Japonisme

Who Is That Girl?

...I know this is probably a portrait of someone, but I didn't create it.  And I'm not sure who the artist is. 

Nevertheless I loved it, and that mass of dark hair could easily have been mine before I started graying.

And it makes such a wonderful journal page.  So here it is.

Yesterday I caught up on outgoing mail art.  Later today I'll watch Carla's last (day 5) video lesson and tinker around with my prints from earlier this week.  Or not.  We'll see.

Carla had a great blog post yesterday about all the things you can do with art that doesn't make the cut.  I feel heartened to know that even she gets only one, two or possibly three decent pieces out of each series of eight that she prints.

As with everything else at this point, it's the process, the play, the fun, that counts.  And I've been having that in spades.

Step Two Second Set

I began adding shapes to these prints yesterday, per Carla's second video lesson.  Decided to begin on the second set of original prints so I could experiment and work out a few bugs before I tackle the first set, which is a bit more dear to me.

These are okay, kind of a jumble, I think.  I was going to title this post "Meh" but decided I liked them slightly more than that.

It's great fun at any rate.  Caution, though ~ be careful how long you leave cardstock on a wet Gelli plate.  You'll pretty much have to scrub the plate in the sink with running water if you leave the cardstock on too long.  At least that was my experience.  Your mileage may vary.

First Step Second Set

Today, I'll do more work on these prints and some yesterday.  I haven't watched Carla's second video lesson yet, but will, shortly, once I'm fully awake and into Wednesday.  I had an enormous number of hits here yesterday, about five times normal.  Thanks to all who visited and to those who commented.

Step One

These are works in progress ~ one set of eight Gelli prints made in Carla Sonheim's class yesterday.

I absolutely love doing more with less.  Even though I have invested in some new supplies and media recently, I'm all for going back to my roots...do what I can with what I have, right where I am.

I'll post a second set of prints tomorrow.  And tomorrow afternoon, following Wednesday's video lesson, I'll do the next step on some or all of these pieces.  I have to say, though, that many of these could conceivably stand just as they are.

Paper Collage 2

A couple more paper collages from last week.   I'm also including Gelli printed papers among my stash, some of which I've been overprinting with additional techniques.

I had an enjoyable weekend doing virtually nothing, nothing creative anyway.  Spent nearly the entire day yesterday reading the NY Times ~ what a luxurious treat that was (politics and playing to the wealthy aside).

Carla Sonheim's Gelli Printing Class starts today, so I'll be printing a lot this coming week.  I'll also be catching up on mail art, hopefully beginning to work in my new art journal, and making my tri-weekly jaunt in to Eureka tomorrow. 

Sounds like a lot -- I'll get done what I get done.  I've slowed down recently, taking things at a virtual snail's pace until my next burst of energy.

Hope you have a good week.

 

Fresh Start

I finished creating my new art journal yesterday.  Yes, I've created other new art journals recently with intentions to fill them...but I loved working in Little Gems so much that I created something similar to work in now.  The new journal (working title Little Gems Too) is 9 x 7 inches, filled with three signatures of Gelli plate offprints.

I built this journal from scratch.  The boards and spine were formerly pieces of a checkers game board, the cover paper was Gelli printed some time ago, and the inside liner paper was printed on Thursday (front half in photo above).

I used the Double X binding stitch -- ideal for three signatures and relatively easy to do.

This is Little Gems completely filled -- I'm still posting journal pages from this. 

Inside Job

Paper Collage

I mentioned recently that I've been working with Jane Davies' DVD, Scribble Collage.  I spent a few days last week painting papers, and earlier this week I made eight small collage studies using those papers.  The collages are 7-1/2 x 11 inches, on 140# watercolor paper.

The studies aren't finished pieces, they're just play.  Seeing how papers work together, experimenting with collage structures.

The only caveat to what I've learned from Jane about painting papers is that sumi ink is still ink.  She'd said it dries like acrylic, but it doesn't.  The ink rewetted when I glued those papers down with matte gel medium, and there are ink smudges on the background paper.  Once I realized this, I tossed out those few sheets of paper where I'd used sumi ink.  Next time I try that technique, I'll use watered-down acrylic ink.  (Note: a dear reader informed me that some sumi inks these days have shellac in them, rendering them waterproof.  Clearly, mine did not.)

new painted papers

On today's agenda ~ fire up my Gelli plate.  I'm also in the process of building another book to house Gelli offprint pages for a new art journal.  I loved the one I finished recently (from which I've been posting pages lately) and want another one like it.  Of course, none of the empty-but-waiting newly altered book covers will work for the pages I want to use.  So I'm making a book from scratch which will have a hard spine (which means, I think, that it will be a case bound book), but the signatures will be stitched onto the spine, which is not typical of case bound books.

I realized recently that the best way for me to tackle new creative areas is to move around between things.  I always think I want to move completely through something, like try everything I want to from a new book or DVD before moving on to something else.  But it doesn't work that way in my reality.  I'll get pulled off to something else before I go back to the original thing.  But then it's like going back with fresh eyes, and I see that I've progressed when I pick up the first thing again.  Which is a good thing.