Holy Moly Mackeroly

I was talking to my Dad today, and something he said made me think of this page spread in my Journal the Journey journal. So I thought I would share.

I did this spread after receiving one of my favorite, inspirational how to sell your art books, Holy Moly Mackeroly. It is by Gloria Page. If you can get a copy of it, it is just marvelous. Her writing style is so engaging, and funny, and personal. She made me feel like I could do it too!

The spread in my journal has nothing to do with the book. The title tickled me, and sparked something semi creative. So do not judge her book by my cover!

Gloria Page kept a blog for a while, that I found while researching the links for this post. She was battling cancer while she kept it, so it is a tearful read, but inspirational. It is called the Creative Edge, click for a link.

Art House Journal-Random Pages

These are just some random pages in My Art House Journal.



In one of them you can see my frustration at the doctors office. I kept have these test done, where they stick needles in you and then, run electricity through the needles. Not fun! I was waiting to go in after x-rays and dreading the needle portion when I did this page.

Both of these pages, I had painted the backgrounds on, long before I journaled and drew the hand, and the page ideas.





The other, is some ideas I was running through. Just brainstorming, while sitting at the doctors office. I also was making lists of things to do. I think, by looking at some of the list here, that I must have been preparing for a surgery date.

I almost always bring a journal and supplies with me to wait, and usually some bead work. I sell a lot of my bead work at doctors offices and physical therapy offices. A good tip, if you sell your work. Work on it everywhere! It gets people to ask you questions, and if you are good at talking to people about it, it can lead to sales. To see my bead work visit TCDesignsStudio.blogspot.com.

Dallas Arboretum Photos

A friend and I went to the Dallas Arboretum for her Birthday, and just had a ball. I had never been, and it is so beautiful. I took lots of pictures.

I like the flower pictures, one for their beauty, and two because they give me ideas for jewelry. I am a bead artist, you can see some of my work at TCDesignsStudio.blogspot.com.

I love getting cool pictures of
sculpture. I like to see if I can capture it in a way that was maybe not intended. Some large scale sculpture has such

great lines, and nooks-and-cranny's, for lack of better words (sorry about that!). Also, if they are outdoors, they can get the most amazing texture.



I also really love any photos of just plain texture that I can get. You can do so much with a photo like that. They are great for
backgrounds for artwork, they are great torn up and used in your journals, and some of them can stand alone, and just be framed.

Painting

I painted this picture from the porch of my Granddaddy's house. It was the view at night. It is very badly done, but I needed the distraction at the time.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

I posted this in an attempt to get it entered in a photo contest for Wired Magazine. The contest was titled "Squares". I could not get the photo to show up on the voting page, so no luck!

Blurred Art Journal

This is the front of one of my journals, Blurred Art. I have been gluing things to the front of it for years. I have had some really wonderful things donated by friends that I attached as well. I always wanted to cut a window in the front. Never have, and now the inside cover is fairly decorated, so maybe it is not an option.

This journal was the very first of my art journals. I still work in it. Water Table was painted fairly recently in it. I have a hard time finishing a journal. I find I do not want to. They all have varying amounts of blank pages at the end, or in some cases, the middle. I might find I want to say something that is relevant to the journal!

The Kimbell

Here are more pictures from the same trip to the Kimbell Art Museum. I love this statue in the open air eating area. She is so relaxing to look at. Great food there too, although it can not compare to the food at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. I had one of the best meals of my life there!



This is a picture of the open air eating area, that has a tree growing in the middle. It is so pretty. Not so good when it is raining, but lovely otherwise.



When we went to the museums, we took the train from town, to Fort Worth, then a city bus to the museums. At the Train station there are these amazing sort of bas-reliefs, on the wall outside. They are just gorgeous, and full of wonderful history!

Zipper Mural

This has to be one of my favorite murals of all time. Although, to be honest, I really like most murals I see.

This is in Fort Worth, somewhere... It was taken from the bus window on the way to the Kimbell Art Museum.

I can not tell you where exactly, I do not know the area well enough.

I just love it! I want to reach out and unzip more of it. I think the artist did such a great job, it is so real, and it leaves you wanting more, but does not leave you frustrated.

I wish it was possible to get a picture of it minus all of the cars and the fence. Problem is, the cars are parked right up against the side of the building, so no go.

