I Dream in......white and gold

One of the very first collaborative art journals I got involved with, I Dream In Colors (IDIC for short, how clever we are), is coming to a close.  Nearly all have been completed and have either arrived back home or are nearly on their way.

For the past two days I've been working on pages for my dear friend Elena (who is also the ringleader of all these journal groups, and the magnificent host of our annual Keys4Art retreat) and I've been itching to do something in her chosen colors, white and gold.  Not until you do a project that is mainly white do you realize how many different shades of white there are.  Unless of course you work in the paint department at Home Depot.  Then I suppose you already know that.

As I'm one of the last to receive Elena's book, I've had over a year to collect items to include in my pages.  Not that I sat down with a plan.  I just gathered together everything I thought I might use and started cutting, ripping, gluing, sewing..... and here's the outcome:

The backgrounds on both pages were collaged from music sheets, dictionary pages and scrapbook papers which had all been distressed, inked, embossed and otherwise altered.  Since I knew I'd be journaling on the second page, I dry brushed some gesso over top so the text would show up better. 

I cut a bunch of flowers with Tim Holtz's tattered florals die.  I used gold tulle and white fabric with gold threads.  There is a little story behind that fabric.  It is leftover from a project I did for my BFF's wedding back in '96.  Her wedding colors were Elena's journal colors.  I like that.....adding a little bit of personal history to a journal page.

I found the face online and worked a lot on it with pastels and pencils.  The head is surrounded by some of the same die cut fabric, except for this "hair," I cut the petals apart and really tattered their edges with a distressing tool.  Although I did adhere all the fabric with fabric glue, I also went over everything with some machine stitching (not just to make sure it would all stay in place, but ever since I realized I could thread the machine, I look for excuses to use it!)

Other things in the color scheme I used:  white embossing powder and ink, gold ink, gold rub-n-buff, gold thread, white paint, white gesso, pearls, white gel pen, white and gold sharpie markers, gold ribbon.

Art Journal Updates

The collaborative art journal groups I belong to have given me some of my most pleasurable moments in the studio.  Every time I see a priority mail box outside my door I am a very happy camper.  What will I be called upon to create.....pages inspired by a color combination, by dreams,  by the life and art of Frida Kahlo, or maybe by the opulence of Marie Antoinette?

Last week brought three arrivals, and I have completed pages for two of them.
First, for Jacquie's IDIC (I Dream In Colors) journal:

Jacquie's chosen colors are blues, browns, and a touch of metal.  I did these pages right after my Lynne Perrella workshops, and you can see that Edgar was still on my mind (and apparently still on my work table).

My backgrounds were done in the gesso/collage/texture style I've learned from Lynne and love so much, and most of the images are toner copies of internet graphics.  There are also some stamped images in there.  The color....mainly from my much used and loved Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, as well as my other favorite, distress inks.

The next project was for Marita's Marie Antoinette journal.  Instead of embellishing and altering an image of Marie, I decided to do something a little different this time: 

 

First, a few words about the backgrounds.  They are collaged and colored with the Portfolios and distress inks, but the papers I used for the collage are almost entirely papers I've received from friends.  Many were done by my good pal Lillian, and several were done by Nancy.  I love the idea of incorporating the work of my artist friends into my own.  Thanks Lill and Nancy!

Marie and the hot air balloon were both done with free hand paper piecing, again using scraps from my friends' papers as well as bits and pieces of my own backgrounds.  There are a very few fabric and metal embellishments, but I'd say 95% of these pages were done with paper scraps.

Waiting in the wings.....Gina's gorgeous Journal of Dreams.  Hmmmm......what will my dream be?

I Dream In Colors.......turquoise, rust and white

I received Lil's wonderful IDIC journal yesterday, and as sometimes happens, had an immediate idea, and once I got started, couldn't stop.  As I've mentioned before, this collaborative journal was inspired by True Colors,  a wonderful book edited by Lynne Perrella.  For more on that, go here.
Anyway, Lil's chosen colors were turquoise, dusty rose and white, but in her introductory note she mentioned that she didn't really love the rose with the other colors, and preferred rust....and I obliged.
Here are the two pages I did, side by side:

And closer views of each separately:

(you can click on any of my photos for a more detailed look)

I sprayed the entire page (watercolor paper) with a homemade spray (water, turquoise re-inker and turquoise perfect pearls), then set about tearing up several different papers, patterned and solid, that had rust as the primary color....tore them into literally hundreds of pieces.  I started out doing a random collage, but soon felt that it all looked like a bunch of abstract buildings.

The '64 hit by Martha and the Vandellas has been in my head all summer (it's been a hot one), so I added some dancing silhouettes made from white mulberry paper.

The added texture to the sky is just some aqua tissue paper rolled up and glued down.  Speaking of glue, I used soft gel medium on everything.  I really do love the stuff.

The journaling, or I should say, song lyrics, was written with another greatly loved tool....a Sakura glaze pen in dark blue.

