journal pages from Fresno

Old bit of journal page, leftover grid from cutting
out squares on Silhouette machine, strip of
woodworking clamp tape, book text.

I recently spent a few days in Fresno with a couple girlfriends. While there, we worked on art projects - they on making small intricate dolls, a la Salley Mavor, and me art journaling until I got the itch to make a doll also - and these are the pages I made.

I had limited supplies with me but Kris had brought a file folder of some things, so I rummaged thru and used some of her things in with mine. And Julie brought me an old shorthand book which I used some pages from.

The backgrounds were already gelli printed so I just added some ephemera and book text and called them done. They are a bit minimalist, reflecting my mood at the time (in the evenings around the little table in our motel room, after a long day of driving/museums/quilt auctions). I like them and may do more along these lines.

Some Neocolor II swirls, shorthand text,
torn handmade paper, strip of perforated
packing paper, book text.

The gelli print backgrounds are already pretty interesting, what with the tone-on-tone colors and the not-quite-covered areas and the grungy bits. Especially the grungy bits, actually.

My mom was always salvaging things and bringing home junk she'd find on the side of the road, and I've carried on the tradition as best I could within the limits of the size of my house and my husband's tolerance lol. So the whole shabby chic thing is still alive and well here at One Woman's Hands.

The pages are 5.5x8, from a Strathmore Watercolor Visual Journal that I took apart and have been printing on every time I get the gelli out. It's nice to be able to just grab a page that's ready to go when I get the urge to collage.

As you can see, I'm still totally hooked on turquoise. Love it with its complimentary color orange, and also with tan, rust, and gray. It's just a really good color.

Oddly, or maybe not, I don't have much of it in my home. I'm mostly shades of greens here - sage, celery, olive, moss, a bit of lime.

Neocolor II thru sequin waste,
gelli'd phone book pieces, key tag on a
bit of mulberry paper, words printed
on vellum, bit of gel pen doodling
around some orange Neocolor II dots.

MMSA outgoing postcards

Two for the pink swap and two for Lee's collage sheet swap.

For Lee's, you could use only the elements on the collage sheet she provided, so I printed it a few times at two different sizes and went to work.

The definition "in abundance" (small white rectangle) inspired both of these as I used the girl more than once on each. Did misc machine stitching on them as they looked a bit plain to me when I was done collaging.

The top card has "Alice" stitched on one girl and "twice" on the other. Alice, twice. Get it? Anyway, I like both of them and can't wait to see what other people do with the exact same elements.

The background is kraft card stock stitched around the edge tpo a piece of white card stock to hide the other stitching and give me a place to write.

The pink ones are mostly scrapbook paper backgrounds except for a bit of painted paper bag on the first one. The various elements are from magazines, sometimes as is, and other times I cut petals from a pink item. Got going on flowers because of the hat, i guess. Plus it's spring (more or less) so I'm seeing flowers everywhere.

 A couple bits of old large-print book text, some stitching, a few doodles.

The card I got back in the green swap were great, so I'm looking forward to the pink returns.

freebie gelli prints

For those of you who may not yet have a gelli plate, or who have one but still lust for more art fodder anyway - here are some more gelli prints.

They were all made on Easter Sunday when Rhonda came to play for the day. Today was all about stencils and layers.

Hi-res scans, free for you to do with what you will. Just don't sell them.

painting colors challenge

I forget exactly how we got started on this but we decided to choose a famous painting and do something with the colors in it. After looking at way too many paintings, we chose The Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir. The book by the same name is a fictionalized account of how it came to be painted and is a fun read.

Rhonda stopped by Home Depot one day and grabbed a bunch of paint chips, then we narrowed it down to 5 colors, plus black and white.

Then we ground to a halt and neither of us did anything with it for a couple months, mainly because we hadn't set enough guidelines, I think. When she was here on Sunday, we decided simply to each do a journal page in those colors.

I was in the mood this evening after our early lamb chop dinner and got mine done. Scraped blue paint with a credit card for the background. Dug thru my box of misc collage stuff for mulberry paper in a couple of the colors, found a quote I liked, some eyes, a few 1" punched circles and went to work.

