I decided to give two seats in the class away. And the winners are Nancy Johnson and Lotus Veele!!!
Nancy you didn’t submit your email address so I don’t know how to get in touch with you, please write me at zura at creativeclown dot com.
Thanks to everyone who shared links, I truly appreciate it and wish I could give the class to you all!!
Have you been checking my other site this week? I’ve been giving away some awesome online classes. Today’s prize is your choice of any of three of Willowing’s classes on dvd. Go check it out and come back the next couple of days, too for a chance to win classes from Kelly Kilmer and Juliana Coles!! http://creativityclasses.com
I have been doing hardly any art except for art journaling this summer. I got a big box of gently used supplies from my friend Kristina, and it included some stencils and some inks. Since then I have gone mad with stenciling. If you’d like to see some of my playing, I have them on Photobucket here Because I actually write a lot on my pages, and it’s very personal and emotional, I blurred out the writing on some pages, so it sort of distorts the image, sorry.
One thing I’ve been doing a lot is making borders on my journal pages, or putting a strip on the top or bottom of the page. I started by cutting strips out of magazines, but then I printed out some old journal pages and cut strips from them. I like this a lot, so I made a couple of pages of “collage sheets” of these strips of mine. If you click the images below you will taken to a large, hi res image that you can download and cut up to use in your journal.
A while back I told you about my new website. It’s an huge site that lists all the online art classes that I’ve been able to find. But, the reason I’m talking about it here is that I’m having a HUGE grand opening this week. I have class giveaways every day for seven days!! Please come over and sign up to win classes from L.K. Ludwig, Juliana Coles, Lani Gerrity, Willowing, Carole Brungar and more! Yesterday we had a great interview with Pam Carriker so check it out, too!
I am so excited to tell you about this project that I have been working on for months. It is a website that lists online art classes from artists all over the internet. The goal is to have all online creative classes listed there. So far, I have a little over 100 classes. They are not only listed, they are categorized and there is a page for every class. The page gives a description of the class, the dates and the cost. That page has a link to the artist’s site where you can register for the class. Every page also has a star rating system just like Amazon, so you can rate any classes you’ve taken in order to help others who are considering the class. You can also write reviews of the classes you’ve taken.
It is my dream to have one central place where students can go and learn about classes being offered. I know that I’m always hearing about a great class after it’s over. If you don’t go to an artist’s blog or website you might completely miss their class. This way the artists get exposure for their classes, complete with links to the sign up page, for free. (I am selling graphic ads if anyone is interested, but the class listing is free). And the students can leisurely learn about lots of classes in one place.
I am still entering classes, but if you know of a class, or you teach one and I dont’ have it listed, please let me know!!
I have dreamed about this for a while, and it has been really hard work. My friend, Kristina, was a major help with moral support, ideas and data entry. Mister, with his logical brain, has been a great help too. But, the feeling of having actually created what was only an idea is so exciting!!! Please check out http://creativityclasses.com and let me know what you think!
This one was so fun! The challenge by Michelle Ward on the GPP Street Team for this month is to tear strips of paper and use them in a journal page.
I tried one and attempted to use alcohol inks in a spray bottle over stencils and it made sort of a mess. It’s fine to write on, but I decided to try it again.
I used a wall chart that is something about a graph of the history of man. I tore pieced from that chart and glued them over a gessoed page. Then I applied more gesso with a credit card. I added brown paint around the strips and them sort of smushed it with a rag. Then I added more gesso with a credit card. I glued the angel in and accented some of her with watercolor pencils.
I have been through a lot of thoughts and emotions over the past few weeks. I started building a new website and was so excited about it. But about halfway into it, I realized that what I wanted to do just couldn’t be done by one person. I longed for an assitant that could help me, but I have no money to pay an assistant so I got dismayed and just let it go for a while. Mister and I discussed it a few nights ago. He has this beautiful, logical mind. He was able to ask questions and help me see the whole project from a different perspective. Before I was seeing it as all or nothing, and he helped me see it maybe not as elaborate so that I didn’t have to discard the entire thing.
I’ve been working on the most important things today. After I hear back from a couple of people with some info I need, I will be able to launch it. I am really excited and I think it’s something that is going to provide a service of lot of us online artists need. So stay tuned for an announcement soon!
My son showed up last Tuesday and surprised us with a three day visit. It was just him and the 4 kids. His wife had to work. We had such a wonderful time. One day we went to Tulsa and the kids swam at my sister’s. One day Randy took the boys fishing. I made my granddaughter a dress and we did girly things. It’s always an immense pleasure to be with either of my sons and with my grandkids. I’m one blessed woman!
I have a few art projects in the works but nothing really to show. I’m getting ready to record videos for my “Happy Feet” class which starts July 23rd. It’s a really fun class where you learn to paint and decorate your shoes. I’ve taught it before but this is the first time I”ll be adding videos.
