summer has flown…

the talented and prolific Valerie chose INDIAN SUMMER-GOLDEN OCTOBER-AUTUMN as October’s Art Journal Journey theme which sends my mind in lots of directions…

just when I think summer might go on forever it turned cooler which is perfect for open windows and warmer clothes...

we finally got some much needed rain too…

soon I will give up running barefoot around the house and get out my cozy slippers…

autumn makes me think of golden leaves andgolden sunsets so I added lots of gold to my scraped paint pages which was tricky to capture in my photos…

the WONDER page on the right began with an index card that I had made awhile ago…

~* Happy October *~

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”~ Jim Bishop

Believe nothing you hear…

our local mixed media art group is having a round robin and this month I got a book with the theme of “The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe” …

I knew right away that I wanted to use some of the black patterned envelopes that I have been saving (I have made a vow to stop saving them so using some felt extra good!)…

outlining the edges with a black Stabilo pencil and brushing with a stiff brush dipped in white gesso gave some color and texture to the background along with some bits of vintage paper and book text…

the image on the left is of a book cover printed onto a torn out page from this book…the red beer bottle cap on the right has been smashed flat and waiting to be used for some time now…

I had no idea this quote was by Edgar Allan Poe but it had always been a favorite of mine (seems Poe is misquoted quite a bit and the way I originally knew the quote was:  “Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.”)…

trying out various fonts and positioning…

until I was happy while having some fun channeling my dark side…

paint and pencil scribbling along with stamping on tissue paper and a piece of poison washi tape that I secured with gel medium…

some spider web washi tape at the top that I extended with black pen down the page (I intentionally left the spider out as a bit of a creep factor…if there is a web there must be a spider  but where!)… a piece of my faux resin paper and a golden flimmerstern that I trimmed randomly with scissors behind the bottle cap…

I am also sharing these pages with Art Journal Journey’s “Favorite Poems and Quotes” challenge…

no matter where you go…

 playing in my gesso journals is something I enjoy very much as everything seems to intuitively flow onto the pages…

I am joining the PaperArtsy 2015 topic 2 Shiny Stuff challenge…

the lovely gold veined sheer paper in the background above is a favorite ingredient of mine as it melts into all surfaces so beautifully and playing with gold leaf is something I have been meaning to do for some time now (this time I used glue stick to adhere it to my journal pages)…

the blue forget-me-nots are from a trip we took to Switzerland a few years ago which all seems like a dream now…I painted on top of a magazine face adding hair and the bodice of her dress leaving the eyes and lips mostly untouched…

the words “my heart” were left showing quite by chance and led me to add the vintage heart and arrow that I have had for some time now from here…

everyone is welcome to join in the challenges and as if all of the inspiration and sharing from talented and generous artists on the PaperArtsy blog is not wonderful enough they offer a generous prize if you are randomly chosen as the fortnightly winner…

as it happens I was the very lucky winner of their first challenge of the year and the wonderful prizes I chose from the PaperArtsy shop are already on their way to me…

“Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world “-Gustave Flaubert

Red Rosin Paper Book Pages…

my friend Michelle showed me a wonderful and inspiring book she made using Red Rosin Paper as the substrate…

the paper comes in a large roll very reasonably priced at most  hardware stores as it has various uses in construction…

I coated my torn pages with white gesso which gives the paper a rich and lovely canvas feel (no photo of that stage because I was covered in gesso and driven to coat and dry both sides of the rosin paper)

monoprinting on both sides of the gessoed Red Rosin Paper using my homemade gelatin plate (thanks again to Elizabeth for the tip about reboiling it every 5-6 weeks to keep it from getting moldy or slimey)…

it has been working like a charm in a dedicated pot that I have only used for that purpose on and off for over a year now…

while I was at it I could not help but get VERY excited about the inspiring video Gelli Arts recently shared here (today is the last day to enter their wonderful and generous giveaway!) using their new ROUND Gelli plate (Fabulous !!!) so I thought I would try making a couple of rounds (4 and 6 inch)…

even with all of the wonderful inspiration out there I seem to always fall back into my favorite way of monoprinting that doesn’t require much thought for me at all (I printed on both sides of some recycled printer paper while playing with my homemade round gelatin plates)…

before I knew it more than a couple of hours had passed and while I created nothing like on the Gelli Arts video I was very happy (as it happened I used pretty much the same paint colors that I had used days before for my gessoed red rosin pages)…

my book pages were done on a rectangular shaped gelatin plate made in the tin foil pan above which over time has now shrunk to a smaller 5.5 x 9.5 inch size (back when my homemade gelatin plate was new it filled two of the smaller plastic containers like the one above or one metal cake pan)…

here are my first collaged pages in my new book…

which I will stitch together after the pages are filled…

I used snippets of things that were close at hand including some “map” washi paper, book text, torn pieces of monoprint paper and the elephant which was cut from a magazine…

 I started at the back of my book on the pages above and am happy with the transformation already taking place even though I have no specific theme picked out

♥ just creating with what comes ♥

stronger …

the dinosaur book I have been working on since July…

now has all of the inside pages completed…

without consciously trying the words for my book pages have turned into a bit of flowing text that I will share with you after I complete the cover of the book…

paint…torn papers…drywall mesh tape…washi tape…rubber stamping…computer generated text and a mystery girl surrounded by lotus blooms  that surfaced on my work table…

another “She-Art” spread for Art Journal Journey’s challenge theme this month…

remember to play everyday…

using one of the index cards I created a while ago along with my most recent gelatin monoprinting on Fabriano 140 lb hot press paper that I had stitched to use as a journal (I came across a couple of twelve page  7.5 x 11 inch BLANK journals I had stitched together in a great Misty Mawn 2012 online class that had been waiting for attention)…

there was just one problem with the monoprinting that worked better than I imagined directly onto the stitched journal pages…

I liked them so much I really didn’t want to cover them up…

however I was eager to participate again in Art Journal Journey’s August SQUARE challenge so I got busy and carved a couple of square stamps (thanks to Dawn for inspiring me to use some of the big school erasers that are plentiful this time of year)…

using my square stencil to add a few painted squares and to outline the squares with a bit of stamping on top (the pink rubber above is called Speedy Carve by Speedball)… …

so here are what the BEFORE pages looked like…

and the AFTER using my new Sharpie Fine Pen shown in the photos above which was great for adding some finishing doodle touches to my journal pages…

still a few more days left in August for you too to join in the Art Journal Journey challenge or at least stop by to enjoy the wonderful creations from around the globe…