your vintage gluebook class on sale!

I just read on Mary Green's blog that she is offering her Your Vintage Gluebook online class on sale! Just click on the link to find out all the details on how to register for a special price. Mary is offering 30% off in celebration of having 300 students register for this class in just 1 years time! It is a fantastic class that I enjoyed so very much. It really inspred me to produce a lot of art . . . let me share my favorite pages created in Mary's class with just paper-mostly class images, scissors & glue . . . well, I added a little ink here & there - shhhh . . . don't tell!

Click on any image for more detail and go register for this class!

It is a huge value at this celebration sale price!

art journal May 29/30

partial page -art journal May 29/30, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

Above is a close up of one of my journal pages I worked on the past couple of days. I got the idea to use tissue paper as a base or background, after using some tissue paper in my journal the day before. So . . . I pulled out a bunch:

and got started . . .

I worked quickly, covering the page. 

Then I spritzed on some watered down paint,

and on top of that, I sprinkled pigment powders.

These particular powders do not have a binder in them 

so I sprayed them with a matte sealer to help set it.

I sprayed on more watery paint . . . I like to layer, can you tell??!

I added a quote, some shells and a feather . . .

And it ended up looking like this, below. One of my favorites (Steven's too).

I love this bird Joy and I were watching last week -miss you, Joy!

I'm also finding out that I love working in an art journal.

Thanks for coming along with me . . . there are even more photos here!

; ^ ) lenna

see the Art Journal Every Day button in the blog sidebar near the top, 

to learn more about this project . . .

Garden Postcard Tag swap

garden PostCard Tag 2322, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

Above is one of 5 garden themed Postcard Tags I created for a swap hosted by Lisa of Collage Stuff! This wonderful company is the sponser of this swap. I have found it to be a great resource for collage items of all kinds. Lisa gives great service and has wonderful products. Plus you can join in her swaps too!

For this swap we were required to use the new postcard tags shown below from Collage Stuff. No problem there for me! I found them intriguing. I sewed a piece of my fabric paper with a flower theme to the front of the tag . . .

 And later colored the back with Dye-Na-Flow and a sponge.

I added some prima paper flowers, also carried at Collage Stuff . . .

hey! I got that little green leaf there too! 

And I finished them off with fibers and fabric!

Because I always take lots of photos while creating, there are lots more photos with explanation on how I made these tags if you look in this set on my flickr account. That is, if you'd like to see more! Once there, you can click on the slideshow button above the photos if you prefer to view them larger. I am really glad to be using more of that huge piece of fabric paper I made!! I found the original blog post where I wrote about making it, dated about 14 months ago here: Fabric-Paper. I would like to try again sometime with a smaller piece of fabric  . . . well, maybe after I clean off my work table, it is a total disaster! 

I have been creating so much there is just stuff everywhere and my actual workspace is getting smaller and smaller! I will have to attend to it before I create next.

I now know what I am going to do as far as my daily projects: Art Journal Every Day and Blipfoto every day. I figured it out by talking about it here. I am going to continue to work in my art journal every day if I can because it is really so good for me, I love it and I am getting in a groove. I am going to try to do a photo a day too if I can because that's really so good for my photography skills and my artist's eye. But, I am not going to post every single day about my art journal. Right now I worked in it yesterday and I also worked in it today but I have not posted anything about it yet. I would like to post later tonight, but if not, I will do it tomorrow or the next day. I will add my art journal work to flickr too if you follow there. As for blip, I would like to allow myself to not post a photo a day! When you have been doing it consecutively as long as I have -since december, it is hard to quit that. But it really would be okay if I only posted a photo there, let's say every other day. I'm just trying to sort out how to do everything I want to do to keep growing as an artist. 

Thanks ever so much for listening!!!

Your being here, reading, listening, responding, sharing your feelings mean a lot to me. You are appreciated! :^ ) lenna 

May 28 art journal every day

May 28 art journal every day, originally uploaded by creativelenna.

Above is the final scan. Can you imagine that is is how the circles finished up?!

Remember, this is how I left that spread last:

Yesterday, I layered and tweaked the left side with the circles quite a lot . .. 

adding white paint with my fingers

drawing more circles with watercolor ctrayons

getting them wet

really getting them wet! 

adding splatters of metallic ink (copper)

finding more of the leaf tissue paper and covering most of the page

After messing around with the watercolor circles, I found more of the tissue paper with the green leaves - its amazing I found any! Added that to the left side of the spread over the circles and then some below the bird. Originally, it was only above the bird photo on the right, embedded in my fabric paper. I add very a light stamping of mesh with 'peeled paint' distress ink and used my fingers to spread some bright gold Lumiere paint on the page. This was all done on May 28 for Art Journal Every Day with Julie balzer.

