Art Journal

Awhile back I started a little journal using the rubber stamps I carved.  Then i set it aside and forgot about it.     Later I decided to play around with little zen doodles and looked for a suitable journal and grabbed this one.     LOL   I accidentally started the zen journal from the reverse side of the journal, so the front is one thing, and the back is something else entirely.     Oh well. 

Here are a few of the zen doodles with some color added with colored pencils and caligraphy pens.      

 It didn't take me too many days to figure out that I really prefer strong central images with less clutter.   

Here are some of the next ones more stylized and simple.   At first I thought I'd zen doodle around the images and fill in the entire background.    I liked the starkness of the cleaner pages, so left them to stand alone.     

 Next pages I sort of tried to combine the strong central  image with backgrounds filled.

These small journals are fun to use to explore different ideas and inspirations.   Also to try out new art supplies.   Such as the new set of colored pencils I bought recently.   And the colored calligraphy pens.    


Now that I look back over my doodles, I don't think they even resemble the zen doodles that are so popular with many artists today.

Did I ever mention my father's nicknames for me as a young child?   Pumpkin Doodle or Doodle Bug.      I guess my doodles are pumking doodles.    LOL

Lulu's portrait

Now, this one is looking more like Lulu when she is trying to be patient, waiting for me to call her for a treat.

I'm going to start this one of Nikki soon.

This is a little envelope I sent to a friend.     I had a bunch of happy face stickers and thought I'd give then noses before they went on their way.   

Inspiration in a spider web

A few of us got together to work on altering flatware at Phyllis's house.   Out front as I was headed towards the car, I noticed this great feat of architecture done by a master spider.         

Is'nt it neat?  It reminds me of macrame.     Wish I had a really good camera for this one.     This is a Canon point and shoot digital.     

Lulu revisited

Here is the one I showed earlier today.   Now it has the plaid added.       She also looks so much different, I'm glad I took a photo of the earlier version.

It does not look at all like Lulu.     I'd better take it back to the studio and do more work on it.    

Here is another.  

It does not look like her either.   It's very hard to capture her look and her personality on paper.   At least for me.      I'm determined to keep trying though.     I'm as stubborn as she is.    LOL

Lulu in progress

I started another painting of Lulu.    She's a willing subject, but looks different every time I look at her with her tousled hair and wonky teeth.         Here is what I did at the senior center Monday morning, doesn't she look angelic?     Well, she isn't.     It needs a lot more work, but I photographed it so I could remember there is an angel dog hidden behind the scruffy rough and tumble little terrier/devil dog I know so well.    

This was done with a pencil sketch and thinned out acrylic washes.     White gesso, raw umber, red iron oxide and yellow iron oxide. 

There is  a plaid chair sketched in behind her, not sure how I will handle that yet.     Next time you see this you probably will not recognize it.    Lulu is a challenge in life and in paintings.       

Altered spoons

Digging for ideas for the Lodi Mixed Media Group, I thought we could revive altered cutlery as shown in Cloth Paper Scissors in the May/June 2008 magazine.      It was brought back again last year in Somerset, and I always planned to do some, just never got around to it.       In Boulder Creek a few years back, I bought some big spoons to alter, then put them away.       Phyllis and I were in Lodi last week and found spoons and forks at a very reasonable price, next to nothing - lol.      So, I set about making samples for the meeting.   Here they are.  

It was a lot of fun to work with wires and beads and a sledge hammer and letter punch.     All so different after my 30 days of painting.    I also found while digging in studio a bunch of things  (boxes and boxes of things) I can pass along, since they no longer hold any interest for me.     This is a good thing.      

End of 30 day challenges - the collage

Our final step is to make a collage of our 30 day paintings using  http://www.picmonkey.com/
a free online photo editing program.    Here is my collage.   Now I'm really done and can go work in the garden.