The Letter A

This is a scan of the "A and B" page I created in my 16-page journal (a la Teesha Moore's video). I don't plan to post all the alphabet pages here, just a few :). The large letters were hand-created by me, as explained in a previous post.

Alphabet Effects

I made the alphabet image from the previous post into a PSE "brush" and experimented with different effects. Here are two of them.The first one has a lace background showing through the letters; the second has an embossed metallic effect.

New Project

Last week a group of women from my Artful Journaling class got together to make the "16-page journal" that Teesha Moore teaches on her YouTube lesson. We had such fun! I finished my journal, but waited until I got home to start painting/embellishing the pages. I've spent the past week working on it (literally elbow-deep in paint, paper scraps, and gel medium). Based on a suggestion once made by by Artful Journaling teacher for a class project, I chose an alphabet theme for this journal. I drew each letter of the alphabet in a different style (choosing from those shown in the Encyclopedia of Comparative Letterforms for Artists and Designers by Norman S. Weinberger (bought used on Amazon.com a while ago because I'd seen it at the library and loved it). Each page of the journal features 2 letters (one letter on the smaller pages) surrounded by relevant images and words I've collected, plus some other embellishments. I copied all of the letters by hand, using pencil, pens, brush pens, and ruler. Since I scanned each one into Photoshop for "posterity," I took the liberty of filling in some of the black portions more fully in PSE. There were some tiny white spaces here and there in the penned images, I guess. Anyway, here's the alphabet in one image. I'll probably post scans of some journal pages when they're "finished."

I Have No Idea What to Call This

This is a digital collage I've been working on for a while. I'm not sure what to name it; it just isn't "speaking" to me yet. Maybe there isn't really a theme-- just a bird, some flowers, and a woman's face. The green bird pendant that she's wearing is a small version of another digital collage I did recently; it's part of a series in which I combined Asian and other images into "virtual beads." More on that another time :).

I may look for a quotation that fits this collage, if there is one. All ideas for names or concepts are welcome! Come on, I know I have some readers out there somewhere!!!

Embossed Metal Effects

Yesterday I received the latest issue of Creative Keepsakes magazine, which contained a tip about embossing metal using a thin sheet of metal, a texture plate, and a blending stump as an embossing tool (blunt enough not to mar the metal). Unsurprisingly :) I had all the materials, so I gave it a try with some thin silvertone sheet metal. Then I scanned an image of the result into Photoshop and played around with different effects. Here is the original scanned image, and several PE5 versions.

"And the Day Came"

This is one of my favorite quotations. The image I used for the female "statue" on the left side of this digital collage is adapted from a Dover Publications book of images for crafters and artists. The book is called "Jacques Stella: Baroque Ornament and Designs." Stella was a French artist who lived from 1596 to 1657 and spent many years of his life in Italy.

Recent Journal Pages

I am again trying to keep a more-or-less daily art journal. This time, I decided to use ONE journal for everything--art and lettering practice, daily stuff, and travel. Makes life a lot easier. Here are 2-page spreads I created for our Terra Cotta warrior trip to DC, and our trip to see the Silk Road exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in NYC. I'm loving the Pan Pastels for the backgrounds--smooth and easy.

Rusty Truck

My son Ryan recently posted a striking photo on his blog (http://ryry-sound.net/) --a closeup of a rusty truck in his Austin neighborhood. Since he has given me general permission to use his gorgeous photos in my digital collages, I went ahead and created this one. I've posted both images here-- the original one is first, then my collage.

Thanks, Ryan! Wanna name this one for me?

Shades of Gray, and Some Red

This is another zen-tangle-ish thing I did this morning. It started out black and white, then I added some gray Pitt pen, then scanned onto PSE and added red and more gray. This time I went "out of the box" a little :). Happy New Year!