Junkin in June

More washi tape, from my favorite source Pixi's in Gilbert, IA. I have to admit that keeping a personal journal has become a lot more fun now that I've started incorporating all of those elements I've been collecting, but had no place in my regular artwork!  

Picked these up from one of the vendors at JB Knacker in Gilbert, IA this afternoon during their annual Junkin in June event!  

My watercolor issue resolved now that I've been reminded that I own sets of Caran D'Ache's Aquarelle watercolor crayons as I wasn't looking forward to replacing 20 year old dried up tubes of watercolor paints anytime soon!  Now that I'm using my aquarelle's again I can take my time and buy the colors I need preferably on sale as sets or as single tubes.

Journal Pages and Stencils

From this...

To this...

I played around in a handmade journal this evening with my new paints, oil bars, and inks and my Black Birds in Tree and Three Crows Stencils.  Tomorrow I will finish out these pages after the oil bar dries.

Paints used:
Matisse Flow
Golden Fluid Acrylics

Inks used:
Daler-Rowney FW inks
Liquidtex inks

Oil bars used:
Shiva Paintstiks
Shiva Paintstiks Metallics

Journal Makings

I was planning on making a 4 x 6 inch journal this evening but my block of 4 x 6 solid color papers seems to have gone AWOL!  So maybe tomorrow evening instead?

Journal Cover

Went to Lowe's today to find black duct tape, and a new water heater, I found red duct tape with polka dots and no black duct tape.  The story about the water heater will be on my other blog.

I love the polka dot duct tape, my only complaint is that it doesn't come in the yellow, orange, or apple green, only red.  Oh and I still want some black duct tape for another project that's currently in progress.

Now all I have to do is go to Staples and pick up one of those ring binder doohickies for my journal pages and I'm set to go.  I have a back up plan, just in case I'm not able to find the ring binder thingy, I will add grommets to the front and back covers and then add some of those big rings thingies for the pages and dividers.  

Over all I'm quite happy with this project, it's been helpful in putting together my new business plan, my overall mission, and how I hope to get there!  I still have gobs of questions I don't know how to answer and will be thinking about those as I clean out the furnace room this week, in preparation for the removal of the old water heater and arrival of the new unit!

Creating a Strategic Objectives Journal for 2014

Am working through Lisa Sonora Beam's "Creative Entreprenure" book again, last time was 2008/09, and am now just creating my Strategic Objectives Journal.  I have to say this has been a lot of fun this time around, it especially helps that I now understand most of what she discusses, this due to five years of reading and researching how to run a business. (Raven Stencil available soon!!!)

And what would a journal be if I didn't personalize it with my own artwork?  Blackbirds in Tree from StencilGirl Products stencil with FolkArt Indigo paint for the first layer of this journal section.  I found these old manilla folders in hubs office, when I say old we're talking 30-40 years old here, and am repurposing them for my new journal. 

How I dealt with the uneven edge of the manilla folder, I simply placed a piece of old reciept journal paper under the folder edge. 

The journal paper freshly stencilled.  I'll add more layers to this piece of paper and glue it inside of the journal somewhere.  More later, I have more birds to paint now that the first layer has dried, while I think about my objectives.

Love Knows No Bounds

Journal Back Cover

Back cover of my newly retro fitted journal, and what can I say I'm a ham for very pretty papers!

Retro Fit Journal

At the beginning of the school year I purchased a couple of compostition books.  I cut this one down to 6x8 inches and then glued a piece of scrapbooking paper to the front cover.  Now to embellish the front, I will work on the back of the journal later.

Last Nights Desk Party

Journal pages, late last night.

Garden Journal Pages

Late Night Desk Party

I'm contemplating the fuzz in this weeks schedule and releasing a little steam at my desk in the mean time by working in my Garden Journal!

Garden Journal

WIP - Garden Journal Spread

Journal Madness

Large journal cover

Small journal cover

Gold motif

Journal Starts

Painting more pages in my journal, gouache on paper.

Gouache on Paper

Image Transfer Workshop Prep

WIP - Samples of journal covers students will be making in the Image Transfer Workshop that I'm teaching on the 27th.  I used Tsukineko All Purpose inks to paint the canvas duck with and wrote on the canvas using the Zig Opaque Writers (Millenium).

Heart and Meaning Exercise

I've started some of the exercises in The Creative Entrepereneur by Lisa Sonora Beam. While coloring in my journal is a no brainer the questions are a lot harder to anwser than I anticipated. It's going to take some time to anwser them all -hmm maybe that's why it's called an impass in life?

The paint was still wet when I took this picture. Eventually I'll finish the writing, maybe in another journal the one I'm writing my business plan in, and will attach things to the pages in this one. Unlined Journal by Paper Chase.

Wild Flowers

I've been spending a lot of time in the woods of late, getting inspiration, photo journaling the native plants throughout the seasons. When I'm not in the woods I've been in my garden, it's starting to warm up here and we are in the throes of creating a new compost pile - just in time for dye season!

You can see what I've been up to at my nature blog Thistle Quill, and over at my home blog Survival Kitchen and of course some artwork pieces on my art blog

Wood Anemone and Blue Violets

What I'm Up To

Well a lot actually, here's a picture of the wall of wool at the shop!

Tonight I"ve been sewing some small quilts, journal quilt sized. I'll post some pictures tomorrow, they will be available on my etsy.com store tomorrow. I think I left my camera at the other studio, not really sure at the moment. I decided, after talking with a customer who is going through her stash tonight, that it's time to make some small pieces with all of this fabric I have laying about. Being stumped, at the moment, I decided to go back to my journal quilts I made in 2005, I'm using those as my design and am focusing on color and texture instead. It's a lot of fun so me thinks I'll keep this up until I either run out of steam or fabric - I'm betting on steam.