Eccentric Spirit

Yikes, it’s been a week since my last post, where does the time go?! I guess it’s just that busy-busy time of year. I’ve got lots going on – how about you? Let’s see, what have I been up to? I made a new art journaling video, Insomnia Art Journal Spread – late night art journaling process. The size is a bit small here – if you view it on YouTube you should be able to see some notes I added throughout about my process. I’m still trying to work up my nerve to do spoken audio!

This is the first time I’ve tried out my new MacGyvered photography set up I mentioned last time. Here’s a photo of it in case you couldn’t picture it from the description last time.

The lighting isn’t the best, but hopefully you get the idea. As I said in the last post, the basic idea came from wondering how to film my work table while I create, so I can share it on YouTube. My tripod will not point the camera straight down without having the legs either in my way or in the video. So I got to thinking, “what else do I have that’s even remotely like a tripod?” At first, I considered using a fancy desk-clamping work light that we don’t use because the bulb burns out way too fast, but I realized we don’t know where the clamp got too. As I was stowing it back in the closet (why do we still have it?? why am I not just giving it to Goodwill??) I had an a-ha moment – my easel! I actually bought it not for painting but for displaying earrings, way back in the day when I was in the jewelry making biz. It occurred to me that it’s exactly what I was looking for – a tripod, but with an attached “arm” of sorts, which I can swing down to be level with the work surface, but a few feet above. The only try then was attaching my camera – I dug out an itty bitty four inch tripod that I never got much use out of, duct-taped it the the “arm” of the easel, and away I went! Huzzah!

In other arty news, I’ve been having a blast finding fun ways to share my antique magazine scans. I put up a new batch of free collage sheets, this time they are catalog pages – still with lots of great vintage ads, but also lots of amazing illustrations of Victorian/Edwardian era clothing. I also created an article on Steampunk Hair Style Tips and Ideas using, among other things, some great scans from a 1908 magazine. It’s funny to see how little these things change – over 100 years ago they were writing articles not too different from ones you might see now, all about how to get your hair looking just right for the style of the time. As you may have noticed, the vintage ads sport a lot of the same things you might see advertised in today’s magazines – beauty creams, weight loss pills, and work at home programs. Some things don’t change, I guess!

After seeing how easy it was to put together a little slideshow for my free collage sheets, I decided to try a quick video of a look through my art journal. I was surprised by how easy it was – I heart my new camera! Check it out in all is vid-alicious glory!

After having such a nice experience sharing this with the world (or YouTube, anyhow) I decided I want to start making some how-to type videos, something I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time. After a few hours of MacGyvering, I came up with a good set up to do so. It’s amazing how tricky it is to get a camera set up to film a work surface! My solution involves a 4″ mini-tripod that I never use, my easel, and some duct tape. :)

Any requests on what to film first? Anything you’ve seen in my journals that you’ve been hankering for a good how-to? My camera battery needs a charge, and I’m busy tomorrow, so it’ll be Saturday at the earliest, so suggest away!

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in photo editing software for the past several days, slowing sorting through the 600 dpi scans of my vintage women’s magazines. Maybe vintage isn’t quite right; I suppose I should say antique – these puppies are dated 1898, 1903, 1908, and so on! They’re in remarkably good condition overall and I’ve been meaning to make collage sheets from them for YEARS. But right about the time I got the idea in my head to do so, so did a ton of other people and Etsy pretty much exploded with people selling digital collage sheets, and it took the wind out of my sails. I figured, it’s going to be a big hassle to be at my computer regularly enough to email the sheets whenever people purchase them, so I gave up.

Recently though, I’ve been revisiting a site called Squidoo, where you can write web pages (called lenses) about any topic you like. I’ve been going nuts writing them lately, everything from an article about No Mess Glues and Adhesives to a shopping guide for Geeky Christmas Tree Ornaments. You can find all my artsy ones listed in the sidebar at the right. A few days ago, I had the brilliant idea to start putting those collage sheets together, at long last, and sharing them on Squidoo. I earn a small income for my share of ad revenue, and I don’t have to babysit it! Works for me. :)

So, long story short, check out my new page with Free Vintage Advertising Collage Sheets. If it’s successful, I plan to try and put up a new page of free digital collage sheets every week or two. It’s gonna be great! Tell your friends!

Long time no see! Been simply AGES I know. It’s been a chaotic summer and now that Autumn is officially upon us I’m hoping to get back to blogging with at least some amount of regularity. More on what I’ve been up to over the next few posts, but in the mean time, I discovered I had a draft post half-written already, so I’m just finishing that up and sharing it with you.

Today I want to share with you a bit about my process.. it’s sort of hard to show without doing video, which I’ve yet to really figure out. But in the mean time, my idea is this: I’ll show you a journal spread at two stages of completion and tell you how I got to each one. The first picture is this one:

As I recall, the things I’d done at this point include: gessoed the book pages, glued in a note about a goal, wrote more thoughts about that goal in ballpoint pen, and experimented with my new Caran D’Ache Neocolor II Watersoluble Crayons.Not sure if you can tell from this photo, but the combo of gesso and Neocolors gave it a really nice soft, almost fabric-like look and feel. Really nice, but not done yet..

Here it is in it’s current, finished state. For reference, these two pictures were taken not only on different days, but with entirely different cameras, which is probably 90% of why the colors look different. Some of it may be changes due to age though, as it’s been several months since I finished this spread and I couldn’t find my original “after” photo, so this one is one I took just now.

What I added: Lots of deco tape, from probably about a dozen different rolls. Rubber stamping with my Staz-On: the jar of art supplies, the red dotty lines, the blocks of letters (which is one of those $1 alphabet sets from Michael’s that I rubber-banded together and printed as one stamp), and the housewife looming over the cityscape. Also used my Sharpie poster paint markers to doodle in green curtains and a blue pennant around the “Get the studio clean” note.

So that’s a peek at my process, or at least, at the stuff I like to use. I work pretty organically, just grabbing what feels right. I dig out certain things when I have an a-ha moment like thinking “Ooh, I bet that housewife stamp I have would look awesome over this cityscape – like Godzilla!” but I also just grab whatever is within arm’s reach that feels right.

I hope you enjoy this post; I for one love posts sharing an artist’s process; it almost always sparks new ideas. Please let me know if you’d like to see more like this, so I can try to take some before/during photos when I finally get back to art journaling more often. Alas, this journal spread didn’t really help me to get the studio clean, and that’s been one of the things keeping me from my journal for the past several months. I bet you can guess what’s on my to-do list this week! :)