Art Journal still in week 2

Hello!

We still have snow on the ground but if we get a few more days like today, when it got above zero Celcius it should go quickly. I hate to say it but they are calling for a 10 + cm snow storm for this saturday!! Give me a break!! It's April!

Well, I did go out for some pictures when I said I would in my post below but didn't find anything or anywhere to take photos in town. This past sunday, I went to the north shore of the island and had a whole afternoon of fun! I walked around a fishing wharf full of lobster traps and fishing pots and old anchors and hooks and had a wonderful time! The dog thought she died and went to heaven. Nothing more inviting than a fishing wharf full of fish and cat smells.

I was really lucky because the first thing I came across was some baby seals! Though we got tons of snow this past winter, our temperatures didn't get extremely cold (meaning -20 or -30 C like usual) so there wasn't much ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As such, the grey seals, which usually use the pack ice to have their babies, had no where to go except on our beaches. I was lucky to find some babies on shore. The photos are cropped so don't think I got as close at it might appear!!!

This is a baby that hasn't started to turn colour yet, or hasn't lost its baby fur. It is still totally white.

This baby was starting to turn grey, with a dark strip down its back and the face had turned dark.

After taking a gazillion pictures of the seals, I got down to business on the wharf. One thing I learned about taking photos of a particular colour, when you go to a fishing village or wharf for photos of blue things, you are going to get the same colour blue. Everyone uses Marine Blue!!! So, in my photos below, i have a mussel shell, a javex bottle and a shot gun shell that washed up on the beach, some rope, a tarp, gravel/rocks, fish containers, various painted woods and a window with a cat!

I must say though, it was the most enjoyable afternoon walking around taking photos! Can't wait to do it again! Yes, I am totally behind in my class work, but that is the best part of the class; each person works at their own speed!

On to the next project!

Studio Journal - Lesson 2 started!

Howdy!
Well, Lesson 2 has been started and WOW!!!!! What I am learning!!!

Its been a while since I've painted with watercolours so I forgot that to get a dark watercolour, you need to dip heavily into your paint. In any case, I was able to get enough out of what I did to learn something. This is the before photo. Watercoloured pages, but on the left, plastic wrap applied and left to dry and on the right, salt applied.

I was so eager to post this that I admit I did not use ideal lighting conditions when taking pictures so they aren't what they should be. In any case, this is the dried watercolour with plastic wrap removed! It leaves a wonderful design in the paint. If tried with gesso, or a moulding paste or medium, this would be very interesting!!

On the other side of the page, I used a bit too much salt on my watercolour. Added it everywhere actually instead of just a spot or two, so it is all salted looking and so I can't compare it to an unsalted portion. The salt removes some of the paint. I used sea salt, which is all I had to I think perhaps course salt would remove more paint? I will have to get some and try it! But, I always wondered how to get a sandy looking area in a painting and the salt would certainly work! This is a closeup of the salted area, but not sure it helps.

This next photo shows my most favorite project yet. Our "colour of the day" project. I had fun going thru my 200 gig of photos and finding blues. The most interesting thing I found? I take too many pictures of the same darn thing!!! Get off your butt and get some inspiration girl!!! Honest to pete! So guess what I will be doing when I get this posted! Going out with the trusty camera to see what I can capture! ( I didnt' even have these glued on yet when I took the picture!!! LOL)

Well, can't wait to get back into Lesson 2! It looks just full of projects to get into and get the brain working! Talk to you soon!

Studio Journal Class - Lesson 1 complete!

Well, as you can see, there is still alot of snow on the ground. There is still over 2 feet of snow along the back of the yard. I think they are lying to us when they say Spring is here!Well, I have been working on my Studio Journal class and am thrilled at what I am learning.
I walked around the house and did pencil rubbings of various items. I actually got over zealous and have about three pages of various rubbings! Does this say something about me psychologically because I like rubbings? LOL

And of course, the tonal scale of some of our rubbings.



And other completed parts of the lesson.

We were to take our rubbings and make an artistic interpretation with it. I should have waited til morning because I spent a few hours doing the exercises, but was eager to finish. I had a sneak preview of the next lesson and wanted so badly to start it. In any case, this was the best I could come up with.


Yippy!!! One down, 5 more to go and Lesson 2 has been started!

Art Journals and Snow

Well, you can tell its been a while since I've posted! I went to add photos first before writing anything and ended up posting them with no comments! Wow!!! I guess its been more than a little while!

Well, the above photo shows how much snow we had about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks ago so my excuse for not posting here is that perhaps I have been in a very deep depression over the humungous amount of snow we have received this winter!!! We had over 6 to 8 feet in the backyard! Please take note of the tree branch in the above photo that is directly to the right of my husband Kevin and our dog Skyler. There is about 5 feet or more of snow on the ground right there!

Here is a photo of that same area taken about 30 minutes ago, on Mar. 20. Still alot of snow, but at least there is some bare ground showing and there is an end in sight to this horrible snowy winter!

I have been doing alot of stitching and of course have no photos of any of it. I am currently working on Quaker Diamonds by Rosewood Manor. One thing I did that excites me to no end is, I enrolled in my very first online course with Sharon B and what a wonderful thing to do! The course is called "Studio Journals" and it is amazing! I am a few weeks behind as a family emergency came up that called me away for quite a few weeks but I have jumped in today and am ready to roll!!!

I have never ever done a journal or scrapbooking or anything similar in my life. I found out about a certain book about 15 years ago that dealt with painting and decorating journal pages and was excited enough to search for years to find that book. Then along came Sharon B's website. I am totally in awe of her stitching and the information she provides on her web site. I consider her samples to be works of art!

I have been in art stores over the years and I'm sure I have a life time supply of journals in various sizes and forms lying around but have always been a bit leary of jumping in to use any of them, thinking that when I got "good enough" to put something into a journal, I would. But, reading Sharon's class notes I discovered that if I never start a journal, I will never learn, I won't get to where I want to go. My ideas will stay jumbled in my head with no where to go and no way to get to where I want them to go.

I love nature and trees and I love taking photographs. To attest to that, I have 2 - 500 gig hard drives on which I store and backup my photographs, so yes, I love taking photographs.

Anyways, this is the introductory page to my very first journal ever! I have a dream to take my photographs further and do art quilts with them, or wall hangings, or something. I just feel there is something in me that needs to do something with what I see in my photographs. The sunrise is the light shining on a new adventure, art journalling!

I can very easily get caught up in the details and so when I printed off my "I have a dream" saying for the first page, I carefully took my scissors and cut out the word "DREAM". I then thought to myself that "enough of this crap", and ripped the rest of the words out. I had alot of fun doing my first few pages!

I have always loved trees and taking photographs of trees. As well, I love the play of light and dark, especially in the winter when the shadows are that wonderful shade of blue. So, the very first photos I chose for my art journal are of trees and nature and the play of shadow and light. These are what I think about when I think of making an art quilt and so I needed to get them into the journal. I will do the exercises in the class notes from Sharon though, to make sure I learn everything I need to to get to where I want to be!

Well, thank you for reading and joining me on my new adventure!