I've been having a hard time getting my art on lately. I try to "think" of/try to do a painting on my little tiny canvasses. And nothing seems right. No inspiration. "Likewise" with my art journal. I feel like my inner artistic soul is struggling. Even my garden is in shambles. Haven't weeded it all summer and now it has become all weeds. (But I did post a picture of a bouquet from my garden today on facebook!) Inspired by Peter Ross's fall bouquet on facebook.
After a very long hiatus, I've been trying to "paint on canvas" again. Instead of doing my people portraits or animal paintings I thought I would work in the style of my art journal pages. First of all, I bought very cheap "stretched/primed" canvasses at Michael's. In the outer lobby. Package of 10 so Byron and I could divide it. The canvasses are very rough--not ready for painting at all. The second picture/canvas needs more work. But I think I will just gesso over it and start anew.
I am in the process of making a new art journal. I've cut the pages, made the signatures and punched the holes for sewing. That's the easy part. Now I have to measure and cut the binding, line it up with covers (6x8 canvas boards) glue it down, and either paint or paste down color copies/image for the front and back covers. It never (NEVER!) turns out correctly. Perfectly. I am a sloppy artisan. I have made so many of these art journals and made notes on what to do. It's something about the math/ the measurements that never turn out right. I'm all about the right brain.
I went to JoAnn Fabrics yesterday in search of some pretty yarn and impulsively decided to try my hand at crocheting some socks. I saw the pretty Lion Brand "Amazing" yarn that my daughter Abby had used for one of her crocheted scarves and even got the same "wildflowers" color (although the colors look much darker on the skeins that I bought.) I also realized later that the yarn is probably not fine enough to be used with the size crochet hook called for in the pattern. But I'll give it a try!
I'm not ready to make a whole new art journal from "scratch." Ordering the hot press 140 lb paper from the inner-nets. Then having to cut the huge sheets into journal size pages. Then the folding and the stitching. Not to mention the making of the covers which I hate most of all. Yeah, I'll probably get back to doing all that, but in the meantime here are some loose leaf pages that I will bind into my next art journal.
