Well that was a week!

Lost the map to the treasure.   In fact I even forgot about the treasure till Thursday.  But here is a small rug hooking treasure from a class I took a number of years ago.  If I could fit it in, I'd definitely do rug hooking!  :)

Got lost in a trilogy after a hard day of art 101.  :{   But the grand kiddies are back in the groove of drawing and shapes.  Then my other class got a mini lesson on bookmaking with a small notebook.  The cover is fun foam and the paper plain but lots of opportunity to personalize the cover and pages.   My first class had way too many options.  This class went way too quick.  Third class I'm a hoping...

Hopefully after redoing the focus of the unplanner I can get it together for next week.  I have discovered the mystery of printing the planner pages - untick the default boxes!  :/  

Prepping the cards in batches and using Avery stickers are my new secret weapons!   The cards are ready for quick finishing and the Avery sticker sheets can be printed, painted, stenciled etc.  Loads of fun!

It is not working to get much fabric medium into play but I'm hoping to sort and catalogue UFO projects before the month is out and definitely get it front and centre for February.  Thank goodness there are five weeks in January!  lol

But chillaxing in the ambiance of the front room made the whole week worthwhile!   The Rooster has fresh gluten free muffins perfecting in the oven and I do believe coffee break is approaching!    Happy Sonday! 

101 Following the Line

As I  study the lines on my paper of things I need to do and consider what comes next I am realizing that line and direction are very much related.  I know line is probably the primary element in design but I hadn't thought much about direction. 

In seeking to "do the next thing first" I realize I am really seeking direction. 

As I study a natural principle I hope that it can be applied practically in my day to day life.

I think the dot is the first element but as I move it I get a line happening.  Aimless doodling can be a warm up but it is more profitable to commit to a direction.  And that direction should have purpose, a focal point, if you will. This crosshatching in thick acrylic paint is all about lines but I don't see a direction.

This week I was thinking I'd walk the line.  Ha! It has been the kind of week for a quicker pace.  I've been breaking into a fast trot! 

I had a full house for Creativity 101 and today I felt like I needed to step up the pace to a run.  :(

For my own study I'm wanting to do some copying so I can learn mixed media techniques.  I won't share the link as this is no testimony to a lovely tutorial.  Haste makes waste.  So I shall knock back to a well paced walk and redo this tomorrow,  paying attention to drying times, controlled splotches of paint, and thoughtful results.  This was a good reminder that I need to enjoy the journey, the process.  I do believe I'm finding a pathway!  Now if I can just hold that line!  ;)

oops, about the creativity 101 books

Books are on my mind and I had begun to gather materials for the booklets on colour for the grand kiddies.  I didn't realize I would have so much fun and have so many papers.  I arranged them in the order of a basic colour wheel using six colours.  Darn rainbow has seven and messes up the colour wheel concept!  oops!
I also should have made two signatures, not one.  another oopsie!

My gal came and we made a book following Teesha Moore's tutorial.

We got some colour laid down and we will 'really' begin next week.

Then instead of going back to my colour books I checked out a link a friend sent me and the rest of the afternoon flew by as my feet danced away under the 'puter desk!  oops!

So this morning I was hard at it and got caught up on my books.

This was a ton of fun and I tried not to add too many things as they are going to collect their own pictures and embellishments.  I tried to add a variety of pages in the colours, textures and materials.
 

 I have closed them with a paper clip and reinforced the spine with good old duct tape!

I spent way too much time enjoying the link a friend sent me.  This could be my theme song!

Wow, more polymer clay

On Monday I rolled out the polymer clay for my Altered Book tutorial.  I was happy with my leaves but knew I needed to do some more.

Jenn joins me Wednesdays for Creativity 101 and we did some scrapbooking and magazine journal prep. We could use some embellishments for our projects.  Jenn is all about hearts and I figured we could freehand these as we had no cookie cutters.  The polymer clay hearts will go on the blue, red, pink painted page.  We didn't have the pink so we did a lot of kneading to get the red and white to turn pink.  I liked the striped effect but Jenn wanted pure pink.

One commenter from Monday suggested the clay was too soft so I throttled back and it was easier to work with and not so sticky.

We dusted them with some Perfect Pearls powder and it does add a nice shine when baked.  It also covered my  heart's candy cane effect. :0  The rosy powder did add a nice blush to the blue heart which will help it blend into the page.  Quality control is still wanting.  Finger prints and less than smooth edges are only enhanced by baking!  :(

I baked these in the bigger oven at 265 degrees F and the thermometer read 10 degrees lower so I bumped it up and then cooked them in the covered tin for 20 minutes.  They seem fine!  I was surprised at how light these hearts were after baking.  This was a concern for adhering them to the page but I'm not worried at all now although E-6000 is still recommended.

We had a busy fun day and no pressure creativity is what was on my worktable this Wednesday.

I'm linking to my fellow Needle and Thread Networkers.  Check it out for cross country creativity!

Thinking Pink

Summer is swinging by at great speed.  I need to keep a bit of a better eye on the clock, the time and my calendar.

