MIA - NO just having a RELAX!

Just a quick note to say that from tomorrow early morning I am away for a couple of days with a dear friend, Liz at her beautiful home in Mid Wales, the picture is of the holiday cottage next door to where I'll be staying in a beautiful barn conversion. Rest assured I have taken art supplies and felting materials as I intend to keep busy, I will be visiting a local market, attending a WI meeting and generally relaxing. I will not be able to upload photos, so expect a bumper crop of posts upon my return Friday afternoon.

Life Book - Week 5

A playful, fun, self portrait for Week 5 of Life Book, with Kylie Pepyat-Fowler

Happy Mail - 3

Anonymous sender, loads of texts to use in collaged pages!

Happy Mail - 2

Lovely Happy Mail from Phyllis, beautiful napkin, ATC, gorgeous card to use as a tip in and loads of embellishments!

Happy Mail - 1

Lush Happy Mail from Rita gorgeous heart punchinella will be used loads, I've never been able to find any in UK. Love the poppy, beads & feathers too!

The Empress

First painting in my new Book of Days!
Symbols of the Empress include waterfalls, ears of corn, femininity, beauty, fecundity, venus, pomegranate, pleasure, happiness, romance, delight, art,charm, luxury, success & dissipation.

WIP - The Empress (My Tarot Card Personna!)

Sketched and outlined on a ripped out page of my new Book of Days, about to start painting!

Book of Days - 29th January

This will be my last page in my first book, from tomorrow I will be starting my new larger volume - YES!

A rare moment of brotherly love!

Book of Days - 28th January

 Penultimate page in Book of Days - Volume 1, Happy Mail from Judith Clarke & others!

The Boys

A rare, in fact rarer than Hen's Teeth photo of the two grandson's hugging, I really love this! So glad I had my iPhone with me to take the shot, in fact they were so amenable I got a few shots!

Happy Mail - Judith Clarke

Happy Mail from Judith Clarke who runs a lovely B&B in Whitby, she sent a lush hand made mini book with my name on it, perfect for jotting notes & lists in.

Hailstones!

Dark skies, hailstones and a DH out on a motorbike - not the best of circumstances!

My Little Helper

Felix has been mainly helping (althought here was some attempt to paint a paw print as a signature!) this afternoon (see my WIP doodled page on work top!), the reason it's so dark, see next post!

Doodled Page

I doodled this page onto 140lb watercolour paper, then scanned it, so I could print off a copy whenever I wanted to colour or paint with different media.

This is the original print painted with inks, very therapeutic to do!

Still More From the Postie

All things FLESH! Found an online shop for Artists in the UK called SAA (Society for All Artists) gor my first order at discount price and FREE p&p. They had of all things, flesh coloured ink, I love the Daler Rowney Acrylic Inks and to find one in flesh was awesome. Also got 2 FC watercolour pencils and after 10 years I have run out of masking tape and needed to buy some more, the final purchase was a battery operated eraser, I know I never knew they existed, but they are so precise - total cost £12.43 delivered!

Postie Calls Today!

Am I addicted or what? 

My new lovely Crafters Workshop Templates came from That's Crafty, they're the cheapest I can find onlune and they're delivered so quickly - thanks Laura

Book of Days - 27th January

Torn - page ripped when I was removing it from pad, decided it was apt under the circumstances!

Book of Days - Happy Mail Page

Thanks to Becky Young I did another Happy Mail page!

Book of Days - 26th January

 Chinese New Year celebrations at Grand Son's school!

What a Discovery!

Whilst looking for something else, I stumbled upon my unfinished pages from Dina Wakely's Graffiti of My Life Course, they will perfect to go into my Book of Days Volume 2, lots of lovely colour, tags, stencilling - YUMMY!

Happy Mail

Thanks Becky Young for my "Happy Mail"

Book of Days - 25th January

 Carrying on the yellow sunshine theme, thank you card used as a tip in

 left room for loads of collage, mailed all my Mixed Media Postcards today to USA, Canada, Belgium, Holland and one to the UK!

Book of Days - 24th January

Nature's paintbrush, a completely different feeling today, Yellow the colour of sunshine!

Book of Days - 23rd January

A double page LO for Monday, dark brooding thoughts, meant sleep eluded me!

Doodled Pages Comparison

 Original doodled page, scanned

 Coloured with Faber Castell Big Brush Pens

Coloured with Indian Inks

Update on the Book of Days - Volume 2

 

My front cover - finished (I think!) added some ribbon roses, some stencilled dots, stamped the tie tapes and added my title, will write date on spine.

 Inside cover and first page, pockets with tags, added stamping, will work on tags tomorrow.

Book of Days - Happy Mail spread

Spread your wings & fly! I used Happy Mail items!
I've altered my current Book of Days so I only have enough pages in it to last until 31st January. 1st February new Book of Days begins (see next post!)

New Book of Days Volume 2

My Book of Days Volume I is lovely but too small, I think that I shall try to finish it very quickly (probably by 31st January) so that I can start in my new Book of Days Volume II. I started with a larger than A4 heavy book bought for £1 from a book sale place at our local steam railway, it's got beautiful illustrations of all things Leonardo de Vinci, I also wanted to use scanned images from my real copy of a Book of Days, which I never realised was related to what we are doing!

      

Book I started with and what it looks like now (all prettied up). I used an illustration from a page in the book for the front, it still needs some text and my name on it somewhere. I needed to have a book I could tie shut so I added strong tape, it has 4 layers of paint, tissue paper and stamped images.

 Inside scanned image of a page from Book of Days and my back cover.

Today We Were Mainly Reading!

H loves this book, it makes noises and has a steering wheel! What more can a 2 year old ask for?

Artistcellar Stencils

My lovely Artistcellar Stencils came today, courtesy of Nancy - it was cheaper for me for her to order them to be delivered to her, then her ship them to me and me pay her, that doesn't make much sense but they were so light they wouldn't have been worth the $8 I was going to be charged when actual postage this way (even paying twice) cost me $7.50, matter of principal to save 50cents!

Book of Days - Celebration of Happy Mail

Lots of photos of the various aspects of today's page. I cut up an ATC holder to paste into the book, used business cards & tags as flip outs, used collaged items from Happy Mail, made a picture of a door into an opening door to display a photo Angela had sent me from the Xmas ATC Swap. I stamped, I embossed, I journaled, I enjoyed!

Art Calendar 366 Challenge - June

My Diamond Jubilee page for June, this book will be coming with me to the USA to fill in, when I visit Nancy in June, so it will be a well travelled Art Journal by the time I get back!

Book of Days

I know it's that saying again - well it's mine, it's original and if you google it, I'm first on the list - but none of the other hits are the same words! This is just an extra page for today in my Book of Days - just because I can and I also needed to make up for doing NO arting yesterday as we had refugees staying from 10:00am yesterday until 9:30am this morning due to the bomb squad being in our home town.

"Art is the Answer, Whatever the Question!" - Pippa Gore (C) 2012

A doodled page with a saying that popped into my mind 2 nights ago, I have googled it and there is no reference so I claim it for ME!

Happy Mail Box

I decided to keep a box for all my "Happy Mail" so that I can dip into it for use in my Book of Days!