MARIE ANTOINETTE JOURNAL

March 10th is the send off date for our fourth round robin journal project! We have just about completed the first one (after over a year) and have two in circulation. (I already know what the 5th one will be!!! But I have to wait until a second one is completed!! )

This will be our most ambitious project yet!!! When you think of Marie you think of feathers, and bling... lace and flowers... all the girly things that she is most known for.

This is the journal i have made for this round robin. I made the journal using my all time favorite paper - Fabriano - in an 8x10 format. I painted the journal in blues and gold. I then printed an image of Marie on fabric and glued it onto the cover. I took out my box of "Marie goodies" and just started throwing things on there until it felt finished.

There are 17 artists from the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Each artist chose a theme for their journals... A really cool one will be Marie and Sex in the City! Can you imagine!??? Mine is simpler than that.. it's My Dearest Diary.....Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

I will be doing the first two pages and zettifying Marie in my journal. We will see how that pans out! Stay tuned!

BETTER????

Still working on this. It's a lot harder than it looks!! LOL!

PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

I like my Bleu Lady from yesterday except she looks MAD! I am not sure it's not a reflection of my mood yesterday but be that as it may, I've decided that if I want to learn how to draw faces (especially considering I've never been able to draw a straight line), the only way to do it is to practice. This was today's practice face. Still need to work on the expression. I am thinking that I am not leaving enough ROOM on the face - not enough room between the eyes, nose and mouth???? I will try a different composition for the next one and see how it goes. Meanwhile, I can keep a "chronicle" of my progress right here! This was done with pencil in my wonderful little Moleskine.

The first one was on February 17th. At least I have made some progress!!! LOL!!!

BLEU LADY

This is a really neat idea by Monica Zuniga . You first make a background using no more than two colors (I used blue and white). You need an image of a woman from a magazine. Look for one with great eyes! Then you tear out the eyes, part of the forehead and upper nose from a magazine. You glue that image down with Gel Medium. You then use a charcoal pencil to draw the remainder of the face (from the eyes down and from the eyes up.) The key is the blending and the shading. I still have to work on the shading .. I just don't "get it".

Anyway, you then use your two colors of paint to make the hair. I added some yellow ochre to it because it looked to "blah" with just the blue and white. I then added some rub-ons and some stickles and there you go! I really like the way it came out although I was not able to do it the way I wanted to given the limited space. I used my journal which is 8x10 and that really is not enough space to do this the right way. I like the way it came out though and will be trying it in an even smaller journal to see what happens.

Stencils and Water Colors

Two things I don't use hardly at all. Well, I am taking this awesome online course with Monica Zuniga (Hands & Heart) and she does really wonderful backgrounds using stencils, gesso and water colors. I have a "practice" journal that I use just to try out new things and I really like the way these pages came out.

I used the stencil with gesso (aha! it is not jUST for prepping paper!) and then I used various watercolors and my Caran de Ache water soluble crayons. It doesn't look half as nice in the scan as it does in person. I really like this technique.

ANOTHER FACE

Made my second face today after taking a different online class. This class is called Hearts and Hands and the artist (whose name escapes me at the moment) teaches you how to do each individual component (eyes, nose, mouth) and then put them all together. I still do not know how to make hair so here is my hairless lady!

I am quite happy with this face. It's only a pencil sketch and obviously needs a lot more work, but for someone who can't draw a straight line I'm happy!

MAKING FACES

My friend Tracy is now obsessed with making faces and of course she can't learn something I don't learn so I too must learn to makes faces now!! (The PRESSURE!!!). Anyway, I made this face in my moleskine today. It leaves a lot to be desired and I need a lot more practice but that's what our moleskines are for right?

This is a rough pencil sketch and I think it will actually look pretty cool after she is painted.

LOVE THIS QUOTE

I just LOVE this quote by Madeline Albright and couldn't agree with it more! It didn't scan very clearly but I so love this quote I wanted to share!

This was done for a mini-journal in a round robin project for Mags from my favorite on-line group, THE SUM OF ALL ATCS.

JOURNALS AND MORE JOURNALS!

I spent the day today just doing backgrounds in my journal. Didn't write anything... didn't "finish" anything... just made backgrounds. At the end my hands were full of paint and I was happier than a kid in Disney!

Last week I posted pictures of some journals I had completed and also posted a picture of five paper blocks which were already sewed and glued and waiting to become journals. Well I finished those today too but added one more. Yes, I know it seems like I've gone crazy making journals but they are so easy to make and it's so awesome to know I have TONS of them just waiting to be filled! The six I made today are all 6x8 and although it is not my favorite size (I prefer the 8x10) these Fabriano sheets come pre-scored in a box from Dick Blick and that means no cutting or scoring! Can't beat that with a broom stick right? One box brings 100 pages, I use 16 in each journal (for a total of 64 pages per journal) so I can get 6 journals from each box!

CUTE AS A BUTTON!

This is SOOOOOOOOO not art related but I had to share a couple of pictures of Kaitlynn at her first ballet recital!!! I can not believe how big she is getting. She will be 3 on February 20th and she is just amazing.

A PAGE FROM MY JOURNAL

I did this page yesterday... thought I'd share.

HAVE LIFE WILL JOURNAL!

I am sure that we all realize that all of us involved in art are a wee bit obsessive right? Well, with me it's journals right now! I can't seem to get my head into art - although today I was able to do something - but I am ALL UP INTO JOURNALS!! I am taking the Remains of the Day Class and I am taking several online journal classes so it's all about the journals!

The 6 cloth journals are for the Remains of the Day although you can really sew any paper into it you want to. The hard cover journals all contain my yummy all time favorite Fabriano Artistico paper which is the only one I use. Two are 8x10, one is 6x9 (I LOVE that size!). The five that are in the process have already been sewn, the glue is drying and will all have hard covers to them - they are all 6x8. So..... a wee bit obsessive maybe?