dry, glue, dry!!

progress in the journal is slow, because many layers of glued on paper and tissue must dry. this is a slow process, since i don't have a hair dryer at the moment. even if i did, it's noisy enough to put me off using it very long! it was very humid and hot today, and nothing wanted to dry. in fact, it's currently storming. eek!

well, not eek. i love storms. i love sleeping in thunderstorms even better. watching a big lightening thunderstorm roll in during the summer is one of my favorite things. still, a little eek because drying times slooooooow waaaaay doooown.


i'll be going to a workshop tomorrow, given by an artist friend. it's a collage workshop... i think it'll be fun to go play all day with other people, even if i have to leave the house in 6ish hours. yikes.

not. a. morning. person.


... you can see larger versions of these images, with more details, on flickr.

sometimes i go a little nuts with the 'note' feature, so beware.

off to go put together a quickie bag of supplies for tomorrow's foray into collage. i usually take WAY too much stuff to these things and don't end up using most of it. i'm going minimal tomorrow. i will only allow myself ONE big ziploc bag. no, NOT the size you use to store clothes under the bed. geez, have a little faith guys! ;)

My THICK THICK THICK New Spreads

So far, I think these are my favorite spreads (that I created) - background wise. These are so THICK and pliable. I would venture to say each side has at least four layers of gesso, papers, paints, etc... and topped with hand stamped images carved by moi! I am so glad this baby is being mailed "Flat Rate" Priority - otherwise, it would cost a small fortune to mail. It is HEAVY! I wish everyone could "FEEL" the texture of these pages. I just love the way they turned out. They are textured, yet smooth to the touch.

surface prep

mostly i've been spending time de-cluttering and re-arranging my studio. mostly.

otherwise i have been slowly applying coats of gesso to the pages of the journal (the untouched ones). ideally i would like to put a coat down on every page, and then go through adding thickness.

i find preparing a surface to be good for also clearing my brain. there's something about the process of coating the surface with layers and layers of white, knowing full well very little of that is likely to be left when it's finished.



i have plans for some paints sometime later this week. more to come.

New thickness trick!

Got a great idea for adding thickness to the journal pages. I decided to use a few sheets of my white peel & press paper that I usually use for faux postage or stickers. I took it outside and spray painted the backgrounds and then came inside and gave it a coat of Krylon Workable Fixative. That makes is slippery - so I can use my oil pastels and blend easily with my finger tips. After the oil pastels and some acrylic painting I decided to use one of my handmade stamps - coiled string around a lid to add some interesting texture. Then I used a neat chunky stamp that looks like a checker board for more interesting texture. Spray again with the fixative and then cut to fit the pages I wanted to add it to in the journal. Simply peeled and pressed it into place. Wa-la! Pretty cool. Now... I am still free (and Nicci is still free) to add more paint, or whatever to it!