My student Beth asked me in a comment, "What will you do at the end of this May challenge?"  That is such an excellent question, Beth! When I started this project I told myself I'd commit for the month of May and see how it went. That was really Julie Balzer's suggestion and a good one. I listened, since this whole thing is her idea! I am totally hooked on working in my art journal every day now that I have been doing it a few weeks. I think I've only missed 1 or 2 days this month. My need to do more hands-on creative work is what brought me here because earlier this year I felt I was doing only some and not enough. I was itchy for it. Most of my time was spent writing lessons for my online classes, helping students, organizing, writing, preparing and orchestrating my creative swaps - I wasn't doing as much art as I wanted to.

I am now! 

So somehow, I am going to keep this project. I may have to make myself post about it less frequently because truthfully, even though I love to write and show you photos of my process --this is what takes time, more than making the art. It is like writing a mini tutorial every day! I'll figure it out. I am also still doing a 'photograph a day' project on blipfoto  and I'm up to sharing 169 days of photos since december 4 . . . you can see my daily blips in the top right hand sidebar of this blog -just click and go. I may let that slide a bit, not do it every day? We'll see. I will most likely have to let something go because doing 2 daily projects and writing about them takes lots of time. This is my full-time work -making art, then writing, teaching & sharing about it, plus organizing creative exchanges. I do have the time, my children are grown and I'm only 54 years old! I'm also very much of a "get an idea, okay let's do it" type of person; I like doing things and accomplishing things  . . . . I usually want to do more than I really can comfortably for too long. But, I always seem to be able to figure out a balance and make things work.

Thank you for listening to my rambles! Again I'm very glad you are here and have been enjoying what I share.   Happy Sunday, xo lenna

the next start

Above is what happened today after looking into the Strathmore 

Visual Journal Online Workshops I had registered for! 

I really had forgotten about them until my friend Joanna mentioned them.

These workshops are free and while they are not "live" anymore.

the information and videos are up online until August 1st!

The left side with the circles came about from watching one of Linda Blinn's video lessons in the 2nd workshop. The right side is a small section of a very large piece of fabric-paper I created following my dear friend Frieda's instructions. Wonderful!! It is fabric that is stamped, dyed with fabric paint and collaged with paper. I saw it folded up under my work table and thought -ah ha! This would be great to add to my journal. Lord knows there is plenty of it! I tackled a much larger piece of fabric that I really should have . . . can you image I would do something like that? ha! Here is a good photo showing how large it is: Fabric-paper project. I have cut into this huge piece now, so it is not quite that size anymore, but it is still quite large!

I cut a section to fit and used Yes Glue to attach it to my journal. 

The small photo incorporated into the fabric paper top right page is me with cool white sunglasses, on my grandfather's boat in Florida, circa 1965?

I grabbed my circle template and drew inside with watercolor crayons.

On the video Linda talked about how doing something like this

will help take away that "blank page" fear and hesitancy.

I have used decorative tape on either side of my fabric paper,

because I did not cut it quite big enough, a good mistake!

Good, because I like the tape!!

I used my Niji Water Brush to activate all that good watercolor crayon paint!

That's it for now, we'll see what happens tomorrow!

Thanks very much for looking and for your comments, when you can.

It's great for me to know that sharing my experience of jumping into 

art journaling every day 

has been helpful and even inspirational . . . . very cool! 

thank you.

finishing the journal page

Late last night I posted how I started a spread with some background papers -view it here. This afternoon I had fun finishing this. It was a challenge because I did not know what I was going to do at first. But this rubber stamp was out on my desk and called to me. That is how I started working.

I had taken this rubber stamp out the other day, but didn't end up using it. It's a LennaLines stamp -a quote about love, from a line of unmounted quote stamps I used to produce 10 years ago. I stamped it right on top of the brown wrapping paper Julie had decorated to send me her Little Books for the swap. On the other side of the page, since I was thinking about this love quote, I drew a heart with my new watercolor crayons and wrote down things I love on the inside of the heart with a permanent Micron pen.

 The wet brush activated the watercolor. I used the same brush to pick up some 

Perfect Pearls iridescent powder (in Blush) and added that to the page.

A black line around the heart for definition . ..

Then I used a texture stamp made from foam.

I think my son Decklin made this about 20 years ago!!!

You need moldable foam, a heat gun and something to press into it.

This is a impression of an outdoor porch screen.

I used the handmade stamp with permanent red ink to add texture all over . ..  

. . . even on Julie's art -we have now collaborated!!

Next came the white acrylic paint applied with my fingertips . .. 

And another texture stamp with VersaCraft (wet) ink in Burgundy

The ink was heat set.

A Metallic Krylon Copper leafing pen was run around the edge and 

flicked (splatters) onto the pages.

Ta-da! It is done. I am really happy with this spread. 

Thanks to Julie and to JOY for the inspiring background papers.

I really think its true that if you want to do something creative, just start. 

Pick something and go! The rest will follow. 

It seems to work that way for me, over and over again. 

xo lenna