Art Journal – Food

I am trying a restrictive diet to see if I have any food allergies. I decided to journal the process and draw some of the food that I am allowed to eat. An original sticker from the eaten banana on the sketched banana.


A sketch of my foot, just because it is a handy subject matter. A Cup of tea.


Ingredients for some homemade soup.

I am currently on day four of the seven most restrictive days of the diet. Wish me luck!

Journal Page – Migration

I’m still working from the same library discard book. The cold weather outside was the inspiration for my picture choices, plus the desire to migrate South. I glued the collage down into a pleasing arrangement. My original intention was to paint all over it.

Instead I decided that I liked the horizontal blank areas that I created to journal in. Next I flipped through a fashion magazine and picked the first face that caught my eye for inspiration. I like drawing with colored pencil over collaged images because you can see some of the image through the pencil marks.

Journal Page – Separation of Church and State

The design of this page was inspired by the art of Bob Fisher from the book Journal It by Editor Jenny Doh. I liked how Bob had used collage elements and then with pen and ink delineated images such as a traced hand. I never look at another artist’s inspiration piece while working on mine but rather work off of points that I remember. When I went back to Bob’s journal page spread I was surprised at what I had forgotten, which is good, because I want my pages to be about me, not be a copy of someone else’s work.

I began by tearing out pages from a library discard book. I was attracted to images of a church and the White House. The idea of separation of church and state came to mind. I found this message of “separation of church and state” in the text which I also adhered. Included in the text is “the gray day” which describes the weather while creating this piece. I painted watered down layers of black gesso to allow parts of the background collage to show through. I decided to leave the page black and white with the exception of gold to one of the crosses and a window in the White House. I could have added “brilliant colors” also included in the text. White tulips symbolize forgiveness, I think that I will leave them as is.

I have other thoughts about religion and politics swirling in my head, perhaps I have sparked some in yours.

Spanky’s Book Review

 

Spanky is always interested in what I am doing. Actually his nickname is Curious George. This is one of the books that I picked with the Amazon gift certificate that I recently won from BirdsnutMixedMedia blog.

Journal It! is authored by Jenny Doh so I was pretty confident that this was going to be a good book since I am familiar with her work. I am quite happy with the book! Journal It! is well organized and has many tips and techniques to inspire you to Journal. There is a nice variety of styles and many of the artists I had never heard of before. It is always nice to see fresh work. On the other hand one of the artists, Jill K. Berry, is a friend of mine and I am a great admirer of her work. Jill has a great variety to her style and I like it all!

Check back tomorrow to see a Journal page inspired by one of the artists featured in the book.

I am a Winner!

Hurray I am a winner of a $25 Amazon gift certificate from BirdnutsMixedMedia blog! All I had to do was become a follower (something I was planning to do anyways) and leave a comment for her drawing. Check out Denise Phillip’s blog www.BirdnutsMixedMedia.blogspot.com  for lots of creative inspiration!
I was so excited to win I clicked on over to Amazon immediately and ordered a couple of books from my wish list and here they are:
http://www.amazon.com/Journal-Perspectives-Journaling-Jenny-Doh/dp/1454703555/
http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Journal-Workshop-Creating-Pictures/dp/1440308683/
I have already been inspired to create some journal pages with posts to follow. Thank you Denise for your generous gift and your positive inspiration!

Journal Page REVISED – Searching for the Recipe to Making Art.

 

Something was really bothering me about the journal page spread on the previous post. I decided that he looked too sad.

Sometimes you need a smile, even if you have to paste one on! RAEvN

Much better, don’t you think?

Journal Page – Searching for the Recipe to Making Art

Time to start making new art and not just talk about past art!

The journal page that I created last night. I tried not to over analyze what images to use but rather tear them from a book simply because they appealed to me. I ended up with some graphic pages and some pictures of chefs. I still would like to use my own imagery but the spontaneity produced by starting with someone else’s work is hard to duplicate.

