Let The Good Times Roll

One of my favorite collaborative art journal groups is the Artistic Evolution.  That's the one in which our pages are supposed to evolve in some way from the pages that came before.  If you'd like to know more, click HERE.  It's been a while since I've received a book to work on, so I was thrilled to get Gina's from Elena last week. 

Gina's colors (the ones she'd like to be predominant in her book) are purple, emerald green and deep blue.  So, I immediately thought of Mardi Gras.  The pages that came right before mine had lots of gold, and the text mentioned silk and gold dust.  That just reinforced the Mardi Gras theme in my mind.  So, I used some of my favorite phrenology head images (including Wendy Vecchi's art chick stamp, an Invoke Arts stamp, and some from an Alpha Stamps sheet), and dressed them up in Mardi Gras finery.

Here are my two side by side pages:



The backgrounds were done with Color Wash sprays, distress stains, Inktense pencils, stencils and both glaze and gel pens.  The revelers were colored with Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, metallic craft paint, and lots of glaze pens.  They all wear collars made from bits of left over ribbon that I shredded into tiny pieces.

Here are some closer looks.





Arting With Friends

Yesterday I headed to Westbeth for a journaling class with Diana Trout.  With me, some of the usual suspects in these events, Heidi, Michele and Pat.   I always enjoy the classes that The Ink Pad sponsors at Westbeth, because it's a nice large space and we each get half of a long table to spread out on.

Diana is a fun, down to earth person with a very loose and carefree style that I am very drawn to.  No measuring, no over thinking, no rules.  Yea! 

We started with a warm up exercise that Diana calls journal spilling.  I think a lifetime ago it might have been called stream of consciousness writing.  We just wrote and wrote and wrote without thinking or planning until Diana told us to stop.

Then Diana demonstrated some of her background techniques, which involved a lot of water.....appropriately called paint spilling.

After which we proceded to cover up all that writing, and that was a process I enjoyed very much.

Other exercises involved drawing lines.  This was my favorite.  Put your pen down on the paper and start drawing, and don't lift the pen or stop drawing until time is called (or the page is filled, whichever comes first).  Also, don't cross over any of the lines.

I'll be filling that with color at some point.  Here is another page I worked on.

My art pals, getting all inky and painty.

Michele and Heidi

 Pat

 Heidi's hands, smooshing the paint

After our lunch break we made paper dolls.  I don't know about you, but these crack me up.  Here are the girls:

 Most people did two sided dolls, with different outfits and accessories on the backs.  Look closely.  I did not.  LOL!

We were joined by some other friends.

Play nice, ladies!

Although the workshop was geared a bit more towards beginners than I'd expected, I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and was introduced to a new supply which I absolutely love......Derwent Inktense pencils.  They are watersoluble ink pencils.  So, they react with water as watercolor pencils do, but when dry, they are permanent, because they are INK, not paint.  Very rich beautiful colors, and I think I need to get a larger set.