I saw some really cute, woodland pins in Hobby Lobby the other day. I decided to get them because they were on sale. My thinking was that I could use them as “journal jewelry”.
To attach it to the cover, I punched a tiny hole with a 3/16ths punch in the lower corner of my nano Traveler’s notebook. Then I inserted the post of the pin and pushed on the backing.
I haven’t posted a Zentangle from Amanda Higbee, CZT in a long time. The camera on her phone has been broken and other life things have interfered.
But I have one for your pleasure today!
I love the way she used strips of Ambler to draw the eye into the center of the tile.
I also got a big kick out of the list of tangles on the back of her tile. She called Bronx Cheer “boo boo berries”!
A new year means new art journals! I am making some more nano Traveler’s Notebooks, designed to fit in a pocket, to be used for art, journaling or both!
In the picture, you can see some hints: Covers for summer with beach themes, some contemporary designs, a couple of unique grungy in bright colors, even some for Valentine’s Day.
If you’re interested in obtaining one of these for yourself or as a gift, just PM me on Facebook to work out the details!
I woke up in the middle of the night with “faucet nose”, and as the day progressed, it became obvious that I have a cold! So I wasn’t feeling super ambitions about the art for the pages. I wanted something that was fun with pretty colors.
The prompt for this day was “icicles”. I did want to try it because they’re something I’ve never drawn or painted before. But I really didn’t know how to fill a page with them. So I made them small at the top of the page.
The prompt for this day was “animal in a Santa hat.” I decided to double down, and I have two of them here! The hat and the scarf for the reindeer were actually done on another piece of paper, cut out, and glued to the image.
I love the idea of the deer having his own friend, the little winter finch!
On the left side is a color mixing exercise. This was done with the Daniel Smith Ultimate Mixing set. I used Hansa Yellow Medium, Pyrrol Red and Pthalo Blue to make all the other colors.
I was reorganizing Studio II before the holidays. I wanted to get all the little buckets of pencils off of the drafting table so that I could use the table itself.
A couple of days after I started thinking about how to do this, we were walking through Ikea for exercise (you can get a lot of steps in if you walk the whole showroom and marketplace!) and I came across a solution!
When I first started this image in my book, it was the shortest day of the year.
Yes, I am journaling on “the” day, but the artwork is not necessarily finished on the day it was started. That’s because sometimes life happens.
At any rate, I finally finished this, so… ta da… Here is my Solstice art!
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It’s ugly sweater day! Well, maybe not officially, but that’s the theme for this spread.
I did the right side in a pastel palette and the left in a more traditional color choice.
Both are over a sparkling background and incorporate metallic and other gel pens.
So what does YOUR “ugly sweater” look like?
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Left side: I wanted to play with words and a blue/pink/purple color combination. I also used iridescent watercolor, but it doesn’t show up in the photo.
Right side: The prompt for December 9th was Cocoa! Since I think gingerbread cookies are designed to go with hot chocolate, my page is all about these delicious treats!
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My Christmas Art Journal is continuing! Today I’m showing you the page spread for December 8.
The prompt for this day was “sleigh”. So I chose to do Santa’s Sleigh all packed up ready for deliveries!
A young reindeer stands by ready to learn from his parents all about the job he’ll be doing in the future.
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At the beginning of November, I took part in a mini book exchange in the Micro Art Journal group on Facebook.
I made two mini books and sent them both off to my exchange partner.
Although it wasn’t required, my partner, Misty Palek, filled one of the books I sent her with passport/mail art and sent it back! She also included this wonderful antique card that you see above.
I am so in love with this little book! She truly created a beautiful work of art. Here is a video where you can see what she created.
I decided to add this to the inside of the back cover. That area wasn’t reserved for any particular day.
I was digging through some previously stamped pieces that were in a drawer in the studio and I found both the cutout, embossed moon and a piece that had been embossed with stars. I’ve had them for about 20 years ago, when I used to do a lot of stamping. I cut down the background piece and glued it inside the back cover. Then I glued the moon over it.
Left side: Christmas is the time of music and singing. Kokopelli represents music. He is often found in petroglyphs holding a flute. I was a bit tired of red and green and just wanted to play with painting some other colors. The background just called for this musical trio!
Right side: Mamacita, ¿Dónde está Santa Claus? Where in the world is Santa Clause? It’s pretty obvious that he’s hiding out someplace nice and warm!
I love the way gingerbread smells as it’s baking. It fills the house with warmth, happiness and excited anticipation.
That said, I’ve never made gingerbread cookies or a gingerbread house. I think it would be really fun to make them and decorate them. Not sure if I would want to eat them, though! LOL!
So instead, I’ve created a dream of a gingerbread village with houses, people and even a bush!
The prompt for this day was “Christmas lights”. All I could think of is how everyone decorates their yards this time of year. It’s one of my favorite things about the season. I could ride around and look at them all night long.
On the other hand, I find most of the blow-up-style yard decorations bizarre. I’ve seen yards full of them. One of the new-ish ones around here is Santa’s Food Truck. Weird.
The prompt for this day was “candles”. Because my book is nano-sized, I thought that just one candle would suffice. I wasn’t sure how I would handle having a white candle, but I think this worked to give that impression!
In addition to watercolor, I used gel pens on this for the lettering and the metallic touches.
It’s sometimes hard to get a lot of detail on something small. Having the fine point Uniball Signo DX helps a lot because the 0.38 size tips really draw a very thin line.
I saw in a report last week that black Christmas trees are a thing now days. That got me to thinking what color I would like for a tree. Black isn’t for me, but I did think about a hot pink tree with black, silver and white decorations. I might kind of like that!
So, on this day, the art prompt was “christmas tree”. I decided to give my pink tree idea a go. It didn’t really look as good as I imagined. But I might give this another go with a more realistic design. (And no blue!)
Bringing Home the Tree.
Sharing another double-spread because the art went across both pages.
The prompts for today didn’t really have anything to do with this picture. I just felt it was appropriate!
I just had to customize the VW because of the way the stamp was. There were lines, indicating panels. I don’t know if this is what the creator had in mind… But it was certainly what popped into My mind!
Today I’m showing you a full, double-page day in my nano Traveler’s Notebook. I mentioned yesterday that I journal on one side and art on the other.
Now you can see how I do that. For what I keep track of, there’s plenty of room on the left side. On this day, there was enough space left that I did a random color mix. (I select the colors from a “random jar”.)
This is the title page of the first book in my December nano art journal . I’ve set up my tiny Traveler’s notebook so that there are 4 inserts, each one having enough pages for one week.
I began by stamping some trees and the deer on the page. I added a stamp for the month, and numbers for the first and last day for this insert. A cute holly and berry stamp substituted for the dash between the numbers.