I'm Still Here

"Self Portrait as Sugar Skull"  Acrylic on canvas 18" x 24"

MORE TO COME SOON . . .

Tuesday Tips and Techniques: Photo Editing

Can't find time to play in your journal but you've taken lots of photos?  You can still let your creativity flourish by being creative with photo editing. 

Here are some of the photos I played with over the past two weeks using free, online photo editing programs.

After a couple modifications to the photo below, and a couple keystrokes using FotoFlexer, Voila! I've got a neon Nick!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little cropping and color boosting brought this Thai restaurant character to life. 

Multiple functions in iPiccy helped to re-create this photo of Nadia.

This photo of fruit taken at the West Side Market in Cleveland looks even more luscious cropped and colorized using iPiccy.

And here are the newlyweds, Nick & Heather!  More cropping with some other photo effects and desaturation make this photo feel soft and nostalgic. ( Congratulations to the new couple!)

 

 

 

I've used other free, online photo editing programs such as Pixlr (which is what I've used most frequently over the past few months) and PicMonkey.  Each program offers different items that I enjoy using, and I'm just beginning to become familiar with each of these sites.  I'll try to do a more in-depth review of each specific site in the coming weeks.  Do you have a favorite online photo editing program that you enjoy using?  If so, tell us all about it in the comments section of this post!

I hope you're finding lots of time for creativity whether it's in your journal, at the easel, with your camera or - just in your head!

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Monday's Musings

I've been having a wonderful time with family.  Mike and Nadia were home from California for a week's visit, and Nick & Heather were married!  We spent every moment that we could together, enjoying each others' company, and it gave me so much pleasure to see my sons together again.  It's been over a year.

We spent a lot of time "in the streets", including a day exploring Cleveland landmarks such as the West Side Market and Ohio City, lunch at Slyman's and the East Ninth Street Pier.  We spent an afternoon at beautiful Presque Isle in Pennsylvania, and we had breakfast at Mary Yoder's in Middlefield.

That hasn't left much time for playing in my journal, but I have taken hundreds of photos in the last two weeks.  I've also been playing with these photos on several online photo editing sites that I'll review at a future date.  Here are some of my efforts.

Well, apparently I'm NOT going to share any photos with you right now.  It seems I can't get any other photos to load so I don't know if it's a blogger problem or what.  I'm trying not to flip out.  Really.

In the meantime........

CELEBRATE* LOVE* CREATE 

Tuesday Tips and Techniques: Make Poetry Tiles!

Have you ever played with poetry tiles or magnetic poetry before?  I think it's both fun and thought provoking to arrange and re-arrange these little word tiles into poetry.  There are several sources of online poetry tiles to explore, but why not make your own to incorporate into a journal page?

I created my tiles in  the Paint program by first making the little "tiles".  Then I entered the text, and lastly, I filled in the background with a light gray to further isolate the tiles.   I took my laptop out on the deck and randomly typed words that came to me as I abandoned all my senses to the beautiful afternoon.

To get you started on your own poetry tiles, I'm offering my set for you to download and use as you would like!  I printed my words as two 5" x 7" sizes for my 4" x 5" journal.  If you're using an 8" x 10" or larger journal, I suggest printing them out as a full page.  Don't see a word you would like to use?  Make some of your own tiles to add to them!  It doesn't matter if the font or size is different - it will just make it more interesting.

I hope you're having a fabulous day, and I hope the promise of spring is blooming among your flowers too!  If you create a page using these tiles, be sure to share a link to your work in the comments section of this post.  We would all love to see what you do with them!

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Monday's Musings

NO MATTER WHAT

 THE DESTINATION,

MAKE CERTAIN THE JOURNEY IS FABULOUS!

 CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Tuesday Tips and Techniques: Add More Pages!

Are you working in a "page a day" journal and need more room to work on a given day? 

With a little decorative tape and previously prepared background papers, you can have additional, accordion fold pages in a flash!

 Here, a strip of animal print Duck Tape cut creatively, binds my accordion fold pages to today's page in my journal.

Now I have 9 pages to work with today - that's plenty of room to experiment with ideas for the Skull & Skeleton show upcoming later this fall.
 

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Monday's Musings

A perfect day in a not so perfect world.  Slow down.  Breath . . .

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Hello, It's Me....

I'll Be Back Next Week....

and, hey......we've got some catching up to do!

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE

Tuesday Tips & Techniques: Cardboard

 

You're not really going to throw out all that luscious cardboard are you?

I was hoping you would save at least a little of it!  There are so many ways you can use it for your art journal and altered book projects.  Here are 10 ideas right here.

