Oregon and Washington Trip Pictures

I went to Oregon to visit my Aunts for a week and then to Washington to visit my best friend and her family for 2 weeks. It was wonderful!

It took me for EVER to get the pictures uploaded, but I think I got some really great shots.

A lot of art inspiration! These rocks just tickled me. They were gorgeous!


You know it' s cold when the rocks are frosty. I think these were taken on the way up to Mt. St. Helens. My best friend is so wonderful about stopping every where so I can take pictures and collect...things...


And here is the lovely lady herself! It was amazing up there. We could not get all that close, the roads were closed at Clear Lake. But we had lots of fun trying.












This is Clear Lake. It was GORGEOUS, even under all the snow. I will be curious to see what it looks like in the summer. There must be lovely trails. We had to forge our own, and were up to our hips in some areas in very wet, cold, snow.We thought we were going to have a picnic here, not really all that practical, the picnic benches would have had to be excavated.
The "No Swimming" sign, even though I knew it was for summer, seriously cracked me up. That sign is posted on the dock... looking over the water... brrrrr

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

My Desk

This is my incredibly "artistic" desk. Kind of messy, even when I can get to it.

There is a pile of my journals on the right, including my beading journal (the gold one), which I have not been able to lay my hands on for close to 6 months.

Wish I could find it!

First Entry

I am not sure why I have started this blog.

I guess I have been enjoying putting together TCDesignsStudio.blogspot.com so much that I thought I would make more.

It will be an extension of my journals, I guess.

I really enjoy working in them and will share them with anyone who asks, so how is that different?



These pictures are of two of my journals.

They are stuffed. I work until they burst. I am generally working in two at a time, not including my beading journal, and the journal I do with my Dad (we send a journal back and forth between us).

I will ask his permission and see about putting up some pictures of it. It is really cool.