Ingredients:

1 Library discard book

2 Bags of tea

1 Sharpie black fine point marker

1 Sakura White Gelly Roll pen

Assorted Prismacolor pencils

Published Art – Barn Owl

 

The above owl is featured in the book Art Quilts at Play by authors Jane Davila and Elin Waterston.

For one of the projects, contributing artists were given an item for inspiration to be used in an art quilt. I received this unique little spoon. It reminded me of a scepter.

I made a three dimension barn owl in my “soulful bird” style. Since the owl had a scepter I felt it also need a crown.

Hidden under the wing are these words Drink my knowledge. Let me feed your soul. RAEvN

Just lift the wing to view.

To all my loyal blog followers I grant you inspiration!

Published Art – New Beginnings

 

Another Stampington & Co. submission using Somerset Artist Papers. We had our choice of three collections of papers, vellums and transparencies reflecting the beautiful hand-tinted photographic imagery of Angela Cartwright. They are currently available here.

I often like to work with a theme. In this case the theme was New Beginnings.

I started with a transparency of a nest with eggs. I placed an antique picture of an infant below. The inspiration for the theme New Beginnings! The nest inspired the grapevine, the infant inspired the baby buttons.

I used the papers from the collection in the background.  Repetition of the buttons to give cohesion to the book.

The adorable infant in a natural setting.

Second page spread.

Next I searched for quotes to enhance the theme New Beginnings.

In all matters before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made. Cicero

Flower transparency.

Third page spread.

I found this and thought it was beautiful!

There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream…Chogyam Trungpa (1939 – 1987)

4th page spread.

Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last. Cervantes

Look who’s behind the window.

A view looking through the window.

 

Fifth page spread.

View of the window from the backside.

Vintage Hook & Eyes to visually hold the picture in place.

7th page spread.

Might as well use the address of the company it was sent to.

Notice the repetition of the dried ferns on the pages.

Eigth page spread.

Janus – The Roman god of doors and gateways and hence of beginnings.

A key to open the gate.

Ninth page spread.

He who has imagination without  learning has wings but no feet. Joubert

More buttons.

Last page spread.

Notice all of the small pictures, they are samples on the cover sheet to see what papers are inside of the sealed pack. You could also use the same technique if you repurpose the photos from a wall calendar .

From the end Spring new beginnings. Pliny the Elder (23AD – 79AD)

And if you hadn’t noticed yet, my friend the Raven appears at least once on every page spread.

Here’s to “New Beginnings”!

New Years Resolution No. 1 - Goals For My Assemblage Studio

I hate to start this post with such a messy picture, but this is the current state of my assemblage studio. It’s a mess, a mess to the point that I am not productive. It needs to be reorganized. I have several other goals for the upcoming year but this is a good place to start.

Challenges this room has:
12’ x 10’ small size
3 Doors
It is a passageway from the garage to the kitchen and outside
Catch-all room because of above
No heat
Poor lighting at night

What I like about this studio space:
Convenient to kitchen for multitasking with my domestic side
Great Northern daylight with large glass sliding doors. Plus a nice sunny south facing window.
Convenient to the fenced in back yard so that I can keep an eye on my dogs.
Dog door

Messy work bench! I am sure it will become messy with use but a goal to clean anyways.


I love this antique dental chair. When I brought it home there was only a small tear on the leg rest. Several puppies later and all the stuffing has been pulled out and the tear is huge. Also the seat needs to be repaired. I am hoping to find a leather chair or couch bound for the trash heap that I can recycle the leather from to repair this.
The surrounding area also needs to be tidied!


The wall of drawers! If you have read my previous posts you will know that I love drawers. They need to be organized a bit more more. The lamp needs to be rewired and carried downstairs too!


Pictured is a sculpture of a carved wooden pile of fish that my sister Jodi Hollnagel Jubran made. I have the doggy door propped against them. It is not the best location to showcase this piece, but when you are from a family of artists art is abundant! It is one of my treasured pieces of art so at least it is in a place that I can enjoy it. Perhaps in the future I can take some better pictures to share here.

Hopefully in the upcoming year I will be able to post pictures of the improved studio space.