This old blog

I love my first blog and my entry into the online world. So why not update it and start using it again. No reason I can think of right now :-)

Life is such a journey. I have been settled into my new home for over a year now. I have a huge room that is over flowing with all good things art. It is my space to create, learn and try to organize.

My art studio as they finish laying the flooring.

The doorway into my studio and the doorway into my closet.

Looking out into the farm fields from my now filled studio.

 My studio is filled to the brim. It is a little overwhelming at times.

I am pretty well retired from any second jobs now. My only job is being an artist and enjoying life each day.

I am in the process this month of finding places to display and sell my art. I have so many pieces of art right now. It is a necessity to figure this all out.

I will try to get here as often as I can to fill in the details.

Thanks for stopping by!

Deb 

Fall 2016 Class Schedule

My classes begin next week and I have a few openings. If you are interested and live in Maine, please click below links, for more info.

Altered Book ~ 4 week class on Mondays

Art Journaling 2 ~ 4 week class on Tuesdays

Classes

I have been doing a few classes this winter. I limited seating to 6 but am glad only 1 or 2 women have signed up. It has been fun working one on one with them. And getting to know people on a more personal level. I have made a few new friends along the way.

The classes have been a Memory Art canvas. It was fun to have someone to bounce ideas off of and to create something really unique to her memorabilia.

The Mixed Media canvas classes are all 2 day classes. So we have created gel prints and our peeled paint layered canvases. The next class will be to add a little more lightness with gesso to the canvases. Then using the gel prints to collage images onto the canvas and add a special quote.

Below are some of the beginnings ...

More pictures of finished projects soon ...

January ATC swap and some organizing

I decided to try a few swaps through FB groups of ATC - artist trading cards.

Here are four completed for a Washi Tape themed swap.

washi tape ATCs

I wanted to add a small piece of film strip that I have in a small tin from Tim Holtz brand, So I began searching for this little tin. And as I opened more drawers and looked into more boxes ... I became slightly frustrated that I was spending this much time looking for it.

So I decided within 15 minutes to start organizing my supplies. I have spent just a little bit of money to get all these drawers and placing to store things. Now was the time to label and put like things together.

Unfortunately, I never found the film strip tin. So I had to settle with embellishing with a silver gel pen. 

one drawer cabinet labeled

More organizing yet to do and hopefully I will find that little tin one day soon.

3 Canvas Project

I have been working on these 3 canvases since early November 2015.

They are a great challenge for me. I am not happy with them but one day I will be.

I will caption them with the process up to this point. You will see more of these in the months to come until they are done. :-)

3 Linen Canvases 18x24

I covered them with white tissue paper and gel medium to get some texture started

Heavy Body Acrylics, reg. acrylics, fluid acrylics, spray bottle of water and spread with fingers

close up of texture and color

another close up

what I started with others added later

yellows I started with

walking away for a bit

added oil pastels, bead gel paste ...

more oil  pastels ... trying to calm the blackness  

walking away again ... time to focus on upcoming classes ... but I will be back to it soon

Christmas Boxes Make Over

While traveling earlier in the month I was able to take advantage of some after Christmas sales at Tuesday Mornings in Pigeon Forge. I bought 3 Christmas storage type boxes with the intention of re-making them into family photo and memento boxes for our library. The pictures were in ugly cardboard boxes and needed a new home badly.

Here are the pictures and products used for the make over.

I have removed the big red bow on all the boxed and fixed a few corners that made them even less expensive. :-)

First coast was chalk paint and then I added the craft acrylic turquoise paint to it for the second dry brushed layer

I used the burnt sienna color to rub around corners and give it a vintage feel and then a little gold rub on never hurts to brighten things up

Tim Holtz tissue paper and also made my own tissue paper using Stampin Up roller stamps. I decided on teh smallest box to just use the wheel stamps right onto the box. Each method gave a different look. Loved them all.

The third wheel did not have it's paper tag any longer with it's name.

close up of Tim Holtz tissue paper

All filled and in their new home.

Thanks for stopping by.

See you next week!

2016 Journal ... inside pages

Inside the front cover of my 2016 Journal Book.

Fun book page from my stash and a cool black envelope to stick things in.

The left side is an image from the text book I left. I created the calendar pages using an online site and sized it perfectly to my book pages.

I bought a 2016 weekly planner from the Dollar store and took it apart to inset into my book so I can jot down events and appointments. I inserted using a tip in method with washi tape. I am planning on doing a video soon showing how I did my pages.

A pocket page.

Another page using an image from the book. I found there were not a lot of cool, fun images in the back of the book.

Since it is a history book ... lots of war pictures.

I pieced together odd pieces to cover this page. 

I left the small image in the corner.

Not sure what my next project will be.

Check back with me next Wed. to see.

2016 Journal from college text book

Winter is here and I am in my art room full time it seems.

I had set aside this textbook to use as my 2016 Journal.

It is a real good size and has some pretty cool old images in it. So I started it last week.

I found a paper pack of cardstock to use. Always makes things look nice without a lot of effort to use a pad of coordinating cardstock. It also had some punch out tags and cut outs. I think I will use this for the cover.

I tore many pages out to keep the book so it will close correctly. It may get a little fat when I add some photos or other memorabilia.

Next week I will share some of the inside pages. I used washi tape on the edges. I really like the finished, colorful look it gives to the closed book.

I will be on the road next week so hopefully blogger will let me post from cell phone. It isn't always the friendliest operation to use the cell phone. We will see  ... if not two weeks from now I will have the inside pages posted.

Thanks for visiting!

 

Old Art Journals finished and bound

I have had these signatures of partnership art journals since 2010. I actually had to finish a few pages on the one. I shared one in a previous post.
http://www.alteredartstudio9010.blogspot.com/2015/12/live-laugh-love.html

I decided to do a book cover binding technique I have seen many others do. So I took the "guts" out of this old atlas and then used hemp to bind each signature into the spine of the book. I used some binding tape I had on had and a few pieces of card stock to reinforce the binding before sewing in the signatures.

Here are a few pictures:

 I added some buttons and beads to the hemp threads that were left hanging

 I may add some embossing to the cover, it is such a cool old book ...

 Inside front cover

 a few pages ...

 I added a piece of wax paper to keep the pages from sticking together.

I used glass matte medium back then. Sometimes sticks together.