What's new at The Loft - Episode 97

It seems like my life had not been my own for the last several weeks thanks to an increased work load at my day job.  It's made me so tired that I've not felt much in the mood to be creative in the way of art.  Instead I have focused a little more attention on doing some sewing in my off time, along with some other things.

And while I haven't been working in it recently I wanted to share some other pages from my art journal. 

For these 2 pages I tried doing a full page image transfer on top of a colored background instead of painting around the transfer.  I like the red tone - it conveys a romantic feeling and I coupled that with a quote from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". 

...and I coupled that with a quote from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".  This page however started with a watercolor base, but had a liquid acrylic in a pink shimmer lightly applied on top.  The small image of the woman in the corner is a gel skin.

For this two page spread I glued a full page image directly down, hence the bubbles.  No matter how much I brayer it, I still end up with bubbles, but I think the texture of the air bubbles adds a more distressed look to the page, which works in cooperation witht he thought I wanted to convey in my journal.

Different size and style rub-ons is a great way to add journaling and use some of those extra letters left over from other alpha rub-ons sets that you might have laying around.  The combination creates a bit more visual interest.

 For these fonts I used metal letters and traced the outside of them.

For the opposite side I did a full page magazine painting.  I started with watercolor and a charcoal pencil but found that even with a base of absorbent ground, I didn't like the subtleness of the watercolor, in combination with the charcoal pencil so I added pan pastel on top, and found I liked it more. 

I wanted to try something a little different here, so I stared with the yellow pages as a base.  I lightly penciled out the area that I knew I would do a photo transfer on, and put down a watered down absorbent ground in the area around the section I marked off.  I laid down some watercolor and then stamped out the frame, using several border stamps.  I did a straight image transfer in the box and used concentrated watercolor to bring out her eyes and lips.

Stamps, doodling and hand journaling rounded out this spread.

Well that's all I have for today.   Leave me some comments and let me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

What's new at The Loft - Episode 85

Sorry for the long absence.  It's seems like lately I've been so busy, but my level of creative output has significantly decreased.  What's worse is that I'm not sure how that has happened.  I'm trying to get back into the creative swing of things though.

I'm happy to report that although I still do not have a studio to work in, I do at least now have a designated work area in my kitchen which I love.  This spot I now call my own allows me to be more organized and gives me a place to leave "work in progress"  It's a small space but one in which I am very grateful for.

You may have noticed that there is a few changes to my blog site as well, most importantly it has a small gallery of the latest photo's added to my flickr pool.  I've just finished a new photography class called Photo Manipulation 3 with Susan Tuttle and I will be posting on that next time. 

Also I'm excited as I've started a new class, "It's Sew Easy" with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, so look for upcoming posts on that as well.

SO WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING:

I did this painting for my hubby at a crop in January.  It was intended to be a Valentine's gift for him, but he saw it when I came home so the secret was out.

I have always wanted to try Art Journaling, and with the release of the new Strathmore Visual Journals and the free online workshops Strathmore has been offereing I finally took the plunge and created some pages.  The first workshop with Pam Carriker was about reusing your own art work in your journals.  I am not an artist in the true sense of the word, so I didn't have a collection of sketches that I could pull from to recycle, but I did this cute painting back in January and used it in a page for the workshop.

The workshop was great for giving even a simple sketch new life.  Here is what my journal page looked like recycling this image.

The above is 140 lb cold press watercolor paper.  Without a well of my own personal art to pull from I started working with magazine images and gel transfers. I also wanted to try different paper surfaces to work on. 

Here are some other pages from this journal:

The journal I used above had a surface area a little small for what I wanted, so I move on to 98 lb mixed media journal that was 7 x 10".  The size is great but downside to the 98 lb paper is that after awhile the paper wears down, and if you add too much water when removing the paper backing on a gel transfer you begin to rub holes in the substrate.  I will continue to use this journal and experiment, but I think next I will try the Strathmore Visual Journal in the 140 lb watercolor paper.  I have the smaller 5 1/2 x 8' journal but would like to try their's is 9 x 12" journal as well.

Here is some of my work in the mixed media journal:

Here I layered gel transferred magazine images

Altered magazine painting

Here 's a close up of the details

Here is one I've just started of a gel transferred magazine image.  You can see the white areas where the actual substrate paper was wearing away.  It gives a more distressed look, which is great if that is what you are going for, however when you got do a spread on the backside, the paper is considerably weaker.

I'll  be working on the Strathmore Visual Workshop #2 with Linda Blinn soon, and will keep working and experimenting in both journals and will share more pages in the future. 

I hope you enjoyed today's post.  Please send me your feedback.  I love to get comments so feel free to drop me a line.