This month’s challenge at the GPP Street Team Crusade hosted by Michelle Ward is to create a grid on a journal page and fill it with evidence. I chose to fill my grids with paper, fabric and lace, because I am so enamored right now with sewing fabric and lace/trim on my journal pages. I couldn’t sew them on my journal page because of the size of my book, so I glued them in. I love looking at this page. It’s not particularly artistic, but it makes me happy to see all the paper and fabric I’ve found or has been given to me. I’m especially drawn to beige and pink. It’s so feminine and romantic.
This challenge was easy but a lot of fun. It also inspired me to use grids on journal pages for other ideas.
Update on my freind quest: Today I found a scrapbook store in a town about 30 mins away and met two wonderful women!! I’m going to go hang out with them and create. Maybe this weekend!!! You should check out their site. She has things I’ve never seen before. Yummy goodies!!!
My “Find Your Personal Symbology” class begins June 22. It is one of those classes that really engages everyone. It’s not a technique class. It’s a class where you learn to look at your own life and find the symbols that have messages for you. It’s only 4 weeks long, so doesn’t require a huge time commitment and it’s only $25. Please go here to read more details about the class and to sign up. I hope you’ll join me!!!
You might be surprised to know how many times I come to my blog, open up the editor and begin to write a post, only to give up in frustration. Not because I don’t want to write. But because I want to write so much. It is difficult to know how much is okay to share in a blog. Trying to select the most interesting, timely or entertaining things out of all I want to share becomes too daunting so I give up.
I read a lot of other blogs and I long for the ability to say the right thing and choose the right pictures to have an interesting and helpful blog. I feel that my hit and miss ramblings are useless to anyone but me. The solution to this eludes me, but I am going to try to just blog whatever I want to when the mood strikes. I’ll see how that feels and try to quit over thinking it.
I want to know how people do those collages or mosaics of small pictures in their blog posts. I usually see them on blogger blogs, so I suspect that might be a feature of blogger.
For my latest journal I wanted to work on loose pages, rather than a bound book. I cut 9 1/2 x 14 in. watercolor paper in half to use for the pages, but it’s really too small for me. I’ve done enough pages to bind into a book. I like working on loose pages, but I need to use the full size sheets rather than the half size. Here are a few of the pages I did on the small size.
I’ve been playing with different styles and ideas. I’m layering paint and paper more than usual. I just got a new dip pen and some new ink. I’m loving playing with them. I am mostly liking romantic, cream and pink, victorian looking pages. So I want to use the dip pen and ink to write on them. It seems fitting that a page with antique lace or paper that looks like Victorian wall paper, should have old fashioned ink to write the words.
I am still working on the new website, but as you know if you’ve ever built a site, nothing ever goes as planned and dates must be flexible to deal with problems. So, while I wanted to launch the site this week, it isn’t happening. But I promise it will be worth waiting for!
I haven’t posted in a while and I’ve been up to quite a bit lately. I’d like to share several things with you.
I discovered journals with sewn paper and fabric. I fell in love with the way they look, so I tried my hand at them. I am not much of a seamstress so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed sewing.
This is the cover. I don’t like it very much. And, I’ll warn you that I didn’t cut all the threads before I took the pictures, so it looks pretty scraggly. The cover was difficult because I wasn’t sewing the fabric on to a back. Just trying to form the rectangle shape of the cover by sewing pieces together.
Here are a few of the pages. I planned them with lots of paper on each page because I write a LOT in my journals.
A while back I showed you a chair and a stool that I got from our neighbor who is moving and getting rid of stuff. Wellllll, the other day they were loading the moving truck and I guess they didn’t have enough room because they put an antique desk out in the alley!!!! I nabbed it so fast it would make your head spin. It’s so unique.
(It is sitting in our laundry room, where I sometimes do art, so excuse the mess in the pictures.)
When you first see it, it looks like a hall table.
But when you pull up the knobs, it reveals a little desk! The board you can see with the indentions, actually slides out to create a larger work space. See the little cubby holes? Isn’t it great?
Today Mister and I went fishing. It was wonderful to be in the sunshine. And I saw some nice nature. These are some pictures I took.
This is the shore near where we were fishing.
The colors of the sunset were reflected on the ripples in the water. And there’s a Big Bird cloud, too!
And another shot of the shoreline and the sky.
This was so cool!! I saw this cloud that looked like a fish.
I looked at the water to see what the reflection of this fish looked like. How cool is this?
So, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Oh! Except for a secret. 
Kristina and I are creating a website that you are going to LOVE, if you are involved in the online art community. It’s really awesome. We’re hoping to launch it in a week or so, so stay tuned for that.