Power Outage Woes

Boy do you miss electricity when you do not have it! The long absence of new posts was due to lack of power. We had a big storm that felled a very big tree that took three utility polls with it. We had no power for two days, and it was hot!

The poor kitties do not enjoy power outages. I am not sure why they find it so upsetting, but it discombobulates them all. One day I had all of them piled on my bed at once. That is a large kitty pile! And I have got to say, it did not make the heat factor any easier to bear!

We are back in business now, and I am really enjoying electricity, with conservation in mind, of course.

More Dad Pages!

I love this spread that my father did in our joint journal. I get a kick out of the actual train tracks on the page, every time I look at it. Plus he talks about ancient history, which I love to hear about. On the left is a picture of my Dad with Uncle Richard, his best friend, and he talks about their trip to the Amazon.

Eagle Feather Amulet Bag Journal Page

For Father's Day a few years ago, I made my father an amulet bag with an eagle feather on it. I thought he might like to see the process of it being created, so I journaled about it, in our journal. I had kept all of my research printouts so I used them, and I photocopied the charts I made for it, and documented all of the minutia that went into it, like thread, and number of beads, and so forth. For a picture of the finished piece, front and back, go to TCDesignsStudio.blogspot.com, or just click on the link.

August 29th, 2005

I sat in front of the television for days, in complete horror.
We were so close, and yet too far away. How did this happen?

Same Day Different Journal

All right, so this is a little redundant, but the two journal spreads turned out so different, and I like them both. I had done this spread in my latest journal, no title yet, and liked how it turned out, so I thought I would share with my Dad, and did a spread in his (see post from 6/2/08).

I used both pictures I took with a digital camera and then printed on matte photo paper, matte is my favorite kind, and pictures I took with my IZone camera. I love that little camera, and it is getting harder and harder to find film for it. It is a tiny Polaroid camera, that often comes with sticky on the back of the picture for ease of journal use.

You will notice that there is a large stain over the pages. That would be because I spilled an entire cup of coffee into my backpack in which my journal was packed. You will see that most of the pages look like that. Oh well, no use crying over spilt... coffee?

Shelling Peas

This was the first spread I did in the journal I am doing with my father. I love the swirl on the right side, and I am kind of proud of the pea pod drawing. I am a terrible sketcher, and have a hard time with perspective, so it is not great, but I think, for me, it was pretty good. I did some others like it in an earlier entry in my Journal the Journey journal, that did turn out even better. Often, my second attempt at something just does not equal the first. Something to do with working intuitively, I think.

Spilling Open

I love the look of a book
Spilling open
From all of it's treasures.

It looks so rich
and so full of life and love.

A living, breathing treasure.

Every time something new is added,
It accepts it,
and opens further,
To expose more of its self.

T.C.R.

Ren Faire

Another spread from one of my journals, this journal is my "Journal the Journey" journal.

I know, I just can't seem to stop naming them.

The second view is to show you the right side, with the altered business cards flipped. I just love going to the Ren Faire. The one here is not as good as the one in Southern California that I used to go to, but it is still SO much fun.


The little red and white guy I drew, is this wonderful little doll I got there. He was part of a collection called the Roly Poly Dolls. I just fell in love! He sits with my collection of other oddities. He was made by a wonderful Doll artist, Kandra, of Wee Peeple, Dolls by Kandra (click for a link to her). Visit her site, she is cool!

Hand Made Paper

I had the best time making these great big rolls of papers. I think they were for my fathers Birthday. I spent days making brown paper bag papers, and polished marble papers and laminated tissue papers. I also went through my vast stash (gasp!) of paper and picked out choice pieces to add. I rolled them up and tied them with many different fibers, objects, and small scraps of paper. Really fun, really messy.

Dad put a really cool Haiku he wrote, in our journal, that I think is about him receiving these.

my daughter sends me
a tube of perfect paintings
she brings spring early
PWF

My small part of an art car

I wish I could remember the name of the woman who's art car this was.
She lived about two blocks away from me, but it was a friend of mine
who got in contact with her, and arranged for us to work on it.
My part is in the center of the picture, the sort of wedge shaped part.
It was so fun! I did always wonder if she kept my part on the car.
I saw a picture of the car online and could not see it, although that may have
been the angle. The car looked really amazing, she did a great job!
I keep thinking that I would love to do this to my car,
but worry about how visible it makes you.

