Artfest collaborative book process

I finally sent them in...
This is the process:
The pages were painted first.

The collaged pages


Then I india ink'd some flowers, and other glorious icons all over the pages, to be cut into 4 x 4 sheets.


The completed front page
Another completed front page and a sample of the back

january gussie retreat

what a blessing.
this group of women, the space and time that we have there to create, play, walk the beach, eat such fabulous (mostly) healthy food and get a little bit of sleep...priceless.
Penelope brought her one inch button making machine...Once we got started we couldn't stop creating buttons, this is a mere fraction of the beautiful buttons made.


a quick trip to the beach for some fresh air and teeny white rock collecting. {Cordelia...where is my sea glass?}

wonderful painted background technique that Gwen shared with us. I love this vibrant colour combination of hers.

custom prints available soon at my etsy store...stay tuned for the originals of these to be posted at a later time.


more retreat photos and sharing later....it's nap time...and that means I can get a little studio time in!

oh facebook :)

well, there's facebook and then there is the broken camera...which has kept me from taking more photos....

however, I am trying to get back here...to post more photos and tell you more about my art making adventures.

had another "Gussie" retreat with my art journaling friends...will post photos of that soon.

blessings....

One of my pages from the Gussies Collaborative Calendar. I love my calendar so much!

Painting and painting and painting some more

My Tribe

"We evolve at the rate of the tribe we are plugged into."
Carolyn Myss

I had been writing and re-writing this quote into my journals for years...put it in many of my paintings (and sold a number of them). And (drum roll please), I've found them. My art tribe! This was our second meet-up. Two of the first nine of us weren't able to be at our new site/time (though Michelle did come up for a day, so we were 10 on Saturday), we did recruit two new women for this retreat, so there are 11 total now.
These first two photos are of our first collaborative book that the amazingly talented, infinitely generous and sadly blogless Penelope created for us. It is filled with quality photocopies of a few of the journal pages we each created on the first retreat, recipes of some of the meals we enjoyed there, favorite quotes, favorite art supply sources, memories of the weekend (GSD) and so much more.

The amazingly talented, wildly generous and sadly blogless Penelope brought her coil binding supplies and taught us some great methods for coiling binding and using the holes punched for binding in other creative ways. I made three coil bound journals, and once they are filled I will likely change the binding to one of the other creative techniques she showed us. For now they will be coil bound because they lay flat for creating. The first two of these photos are of the little 4 x 4 journal I created for our son. The inside of the cover has a little snippet of his great-grandmother's quilt (my grandmother) that I have treasured since I went away to college.

This is a "junk journal" I made with some of the recycled cardboard that folks brought for the sharing tables (yes two tables filled with papers, stickers, tags, magazines, tons of fun stuff). (Have you tried these Holiday Jo-Jo's? *so* tasty!)
My second junk journal. A kleenex box as the base...note the back cover has the window where the kleenex came out, I filled the window to be viewed on the inside of the back cover and covered the opening on the back. One of the photos of the inside of this journal shows a practice card of my calligraphy for a class I took years ago. Before going on this retreat I went through my studio and put a great majority of my papers into four canvas totebags.



My notes on Sunday, trying to summarize all the tips and techniques I learned over the weekend.


Find your tribe. It's freeing and fun and worth the wait. Cannot wait until our next weekend -- in January 2010!

Art Journaler's Retreat

We made books. This is one that Dawn made, accordian folds glued onto a fabric binding. I'll post more samples of them later.
Some wonderful photographs from the weekend. I have missed taking these kind of photos, capturing textures.
Four of us went for a walk to the beach and really loved the fresh air and the photo opps.
Catherine busy at work on the journal.

More staycation photos. From a picnic at the Ballard Locks.

Been crocheting a bunch of toddler toys. This is a sample -- also making eggs, bacon and fruit.

what i did on my summer vacation (august journaler's retreat)

Bleach pen work on a photo that Rose brought to the retreat. I heart the bleach pen. Another of my heart collages. I heart my heart shaped collages...I also made a transfer of one of my designs. I'll show y'all that later. I think I might put it on a plain t-shirt, or maybe a totebag? Hmmm.A re-worked journal page. I took a page that I had worked, re-worked and added again...And I still hated it...so I covered the whole thing with these large graphic flowers in semi-transparent, shiny acrylic paints. I love the page now. Can't decide if I'm going to journal on it too. Thoughts?
The borders are done on these 2 two-page spreads for LM's journal.

My mixed media journal i created on Friday. This was one of my top goals for the weekend, I brought a pile of various papers that I wanted to mix up and sew into a journal. I love it...and I journaled in a bit too...
Some sketching of ideas that developed from pouring through books and being at the retreat for a couple of days.

and once in august...

goodness gracious! i haven't posted in a long time...
needed to get at least this one post in in august!

returned yesterday afternoon from a *delightful* journaling retreat near Mt. Baker.



view of our work area from the hallway upstairs...9 quite generous workstations ... many brought trades, others brought items to share -- magazines (Departures met with resounding success...if any readers have access to those...I'd love a little package of those in the mail, or dropped off at the house if you know me :)),
rubber stamped tissue paper,
teeny glassine envelopes,
strips of scrapbook paper,
piles of inspiring published books to pour through,
piles of our journals to pour through,
a great big box of music to journal by,
a few bottles of wine (i think we all showed remarkable restraint in only drinking with our evening meal and later),
baked goods,
homemade soup with nettles,
yummy recipes from great cookbooks,
hot tub time,
hikes,
lots of laughter,
a few snores :),
a bit of teaching,
a lot of learning,
total restoration!!!

thanks to you all ... long may the "gussies" meet and collaborate!
special thanks to Gwen and Catherine for finding this place and starting the ball rolling!





(view from Liesel's space to my mostly picked up space on Sunday morning...her final journal entry of the weekend experience).