cross posting

I wrote about my journaling morphing over the years on the 8 That Create blog today. Do check it out! And tell me what your journaling is like.

playing with apps! Paper53

permission to quit

Granted.

Remember April? Yep, the month before May. Remember my daily discharge project for April? I just finished it. I hate to leave things unfinished. I feel like I cannot move on to the next thing until the first thing is done. I do not have too many UFO's precisely for that reason. Not everything I finish is worth showing to the world, but at least it's finished. And now I finished the April discharge. And I am sharing it with you. I enjoyed the unpredictability of bleach discharge, I did not enjoy the chemicals... But I am glad I experimented, learned what I did enjoy and did not enjoy. I got it out of my system. So above is the April discharge collage and below is one of my favorite results.

Want to know what else I finished? The daily journal project for 2011. Yep. Actually what I did is I gave myself permission to quit. I had a hard time finishing April due to family obligations and teaching commitments and in the interim I have lost the "need", the "drive" to finish this project. I wanted to be doing several other different projects that are burning in my head, but I could not get going on them because of this ridiculous desire to not leave things unfinished. So I made a deal with myself - finish April and then I could quit. So - I quit. There will be no May or June. I will work on what is exciting to me now. Maybe there will a July or August, maybe not. I'll let you know.
~Happy creating!

bleach in April

I decided that for my April journaling challenge I will experiment with discharge. I have only played with bleach a tiny bit in the past and had always wanted to experiment some more. So now is that experimenting time. Off to the local quilt shop I went looking for some solid cottons. Silly me had no idea how hard it would be to find them...

I settled on four dark colors I thought would probably discharge well. 

So far I am not too impressed with the way this dark brown is discharging, but I do like the teal green that is making an appearance. I would like some more drama please! 

For a few days I will experiment with leaving the dishwasher detergent and bleach pen on longer, and putting on more layers. I am looking forward to trying out some shibori like attempts at my little squares soon too. Oh and my new thermofax screens will probably work well also. Any suggestions and tips are welcome! What can I do to achieve more drama?

journal books

"Keeping it together" could be the alternate title for this post. I have finally gotten around to putting together my journal books for the first three months of the year (how quickly is it flying by?). 

I decided on hand made paper, which I ripped into small pages. I have sewn on the daily journals, one on each side and put them together by month with a cover that I drew in marker.

For now the books are just loosely held together with a few stitches. 

I do not feel at all finished with these books. I think my next step will be reinforcing the spines with some linen thread. 

Not sure where I will go next, but thoughts of dipping edges in paint are swirling in my head....

march

Here's the collage of daily journals for March. I experimented with Tsukineko inks and chose to paint objects in order to learn to control my materials. My first attempts were heavy handed to say the least...I learned to lighten up, dab my paint brush in a rag before putting it fabric and in the last few days I learned that a natural bristle brush holds a LOT more ink in it then a synthetic brush. I'm working out the details of how I am putting these little pieces of fabric together and will share that soon. Meanwhile I am trying to decide on my technique for April... ....decisions decisions....

playing with Tsukineko inks

My challenge to myself for the month of March is to master Tsukineko inks. OK maybe not master, but learn to be much better at them. Long time ago Judy Coates Perez gave me a quick lesson on using them, but my brain is a sieve... I just remembered something about using aloe vera gel instead of water. So I whipped out my inks and started painting. Disaster? Not quite, but not all that pretty either. I was tired of doing abstract, decorative doodles and figured the best way to teach myself would by trying to paint actual objects. I am not looking for absolute realism here, just close enough, mainly learning to control of the medium. Judy was kind enough to answer my question or two and I am slowly getting better. Her main tip in my opinion was to heat set as soon as you like what you see before going further. That has certainly helped! The only problem with this is that I have an ulterior motive as usual. I would like to possibly do some pleine air painting when the weather gets warm enough and definitely would like to use the inks in my life drawing class which starts in April. Having a plugged in iron in the great outdoors is a problem and may be a safety hazard in a studio of an art center too. So.... where does that leave me? Why of course I must master my materials with out the benefit of heat. Wish me luck!

february

Today I have completed my quest of creating daily marker sketches on fabric for the month of February. Here they are for your enjoyment. My enjoyment of them? meh... I quickly grew tired of my markers, and even a purchase of a few new juicy ones didn't make this better. Consensus? I'll stick to markers on paper next time. Onto March! What daily fabric journal shall I do for the next 31 days? I'll let you know!
PS still taking suggestions for techniques to explore!

sketchbooking

Did you participate in the Sketchbook Project? I did and a few days ago I received notice that my sketchbook has made it to it's destination in Brooklyn. So I thought now would be a good time to share a few (too many) of my favorite pages with you.

