{new paint playtime!}

I just realized I never posted this picture of the finished banner!

This was a ton of fun to make, and a departure from my normal supplies and methods. While it is still certainly "me," I can really see how I'm shifting and absorbing everything I've learned in the scrapbooking world and applying it to my art.

I totally want to make another one of these, now, just in time for summer! I'll have class details for this one soon.

I found these lovely paints at the shop, and was able to borrow them to experiment and report back my findings. I've been tasked with creating the cover for a Maya Road banner album, but, as always when approaching a new material, had to test them out in the journal, first. That's what it's there for, right?

I found they spread....differently over my gessoed pages. Not quite as liquid as my fluid acrylics, but not as buttery as my heavy-body acrylics. After playing for a bit, I found they actually give me the soft, dreamy look I enjoy, but this took a bit of time to get the right mix of water and paint.

The yellow is a great, muted color, but isn't thick enough to hold its own over darker colors. The traditional tan is a wonderful color, though, and I may have to go buy a jar for myself because I loved using it all over the place.

Because I didn't see a red, I kinda had to fight the urge to pull out my own paints. Which I lost, since the page on the left has a bit in the corner. The colors I did get to play with are amazing, and I'd like to do a little mixing once I find a palette knife around here.

Layering with these is great, too!

I've been having a bunch of fun with doodles, too -- as you can see on this finished page, I'm working on making pretty flowers all over the place. Or mandalas. Or different kinds of plants. I love that there's savanna and prairie around here; taking a walk through any of the forest preserves this time of year can be a great trip for discovering tall grasses and tiny flowers.

When I was in middle school, we used to collect them and press them in our hand-made journals. I still have mine, preserved there under clear shelf-liners, the color faded over the last, God, ten plus years?

Maybe all the rides through farm land have gotten to my head.

Tomorrow is the live vlog at 4pm central! I think one of these days, I'm going to host it in the morning for those in different time-zones. But tomorrow, I'm going to be out all morning, and may be running in just as it starts, again! Any topic ideas?

{ a bit more through my head, and a tour through the studio's projects! }

Happy Monday!

Things have gotten right back on track here in Kira Land. New projects are finally going from the planning state to actually becoming something tangible, and I'm going through my own new metamorphosis.

On Saturday, I gave you the link to a grouping of material from a few different places -- I couldn't rip them from their notebooks and journals, and so, I used the internet to collate them together and create something whole. Isn't it amazing what we can do with something as little as a few html pages?

If you missed it, here's where you start:

Wander through my thoughts as shown in visual and written form. See what kind of stuff goes through my head, gets written and remembered. I've really felt like a door's opened ever since I've started self-reflecting (though I hesitate to go through a lot because I'd sound new-agey or crazy).

When you've returned from that journey through my head, how about a little trip through the studio?

I grabbed this little frame a few weeks ago, and adapted my ink drawing to be the cover for it, then colored it in with Copic markers. I really need to pull them out more...they're tons of fun! Then some stamping and white pen work finished it off. I cropped a picture from this weekend's hiking trip at Glacial Park with Jun.

And here's the first piece of a banner that'll say DREAM. This has been on my mind for awhile, and there was totally a failed attempt before, magically, everything came together. I've really been changing the way I think. I'm also in love with dimension dots. The pom-pom trim is so awesome fun, and I've got it in a nice blue too (I'll be alternating colors for each banner). And clouds! Because don't dreams live in the light, fluffy places?

Of course, I had a few orders to send out, and I just ADORE wrapping everything up like a present before sending it on its way. I just got some baker's twine in a few different colors and want to use it with EVERYTHING! Eee. So much fun. And I got it for a really great price even though it came from Australia.

I have to screenprint some more cards, though, because I've gone through my stash already. I love stationary and creating my own. As soon as I finish with some projects and get labels printed, I'm going to design my own and print it on some creamy iridescent paper from Paper Source.

Finally, there's more progress on my newest painting. I gave myself a headache fine-tuning things on the sketch today that I had to just walk away. I'm really impressing myself with how my drawing abilities have improved in the last six years; before then, I could only do stick figures!

