Journal book and pages

I salvaged some drawing paper left over from times gone by and made a signature to use for my journal. I folded the pages in half and glued them. The paper still buckled, but the pages were somewhat stronger. I then made the cover using unprimed canvass. I am not sure I will do this again as the canvass is too porous to paint afterward and if I apply acrylic medium, it might harden too much and I will not be able to fold it.
I guess I could make a fabric collage first and use it as a cover.






















Here are some of the pages:





























































Gotta go now ....I have to pack the art supplies for next week!

Wax collage

I read in few places about using beeswax for collage. I had to try it! First, I collaged the covers of a journal I made. The covers are canvass boards and the pages are regular white paper and bits of an old pastel paper I used for my drawings back in the days when I took drawing classes. I used hand c arved stamps on the covers and then I glues various papers using wax (I used napkins, candy foil etc). I put the wax in an aluminum plate and melted it in a double boiler. I soaked the paper in wax and glued it on the covers using the palette knife. Here is how it looks like:









































I needed a name tag for the Art Unraveled workshops I will be attending next week in Phoenix. I came up with this - using cardboard, cheese cloth, magazine picture, transparency image and wax.

Art from intuition

I went on an artist date Sunday at the art store and stumbled on Art from intuition. Coup de foudre.
I spent Sunday evening channeling Jackson Pollock. I used old leftover latex paint from when I painted my condo 5 years ago, acrylic paints, finger paint, brushes,straws,aluminum foil and whatever else I could get my hands on. It was hot,sticky, sweat dripping in my eyes .. but no matter! I filled about 10 sheets with action painting. The next day I did some printing. I used vegetables and aluminum foil. He says to divide the results in 3 portfolios - like, dislike, to be continued. But with mixed media there is no real dislike. Nothing ends up in the garbage because, even if the first incarnation is not great, it can always be transformed in something. Everything works out in the end! And here are the results ...

First altered book

I finally completed the first altered book. I used a small board book and peeled off the shinny layer. Each spread has a different topic. I am not very good at following one theme - I go with what I have on hand, techniques I want to experiment with etc.

The cover is fabric. The first spread has a folded book attached in th em iddle. I played around with inkblots and I liked the result. I folded the paper and then cut it to make a small book. On each spread, I wrote verses of a fridge poem I made a while ago (I have 2 sets of magnetic words on my fridge - one English, one Italian. I like playing with them every now and then. The whole "poem" is at the end). The next spread - background is graffitti fabric, hand sawn transparency images. The "Mysterious" one - the background is glue paper (while glue spread over an onion bag on freezer paper; once the glue dries, remove the bag and the result is a sheet of white glue paper). Next, a canvass with a direct transfer. I tried first a liquid drano transfer from Karen Michel's book, but it did not work out well - I let it sit too long and the image was gone. But it added a bluish tint to the canvass, so I applied the transfer on top. On the "Spirit" one I used rusted washers, old paper from a novel, transparency image and other scraps of paper anf fabric. The "Totally tourist" has a was finish on top. I was not sure what will happen if I apply wax on top. I used bits of wax melted with the heat gun and spread with the pallette knife. Worked out well. I made few more things using wax and will post them shortly.

It would be nice to know what people think about it...

































































































Here is the whole poem:

I close my eyes
in a deam
random reality

without limitations
echoes
a perfect world

this life in a thousand pieces
the universe in a million directions

my imagination collects
pictures
surprises
thoughts

the monkey draws conclusions ...

Lost

Frustrated as I am with the difficulties of taking decent pics of my art, I decided to get Lost. I rented all 3 seasons and went on a binge. I spent a long weekend popping dvds in the player and teaching myself the rudiments of bookbinding from 3 lovely books I found at the library:

Making books
Making and keeping creative journals
Cover to cover

Next step is to make a journal for my upcoming vacation in Arizona and a photo album to give as a gift.

Between work, training runs in 35C heat, various small projects (carving some stamps, background painting for journal pages, sketches of faces and objects etc.), I read 2 memoirs. I am not a big bio reader, but I enjoyed these books. Different styles of writing, equally inspiring.

Broken music is Sting's memoir. I wasn't expecting it to be so well written and captivating.
It's not about the bike is Lance's memoir. I use his story now to give me an extra push when I do not feel like running another 10,20km or not even 2. And speaking about running, I think it was a mistake to start my running "career" with training for a marathon. Now I cannot imagine running only 30 min. That is barely the warm up. Long runs are 1.5 hrs only in the Winter, now they will slowly increase to 3-4 hrs.

I have to go now - tempo training starting soon.
And I have 2 other books to finish:
Dark Nights of the Soul
How to think like Leonardo da Vinci

Mondrian

(this is the nickname Sawyer gave me via the nickname generator on the Lost website. I think I might adopt as a pseudonym for my blog!)