Revisiting A Journal

When I was preparing my class for 21 Secrets Fall I created a video of some of my journal pages involving animals. This led to looking through all of my old journals. I found quite a few pages that could have more work done on them. I guess that I am a more complete journaler now. I did find a 2 page spread where all I had done was a background.  I set that journal aside to work on the pages.

For one side of the two page background I saw a figure in the background, I rendered the figure in pencil first and then painted the background with black gesso.  I like how it really makes the image stand out.

On the next page I decided to keep more of the background intact.  I drew the woman in pencil and then marker and then painted her dress and face.  It's a great an example of taking a similar background and doing 2 different things with it.

Have you had any fun surprises in your journal lately?

Tell me about them in the comments,

Kate

Bookstores I Have Known And Loved

After a conversation with my friend Claire, where she mention there are no bookstores in her town where she can go browse the aisles. She misses that. I thought it was incredibly sad, but its probably the sign of the times. It made me think of some of my favorite bookstores over the years.   The first I remember was when I was in college in East Lansing Michigan. Jocundry's bookstore was an amazing place. Wood interiors, music being played, a real ambiance about it. It was the first bookstore to have comfy chairs and nooks where you could sit and read a book. There were wonderful sections set up with different genre's and you could sit and have a cup of tea. I loved the place. It closed in 2001, destroyed by Barnes and Noble and Borders.

Photo credit - Amy - The Wherever Writer

This is the Book Peddler  in West Yellowstone Montana, thankfully this store is still open. Probably because their is a coffee shop inside.  It has a lot of regional authors and a western feel about it. There was another bookstore in West but I just discovered it closed. It was called the Bookworm and was one of those old bookstores with lots of volumes and old books. It was so much fun finding a treasure hidden in the stacks. I am sad that it is now closed, what a loss to the community.

When we first moved to Idaho Falls there were 4 bookstores here, now we have two. The Blue Unicorn was an independent New Age bookstore. At one time it was the only place to find anything alternative. There was a local bookstore downtown which I can't remember its name. It was owned by a woman named Grace Hardin. She carried local and regional work.  It was a little oasis in town that had calm music and a charming owner. She retired and closed the store a long time ago. The local mall had both a Walden Books and B Dalton both stores are now defunct now replaced by Barnes and Noble. We do have a Hastings which is a chain that also sells, music and games. They have a good book selection and a coffee shop, but its not like being in a real bookstore. We do have bookstores that just sell used paperbacks, but they are in a different category.  Just recently we had another one of them close. We do have a nice bookstore that sells used hardbacks and paperbacks, but once again it doesn't have the ambiance of the stores of old.

image source

This is Moose Rack Books in Big Sky Montana, I happened on this bookstore traveling to Bozeman, Montana. Its pretty small but has great charm and local and regional authors. Its a nice place to stop.

These are steps in the only Big Bookstore I'll share in todays post.

In case you guessed yes its Powell's in Portland as the sign show you.

Nice clean aisle, nooks and cranny to look at books, lots of nice amenties. They have lots of used books too.  A really nice place and you don't feel like they are trying to put everyone else out of business. I admit that I am guilty as the next person in buying online but I still think bookstores are a must and they will all go away if we don't start supporting them better.

Tell me,  do you have any great bookstore that you have been to, or remember fondly. Tell me in the comments.

Kate

Bloom By Moon

I had the background of this page painted and waiting for whatever was to come next.  I also had a painting I thought I would cut up for collage elements.

I hadn't decided yet how to cut it up, I mean which parts I wanted to focus on so I ended up just cutting off 2 inches so the painting would fit into a cardboard sleeve I have to store papers.  I took the scrap into my studio and it blended in really well with this page. After added the collage elements a couple images appeared and the rest flowed. I'll still take apart this painting but at a later date.

I have been reading Amy Palko's Bloom by Moon ebook and exploring this new full moon.  In the Celtic tradition its the Vine Moon and in the Native American tradition its the Harvest Moon.  I really loved the phrase "What Seed Dreams will You" so I added it to my page.  I think I'll be doing some further writing on the idea.

Then I finished this page which was waiting for some words of wisdom.  Its seemed right to continue with the moon theme.

On Friday I was featured on Dirty Footprints Studio, go here to have a look. It all part of all the fun for 2 Secrets Falls coming up on October 1st.

What's Your Bliss?

My friend lovely friend Claire did a post on this idea of bliss and this was my comment.

What's My Bliss

Walking in nature,
Making art
Seeing birds at my feeder
Seeing raptors in flight
Seeing birds anywhere else, especially ravens
Walking my dog
Reading posts of online friends and traveling back to when I met them
Reading a good book
Knitting in my living room watching the snow come down, with a warm fire in the stove
Spending time weaving, just watching the cloth being created before me
Writing my new ideas down and seeing them develop into something
Walking in the fall stepping on dead leaves and hearing that crunching sound
Taking wool and creating yarn with it
Conversations with friends
Looking at the moon
Warm sunshine coming through the window hitting my back
Spending time with pen, paper and my own thoughts

Walking on the beach

Smelling the ocean air

Finding shells, feathers, rocks

Spending time in an old book store 

I  could keep going but will stop for now.  Now its your turn. What is your Bliss? 

Monet Was A Genius

Each time I try painting Lily pads it become more and more apparent what a genius Monet was. These suckers are hard to paint, even simple ones like I have been trying to do.

I started with this lovely photo of some lily pads.

I moved it to photoshop and changed the color.

This is my painting of it, still a work in progress. I need to find a way to make the top lilypad flatter. Plus add more highlights. Its a constant learning process for me. The only way to get better is to keep practicing.

Looking For Inspiring Quotes

I've been doing Flora Bowley's Bloom Bootcamp.  Its a free 30 day program.  You can find it here. Today's prompt was about studios and spiffing up your studio if you have one.  To let the sacred into your workspace no matter how big or small.  So I cleaned up a little and decided to print out some inspiring quotes to hang in my room, So off to Pinterest I went.  Here are just a few of those I found. You can access my Pinterest Board here for more quotes.

Using Liquitex Ink's

This exercise we were supposed to have an experience in nature, sketch it and then draw again adding oil pastel and then paint it. Well the weather had been rainy last week and I wasn't inspired by anything locally so I used a picture of red trees that I took in Oregon a couple of years ago.

   

This is the initial drawing of the trees, just a simple sketch in charcoal on watercolor paper.

This is my painting with the oil pastel added. I should have made the trees in different sizes, I'll try to do that when I get to the acrylic painting. I loved using all these fiery colors.

This morning I woke at 5 a.m. dreaming about liquitex inks.  I bought a set of these a couple years ago and haven't used them much. Really forgot why I bought them.  So I went searching on Youtube and found this video.  They are really going to fun to use.

More From My Landscape Class

My original picture of Mt. Moran in Teton National Park.

First attempt had lots of issues.  Sky too small, mountain in the center of the painting.

Re worked the whole piece by moving everything down, now the mountain is moved over a little bit to the right.  A better composition now. I like this version better. I could fuss with it a bit more but I am ready to move on.

I started with this photo. I stood inside a willow tree as I took the photo.

I used a stabilo pencil and  a Lyra water soluble graphite pencil. Then I added gel medium to blend the pencil. Oil pastel, gave the color. I am using Mungyo oil pastels. They are an inexpensive artist quality brand of oil pastel. I blend them with olive oil and a baby wipe. They are quite fun but messy too.