Creativity 101 is all about pink.  The scrapbook album has just about all the pages it can hold so we shall continue to cut and glue and paste, learning as we go.

The magazine journal is shaping up to be about faces and hearts.  We'll see how many different ways we can incorporate this stencil.

The newest grand baby is in danger of getting left somewhere as she is such a snoozer and so very good!

I do need to get a bit better organized as I'll be seeing a lot more of the older grand kiddies as their house begins renovations.  I was telling Jenn we'll be using her day care skills if the dynamic duo join us for Creativity 101.  I wonder how Josh will feel about pink?

Where the heck...

 I was all set to show my first lesson in Photo shop Elements but it seems the editing is a small matter compared to finding where I need to find the files I've down loaded and saved.  Somehow I find that excruciatingly confusing. ={  So I was very pleased when I found them to show you but it sees that was only step one of about four. I stopped too soon!  lol  So maybe tomorrow I'll have some show and tell. 

So here is Creativity 101.  I was not quite as prepared for Jenn as usual so we covered her magazine journal with Mulberry paper and made various pages to tip in.

This is a sheet of cheap tissue paper with gel medium used to attach it to a previous paper with doodles.

She likes the painting with acrylics but really lit up with splattering and then dripping!

She likes hearts and  and we are still stuck on dots and circles.

Acrylic paint on the back of the doodle page and then I laid the fabric we had stamped on over the wet and some transferred to the fabric.  We used pink and then purple.   We felt it was successful.

Now we have a light denim shirt for a cover-up for Jen.  She is much too neat so we just added some of our own art.  We'll continue to do this and see how it all turns out.  Perhaps it can be her graduation present!
Now where the heck did I file the coat hanger?

Creativity with Dots and Circles

The dot and circle family have been a fun bunch to party with!

Some shapes are more user friendly than others in terms of drawing but the point is to begin to be aware of subtle differences.  Practicing will make them flow without those jagged edges that hesitation brings.  The key is just to GO for it!

We did some large movements with our finger on a door, then practiced on paper and finally on some fabric.

Somewhere in blogland I read about a magazine journal which is perfect for a young gal so we began to modge podge some pages together placing wax paper between pairs until they dry.

We added some gesso to cover over some of the page and placed the fabric onto the page.  We'll probably add some gel medium to the fabric next week.

We did some stamping on another piece of fabric and 'cleaned' the stamps on some scrap doodle paper.  It will all be useful for the mixed media magazine journal!

Creativity 101 off and running

Designing with dots is such an exciting concept.  My mind is just full of all the ideas I see and all the what if's...

I am very random.  Jenn is obviously more linear.

We did some doodling with dots on paper with markers after we'd moved the glass dots around.  I do think they really are dots because they are not balls.  They have flat bottoms.

And then we played with the Gelli plate.

We are getting into open circles here, but this was my most favorite.  I am so appreciating working with Jenn because she does things different from the way I'd do them and I hope we are learning from each other. 
                    
                                                          It was an amazing day!

Creativity 101 the point is...

The goal in making art is to communicate something. It can be as simple as enjoying the artist's pleasure in the completed work or it can be a statement about social injustice and all the variables in between.  Elements and principles are the tools  through which we can communicate.

The prelude to creative designing is an understanding of the design elements. We then organize these elements on a page following design principles.  No doubt one can break the rules but it is helpful to at least start with an understanding of the rules and how they work.  Here is a link to a site I found helpful.

We start with a point which is a coordinate in space.  But a point is not actually something we can draw because then the point would require dimension.  But we can draw a dot. Dots are the most basic element and are the building blocks for everything else.

The defining characteristic of a dot is that it is a point of focused attention.  It has a different story to tell than a line.  Dots work together to form an endless  variety of arrangement and complexity. They can even be strung out to form lines and curves.  They can form complex shapes, patterns, textures, and any other structure imaginable. Dots in combination can imply direction and movement.

In my Creativity 101 session we sorted dots (beads) and began to differentiate between shades of colours- cobalt and teal.  I want to get us thinking and really seeing what is all around us.  Shades of blue are a start.

Then we began to get into the basics of creativity.

Afterwards I decided to soak some scrap fabric that I used to cover my work surface in the 'dirty paint water.

 I had my eye on a section that had some spray that translated into dots to my way of thinking.

Then I began to make dot patterns.

Acrylics are a bit easier to control and the end of the handle is a great tool.

Paint pens need a bit of care as sometimes you get a blob and they can also spread.

I used a white out pen to add some detail dots.

A sharpie works great and the different sized points offer lots of options. They didn't bleed as much as I thought they would.

 
I'm getting better control here. The orange and purple are paint pens and the green is acrylic.  A fine point sharpie outlines some.

Not all dots are round. A fine point sharpie makes fine dots to contrast the blue paint pen kidney shaped dots.

The dots can be arranged into patterns.  This was great fun and I'll be doing some more of this.
After all, the point   is to have fun!