1.  Art Tags                                             6.  Art Stencils

2.  Art Dolls                                            7.  Art Tools

3.  Art Journal Covers                             8.  Art Pockets

4.  Art Journal Pages                               9.  Art Postcards

5.  Art Embellishments                          10.  Art Templates

I'll share some techniques using these ideas in the coming week.  Next week I'll show you ideas for making tags that incorporates using those scraps on your table.

CELEBRATE * LOVE *  CREATE

Show and Tell

FINALLY . . .  I'm back....again.  Hopefully to stay awhile.  I was sick...............AGAIN.  No, I'm not kidding.  I can't make this stuff up -seriously!   I'm  cautiously optimistic that I'm going to stay well for awhile now........it's been just over a week.  So.....I think I'm just going to ramble between the photos of my daily journal.  I've left the images small so it doesn't take all day for them to load.  If you want to see larger images, just click on them, OK?

Once I commit, I'm in for GOOD.  No matter how pressed for time or crappy I've felt, I have created a page every single day.  Here are my pages for the month of January. 

I like this smaller format.  It's perfect for experimenting.  I never spend longer than minutes to an hour on each page.  I allow one page per day except for the center of each signature.    You'll see what I mean.
  

This has been the weirdest two month stretch I've had in quite a few years.  I'm not accustomed to being sick and feeling so awful.

Did I mention that I stopped smoking after my birthday week?  Yep.  I'm happy to say I'm now a reformed smoker.    OH.....here's what I mean about the middle of a signature.  I use both sides for one day.

So what do I journal about each day?  Sometimes it's an event from the day, or sometimes it's just a passing thought.  Below on the left, it's about Ro and me going to the beach (a warm day in early January!)  The right side of the page is about the new Bowie album coming out next month.  "The Next Day" is the name of the album.

I've been recording each day's date on scraps of paper that I've torn into "faux tags".  It's not an original idea.  I was watching videos of a store owner/art journaler, and she was stapling "real" date tags onto her daily journal.  I adored her work.  I wish I could remember who it was (her link is maybe on my old computer?)  I'm thinking she lived in the southern US.  If anyone knows who it could be, please leave a comment, OK?  I would love to look at her work again. 

I did get to judge the Lake/Geauga High School show again this year.  The work was FABULOUS!  (Incidentally, I got sick for the second time after attending this little outing)  We celebrated Nick's birthday at Melt Bar & Grilled on the following Sunday.  Did I mention that the new restaurant opened in Mentor and is now a mere 15 minutes away?  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

So......in an effort to get healthier, I have attempted several things for the winter.  One is juicing.  The other is Zumba.  I haven't been able to stay well enough to commit to either one!  If you want to know the truth, I felt better when I was wolfing down burgers and smoking cigarettes.  Talk about discouraging!

Anyway, giving up isn't my M.O., so don't even worry about THAT!  After a little more research I've discovered that part of my "sick symptoms" could very well have been detox symptoms from nicotine withdrawal and/or juicing.  I was mentally and emotionally fine with all that change at one, but maybe it was just too much for my body to handle?
 

Meanwhile, in the back of my mind is the fact that I haven't done any Tuesday Tips and Techniques this year.  I'm working on a plan for those so stay tuned.  I'm thinking I'm going to talk about color theory.  I know....it sounds boring, but I think I can present it in a way that makes it exciting.
 

I've also been thinking about my Blogiversary coming up in less than a month.  It will be THREE years.  Yep...insert "flying time" cliche right here!   I'll be doing some type of giveaway.  Details soon.  Speaking of details.......I just love this "flying ME".  No matter how crappy I feel, I try to remain optimistic.

I really enjoyed making these little tag and snowman details, too.  I made the snowman from a toilet paper tube painted with white craft acrylic and a length of yarn around his neck for a scarf.

I immediately saw these faces (and the bird) on these pages.  I brought out the details with a black Inktense pencil.

I use scraps of stuff laying around on my table and in my art bags.  The color disc at the bottom is scrap from the new Game of Life that Keith recently bought for us.  It was fun to play it again after all these years.  Don't you love board games?

It's interesting to me to look back at the pages and see how much more elaborate they are when I was feeling well.  The faces "appeared" in the paint.  By the way.......I REALLY like these Inktense pencils.

I'm obsessed with circles.  I make them all the time in one way or another.  Circles just make me happy!

OK..........I'm about rambled out but it's been nice to finally catch up with all of you.  I've been mostly keeping up with your blogs even though I haven't much felt like commenting.  I'll be visiting in the next day or two.  I'm finally feeling more like my old, social self!

I have some other exciting news to share with you, but I'll be back int he next day or two.  It's not like I have to tell you everything in this one post, right? 

Meanwhile, keep creating, keep journaling, and KEEP HEALTHY!  To those of you on the east coast, I hope you're safe and warm and finally digging out from the storm.

And me?  I'm celebrating that I'm feeling better and I'm happy to be in a full-blown, creative fervor!

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE