Love more … Fear less

hardly anything in life is ever just black or white…

perhaps that is the challenge and attraction for me when doodling to not use any color…

I glued a few encyclopedia pages together using UHU glue stick and painted them with black gesso…

the photo above was taken about midway in creating my pages…

I was very pleased with how well my white Uniball Signo Gel pen worked along with the two different sized Sharpie water based poster paint markers (Extra Bold Point and Fine Point) on the black gesso with no resistance or hesitation…

I realized after completing these black and white pages that I had done a similar colorized version a couple of years ago here…

it felt good to escape into doodle land for a bit…

my art journal pages were inspired by this Swedish Proverb…

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more, Love more, and all good things will be yours.”

doodling about…

first I want to thank the always generous and kind Estivalia for coming to my rescue yet again…

she made it possible for my word of the year “Balance” to be on my sidebar AND she also got the Tea on Tuesday widget working for me…

thank you thank you sweet Estivalia!!!

lots is going on here in our Magpie’s Nest…

we are in the midst of clearing out …

always it seems…

but now more earnestly than ever…

we are also in the process of replacing some carpet that has long outlived its usefulness…

 as you may know all of that is hard work so in the evenings I have been relaxing by doing a bit of doodling…

nice mindless escape…

I am a bit of a lazy doodler using my favorite ‘easy’ marks…

clearing out is a process much like doodling taking one step at a time…

“It is not how much you do, but how much (L)ove you put into the doing that matters.” ~Mother Teresa   OXO

play tea…

have you noticed how it is even more fun to play when you really should be doing something else…

could that be our inner teenager trying to come through…

pack or play…

OK pause for tea…

I certainly did not want to miss wishing you a happy T Tuesday

Paper Stacks a Plenty…another Seth Apter Collaboration

Seth of The Altered Page is at it again …

ever the master of art collaborations he put out a call to post photos showing our stacked journals

… papers

… handmade books and more …

the bigger the pile the better…

I must admit the pictures above show just some of my creations…

in talking to Mr Magpie about paper stacks…

he took a few paper photos too…

it seems piles of paper play a big role in our lives…

the other evening we rescued the paper bits below after having a bite to eat…

we found we only needed half of the heavy duty paper napkins provided and the paper doilies are always too good to pass up… a wonderful collage ingredient…

many thanks to Seth as always for joining the on line mixed media art community together…

I am looking forward to visiting all of the Paper Stack Project participants linked on Seth’s blog here

…95 participants and counting…

WS: Shells

seashells always speak to me … I find it pretty much impossible to walk upright on a beach … with so many tempting treasures waiting to be discovered…

I used parts of these stamps to create my “sea horse” (the real ones are such fascinating creatures) …

this horse cutout from our local craft store helped make this quick and easy …

lots easier than doodling with a pen on the horses … which can take hours and hours …visit Wednesday Stamper to see lots of seashell creativity

I have an altered shoe to show you later this week and yes … you guessed it … seashells are definitely involved 🙂

Love more … Fear less

challenged by some of my colorful monoprint journal pages

and inspired again by this Swedish proverb:

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more, Love more, and all good things will be yours.”

I decided to get busy with my white water based Sharpie Poster Pen …

my first thought was that green might bring everything together … like it does in nature … but since I did not have a fine tip marker in green …

I got busy with my white pen …

speaking of colorful … have you seen these clever and creative paint commercials … visit here and here for a real treat …both are short and sweet

PLAY …

first I would like to thank Faye for helping me get my ABOUT button on the top of my blog to work … I was stuck and am so tickled to now have it clickable …

watching TV in the evenings … listening mostly … I find doodling very relaxing .. busy hands you know 😉 …

picked up this little fabric covered journal … handmade paper pages … each one a little smaller than a postcard … made in India … the elephant made me do it …

“Let Loose” We have a Winner

with eyes closed … Mr Magpie randomly pulled one name out of the hat heart …

the winner of my Sally Jean Alexander PRETTY LITTLE THINGS book is ………..

Congratulations Jeanie … I was so excited when your name was pulled from the “hat”

I will also be including a cardboard horse that I had fun doodling

… thank you to all that visited … it is always fun to meet new people and visit with regular visitors too …

I hope you will be inspired to join Dymphie and Jolette with their great “LET LOOSE”  idea … whether you won or not …

I will be having another giveaway mid October to celebrate three years of blogging …

WS: Gone Fishing

the theme at Wednesday Stamper for the next two weeks is “Gone Fishing”

I decided to doodle an ATC starting with a fish stamp

have a visit here and here for some wonderful doodling inspiration

Also … our local stamp store has a neat “blow fish” stamp that they have used in a nice card here

“Tree” of Life

it’s all about “trees” at Wednesday Stamper this week

trees are so beautiful in each and every season

a symbol of growth … strength … protection … longevity and more

for my postcard

*a couple of clicks will take you in close … kind of fun what you see in the closeup, more than meets the eye … the words “stamped and stamping” are in the upper right hand corner of my postcard*

I used an unmountedLost Coast Designs tree stamp reminding me of a favorite artist,  Gustav Klimt

backed it with a piece of black cardstock … attached that to a page from an old encyclopedia that I glued to cardstock … finishing with some doodles all around the edges

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The next best time is now.” ~Chinese Proverb

if you would like to see some photos of the beautiful Cherry Blossom trees around the Tidal Basin in Wash DC …you can click here

Elephant ATC Swap

our local altered arts group is having an “Elephant” Artist Trading Card swap … I decided to doodle mine since Zentangling and doodling have been on my mind lately as evidenced here and here

if you click for the close up … please ignore the goober on my scanner lid … it showed up not so nicely in the background

did I make you look *ggg* … I was too lazy to run upstairs for a piece of black card stock and start all over again lining everything up on the scanner

my ATC began with an unmounted elephant rubber stamp … as you can see … I  filled in the rest of the card with doodles

it was VERY tempting to add a touch of color … in the end I decided to stick to black and white

WS: Doodling

Belinda’s theme for Wednesday Stamper this week is “doodling” … something I have been having fun with lately

here are four Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) I created

and the supplies I used

* * * * *

Kath Kristinnson and I recently swapped Zentangle cards

here are the goodies she sent me … Love her idea of using an inchie clear set stamp for the center

“The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed” ~Mary Engelbreit

… doodling about

Zentangling and the Olympics make nice partners … I have been doodling away the last couple of evenings and have created more than two dozen artist trading cards (ATCs)

here is a sampling

I like starting out by stamping an image with permanent ink  … I am using Bristol board which is nice and smooth along with Copic Pigment Ink pens … adding words is  something new for me this time around … I was hooked for awhile last February (see below) 🙂

these were all photographed within minutes of one another  and in the same location … interesting that the middle batch has a blue hue to it?

Sherry Goodloe got me going again with her wonderful Zentangle cards recently … you can visit her here and here for examples of her inspired doodling

it was last year around this time that I tried my first Zentangles … if you’d like to see some of those … type the word “zentangle” into the “search” spot on my sidebar which is located just above the

Have a Heart for Haiti Blog Event button

a warning should come with this activity … I dare you to make just one 😉