New Journals

Finished assembling the remaining two journals for the 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge this evening, now to fill them up with all sorts of wondrous sketches, words, poems, songs, found imagery, etc!

Parting Shot

2004-2014

We adopted her in 2004, the vet estiimated her age then to be 5-7.5 years then, love you Lulu Belle!!!

60 Bird Journal Challenge Begins in Six Days!!!

Join me in 2015 for the 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge!!!

Each day for 60 days you will receive a newsletter emailed to you from me that details an Observation, an Activity and finally a Challenge!  There will be plenty of opportunities to write, sketch, paint, and even sing during this challenge!  

To join the challenge subscribe to my newsletter that I've created specifically for this challenge, the only way to receive the prompts is by subscribing to the newsletter.

60 Bird Challenge Journal No. 1

The cover is a reclaimed manila envelope I monoprinted.

I filled with a variety of toned artist drawing papers, composition papers, mixed media paper, and the like.

Some more toned artists papers, Canson and Stratford, I also added a healthy dose of old maps, scrapbooking papers, to add additional variety.

Getting Gelly Pens to Write Again!!!

Ok after trying a multitude of fixes available on the internet I finally found one that got my pens working again.

If you have gelly pens, and the Glaze Pens seem to be the worse, and they have quite writing and you can see that the ink is still viable in the pens try this.

Leaving the caps securely attached to the tips of the pens, and I highly recommend wearing goggles here when you do this,

Trying NOT to split the pen cap, take the pens and tap REALLY HARD about a half dozen times straight up and down onto a very hard very sturdy surface like a counter top.  You want to tap the pen tip end down onto the surface.

THEN once you are done doing this with the pen tip down, and the cap still firmly covering the tip of the pen, whap the hell out of the pen onto the hard surface, yes this would be teh writing end of the pen.

And when I say whap the hell out of the pen I ""really''"' mean whap the hell out of it, and yes my rotor cuff is screaming at me right now, however, I now have 38 out of 39 gelly pens writing and quite beautifully I might add, once again!!!

Dried Gelly Pens and Journal Pages

My gelly pens seem to have dried out somehow, there's still ink in the pens but the pens won't write. I've tried the water method to get the pens to work again but it didn't work.  If anyone has any tried and true techniques for making the gelly pens write again please let me know!

Still cutting papers for the soon to be created 60 Day Bird Challenge Journals.

Today I went through my scrap booking papers and discovered some really beautiful papters in my stash.  Those have now been cut down to size, 6x9 inches (and this is a 3+ inch stack of various papers!), and are ready to be incorporated into new journals.

Projects

A pear and a pomegranate still life.

There's been a lot of drama in my life recently, surrounding Angel (and her impending crossing of the bridge) and an issue a neighbor has with Oliver, to the point that I've become completely blocked.

So today I started mindlessly drawing pears again, and after a few hours I became unblocked and started working on The 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge again.  A few more hours in and I'm feeling much better now.

This evening I started refining the journal prompts and began constructing the journals I will be using during the challenge period.

A sneak peak of the papers to be used in the soon to be revealed journals.

60 Day Bird Challenge 2015

Join me in 2015 for 

The 60 Day Bird Challenge!!!

January 1st to March 1st, 2015

To participate sign up for my special newsletter created for this challenge alone.  You will receive one email prompt daily for each day of the Challenge.

There is also a facebook group for those participating in the challenge and for those wanting to encourage those of us in the challenge.  In order to receive the daily prompts you MUST subscribe to the newsletter as I will not be posting these on the blog or in the group. 

Each day you will be encouraged to paint, draw/stitch, or write something about Birds. 

Queen Anne's Lace: Faded Memories

I'm not sure if I'm finished with this piece or now, notice the tattered edge on the right side?  I'm not exactly happy with it at the moment and am thinking of some additional layering.

If you look close enough  you will see that there is additional stitching beneath the hot pink silk organza net, first layer is a silk damask type fabric I dyed with cochineal and then machine stitched to a layer of timtex.

I stitched a grid of sorts and some Queen Anne's Lace onto the first layer using a variegated pink rayon thread.

The initial audition.  The piece to the left consists of cochineal dyed silk organza atop a layer of indigo dyed silk damask fabric which may or may not be finished tonight.

Two Red Pears

Two fresh red pears 

I asked for three but it's the end of the fresh pear season here so I'm doing good to have gotten two!

These are not as red as the Barletts I had earlier in the season, these are rudier and are more in keeping with Pantones color for 2015 "Marsala".  I also am quite enamored with the greenish blush on the large pear and the stripes on the smaller pear.

Since I have only two pears my original idea is well, will no longer work.  So I'm playing with these to see how I want to use them in my work.  Next up some thumbnail sketches and I think I will slice one open it could get interesting!

A Pearish Experiment

A thread painting on painted timtex with Aurifil threads.

Playing with an idea for a new series.

More later... from my studio, it shall be fun to see where this piece goes.

StencilGirl Products CYBER MONDAY SALE!!!

Stencil Girl Products

CYBER MONDAY STENCIL SALE!!!

Today Only

Here is an opportunity to Own My Stencils for a Great Price!!! 

Black Birds in Tree Stencil