knock knock knocking

I check into Mary Ann Moss's Dispatch from LA often to feel good. Or at least to get going. Or get making something. Or doing something. To have a laugh and enjoy a drink or two. Her travels alone inspire me to get my stuff together..I'm working on it!

She shared this video recently. We need these once in awhile. Thanks, Mary Ann.

I Zink I Need to Get a PoGo

I've been wanting a reason to buy the Polaroid printer. This amazing video (thanks to Traci Bunkers for her blog post about it) demonstrates why I indeed have to have it. I just love this stuff. Next: find Zink Paper and someone ready to be manipulated.

Autumn Fog

A foggy November Saturday morning. We can't see the
street that lies right beyond our back yard fence.
The lingering last leaves that will disappear with the
next wind and rain, which the weatherman has
scheduled for us this week. With clocks changing
tonight, our commuting mornings will be a little
lighter for a few days, but the way home will be dark - and
soon it will all be the same. There is dark there!

Sketchers unite!

 

This is a page from my own sketchbook drawn at the Bellevue Arts Festival.

         A Sketchbook Artist Site

If you like peeking into other people's sketchbooks like I do, check out Sketchbooks.org.  Lots of pages of sketchbooks organized by style or subject or artists from all over the world. I am always inspired to go get mine and draw some more. You are invited to join and upload your sketches, too, and become part of the community.

Just Kidding

The pouty one in the middle is me - on my 1st grade birthday.

At an Artfest at least five years ago, I took a class from Lynn Whipple that to this day remains one of my all-time favorite classes. Despite serious intent to make many more, I haven't done so yet, but the original still amuses me and makes me smile. It was created on canvas paper. Using acrylics with old or new photos, we made houses. These kids are from black-and-white photos from my stash of family photos.

All 3 in the same sky at the same time!

This was a day that never knew what it wanted it to be. One hour blue sky, no clouds, the next hour, gray overcast-wheres-the-sun, the next, a serendipitous palette. Skies and sunsets screaming to be remembered in watercolor textures. This has been our typical day this September, much wetter than usual. What a funny weather year this has been here.

Artscape: Enjoying the Good View

Our local NPR station, KPLU, featured this story on why handpainted landscapes - rather than digital - can soothe the weary soul! Listen or read.

More uses for those National Geographics!

Diana Trout has a good video on using CitraSolve orange cleaner to make interesting backgrounds. This is her helpful blog.

Art Unraveling

I am enjoying - despite the 110 degree heat - my classes at Art Unraveled in Phoenix and will post some cool things I've learned and done. Stay tuned...

Meanwhile, a recommendation: If you haven't seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Swedish film with subtitles, consider putting it on your list of things to buy, rent, or download. I had only started the book, so it was all a mystery to me, but those I watched it with had read it and still said it was 1) close to the book and 2) good good movie! Even if you don't gravitate to mysteries, you may well enjoy this film, despite a painful scene or two (abuse of women theme) that is important to the character and not intrusive to the story.

Wining Not Whining

 

 

 

 

We spent this beautiful afternoon at Redhook for beer and the new Woodinville area of wine tasting in the afternoon. I don't think I can adequately express how beautiful and perfect these northwest Puget Sound summer days are, and I don't want to sound too cocky since the rest of the country is sweltering. But the sky is clear and the bluest blue, we are in the mid and high 70s, we have few airborn pests here to interfere with our serious imbibing, and there is the slightest breeze to keep it just comfortable enough. To mess with Billy Joe's lyrics, I am in a Pacific Northwest State of Mind. So sorry, folks - and we do take our share of ribbing about the gray and rain, ya know?

Cute as Fruit

Life is just a chair of (blurry) bowlies. Cute.

I confess I am a follower of the Queen of Cute, despite a usual resistance to it. In one corner of my being, I am a checkerboard and cherries gal. The rest of my house isn't, but our breakfast room SOINTANLY IS. With gray skies the norm for half the year here in the Pacific Northwest, I am cheered up each morning by the yellow and the cheerycherries. It's time for a redo, but I will be a little sad when the first new paint color covers my checkerboards. Here's Mary Engelbreit's blog if and when you feel the call for "Cute as Fruit."

You know those annoying magazine inserts that make it all the way across the country intact but fall out at the newsstand the minute you open the cover? Those? A few years back I paid homage to them - collected a few inserts from a bunch of magazines and wrote a poem for each. I still like the book even though some of the references are dated!

Creation, Inspirations, Admiration, Procrastination

Who of us who make art in journals doesn't love this book?! So, while waiting for the sun to appear on this July day instead of the cool overhead overcast sky, I decided to randomly look up some artists who are featured in the book - because I have nothing else to do, of course '). Rarely disappointed in these searches, I once again found some new resources and talented artists and visual journalists.

