Altered Book Collage and Mixed Media - Vintage Boy and His Dog

This is a recently finished page that I did while vacationing up North at our Lake house.

A Boy and His Dog

I haven't had nearly as much time this year to spend on my own art, since I started teaching art at my school. It has turned out to be a much larger undertaking that I anticipated. So it felt really good to do something just for me for a change. Teaching art has certainly stretched me in many ways and my art has definitely improved because of it, but I miss having the free time to just go into the studio and play.

And I haven't had too much free time to post on my blog.  But summer is coming. So I hope to be better about putting things up.

If you happen to visit, please leave a comment so I know you were here.  Thanks.

Altered Book Spread - Collage

I am trying out different things in my art journals these days.  This particular one is a collage of various vintage papers and ephemera.  I really like it. I don't know whether it is completely done or not.  I am letting it rest awhile to see if I feel it needs more later.

Mandala Altered Book for Round Robin

Mandala Altered Book Final

Altered Book - Marie Antoinette

Altered Book for Round Robin with the theme Marie Antoinette. I really enjoy working with historical themes because I love reading all about the times of the theme. This topic was fascinating and I learned a lot doing the research for these pages.

First spread shows the first portrait on the left of Marie in casual cotton gown and on the right - the repainted portrait after the public uproar - repainted to show her much more "queen-like". The public claimed the first one looked like she was in her underwear!

Pull-out tags tell the story of the portraits.

Spread showing Marie and her Hameau de la Reine - a village she had built on the grounds of Versaille to replicate French  village life. She often went there and dressed as a milk-maid.

Fold-out on the left shows a collection of Marie's shoes, which according to the etiquette of the times, she had 4-6 pairs of shoes made each week.

Sign-In tag

TBT "Deux Vagabonds" Altered Book Page

This is an altered book page I made last fall. I happened to decide to work in this book again, and saw this and thought it was worth another post.

It is sort of hard to see, but there is a lot of texture going on. I used texture medium through stencils on certain areas. There also is quite a shimmer to some of the paint.

 

There is a chill in the air and fall is definitely on the way. This is a good layout to say hello to Fall.

Altered Book Round Robin - Life is a Journey

This is a spread from another round robin I am playing in. The theme is Life is a journey.

Women in History - Art Journal Round Robin

This is the first round robin of this type that I have been in. We made our own journals using the Teesha Moore tutorial for her 16-page journal from one sheet of paper found here. I used a scraped paint background, then stenciled over it with Donna Downey stencils and used some found objects for further mark making ala Traci Bautista's Printmaking Unleashed. Then I used washi tape, dry-walling tape and perforated tape pieces to add more texture. The cover has a piece of ephemera that is a portrait of Mary of Teck.

 

Inside cover spread has sign-in tags and a page featuring Elizabeth I. 

 Back cover

Inside back cover flap

American Southwest Altered Book Work In Progress

My next round-robin altered book has the theme American Southwest, so I have been playing around trying to come up with something to go in her book. I have been having a bit of a hard time with this one. I just started with some colors that I felt gave the idea of the SW and scraped paint onto a piece of mixed media paper. I then started layering texture using my fingers, various stencils, rubber stamps and other things I had lying around on my art desk. I found an old coloring book I had from Dover on American Indians of the Southwest and hand copied the Navajo sand painting design onto the page.

I also just worked on another background page, trying for different effects. So here are my two works-in-progress.

I will likely cut both of these down before using them. I'll post the final results later this month.

Art Day Doodle With Craft Connection

Once a month I host a group of ladies here for "Craft Connection". We all made mixed media pieces which I demonstrated. It was so much fun spreading and splashing paint - layers upon layers. Each lady did their own piece. I wish now I had taken pictures of everyone else's work, but I didn't. :(

Altered Book Spread - English Garden

This is the latest in my series of entries into others' altered books for a round robin I'm in. This one will eventually wind its way back to its owner in the UK. Had a lot of fun with this one. Her theme is "English Garden". I found this little image on Pinterest and decided to try to integrate it onto the page by painting the rest. I do like how it turned out.

