Tuesday, November 24, 2009

And Yet Some More Journal Pages

I should be trying to improve my Blogging/Photoshopping skills instead of simply scanning in journal pages.


I started another spread to write in more detail about
our anniversary and what we did and most importantly
what we ate for lunch and dinner. Will I finish it?




I guess I'll call these pages "finished" for now.




Another unfinished buddha spread.


I'm calling this finished. (But I'll probably still keep
working on it.)


the "anniversary" pages


and for a change of pace...
GRIDS!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Some More Art Journal Pages


I'm finding that I am not liking any of my art journal pages. For some reason, I'm not using a lot of color on them and they are too messy. But then...that's me. A non-neat, messy person. I need to organize my "supplies" so I can actually access them.

 Over the past couple of years, since I started art journaling, I have accumulated  so many different rubber stamps, glues, waxes, paints, collage papers, clip art, etc. etc.  Most of the clip art/paper type images are "stored" in plastic boxes under the bed in my "studio" (the guest bedroom.) So I can pull them out and line them up on top of the bed and rifle through them. Then, there is a whole armoire/cupboard filled with all the non-paper items, plus assorted buttons, beads and other crafty stuff. Next to my "work table" (the dresser) there is a little 5 drawer plastic storage  unit that is stuffed with mostly print type papers: pages from old books, plus collage papers and stickers.











Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Now Learning To Look at the "Toolbar" at theTop of a New Post

So...I just "happened" to watch a Blogger tutorial on how to, yes, create your own blog. Something I never knew/realized (why???is that?) duh, you can click on the icons in the toolbar connected to the new post box and import images, and other stuff.

O.K. So now let's try it out.

We have been having lovely Native American Summer weather here  in Southeastern Wisconsin. Yesterday we took the doggies for a walk/hike in the arboretum and I took a couple of pictures. It was partly sunny (that's the glass half full) and partly cloudy (that's the glass half empty.) It was late in the afternoon.


Here is where I am going to upload the photos, except when I started to do it I realized I had not resized them in photoshop.  To be continued...
So, I just uploaded 4 pictures using the Link icon at the top of this new post/edit post page, and only one of the images has shown up. O.K. So now I just realized I didn't click O.K. after each picture. So here they all are. Hmmm. But now it seems like I have to do a little type formatting to relate better to the pictures. If I were just "drawing" this, or doing it in Corel Draw, I would know a little better how to do it. And now I must find out how to label the pictues. I knew how to do it before when I was doing it the "wrong way" (see previous post(s.)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

What I've Been Doing Art Journal-wise

Thought I would post some pictures of my latest "experimental" art journal--using an actual old book cover as the cover (the actual book's pages all detached themselves long ago.) Some time ago (like maybe a few years ago when I first started getting into art journaling, journal making when I lived in Santa Fe and was unemployed ) I came across a link to someone showing how to use the front, back covers and spine of  an old book to insert your journaling pages into. Since then, I have more or less learned how to do the "Teesha Moore" method of journal making and figured since I had run out of bookcloth for the spine, I could just use this old book and sew through its cloth spine following her method. Whew!

So anyway, here is my attempt. I should have added another signature of pages to fill out the spine... and I should have cut the paper for the signatures even smaller so they don't stick out. Oh well. As I said--an experiment.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Some Art Journal Pages I've Been Working On

These are from my "Recycled Book Cover" art journal.  As usual, I'm not thrilled with them...

Devil and Angel Dollies

Devil and Angel Dollies
Egg heads and tissue paper bodies, inspired by the ones hanging above in Santa Fe's Pasqual's cafe and restaurant.