Someone whose blog I follow (too lazy to go look thru the list of 80 blogs) uses quinacridone / nickel azo gold to great effect in their work, so while at Michael's the other day, I picked up a bottle. It wasn't marked, but the large bottle was $20 so I knew it wouldn't be cheap. Got to the register, the girl scans the little 1oz bottle and exclaims, "Oh my god! It must be marked wrong!"

No, I said, it's just very expensive and handed her my 50% off coupon. So far I've used about 3 drops of it here and there and am learning how it works. Great accent color. I used it on this page as the centers of the circles on the green strip of gelli print toward the bottom.

By the time Steve got back from his coffee-and-reading-in-the-car run, I was done. I handed it to him and his eyes went immediately to the only thing on the page that made any sense to him.

"Uh... I like the stamps."

lovin art journal page

Hot on the heels of Rhonda's departure yesterday, I made this journal page in a small (4x6") Daler Rowney Cachet watercolor journal that I've been gelli printing in.

The background was already there from a previous gelli party and yesterday I added the turquoise shapes from a stencil she made with her Silhouette Cameo. It was a second pull from the plate and I like how insubstantial some of them are.

Played around with a gel pen and markers until I wound up with this.

Love the contrast of the turquoise and orange.

play day

inchies and resulting waste
which is every bit as cool as the inchies

Artsy friend Rhonda came to play yesterday. A few days ago, when I first suggested Sunday, she replied, "So you don't have any Easter plans either, huh?" Cracked me up.

gellied brown coffee filter

sticker sheets 

She brought along her latest toy, a Silhouette Cameo, which cuts designs from paper, vinyl, etc. You can make your own designs, duplicate them all over a page, remove portions of them, all sorts of cool stuff. I was impressed with the software, and once I got my head into it, I thought of all sorts of things I'd like to try.

Long story short - I ordered the smaller size Silhouette Portrait before Rhonda even made it back to her house, a little over an hour away. 

stamped with large bubble wrap
(the stamping is more orange than red)

more large bubble wrap - love this one

While jabbering away at each other like we do when she first arrives each time, we got the bright idea to cut out sticker paper so it would be all ready to just stick onto something, no glue required. Of course, we wanted something on our stickers so out came the gelli plates and we spent a couple fun hours cranking out gelli prints. 

Then we whacked several of them up into inchies which are fun for collage but the "waste" grid that's left is also cool.

stamped with bottom of tray that held markers

Marvelous day with a fun friend! Thanks for making the drive, Rhonda.

However, have you noticed the trend at work here? 

used Rhonda's leaf stencil as a mask
over a few layers of gelli printing

Rhonda shows up with her gelli plate, I order one five minutes after she leaves. 

Rhonda shows up with a Silhouette, I order one 5 minutes after she leaves. 

I expect my husband is hoping she'll leave all her cool new stuff at home next time she visits. 

random gelli print - lots of layers here

one of the stencils Rhonda made

yet more large bubble wrap

gelli orange & oranges

Hooking up to Mandarin Orange Monday for the first time with a screaming orange gelli print and some actual Mandarin oranges, which may be a bit too literal an interpretation but oh well.

Those of you who have resisted hopping on the gelli print train should consider this thought - it is the quickest, most fun way I know to make an original piece of art, time after time. Like snowflakes, no two are ever the same, and they give your art a unique look with very little effort.

Yesterday when Rhonda visited, she brought her new Silhouette Cameo and we cut this up into postage stamp type pieces which I'll use in collage and whatever else needs a bit of orange.

 I'm liking orange more and more as I age. My mom loved all the autumn colors and kept trying to dress me in them but I resisted. I still don't wear most of them as they don't complement my hair and skin but I enjoy using them in my art.

The oranges were on the mark-down cart at the grocery this morning. A full bag for 99 cents instead of the usual $4.99. I bought two so will be eating oranges like mad all week.

Also on the cart was a bag of 5 usable avocados for $1.49 - normally the price for just one avo - so we now have a large bowl of guacamole in the fridge. Yum.

Didn't do a darn thing about Easter yesterday except eat a marshmallow egg so we're having lamb chops for dinner, along with rice, and roasted carrots/broccoli/cauliflower. Looking forward to it.