December Daily - a few more pages

time: 8 hours (13/14 Dec)

December Daily Album - Scrapbooking

 Page One: Pohutukawa flowers mean summer's here!

 Pages Two/Three: Ornament Exchange with online

 scrap-bookers in America .

I've been involved with this scrap-booking forum for 

7 or 8 years now and have a nice little collection 

of Christmas ornaments now! 

The card I received this year (from Flo) is on the right,

 inside I've attached a photo of the other little items

 she sent me (some stamps and chocolates)

Page Four: Whangarei Youth Music (WYM) 

End of Year Concert for Rosanna. I loved the 

way they decorated the tree with musical symbols

Page Five: Rosanna being farewelled by the 

President of WYM. She been part of it for 11 years!

Time: 20 hours (4-8 Dec)

Project X

My Project X is complete...

well, one of them...

I'm still working on another canvas which I want to

 incorporate the materials used for my Travelling Egg Project.

Here's how my canvas progressed over the week

 I wanted to try image transferring 

and had an idea of using this kowhai flower 

photo I took in the springtime

 The only gel medium I had was this crackle medium

 this was the image transferred on to fabric

Then I needed to go into to town, so went to 

Spotlight and bought some Modge Podge

and experimented with some 

other images on paper

It was this last image that formulated 

what I would do on one of the canvases

 I reversed the image in my photo-editing programme

and applied Modge Podge to the painted and gesso'd

canvas then use a spoon to burnish the image

 When it was completely dry I dipped my 

finger into a glass of water and carefully 

rubbed the paper to expose the 

transferred image...

 Despite taking care some of the transfer lifted off

and initially I was disappointed...

but I decided to use the "tattered effect" 

as part of the intended artwork as it

aptly reflects how battered I feel on 

this journey called LIFE! 

I've used scrap-booking paper and card-stock

 for the border and dried Artemisia absinthium

from my garden to embellish... 

and searched the Internet for quotes

 I'm REALLY happy how it has turned out!

Now to work on my "other"  Project X...

Time:12 hours (26/27/28 Nov)

 8 hours (3 Dec)

TOTAL: 20 hours

Hand-made Christmas 2012 Album...and Project X

With the new Government Legislation (that came into effect on October 2012) and as a solo mother receiving the DPB (solo parent benefit) I might be faced with losing my Right to home-educate and will be required to look for paid employment. I hope to be able to continue my Art and Creativity Certificate but I am just not sure what next year holds for me. I am struggling to concentrate on anything.. but have tried to maintain some sort of creative momentum as I find this soothing and relaxing. Over the past two days I have been working on a Christmas Album using my hand-made banana palm paper.

 I used the card-coard backing from an A3 art paper pad covered it with scrap-booking materials, decorated it and punched holes for the rings

 Another view of the album

 I've trimmed my handmade paper to fit

 ..and finally the back cover

I look forward to recording what we do as a family leading up to Christmas, purchasing and decorating the live tree and house with lights (for the first time) It's Rosie last Christmas before going away to study Vet Nursing in Hamilton and it'll her puppy's first Christmas (so I'll be out-and-about with my camera)...so no doubt there's going to be lots of tears and laughter!

I've also made attempts to start on my Project X. 

 Painted and Gesso'd...yes I KNOW your suppose to do it the other way around...but when have I done anything the "right" way LOL!

 Starting to dry

 I'm loving the texture of the cracking.

Still working on what going to happen next.

I have some ideas but they are all

jumbled up in my head.

I want to try some image transferring I think.

Time: Handmade Album - 10 hours (22/23 Nov)

Project X - 1 hour (20 Nov)

Photo editing/uploading - 1 hour

TOTAL: 12 hours (20-23 Nov)

Project X

I'm currently working on my Project X.

Unfortunately, I can't remember what I had planned to do.

I'd sketched out some ideas.

On scrap paper.

Not IN my visual diary 

*bangs head*

Dumb me!

I know I wanted to evolve my Travelling Egg.

And use those materials.

Plus Gesso (new product I've been wanting to try).

I'm hoping I recorded some

ideas on my blog.

3D Clay Basics/3D Composition

Today I took the clay and had a "play"

First, I just studied it...the colour, the smoothness
and the solidness of the clay.
Then I plied it and moulded it
feeling it's coolness beneath my hands.

At first I wasn't sure what to do..or what to make.
So I put myself into my "childlike state"
and did what most children would do with clay...

I rolled it into a sausage and coiled it like a snake

This reminded me of an elephant's trunk!

Next, I rolled small pieces into balls and stacked them on top 

of one another. I was a little surprised to find they stood upright!

I like the slight variation in its vertical alignment and the way

 the light and shadows play on the curved surfaces.

So then I shaped some leaves. I used a vegetable knife

 to shape and score the clay.

a slightly twisted leaf

 Two twisted leaves

 

Which lead me to google TWISTED LEAVES 

and found these (many) IMAGES

I'm going to print out a few of my favourites

to add to my visual diary

 ...lots of inspiration!

 

Time: 3 hours (15 Nov)

 includes photo editing/uploading

More print making

I got inspired to have another little play this afternoon. This time I printed out half a dozen heart shaped templates and cut out the heart from two pages. 

The first stencil I coloured yellow, the next orange.I thought it was red ink but it squeezed out orange. Never mind.... We just "playing and having fun"...

As I had orange inked up I went over the yellow heart masking it so I'd print the orange as a background. Of course the two colours didn't "meet" very well but ..we are not aiming for perfection, I tell myself...

So I take my next printed orange heart (that I had drying outside) and ink up my brayer with blue ink. I masked the orange heart with a smaller heart I'd cut out by hand and inked the masked heart, combining the blue with the exposed orange heart. I really like how this has turned out!

Then I decided I wanted some "texture" so I inked some nylon netting with the blue ink. I masked the orange background with the stencil and lay the inked net over the yellow heart covering it with newsprint and rolling over using a brayer to take a print of the netting.

Here I have again used the inked netting on the ghost print from yesterday.
 
  I did the same with the apple stencil (that got water damaged in the rain yesterday) and finished both the ghost print and apple print with a blue stencilled heart. I'm really enjoying experimenting with these basic print-making techniques.

Time: 2.5 hours (14 Nov)
1 hour editing photos/uploading (15 Nov)
Total time: 3.5 hours (14/15 Nov)