Any more ideas for tomorrow's live vlog? Let me know!

And I KNOW....I have so many back emails I need to get through. Rest assured, they're all organized and in a folder and I'll totally get to them by the end of the week. I've just found my creative juju flows better when I'm not on the computer all the time....I limit myself to a few hours if I have work, one if not, and I'm feeling less blocked. XD Not to mention more productive!

{First Journal Girl Newsletter!}

A special Saturday post to show you the brand-new Journal Girl Newsletter. How do you sign up? It's over there on the right!

There's all sorts of announcements and such in there, and if you're not on the list, why don't you go ahead and read it anyway?

Also, check it out! Remember those pendants I was soldering on Tuesday during the live vlog? Well, they're all finished and grown-up! Each has a pretty little charm hanging from it, and are on 18" silver chains.

Go on over to my Etsy shop to check them out!

Also, the newsletter has a preview of Monday's adventure. So read through it and either comment here or send me an email to let me know what you think!

I'm working on a TON of projects in the studio, so maybe Monday will ALSO be a nice virtual walk-through of the various things I'm working on. There's so much cool stuff I want to share!

{vlog tuesday: a beginning guide to soldering}

Heee heee! I'm back!

Thanks for all the comments about the studio. I'm going to lose it as soon as we move, so I'm trying to really appreciate it right now. Oh, all the space I'll be losing! It means I need to get organized and used to putting everything away NOW so it becomes habit for LATER.

This week, I was working on some soldered pendants for my shop, so I just turned on the camera! There's a little bit of a "be right back" at the beginning because we were in the middle of showing the house to the Buy Owner guy...other than that, I was really into what I was doing!

[ vlog tuesday 4/13/10: soldering for beginners ]

I did end up staying at the desk....and while I thought I was only there for an hour longer, it ended up being TWO hours! I keep "losing time," that is, getting so into projects, I don't notice it passing. And I did end up getting used to the new solder and actually LOVE it compared to what I'd been using. I can make things thicker, and do effects, and the jump rings are easier to attach.

Except my hands shake too much, and this solder takes longer to harden. *sigh* Usually things don't bother me -- I've learned to compensate for my shaking ever since collage and not being able to do hand-held camera work because of it -- but this really did! Sometimes, it sucks being stuck in a body that doesn't work right.

So I shined everything up and attached the darling charms to the bottoms!

These are the larger pendants, and the one in the middle, is, of course, for me! I just need to find a chain for it. *giggles*

All the pretty pendants, all in a row...

Questions? Comments? Have a topic for next week's vlog? Please leave me a comment or send a note!

This week's Points of Two: a list of me. Write about you in a list -- kind of like an about page!

{a clean clean studio}

After a truely difficult and emotionally trying weekend, I hit Monday with both feet. While much was accomplished in the beginning of the day, I began to feel air hit those raw emotional nerves and threw myself into cleaning up the studio.

My big canvas has a home, now, and a new one's up in the "Painting Spot" ready for a sketch to be transferred. This is my desk/packing area, formerly where the computer sat. That's my journal, there, and my copy of The Red Book on my book pile (along with Christine's 'Ordinary Sparkling Moments').

I even emptied out al the drawers and cleaned everything up! Really got into everything and got rid of all the stuff I haven't used in six months.

Working on restocking my Etsy shop, I cut out images and set them with charms to make some new art pendants. Which is fun, yes, but the fumes, for some reason, give me a headache and make me veryvery tired. *sigh* Of course, it didn't help that the glass cracked on three of the five pendants...! We think it's because I had the window open, so the air was cold in my studio, and so it would go from really hot from the soldering iron to chilly. Hrmm.

Which made me totally dejected, since now I have to re-make those three, and I like getting everything done at once, since my head and tummy hurts. And things have gotten really tight in KiraLand, so I need to make things and restock.

So, of course, I got a bit of journaling in before TV time!

And that's been my day. ;)