Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Waterfall Book

I've been inspired by the Vancouver ATC Group, (a new, bold "join" for me), to create things. Not ATC's, as you might think, but handmade books. It has been quite some time since I created a book, and I'm on a mad tear. One I'm making for a gift, so you'll have to be patient to see that one.

This is a prototype of a waterfall book. One of the ladies brought a much larger version to show us, and I adapted it to a smaller version.

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Monday, May 24, 2010

Laminated Bookmark

This time I made a bookmark out of a coloured pencil image.  Because bookmarks get a lot of wear, I covered this one with some cheap sticky laminate you buy to cover books with.

Flowers

And I've got lots of coloured pencil images left yet!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Still Playing With Pencil Crayons

Here is another ATC I made from a coloured pencil image.

Summer

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!  I'm getting in some bike riding, working on a couple of book projects, and contemplating the purchase of a Zutter Bind-It-All.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

When an Independent Store Closes

Remember this?

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This journal page was inspired by one of my favourite Vancouver collage and art supply stores,  RubyDog's Art House.  Leanne, the owner, has  to close, and I am sick about it.  Sick and owning it.  Every time we shop at those big US chains (we know who I mean, don't we), we knock another nail in the coffin of our neighbours' stores.  Well, unless we have an unlimited supply of cash and storage space, that is.

If you live in Vancouver, go down and check out RubyDog's before you can't anymore!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Playing with Pencil Crayons

Inspired by a technique I learned while visiting my sister, I've been playing with pencil crayons lately, particularly on dark coloured backgrounds.  I've coloured a lot of images, but as usual, I'm slow in finishing up the creations. 

Here's an ATC I managed to complete:

Leaves

Monday, May 17, 2010

Nebulas

The Design Challenge for the Vancouver Artist Trading Card Group this month is "Nebulas, Nails & Noodles". I could think of no way to combine these items, so I went simply with "Nebulas".

Nebula

These are done with alcohol ink and they are all unique because that's the way the inks behave!

I had a great time at the swap yesterday, even if it was a somewhat smaller group than usual. It was a chance to get to know some of the ladies a bit better.

I've got lots of nebulas left if anybody wants to swap!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Hand Carved Stamps

One of the things I try periodically is carving my own stamps.  These ATC's use some of the stamps I've carved:

Hand-Carved Birdie Hand-Carved Daffodils  Hand-Carved FeatherHand-Carved Horse

These were all stamped on sanded scraps of discarded book pages.

And here is a notecard:

Swap10Crow

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Step on the Scale

Some of you may have heard me say how much I love alphabet stamps. How much do I love them? Well, let's just say that I have a few of them.


Michelle Ward at GPP Street Team is challenging us this month with size. Here are a few different size alphabets:



Sunday, May 9, 2010

Creation of a Journal Page

I like working in my journal because it answers the call of inspiration without the pressure to "complete".  Sometimes I'm inspired to do a background, sometimes to work with patterned paper, sometimes to stamp, and sometimes to write.  I work on many pages at once to provide these various inspirations with outlets.

Some of you may like to see the "progression" of a page:

First I do a background, and I may add some borders either glued or painted onto the page.  This one is just plain watercolour with some borders cut from an old book:

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One day, I grabbed a piece of sponged scrap from my "red" baggie, and stamped out two new stamps:

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I cut these out, glued them on the page and added some journalling and white doodling.  Thinking the page was finished, I included the date.  But a few days ago I added the masks, spelling out the name of the store where I bought some of these lovely things.

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So, I think that  journal pages are never finished!!  Another part of the attraction.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Go Where the Music Takes You

This card for my sister, Dianne, was inspired by some native art at displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Go Where the Music Takes You

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Tissue Paper Painting

Painting tissue paper with gesso and acrylic paint toughens it up so that you can easily punch, cut, glue or otherwise manipulate it as a collage item. Try it in your journal, before putting using it on a more formal piece. This was inspired by Michelle Ward's GPP Street Team: Complete instructions can be found here.

Spring Tissue

Monday, May 3, 2010

Tissue Paper - Layered Tissue Collage

For those of you interested in more ways of using up that white tissue paper, this one is courtesy of Violette's Creative Juice, from her book Journal Bliss:

Tissue Collage

First you cut a shape from cardstock, and glue it on your substrate. (This happens to be a journal page.) Next, wrinkle some tissue, smooth it out, and glue it to the substrate. (Use the glue most appropriate for your substrate.) When dry, paint with acrylic paint. (Note: the above was coloured with Pan Pastels rather than paint.)

Sunday, May 2, 2010

GPP Street Team Crusade No. 39-Pulling Prints

Yesterday was real playtime - getting messy with paints.  Michelle Ward's monthly creativity crusade inspired these:

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Hop on over to Michelle's Crusade site for complete instructions.