My only regret.....I should have written "dancin' in the streets" not "dancing in the streets."  Guess the part of me that was once an English major won out.  But in the actual lyrics, the correct word is "dancin'"

Color Journal and Embossed Tags

Once upon a time, I did a page for Daisy's Journal of Dreams.  Gina saw it, and ever since has been  hinting
begging  asking for a similar page in one of  her journals.  Well, you know, we don't repeat ourselves, but I felt I could create something new and still give Gina what she wanted.
Here is the page I did for Daisy, a long, long time ago:

And here are the two pages for Gina.....her colors are sepia, yellow, orange, red, black and gold.

First page:

And the second:

The background is colorwash, collaged papers, more colorwash, oil pastels.  The fantasy city is kind of a mix of NY and Moscow, created from photos, clip art, postcards and my own drawings.

By the way, Gina is very pleased with them.  (Me too!)

Stephen at ATT is hosting a tag swap.  Only rule....we have to use Tim's new embossing folders (called texture fades) somewhere on the tags.  Now, I'd ordered the folders ages ago, and have been waiting not so patiently for them to arrive.  I really thought I'd have to drop out of the swap, but they came yesterday, and I was so excited, I got right to it.  We were to make 6 tags (and we'll get 6 back), and mine are mostly alike.  I did use a different texture fade on each one (simply so I could play with them), but other than a few other minor differences, if you've seen one, you've seen them all.  Having said that, I'm still going to show you three.  See if you can spot the differences.  

I used Core'dinations paper....very cool stuff.  The core of the paper is a different color than the outside, which makes for some interesting effects.  After embossing, I sanded the raised areas so the core color shows through.

The heart and wings are cut with Tim's die called (oddly enough), Heart Wings.  I stamped the eye with embossing ink and embossed it with black detail embossing powder.  The crown is chipboard from Maya Road, and I used a glittery EP called African Gold.  It turned out a bit too glittery, so I toned it down (yep, this is the toned down version) with some olive Stazon ink.

The tag is edged with a gold pen, and under the flying heart is a criss cross of black and gold ribbon.  Some gold trim on the bottom finishes it off.

The sentiment (which I pretty much chose because size wise it fit on the tag, and it contains the word heart, and I do like it) is from Invoke Arts.

I Dream In Colors

Time out from my Key Largo posts.  I just completed pages for Jen's journal in our I Dream in Colors group.  Her color palette is chocolate brown, robin's egg blue, and lilac.
Not my usual colors (except for the brown, which I believe goes with everything), but had fun with it, and guess what?  Those who know me well won't believe it, but I sewed on it!  Me, sewing!
I have disliked sewing but love the look of stitches on paper, so a few weeks ago I went ahead and bought a basic machine and put it in a closet.
Something made me take it out yesterday.  I just knew it would end with much tears and cursing, but miracle of miracles, it really was as easy to thread as promised.  Can't believe it!  Not that I did anything elaborate, just some freehand stitching and attaching ribbon, but this is a very big deal for me.  I've always believed that I am totally incapable of using a sewing machine.  Yea, me!
Anyway, here is the first of the two page spread:

I used some of Tim Holtz's gorgeous new paper.  It's the right shade of blue, and I overpainted it in some areas with lilac paint.  I used the bracket from Tim's "Hanging Sign" die as the holder for the cage from his "Caged Bird" die.  I didn't use the bird from that die.  The smaller one is a stamp, inked and stickled.  The larger one is from the "Nature" grungeboard set.  I used Val's inlaid embossing technique on it.  Covered it with light purple embossing powder, then used a floral background stamp (Wendy Vecchi) over top, embossed with blue powder.

The second page is the one where I really tried out the sewing machine:

I LOVE Tim's "Fanciful Flight" die.  That butterfly is great, isn't it?  I put blue vellum under the chocolate card stock outline.

I chose the words I used, after searching for hours for a suitable quote about flying, because of the word "fairy."  If you read my post yesterday about the retreat, you know that each night we were visited by the pillow fairies (aka Gina and Marita).  I thought that whenever Jen looked at these pages she'd also be reminded of our wonderful days together in Key Largo.

Jen included some tags with her journal for us to use as a sign in.  She asked that we include a photo of ourselves.  I found a vintage NYC postcard, (well, a reproduction) Bethesda Fountain in Central Park in the 40's (I think), and used that as my base.  Here it is:

And no, I did not make up that corny caption.  It was actually on the bottom of the postcard!

I Dream In Colors

About a year ago the I Dream In Colors collaborative art journal group began.  I've worked in many books with a wide range of color palettes.   This past week I've been creating pages for Sarah's (one of my friends from Australia) journal.  Her colors are red, black, and white.  These are the pages I came up with, and the book will be heading for Jacquie in Florida today:

The pages are 8x8".  I went through my stash, but primarily took elements from scraps.  The elaborate headdress I added to the figure was cut freehand from a scrap of embossed Ten Seconds Studio black metal.  The bird on the second page was punched from the same metal.  The birdcages are die cuts I received with an online order.  Most of the papers I used to create the collaged background were also from the scrap pile.

I did a bit of doodling with my black and white Sakura glaze pens.....love them!  They add instant shine and dimension and write over virtually every surface.  

The quote, of course, is from the Maya Angelou poem, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings."