, hence my style. I have been largely self taught, outside of one high school painting class and one community college class in drawing. I have several weak points which I would like to strengthen. One is painting dimensional faces, and dimensional anything, for that matter. I am not striving for realism. As I have heard many artists say, "If I wanted realistic, I would take a picture. " This is my first experiment in painting a face in a dimensional manner.

Keep this girl away from the cheap self-tanner! Seriously, this was my first attempt. She looks okay, but very streaky.

This photo is blurry, but you ca see the improvement a few more layers made. I am very proud of her nose. I think it turned out quite nice.

My little stylized goth girl. She looks cute, but she could definitely use more layers of paint.

Through this initial round of attempts I learned the following:

• There is a reason so many mixed media artists use watersoluble crayons and pencils with gesso to create face. It would take far less effort for a good effect.
• Painting dimension in acrylics is kind of fussy. Watching people paint online, it seems like a simple process. Just swipe paint on and blend a bit. Maybe some people are that good, but for me, the top and bottom images are one layer. The one in the middle had two layers, then I gave up and gessoed over it all. Then, I created two more layers. I am beginning to think two layers is the minimum. I may change my mind as I learn.
• I have great respect for people who can paint fine lines with a brush. I just cannot. Too much coffee? Not enough coffee? Whatever the reason, I cannot seem to get a crisp clean line with a brush. I have even practiced by painting designs and thinning the paint so it flows more smoothly, but I am not there yet. Than God for technical pens and gelly roll pens. 
• I think I can get good at this. I know I can create unique faces by drawing, so I have a good base for painting. These are my first two paintings, and they look decent. It gives me a lot of encouragement. 
• I am not one of those people who puts faces and quotes on every journal page, nor do I really want to be. It just isn't my style and I feel it is being done to death. Even so, I like to know I can have options on what to draw and paint, another tool in my arsenal.

The goth girl and the other faces I drew earlier in the year have been glued into the pages of a couple of the signatures from that book I made from paper grocery bags. You can see the type of the bag in the goth girl painting, which I am not fond of, but I am not changing. The rest of the pages with type will be treated differently. I am hoping that I will be a pro by the time I finish that last face. I think that book will end up being the book where I practice new things. Of course, I do that in my other journals, but this will be intentional. I have a spread in another book I have designated for practicing painting spheres. Slowly, but surely, I am bringing myself around to more serious work, as serious as art work can be, that is.  It has taken a few months, but I am finally feeling the confidence to put in some time. If only my body would cooperate with me!

Journal Page Mania

It seems that my current state of unhappiness and discomfort over my length of unemployment have been good for me creatively. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been on a spree. Some pages are still very much in the beginning stages, and many are complete.

A crazy undulating mass of doodles.

This is only a background, but it was so pretty I knew I would mess it up somehow. So, I am keeping it just the way it is.

More colorful doodling.

This page is journaling, covered with patterned tissue paper, covered by paint and more journaling, then covered with gesso and Portfolio pastels. I got a lot of frustration out on this one.

The cover of my art journal. It is a nice small, manageable size. So manageable, in fact , that I only have a handful of pages left before I have completed this journal!

All of this frustration is also finally making me reach my melting point, so I started running on my mini-trampoline to get it out. Art journaling is just not enough. I find it amazing how many employers seem to treat me as un-hirable. Even in positions that I held for multiple years, ones I excelled in, ones that are entry level positions. When I actually do get feedback, I am told I did really well, but someone happened to have more experience or I am not qualified for the position. 13 years of clerical experience apparently means nothing if you have had a couple of bouts of bad luck. Anyway, I had a good cry this afternoon, put on some Tool, and pounded out my frustration and anger and everything on my mini trampoline. It will hopefully help me lose weight and the emotional load I am carrying. If people are using my weight as a reason not to hire me, I am going to do my best to take that away from them.

So, here's to getting through the rough patches with humor, integrity, and art. I got through this once (only a few years ago); I can do it again.

Portfolios, where have you been all my life?

This week, I completed two journal spreads. They both have one thing in common. Portfolio water soluble oil pastels. After using them in the spread from my last post, I fell in love with the smudgy quality. It gives a really neat quality to the image, like it is slightly out of focus. If I had known about this super cheap medium, I would have purchased some long ago. I am much more comfortable drawing than painting, especially when there is even a modest amount of detail work. Portfolios lend themselves to a looser style, more "artistic," and less technical. I think I will be doing many more pastel drawings in the future. Now that I have gotten a taste of creamy textured oil pastels, I think I may actually try out the more expensive oil pastels one day. This is exactly the type of thing I was hoping to get out of art journaling.

This first spread was done on the instructions from my sinus surgery a year ago. It made me think of a skull. I went a little overboard with the canine teeth, so it looks a little like a vampire skull, but I think it gives it character.

The other spread was started when I had a bunch of paint and glaze leftover from a somewhat failed attempt at painting a face. I just painted short brush strokes all over the pages. The next day, I took some cheap paint markers I got from Daiso, the Japanese dollar store, and painted in some circles. The rest sprang out from that. The colors and shapes remind me of paintings from the early abstract movement. The colors do, especially. I am a fan of heavily saturated color, so this is a little foreign to me, but I do like it.

Tomorrow, I am going to the Seattle Art Museum. There is a special exhibit including such artists as Gainesborough, Van Dyck, and freakin' Rembrandt! When I took art history in college, I had to do a paper comparing two randomly selected artists from a hat. I selected Rembrandt and Hals. The Hals portrait I chose is in this collection! It ought to be a very inspiring evening.

Aboriginal art

I finished another journal page, believe it or not! I am very pleased with it, although I am not sure if I feel it is truly finished. After ruining a few Sharpies and getting frustrated, I did some experimenting based on advice I got on some of the many YouTube videos I have seen.  If you want to write on it and it is giving you trouble, put a fixative on it and /or put matte medium on it. Matte medium has got to be some miracle invention. It turned my painting done with cheapo watercolors, so gritty it could tear many a marker to pieces into a beautiful, smooth, touchable surface that is a joy to write on. I also used Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, and it worked like a dream on those, as well. No unwanted smearing and smudging . My image is set and I was able to do the accents with markers. Plus, the surface has a beautiful satin finish. I have been converted. I am not a true believer in the power of matte medium, and I want to witness to the masses. This stuff will change your life!

My page is heavily influenced by Aboriginal art. I have a connection to Aboriginal art I don't even understand. Before I even had a true awareness of it, I was creating paintings that hinted at the Aboriginal style. I have an obsession with dots. Pointillism is awesome, but it lacks the raw energy of Aboriginal art. Learning more about it, and seeing it in person has made me even more enamored of the style. I don't usually echo the themes in such an obvious manner, but it seemed like the thing to do today. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Ambitious knitting projects and rhinestones

When I lived in Baton Rouge, I worked with some folks who performed in drag. I, of course, became friends with them. I started knitting back then in order to develop a meditative habit. What I ended up getting was a full blown obsession with collecting kitting and crocheting patterns, a bunch of scarves, even more unfinished projects, and a couple of impressive projects for other people. I even sold a couple of pieces until a coworker who commissioned a scarf for her son went a little psycho on me when I gave her the final bill. That was enough to cure me of selling my homemade goods for a good long time. Well, when I started knitting, one of my friends who did drag asked me if I would knit him a dress, just a simple tube dress with straps. Because I am certifiable, I agreed. You see, I used to dive in when I learned how to do something new. I am surprised I didn't start out making lace shawls. The dress wasn't so hard, after all. Just very time consuming. I even made a hat for him, my first. That was such a hit, I made my other two friends who did drag hats in their favorite two colors. I wish I still had the pattern. I'd actually like one of those hats now.

When I was digging around for art journal fodder, I found the sketch Wes and I made of the plans for his dress. I threw it into one of the eclectic altered journals I mentioned in a previous post. (You really should take Christy's class. It really is fun!) I commemorated it with this journal page.

The stool is there because of a photo I once took in the "drag closet," the dressing room at the bar. His falsies were sitting on the chair and it struck me as humorous. I left them out, thinking I should be classier than that.

Wes now lives in San Francisco, a thriving costume designer. He making quite a name for himself, not that I am surprised. He used to design his own costumes, and some of the ones for his fellow drag queens and drag king. Some were quite elaborate, like the Titanic dress he used to perform My Heart Will Go On. He would dance around the stage, and during the climax of the song, he would collide with a large cardboard cutout of an iceberg. It was awesome! He also did a Scarlet O'Hara ruffle dress that rolled out into a giant rainbow flag. Today, he worked with Colleen Atwood, who designed costumes for Big Fish, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Chicago, Edward Scissorhands, Memoirs of a Geisha, and I could go on. She has been nominated for 10 Oscars and won 3. Her work is extremely imaginative. I would be thrilled if this gives Wes some bigger opportunities.  So this page is dedicated to my dear, sweet, audacious, supremely talented friend Wes.

The cat doodle

Well, I haven't been keeping up with this blog as I intended. My year of action hasn't been very action-filled, unfortunately. While I am finding my way back to my plan, I have been absorbing inspiration from YouTube videos, random web surfing, and ill-advised shopping sprees.  I have even splurged on a paid online class. I have made my way through nearly half the lessons on video so far, well watching them, that is. The class is Eclectic Altered Journals by Christy Sobolewski, aka Gulfsprite. Here is a nice introductory video explaining the course. I am having a great time, so I highly recommend it. It is kind of the next class after the free altered backgrounds course I did. It shows how you can take a flimsy catalog/magazine (the kind that is stapled in the center) or a book you want to alter that has thin/glossy paper and turn it into an art journal with sturdy, workable pages. It is right up my alley. I can use my junk mail for much of it. It saves me from having to haul a bunch of junk mail to the recycle bins. Free samples and catalogs are fine. I am not such a fan of credit card offers that keep coming no matter what steps you take to make them stop. Now, instead of picking through for things to shred, a lot of them can be used in these journals as a first layer. Needless to say, I have been carefully sorting through my junk mail and catalogs for appropriate journal fodder and spending an hour or two each night with my glue stick. Whoopee! Eventually, like all my other started art journals, I will start making completed pages. I guess I am still in the cocoon.

Yesterday,  I was looking at my cat relaxing on my daybed next to me, and I decided it was time to sketch something. This portrait of my cat turned out pretty cute. I am thinking of making it a little paper doll one day. I just need to finish his body, add legs and a tail. Cute! I gave him jaunty whiskers like he was sporting in the photo.

Handsome, isn't he?