Visiting Jolene

I visited my friend Jolene the other day and she gave me these fun things.

This is a folder made out of Christmas themed paper and sewn together.  What a great idea.  I love it.



It was filled with papers and pictures and fun things that I will love to put into a Remains of the Day journal.  How perfect is that.

Plus this beauty, she is a plastic table cloth to use as a stencil.  I have been looking for one of these for ages.  Jolene is such the best kind of friend to have.  Thanks so much.

I took this page from the other day, addd some words and embellished with a brush pen, I like it now.

I was talking to a friend on Facebook all about oil pastels and so then I had to pull them out and use,  These are artist grade pastels made by Sennelier and they are really wonderful to work with.  The background was made earlier with WC crayons and the figure was drawn in pencil first and then I used the oil pastel.  These pastels are so creamy, I really like them.

Here is a collage I worked on over the last couple days. Sure is great to be doing some art again. I hope you ar finding time for it too.

I made a few collages

I got back from my trip on Tuesday but I have really been swamped. This is the first chance I have had to do a blog post. On most evenings I worked a little in an art journal. I found it so relaxing after a long day of biking or sightseeing. I'll have lots to share from my trip in the coming week.

Whenever I go on a trip I take some art supplies with me. I have a Ziploc bag full of collage materials that I bring. After this trip I realized I need to add some new things to it. I had very few focal images but a lot of scrap to make backgrounds. These are all in a moleskine wc journal. I never really liked the paper so with collage I just cover it all up. Here is the first installment.

These last two are just backgrounds, I really did not have anything to put on top so I left them for later. Tomorrow I will share some more.

What ever happened to being fearless!

Last month I did that session with Creative Awakenings all about being fearless as an artist. I did a few journal pages and I felt I was on to something. Now this month it feels like everything I do is crap. All the paint I put onto the page bores me. The colors look awful and it gets so frustrating.  I end up putting paper over it and doing collage.

Here are two examples of that. The pages started out with yellows and brown and both got covered up. I had intended to just use this paper and then do a face on top but as I was looking for images for the next page these guys on camels wanted to be here.

In this one I covered the entire page with glue and just did a patchwork of papers pover it. Now granted that is a fun exercise but its not what I want to be doing.  I want to be painting but I can't seem to do it to any satisfaction. Does this happen to any of you?

I wonder how all of you stick to your visions when you get in the studio.  I have been so frustrated lately that I don't even want to begin.  I know its a phase and I should just go with it but....