My Art House Journal & page

So this is the page in my "My Art House" Journal, that inspired Home (on previous post). I really liked it, even though it is kind of silly with the swedish fish label (one of my vices).




This is the first journal I made for my self. I had done lots of book-binding previously, but had made nothing for myself.

I cut the book board covers and the Bristol pages in the house shape, and I cut corresponding shapes out of mauve silk book cloth. Before covering the boards, I cut a piece of unbleached muslin, to fit, and cut windows and doors, then sewed buttons from my Great-Great Aunts button box on it. Then sewed the muslin to the silk book cloth and then covered the boards.

I took all my pages to Kinkos and had them punched for coil binding and had them give me their largest coil. Since Kinkos would not punch the cover for me, I took it home and used a punch set to do it my self. This was before I had a Japanese Screw Punch, the most miraculous of tools. Then I just wound the coil up and away I went.

The funny thing is, I did all of this one armed. I had just had surgery on my shoulder, and was still in a sling and bandages. Don't know why I had to make it just then, but for some reason I had to have it now!

Home Collage

I did this piece a few years ago. It was inspired by a page in one of my journals. I will scan that tomorrow and post it.

This I called Home, and it was done on a 2" gallery wrap canvas. I love using deep gallery wraps, you can do so much with all four sides as well as the front. Unfortunately you can not see that in a scan! Take my word for it, it is cool!

It hangs over my bed, with a little white wooden dove I bought at an artists garage sale, perched on it.

I used this image on my business cards, although I really need to redesign them and put a piece of jewelry on them instead.

Photoshop Elements Fun

I have been playing with Photoshop Elements. I loved this photo. It was taken at a beach where there is no collecting allowed.

My little friend and I really liked these rocks, and wanted some way of taking them with us. Unfortunately the photo turned out blurry. For some reason, I think maybe the strong light at the beach, I was not able to see how blurry it was till I got it home. I was not willing to loose the photo, so I played with it in Elements.

I think the effect that made the piece, was making it shiny. I think it hides the fact that it is blurry. I would like to spend some more time playing in Elements. I am not able to manipulate it when I want to, I tend to just play around, and if something works, then great! But the times when I needed something done right now such as cropping, I am lost.

Dad Journal - 2

These are wonderful pages by my father, in our journal. On the first page, you can see my Dad's best friend, my Uncle Richard, "preaching" away, and some of my father's wonderful poetry. You would never know that my Dad has not done this before. He does such great pages.

On the second side there is a picture of me in my late teens, some more of my Dad's photography and a great example of some of his digital art, a nail head cat. All of this was digitally manipulated and some of it printed on acetate! Really cool.

Dad Journal -

As promised, with permission from Dad, here is some of our journal. These are pages that I did after a trip to visit with my best friend and her family. There are many things to flip, open, move,and read, so I got some views of that. She took me on a surprise trip to Tahoe to gamble. We did, I WON, it was so much fun! It is such a beautiful drive up there, and the lake is so gorgeous, photos are mandatory, especially when there is snow at the top of the pass! We spend way more time stopping and looking and collecting, than I think she would on her own, but she puts up with me, and my needs, and is such a good friend, she fills her pockets with just about as much found stuff as I do, all for me of course.

Water Table Piece

I was watching a documentary on the severe depletion of the water table, and just getting more and more upset, and it needed to come out somehow. And this is how it did!
It was done in my journal, which I now kind of regret. I think it would have been good on canvas. I ended up really liking it. It is seriously mixed media. There are water soluble pastels and crayons, and regular crayons, colored pencil, and some water colors as well. I worked with my fingers a lot on it. The messier the better, I think! I loved my finger paints as a child.

Little Edward

Edward T. Bear is the ruler of our house. He rules with a kind, but very firm paw.

We got him when he was 3 weeks old.

The day he was let out of confinement (for health and safety) he weighed less than a pound, and he chased our then alpha male cat who outweighed him by 12 or 13 pounds, across the house.

Every time he went to the vets for his well kitten visits, she would tell us, "Don't worry, the other cats will start disciplining him, he will not be so obnoxious for very long." We are still waiting for that to happen, eight years later.

We managed to cure him of some behaviors such as biting the bridge of your nose to get you to do what he wants, but most of it is beyond our control.

Even my friends will say, "He is so Edward".