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

What's new at The Loft - Episode 14

The 411 on Life at The Loft

Life seems to be keeping me very busy these days, which results in me finding I have less time to post lately.  The funny part though is that when I look back over the last few days since my last post I can't see where I've done much of anything artistically other than make my ATC every day.  I have been playing in photoshop a lot lately but don't feel like I've produced much worth commenting on.   Part of the problem has been my creative funk lately.  But I've signed up for a few new classes recently so hopefully this will be the trick to get those juices flowing.

Ok, so I confess, the artistic funk I've been in lately is not the only reason for my lack of creative output, it's also been my overwhelming desire to play Sims 3 which I got for Christmas but haven't had much time to play with.  So far it's ok, but I still think I like Sims 2 better.  Next post I'll write about the pros and cons of each.  I take my Simming very seriously, and I've found over the years that when I'm having an artistic block I ususally go back to The Sims, and do a lot of building.  Building new lots, I find, can also be a great creative release.

UPCOMING TAMPA BAY SCRAPBOOKING GUILD EVENTS

Saturday, March 20 we will be conducting our first workshop featuring a project called "My Wish For You". The workshop is being lead by Mou Saha. For more information on Mou click here. (Sorry Registration for this is now closed)


Our general Guild meeting for March will be Tuesday, March 30th @ 6:30 pm and will feature guest speaker Nancy Nally from Scrapbook Update. For more on Nancy and Scrapbook Update click here.

For more information on these two upcoming events or to sign up online you can go to http://www.tampabayscrapbookingguild.com/. Seating is limited so don't delay!




MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT

My birthday was a few months ago and my wonderful hubby got us tickets to go see Michael Bublé live in concert.  My husband doesn't really care for him but he is a sweetie and took me anyways because he knew I really wanted to go.  The concert was this past Saturday night and I had such a great time.  The show was fantastic and he is such an incredible singer.  I think hubby was even a little impressed, although he probably wouldn't admit it.  If you ever get a chance to see him live, I highly recommend it!!!   The show opener was a a group called Naturally 7,  who are an all a cappella group which they call "Vocal Play".  They were a very talented group of guys and enjoyed their portion of the the show as well.


ATC 3.6.5. CHALLENGE UPDATE

I'm still going strong on the daily ATC, but finding I'm spending a lot more time in creating them, which I think is taking away my time to do other things artistic.  While doing my card every night I'm finding that home, kids and life keep getting in the way, which in turn now takes me longer to do my card.  This then leads to obviously little or no time to do much of anything else.  However, daughter #1 has lost her enthusiasm for reviewing mom's cards so you will notice the A.R.'s are blank.

3/11/10 "City Streets"

For this card I started by cutting a background of some kite paper from Best Creations Inc. paper.  I cut a portion from just where the sky was showing.  Next I detail cut the shops shown on the left and right of the card from my scrabooking daily calendar.  I glued them down using a Tombow glue stick.  I then detail cut the traffic light, the taxi, the lady walking her dog and the woman in the hat and glued them down towards the middle of the card a bit, to give the card more perspective.  Next I detail cut the two larger women and adhere them to the card with pop up dots to give the card even more depth.  Lastly I added some white clouds I drew by hand using a white uniball gel pen.  A.R.

3/12/10  "On the Farm"  
My card from today was created by cutting a background from my Tweety Jill "Retro Roosters" pages collage pack, next I inked the edges of the card with Tsukineko chalk ink in midnight blue.  Next I used the chicken wire stamp from the Tweety Jill "Poultry Party"  stamp set and stamped it in black ink on the left side of the card.  After I stamped it however I didn't like how dark it came out so I cut out a picture of a barn and adhered it over most of the stamp.  Next I cut a small brown tag in my Cuttlebug and inked the top in Tsukineko chalk ink in turquoise and red brick to age it a bit.  Using the Tweety Jill "Poultry Party" stamp set I next stamped the chickens in Tsukineko chalk ink in Gingerbread,  the text was stamped in the brick red chalk ink the round label stamped in black ink, and the red checker board was stamped using Colorbox Cat's eye ink.  The tag was then edge in midnight blue chalk ink.  I then adhered the card to the right side of the card at an angle.  Lastly I detail cut the chicken and adhered it to the left side of the card using pop up dots.  A.R. 

3/13  "Sophisticated Lady"

For this card I started with some Tweety Jill paper from the "Retro Roosters" collage pack (blue/white polka dots) and used it as the background and then layered it with the french handwriting paper from Jill's "Travel to Paris" collage pack.  Next I detail cut the woman sitting from Jill's "Fashion" collage pack.  I topped off the card by adhering two prima flowers to the card with a rhinestone brad.  A.R. 

3/14  " believe"

To create this card I started by using my Neo II watercolor crayons to color the background  pink.  Next I took one of my photoshopped pictures of my daugher an adhere it to the left of the card.  I then stamped the title and the message with black ink.  Lastly I detail cut the two butterfiles and adhered them to the card with pop up dots.  A.R.    