Susan Bonthron (741-743) teaches bookbinding and journaling at Otter Pond Bindery in rural Vermont.


Looking for Sherry Tobin (732-7350, I found that her pages in Creative Wildfire and 1000 Artists Journals are referenced by several creative and crafty web homes, including Craftzine and Craftside.  Although some parts of these two sites are a bit too "crafty" for me, each to his own, there are videos and interviews of artists, directions and photos for many projects, and I saw some well-done tutorials rich with photos and helpful text such as this one.

In looking up one artist, who I didn't find, I was, however, led (as only the intrically-linked world of the web can do) to Karen Campbell at Karen's Altered Dreams; she has cool journal pages.

                                        Karen's Altered Dreams



Robin McDaniels ((702-707) is an artist featured in a virtual exhibit of journal pages called "Under the Covers." Paper Studio is a rich resource I've added to my own blog, a resource I'll be returning to often, I think. Besides beautiful papers they sell, at The Paper Studio there lives an video collection of how-tos, an exciting gallery of current and past exhibits (it will take you some time to peruse through some of this luscious work). The exhibit I referred to above showcases a collection of the work of visual journalists we have grown accustomed to admiring! The Paper Studio Blog pointed me to a revisit to Roben-Marie Smith's (688-697) delicious site On her blog are some tutorials - here's one called Vintage Placemat Journal.

 

Paperbag Studio

She is leading a collaborative journaling project called Points of View, which led me to Samantha Kira/JournalGirl where I especially enjoyed her Puffy Heart Journal page.  She does online classes, also, and leads a Vlog (video blog) where she does real-time journaling. 

                      

One of the artists showcased work by Patty van Dorin, so I checked to see what she might be up to. Here's a reference to her work from Decor8.As you can see if you trip on over there, the visit to their blogroll will cost you even more time! Better stop soon so you (and I) can make art!

Not that I ever would get bored with life - I don't have enough hours of the day or years of my life left to do everything I want to do - but having these resources available where one link or online buddy (we're buddies even if the other person doesn't know it) can lead to a rich two hours of creation, inspiration, admiration, and procrastination. I am loving being part of the Technological Revolution and am so grateful there is a world where we can share our love for art and artistry. Okay, now back to my spray paint, stencils and canvas, today's agenda.

People in the News

 

 

 

 

A few sketches from newspaper stories...

A page from Danny Gregory's journal

Like other artists who keep a visual journal or sketchbook, I am a fan of Danny Gregory and have long admired his work, his attitude, and his generosity of spirit. Many know him as the inspiration and leader of the sketching group Everyday Matters, named after his first book. I first became acquainted with him through Moonlight Chronicles, and Everyday Matters (the book and the group), along with Creative License, renewed my artistic energy as much as anything else. It was with harsh and icy sadness that I read about the sudden accidental death of his wife Patti last April, who I felt I had come to know personally through Danny's sketchbooks and writings. What I read today in his sketchbook journal/blog is so clear to me. I know what he is going through, although each person's grief is unique and personal. When my young and new husband died suddenly 30 some years ago, I experienced what he is feeling now and so I feel so sad along with him. That he is willing to move on through the art and writing that his fans have come to value so much and express the rawness of his emotions through his drawings and words adds to my appreciation of him. I'm glad he's pursuing the course of grief through these outlets; it will help him heal.

1000 Faces

 

I enjoy drawing faces. Just bought Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab. It's a great book, and there are some good ideas I'm also going to use with my students: Dr. Seusslike creatures, one-eyed monsters, change a fairy tale, "numbers" game, Rube Goldberg machines - to name a few. Kids will love this, I think - even the ones that insist they can't draw.

On the 8-hour drive to Ashland, I played with some of the ideas. (Gratefully, Bob does all the driving and I never get carsick - Yay!) These are faces that were in the Oregonian. I may start to collect other faces I've done and see if I can also collect and draw 1000 of them! Or maybe 45. Or 73.

Lunch at Rose's

In the Portland area, as in Seattle, today was one of those perfect days, the Northwest summer days, temperature mid 70s. We knew we should enjoy it, since we were on our way to southern Oregon where it was closer to 100. We ate outside at Rose's Restaurant and Bakery. The woman in the table next to us waited for a lunch companion that never showed up.

Starlings swarm over Rome

Amazing, amazing, amazing. I would love to see this in person. I never knew!

Urban Sketcher

Watch an urban sketcher at work, quicko fasto.