What I've Been Reading

  • The Grownups...Robin Antalek
  • From Here to Paris...Cris Hammond
  • A God in Ruins...Kate Atkinson
  • Some Luck...Jane Smiley
  • Crazy Little Thing...Tracy Brogan
  • We Were Liars...Emily Burkhardt
  • Nora Webster...Colm Tobin
  • Saving Grace...Jane Green
  • The French House...Don Wallace
  • Florence Gordon...Brian Morton
  • Us...David Nichols
  • Life Drawing...Robin Black
  • Lucky Us...Amy Bloom
  • Perfectly Miserable: Guilt God and Real Estate in a Small Town... Sarah Payne Stuart
  • Paris I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down...Rosecrans Baldwin
  • Beautiful...Ruth Richl
  • The French For Love...Fiona Valpy
  • Green Angel...Alice Hoffman
  • The Husband's Secret...Liane Moriarty
  • A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman...Margaret Drabble (short stories) a
  • The Arsonist...Sue Miller
  • Table for Seven...Whitney Gaskell
  • Outside the Lines...Amy Hatvany
  • The Widower's Tale...Julia Glass
  • Still Life With Bread Crumbs...Anna Quindlan
  • And The Dark Sacred Night...Julia Glass
  • The Good House...Ann Leary
  • We Are Water...Wally Lamb
  • Three Junes...Julia Glass
  • After I'm Gone...Laura Lippman
  • The Woman Upstairs...Claire Messud
  • Death of the Black Haired Girl...Robert Stone
  • Lydia's Party...Margaret Hawkins
  • Bread and Butter...Michelle Wildgen
  • Thursdays in the Park...Hilarry Boyd
  • A Place At the Table...Susan Rebecca White
  • The Glass Wives...Amy Sue Nathan
  • Summer People...Brian Groh
  • Beautiful Day...Elin Hilderbrand
  • Carthage...Joyce Carol Oates
  • The Lovliest Chocolate Shop in Paris...Jenny Colgan
  • House of Glass...Sophie Littlefield
  • The Comfort of Lies...Randy Susan Meyers
  • The Painted Girls...Cathy Marie Buchanan
  • The Kept...James Scott
  • Tell the Wolves I'm Home...Carol Rifka Brunt
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower...Stephen Chbosky
  • The Position...Meg Wolitzer
  • Teach Me...R.A. Nelson
  • Carry The One...Carol Anshaw
  • The Bookstore...Deborah Meyler
  • The Interestings...Meg Wolitizer
  • The Union Street Bakery...Mary Ellen Taylor
  • The Girl Who Stopped Swimming...Joshilynn Jackson
  • Another Piece of My Heart...Jane Green
  • Knitting Yarns, Writers on Knitting...Edited by Ann Hood
  • Margot...Jillian Cantor
  • Fork in the Road (essays/memoirs about food/travel)...James Oseland
  • The Baker's Daughter...Sara McCoy
  • How To Be A Good Wife...Emma Chapman
  • The O'Henry Awards: 2001 Prize Stories
  • Sisterland...Curtis Sittenfeld
  • The Pursuit of Other Interests...Jim Kokoris
  • The Mourning Hours...Paula Treick DeBoard
  • Nine Inches (stories)...Tom Perrotta
  • A Country Called Home...Kim Barnes
  • The Kitchen Daughter...Jael McHenry
  • The Best Of US...Sarah Pekkanen
  • Family Pictures...Jane Green
  • The Beginner's Good-Bye...Anne Tyler
  • A Farm Under a Lake...Martha Bergland
  • Special Topics in Calamity Physics...Marisha Pessl
  • The Lost Mother...Mary McGarry Morris
  • Memories of A Marriage...Louis Begley
  • Tapestry of Fortunes...Elizabeth Berg
  • Heat Wave...Penelope Lively
  • Sag Harbor...Colson Whitehead
  • Big Brother...Lionel Shriver
  • Second Nature...Jacquelyn Mitchard
  • Medium Raw...Anthony Bourdain
  • Pieces of Happily Every After...Irene Zutell
  • The Boy...Lara Santoro
  • Lit...A Memoir...Mary Karr
  • More Than It Hurts You...Darin Strauss
  • The Burgess Boys...Elizabeth Strout
  • Tales of Burning Love...Louise Erdrich
  • A Home at the End of the World...Michael Cunningham
  • The Cookbook Collector...Allegra Goodman
  • Look At Me...Jennifer Egan
  • Shelter Me...Juliette Fay
  • The Gathering...Anne Enright
  • A Nearly Perfect Copy...Allison Amend
  • Gone Girl...Gillian Flynn
  • The Casual Vacancy...J.K. Rowling
  • The Gin Closet...Leslie Jamison
  • Dearie--The Remarkable Life of Julia Child...Bob Spitz
  • Indiscretion...Charles Dubow
  • The Marriage Plot...Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Oystercatchers...Susan Fletcherr
  • Bitter In the Mouth...Monique Truong
  • The Future of Love...Shirley Abbott
  • Flight Behavior...Barabara Kingsolver
  • The Lake of Dreams...Kim Edwards