I did a sketchbook post a while back, explaining how I worked on my sketchbook, and these are the results. After I put the book back together, I added some collaging to a few pages, TAP transfers to others, doodles to others and generally could have kept going and adding and adding and adding... Luckily there was a deadline to make me stop, scan in what I did and send it off on it's travels. I won't lie...I didn't want to let go. A small part of me wanted to keep it. But a promise is a promise, so to Brooklyn it went.

Up at the top of this post is the first page in book. That's a squiggly glue line through the middle that you see and I tore away the top part of the page. I did TAP transfer over the first and the third pages together and the second and the third pages is what you see next. I enjoyed the dotty happiness of the next page, so I continued...with the next three page layouts, tearing away section of the middle layout. Then I had another slightly more serene bubbly moment. Here are several architectural pages. Photos on the pages that managed to get through my printer unscathed. Some machine stitching, some doodling, some collage. I had fun playing with cut out windows on a few pages. A sort of an abstract scene here... becomes gold lit windows here... Red watercolor swooshes here... become red lit windows here.. And I think I shall end here with this happy bright painted and collaged page.. See my Sketchbook Project artist page here.

journals

Just a quick update on journaling for the month of January. I have been keeping up with my drawing on fabric and used up the rest of my silk habotai, had to use poplin for the last day. I have figured out how I want to contain my journals for this year and ordered the needed supplies. When they get here and I play and really figure it out, I shall share.

I have also decided to do something different every month, as in trying out a different technique or a product for each month. There are so many things out there I have always wanted to try and never have. I figured this would be a perfect way to do so. January was the month of Pigma pens (not new to me, but easy for the stressful month in my life), February is fabric markers, March will be Tsukineko inks. I already decided to try discharge, gutta resist, and flower pounding in the summer. What do you think I should do? All suggestions are welcome and I have a feeling I am going to have a hard time narrowing down to twelve (er.. ten)!

1-11-11

How can I resist a post with a title like that?? Even if all I would like to do is give you an update on my journaling progress so far.... Here's a very elaborate (not) collage of doodles on silk 1-4-11 through 1-11-11. I'm keeping up with myself so far. Costume blog posts coming up soon, I'm sewing like a banshee (that's if banshee's can sew... whoever they are)

journaling 2011

After much pondering, changing my mind several times and thinking of forgetting all about it, I have decided in the nick of time (12-31-10, 11:30PM to be exact) just how I was going to be journaling in 2011. I have been inspired by many in my choice. Two were Melly Testa and Kristin La Flamme, who I almost joined last year in the 30 sketches in 30 days project. But life was too crazy and I filed the idea away. Another is Paula Kovarick. Paula is the ultimate doodler. She invited me to participate in one of her doodle exchanges last year and I been always amazed at how she transforms her doodles into wonderful patterns and art. Perhaps I'll come up with a fun pattern too..
So I decided to start the year with 30 doodles on fabric in 30 days. I am following the basic premise of the project Melly did, that is line drawings on fabric with pen. This will work very well for the month of January as I expect to not have much breathing room this month, with Russian Orthodox Christmas on the 7th and then full speed ahead for finishing of the costumes for the Russian school play. After that I am leaving it open for whatever floats my boat and whatever time allows. I may decide to start adding stitches or paint or who knows what. I will stick to fabric as base and the size will remain manageable 6"x6" for cohesiveness of it all. That's the plan!Here's my start: Of course I could not start with plain cotton. I had to choose silk habotai. Ripped into 6"x6" squares and doodled on with Pigma pens. At first I didn't like the way the pens bled on silk, but now I am embracing it. 1.1.11 1.2.11 1.3.11
How are you journaling this year?

a review

edited - The diptychs measure 10" x 16" (8"+8") and I added links to each month, so that you can read about how I did it.

...of the 2010 diptychs that I created monthly and based on the sketches made daily in 2009. January (how I did it here)February (how I did it here)March (how I did it here)April ( how I did it )May ( how I did it )June ( how I did it )July ( how I did it )August ( how I did it )September ( how I did it )October ( how I did it )November ( how I did it here and here)December ( how I did it )

I stitched by hand and machine, glued, cut, painted, felted, tore, recycled.
I used silk, cotton, synthetic, wool, lace, plastic, paper.
I used acrylic paint, Tsukineko inks, printer ink, Pebeo paint, Pigma pens.
I used fabrics, food netting, packaging material, buttons, paper, shopping bags.
I had fun and experimented.

Tune in to find out what journaling plans I have for 2011!