3/15  "9:15"

I started this card by using a playing card for a background, to which I adhered a strip of pink handwriting paper taken from the Tweety Jill "Retro Roosters" collage pack.  The strip was adhered to the card in a diagonal across the card.  I next detail cut the woman from the Tweety Jill "Fashion" collage pack and glued her on top.  I then die cut a small tag using my Cuttlebug, and stamped a ticket from Jill's "Poultry Party" stamp collection in black ink.  I glued the ticket down at the bottom left of the card.  I then cut the number 15 from a Tweety Jill bingo card paper in the "Retro Roosters" collage paper pack and glued it on top of the ticket.  Lastly to give the whole card a more distressed look, I smeared Colorbox Cat's eye ink in bronze all over the top.  A.R.  




NEW MAGAZINE PAINTINGS & PHOTOSHOP PLAY

I have been playing around a little bit here and there, mostly in photoshop, but a little magazine painting as well.  Here is some of my recent work:

 "Girl Lounging"

"Girl with a Flower in her Hair" 

I took this photo a while back but just started playing with it for my last photomanipulation class. 

I love the tones of the photo of my daughter below.  I'm actually using this photo to do another manipulation that I'm not finished with yet, but this was the first result of playing.

Well that's all I have today.  As always your comments are appreciated so please feel to tell me what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!

What's new at The Loft Ep. 6

REMINDER: The Tampa Bay Scrapbooking Guild is having it's first general meeting on February 23rd at the Milk & Honey Tea Room, 2092 Busch Blvd., Tampa, FL 33612. We are very happy to have Jill Haglund, CEO and Creative Director of Tweety Jill Publications as the speaker for our inaugural event. The meeting is from 7 - 8:30 PM and costs $5.00. There will door prizes, show & tell and much more. Any one interested can reserve their spot by calling 813-404-5165 or by visiting "wwww.tampabayscrapbookingguild.com

To check out some of Jill Haglund's work please visit http://www.tweetyjill.com/

What's new on the blog

I've made a few changes to my blog for better ease of use.  I've added a comment link on the right side for those who'd like to say hi, along with a link to my flickr page so you can see some of my photography work, not only from the photomanipulation class I'm currently taking with Susan Tuttle, but also some of my work prior to taking the class.   Also, if you want to receive my posts to your e-mail, click on the subscriber link below.

ATC 3.6.5 Challenge Update:

My card from 2/5 is called "Hearts Forever", and was made by cutting a colored background from artist paper and adhering it to the card.  Next I detail cut an image from my Tweety Jill vintage collage sheet and glued her on top of the background.  I then cut several hearts in different sizes from some Webster's Pages vellum.  I stacked the smaller ones on top of the larger ones and used a thin pop up dot to put them together.  I then used some black ink to distress teh edges of the hearts.  I found some light pink adhesive pearls and stuck one medium sized pearl on each group of hearts.  I then glued these stacked hearts onto the background.  I then wrote the title on white paper, and cut them out.  I distressed the edges of the titles with brick red Distress ink, and then glued the title down. C.R. 3

For my card from 2/6 called "Altered Cassidy" I used a black and white photograph of my youngest daughter and lightly sanded it before dry brushing a layer of Gesso on top.  Once dry I then outlined the image and added detail with a fine point black marker.

I then took acrylic paint and began coloring in the areas of detail, and used some blue and a little white acrylic paint for the background.  For the skin I used flesh colored pastel chalk.  Once the paint was dry I then went back and added some detail to the hair with a wider point black marker.  C.R. 4

My card from 2/7 is called "Each is one-of-a-kind".  I started by creating a background of turquoise and yellow Adirondack paints, that I blended using a baby wipe.  After this dried, I dabbed some gold Adirondack paint on randomly, only this time I didn't blend it.

When dry I then stamped some flourishes in the corners and randomely on the background of the card with black ink.  Next I detail cut the boys from a Tweety Jill collage page and adhered to the background.  I then cut out the phrase from some patterened paper and glued at the bottom.  C.R. 3







What I've been working on

Since I did my first ATC card using this technique I've become completed addicted to altering magazing photos. 

Here is one I completed on 2/5 during a crafters night

Here is one I started on last Thursday and am almost finished with.  I need to paint the background and then I think I'll add some bling.

These are so easy to do and so much fun.


Update on Daughter #1's bedroom redecoration

We're coming along nicely on our project and managed to finish the second coat of primer and get two coats of the new paint on this weekend.

Here's a picture of the room with the new color. 



Next up is to put new paintable wall paper over the purple checked wallpaper on the bottom half of the walls and paint a darker color.  We haven't bought the paint for this yet, but we're looking at a darker shade, probably a plum or raspberry.

Please feel free to send me a comment, they're always welcome.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!