Botanicals Altered Book Page

This is a practice page for a round robin I am participating in. I'm not loving how it turned out, but I hope that the actual piece is better. I was inspired by this post Moss Hill Studios. I just adore her work!

Documented Life Project Journal Spreads

I have been joining in The Documented Life Project as of late. I have really enjoyed the weekly challenges. These are the first two weeks of April. I have been a bit behind since I started late, so I haven't been using it so much as a calendar just yet. But I am hoping now that I have enough done ahead to actually start using it as a planner and not just as a journal.


   

 

English Garden Art Journal Page for Round Robin

This is the original mock-up in my own book for the current altered book round-robin I am participating in. I wanted to try a mono-chromatic look, which is also a prompt from The Documented Life Project, found here, which is another challenge I am participating in.

To make the background, I gessoed the page, then scraped two colors of pink acrylic craft paint  onto the page with a credit card. Then I stenciled the flowers with white gesso. I stamped various flowers onto the page in varying colors of pink. Then I went over some of the flowers with texture paint, puffy paint or glitter glue. Then I stamped the title and outlined the letters in a darker pink pen. I did put a little green on for the flower stems and leaves. My dear husband pointed out that it really wasn't monochromatic, then. Oh well. It's my first try. I also tried shading some of the flowers and stems, but I wasn't particularly happy with how it turned out, so I abandoned that for the final version.

This is the final version of the book. The book theme I am working in this month is "An English Garden" and will eventually wing its way back to England to its owner. I have one more spread to do for her before I mail the book on to the next participant.

"Authentic Vintage" Art Journal Page

This is another page I completed while we were vacationing up North - the first time arting in our new house. This was the result of a prompt of cutting up a magazine picture and adding it to your journal through The Documented Life Project - week 12.

Art Journal Spread - The Documented Life Project Wk. 14

I decided to jump in and participate in The Documented Life Project weekly challenges after looking at all the wonderful art going on in the group. I needed to just jump in at the current challenge and take if from there.

We were on vacation this week at our new Lake House up north and so I did this piece on a page from an old calendar. I love the paper.

I gessoed the paper and then used a tutorial from Betty Franks Krause at  Mystic Tulip Mixed Media , using the supplies I had with me. I had to improvise, of course, but her tutorials are so well written and easy to follow, that I had no problem creating this beautiful background. Then I just used a stencil I had on hand for my name letters and doodled them in, using inspiration from Joanne Sharp's lettering which I found on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog. Isn't the internet wonderful for learning and aren't artists such a wonderful, giving bunch of lovelies!

"Fill Your Life with Color" Art Journal Page

This is sort of out of the box for me, but I was working on a prompt from Journal 52 "Color Swatches", and this is what I came up with. I sort of modeled the page after this page by Karenika. I really like her style, so I thought I would give this one a try. It is a combination of water color, stenciling and stamping with a little freehand doodling. I will definitely revisit this style some time in the future. Karen is so talented and I love her artwork.

Altered Book Spreads - "She Who Loves"

This is the latest two spreads from my 2014 Altered Book Round Robin - this one has the theme of "She Who Loves".  This was a very small book - so it was a little challenging for me. I am not used to working in such a small size.  But it's getting mailed out today. Woo hoo!

Love is a Many Splendored Thing

Altered Book - Mock-up Spread - Vintage Europe

For each of the altered book round robin pages, I make a mock-up in a book that I will keep for myself. It has a two-fold purpose - one is that I get to try things and experiment with my ideas and not have to worry about ruining someone else's book and the other is that I end up with a book of similar work that I did for other people. It is a little extra work, but well worth it. This is the mock up I did of the Princess Elizabeth spread that I posted previously. You can see subtle differences between the two.

 

Princess (Queen) Elizabeth Spread for Altered Book Round Robin

This is the finished piece for the altered book round robin that I did for the book with the theme of Vintage Europe. I did two spreads, one of Princess Margaret and one of Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth.

 

Here is the final spread of Princess Margaret plus a few close-ups.