Someday very soon I'm going to participate in an Urban Sketch date. I am running out of excuses.

Oo! New tool!

Better yet! Just figured out how to make my own word brushes. Old hat to some of you, I'm sure! Thanks to Dani Jones for the head start. I'll post what I ended up with soon.

Ali Edwards

Ali Edwards is a new resource for me, discovered today. From the scrapbooking world, she has shared several creative tutorials and ideas for integrating digital images and words onto photos. Here's one using hand drawn words as brushes. Looks like I'll need to spend some more time here!

Ali Edwards' Hand Drawn Brush Tutorial For Photoshop Elements from Ali Edwards on Vimeo.

From my journal....

 

 

A couple of pages trying some techniques I've learned or been reminded about. I enjoy painting over existing magazine figures such as this one. That book included in the top page - Roseanna - by Maj Sjowall is one of the translated Scandanavian mysteries I have become a serious fan of. I have read a half dozen of them recently and not one has been a disappointment. A whole new world of mystery stories is available. I notice others have taken note also. Third Place Books has a special display of several translated authors, mostly Scandanavian. Henning Mankell is another favorite so far.

Room with a View

 

On another glorious summer day (70s, blue sky, wisp of breeze - Heaven), this is the view out my window as I sit at my newly cleaned-off art table. In the winter, when mostof the trees shed their leaves and the umbrella is down, it's a clear view of the snowy mountains. That view was threatened by a fast-growing evergreen the neighbors planted last year. With their permission (they've sold their house anyway), we cut it down yesterday and saved our view!

 

 

 

 

I am currently stuck on stenciling! Some postcards for the June Postcard exchange.

Seattle Sketcher busy again

Gabe Campanario has illustrated this book review appearing this morning in Seattle Times. I admired the piece before I even saw that it was his for its art-journally look. I should have figured it was his good stuff! The book sounds good, too! Gabe, do you need to read the book all the way to get a feel for what to draw? Do you get to interpret much or are you given stricter boundaries...have always wanted to know what freedom a book cover artist or other such illustrator has.

Books | 'Kings of the Earth': three eccentric brothers, a primitive life, a mysterious death | Seattle Times Newspaper

Travel Sketchbooks to Enjoy

Enrique Flores remembers his trips and travels through his Moleskin sketchbooks and shares them generously on YouTube. Go see them. Here is a recent one from a trip to Algeria. Like all good travel sketchbooks, one gets a rich impression of the moment, a moment that will always be remembered by the artist as it is sketched and impressions detailed. He manages to quickly sketch in watercolors and not overwork or stay in one area too long. I particularly enjoy his street scenes and buildings, knowing how hard they are to do for me! But his crowd and people scenes are very effective, too, for the quick study of the moment. His full blog is "4ojos" on the sidebar.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73xqJijmALo&feature=player_embedded

Just when I was getting crabby....

Rejoice!   P.S. The painting behind me of the school bus was done by a kindergarten bus student of my husband's, who is living out  his retired-English-teacher life as a school bus driver...and liking it!  We loved this so much we had it framed and in a prominent place in our home.

...about the record cool and gray we were having in Seattle area (longest time in record before a day that hit 75), the most beautiful day in history happened. It was followed by a 2-day heat wave, but then settled back into the summer days we know and love and keep a secret up here.  I absolutely cannot get enough of the warmth and light on these glorious days and spend most of my time on the deck or patio swing. The other secret (it's a good thing few people read this blog!) is..no bugs!  (Well, not enough to matter) and no humidity. Who could ask for anything more? (Whistle the tune here.)

Adflip.com

Okay...so this looks pretty fun and promising. Print ads from the last seven decades. Calls iteself "The worlds largest archive of classic print ads." It is subscriber-based, but you can buy a 1-week subscription for $14 allowing unlimited use. Even if you don't use the ads in your work, I think it has possibilities to inspire!

Space Paint

You'll need to wear your mask to view this video because you can almost smell the fumes, but it's worth a trip. Found out about it from Sandy on the Yahoo groups blog for the Stencilry class, those of use knee deep in spray paint and stencils right now with Mary Ann. She, like I, especially love the effect of pulling off the paint with wadded paper. This is from spacepaint.com and it rocks.

Loving My Mess

 

Enjoyed making my stenciling mess in the yard today. Overcast (again) made it a nice day to work outside, with a little breeze to carry the fumes away. I think I like the raw white canvas better than what I did, which was to prime with some chartreusy house paint first. Also have decided to avoid those paint spray cans with the "revolutionary 360 degree nozzle" - you don't have as much control, for one thing, and the blue can kept spraying and wouldn't stop! Yikes! Fun, fun - love making art this way.