  • Afterwife...Polly Williams
  • Daddy Love...Joyce Carol Oates
  • Good Family...Terry Gamble
  • Whistling In the Dark...Lesley Kagan
  • Model Home...Eric Puchner
  • A Soft Place to Land...Susan Rebecca White
  • The Shadow of Love...Rebecca Stowe
  • Almost...Elizabeth Benedict
  • Bridge of Sighs...Richard Russo
  • Beast...Joyce Carol Oates
  • Summerland...Elin Hilderbrand
  • The Ellementals...Francisca Lia Block
  • Broken Harbor...Tana French
  • So Much for That...Lionel Shriver
  • State of Wonder...Ann Patchett
  • Ash Wednesday...Ethan Hawke
  • Dark Places...Gillian Flynn
  • The Roundhouse...Louise Erdrich
  • The Loop...Nicholas Evans
  • The Next Best Thing...Jennifer Weiner
  • The Truth About Lorin Jones...Allison Lurie
  • Black Dahlia and White Rose (stories)...Joyce Carol Oates...
  • Lone Wolf...Jodi Piccoult
  • In One Person...John Irving
  • America, America...Ethan Canin
  • How I Became A Famous Novelist...Steve Hely
  • At Paradise Gate...Jane Smiley
  • The Kite Runner...Khaled Hosseini
  • Duplicate Keys...Jane Smiley
  • The Dylanist...Brian Morton
  • The Age of Grief (stories)...Jane Smiley
  • In the Woods...Tana French
  • Claire Marvel...John Burnham Schwartz
  • Breakable You...Brian Morton
  • Ordinary People...Judith Guest
  • The Safety of Secrets...Delaune Michel
  • Maine...J. Courtney Sullivan
  • Started Early, Took My Dog...Kate Atkinson
  • The Hunger Games...Suzanne Collins
  • The Family Man...Elinor Lipman
  • We Need to Talk About Kevin...Lionel Shriver
  • Mudwoman...Joyce Carol Oates
  • Dear Husband (stories)...Joyce Carol Oates
  • White Truffles in Winter...N.M. Kelby
  • The Weird Sisters...Eleanor Brown
  • Elizabeth Berg...Once Upon A Time, There Was You
  • The Last Nude...Ellis Avery
  • The Book Borrower...Alice Mattison
  • An Object of Beauty...Steve Martin
  • An Available Man...Hilma Wolitzer
  • The Marriage Artist...Andrew Winer
  • After the War...Alice Adams
  • The Leftovers...Tom Perrotta
  • Case Histories...Kate Atkinson
  • Nantucket Nights; Summer People; The Love Season...Elin Hilderbrand (o.k. I'm obsessed.)
  • My Sister, My Love...Joyce Carol Oates
  • Russian Winter...Daphne Kalotay
  • A Friend of the Family...Lauren Grodstein
  • The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America...Alan Ehrenhalt
  • Silver Girl...Elin Hilderbrand
  • How to Be An American Housewife...Margaret Dilloway
  • Little Bee...Chris Cleave
  • Freedom...Jonathan Franzen
  • When Will There Be Good News? ...Kate Atkinson
  • Don't Make a Scene...Valerie Block
  • The Summer of Naked Swim Parties...Jessica Anya Blau
  • The Grief of Others...Leah Hager Cohen
  • The Embers...Hyatt Bass
  • One Good Turn...Kate Atkinson
  • The Sweet Relief of Missing Children...Sarah Braunstein
  • Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie Girl Culture...Peggy Orenstein
  • Behind the Scenes at the Museum...Kate Atkinson
  • Had A Good Time: Stories from American Postcards...Robert Olen Butler
  • After You...Julie Buxbaum
  • The Year Of Endless Sorrows...Adam Rapp
  • Lately...Sara Pritchard (stories)
  • Julie and Romeo...Jeanne Ray
  • Secrets of Eden...Chris Bohjalian
  • Satisfaction...Gillian Greenwood
  • Sing You Home...Jodi Picoult
  • Eat Cake...Jeanne Ray
  • Sarah's Key...Tatiana de Rosnay
  • Unfinished Desires...Gail Godwin
  • That Old Cape Magic...Richard Russo
  • The Lake Shore Limited...Sue Miller
  • Heat...Bill Buford (memoir)
  • Joy School...Elizabeth Berg
  • Pictures of You...Caroline Leavitt
  • The Blue Bistro...Elin Hilderbrand
  • The Painted Drum...Louise Erdrich
  • The Castaways...Elin Hilderbrand
  • East of the Mountains...David Guterson
  • My Father's Tears...John Updike (stories)
  • Blood, Bones & Butter...Gabrielle Hamilton (memoir)
  • Moral Disorder...Margaret Atwood (stories)
  • Grub...Elise Blackwell
  • Attachment...Isabel Fonseca
  • Snow Angels...Stewart O'Nan
  • Every Last One...Anna Quindlen
  • The Life List...Lori Nelson Spielman
  • Between Husbands and Friends...Nancy Thayer
  • Songs for the Missing...Stewart O'Nan
  • The Goldfinch...Donna Tartt
  • Someone...Alice McDermott
  • The Silent Wife...A.S.A. Harrison
  • Fin and Lady...Cathleen Schine