Lovely Time Journal

I'm not excited about this particular violet colour but there it is.



There's nothing quite as satisfying as building a book. Even painting doesn't quite compare. I finish a painting, I scan it, I put it in a book and that's it. But these books... I have them stacked together on my desk and I can't stop touching them. Piling and repiling them.



I like flipping them open, turning them over, touching the covers. Part of it is definitely the possibility of each one. Will they find a new home someday? Will someone fill them with amazing memories and colours and words? Will they end up staying here?

Blank journals blow my mind. If I open a blank page now, I am looking at the future. Parallel dimensions open up and I can see myself writing. Something. Maybe I'm a few weeks older, maybe a few years. Maybe something horrible has happened, maybe something wonderful. This must be what it feels like to go back in time, open a journal and find all of the pages blank, all of my memories have disappeared.



How would someone else fill a journal like this? Endless doodles? A jumble of words? Pasted movie tickets? Spraypaint?

Corrugated ribbon journal

I love this journal!



I kind of want to keep it for myself, but I probably wont. I'll just have to make more of this style because it's so pretty.



The binding thread is a deep dark burgundy colour. Paper inside is heavy strathmore like the others.



What I need to do is get an old book for ripping the pages out and reusing! Right now I've been tearing out less useful pages of actual books we have and that can't go on for much longer.

Workspace Peek

I love looking at artist studios! Particularly the at-home kind that are just tucked away somewhere. Visiting a studio is a lot of fun in a "let me read your diary" sort of way.

There is an industrial building in Vancouver that is all artist studios. You could probably access the studios during the culture crawls. A few are dark and crampy little concrete dungeons. Others are actually beautiful little art galleries buried in shabby, winding hallways. Keep your eyes peeled!



Useful note: Peg boards are awesome. Once you get a pegboard, you will want to fill your house with them. We've got two. I'd like to get one more in the kitchen! :D

I had photos of this workspace on my old blog, but since I tidied it up, I'm posting updates! Would anyone be surprised to know it's only been a couple of days and my desk is buried under a mess already?



Everyone's got these little ikea drawers, it seems. Mine goes through a makeover every once in a while. Today it is blue.

I don't actually call this a "studio". I just call it a workspace. It's a corner of my living room!



My precarious bookshelf! My palette on the lower left side there... it's just a white plate. But look how clean it is!!! :D Usually it is a hideous lumpy rainbow of colours.

My workspace doesn't actually look quite like this anymore. It is always evolving, bigger messes, smaller messes, new things here and there. A new blue stain. This is just a snapshot of one rather productive afternoon. :)

Lucky Clover Journal

This one is a tad bit "shabby" looking, and has the same heavy Strathmore paper as the others. I've been trying to use all sorts of things as "stencils", but it's difficult to do with the watercolours.



I'd like to try some of those nifty looking ink sprays someday.



Maggie is chasing down a lazy fly this morning. Best part of summer!

Button journal

I finally got to work on some more journals and made this one for resale later on.



Cracked open my new pad of scrapbook paper for the inner liners and thought this one looked good with the orange (hey... just like my blog! :D )

(I'm also feeling a bit protective over the new papers... like I don't want to share them! But what else am I going to do with them?)



Just a simple thing on the back.

I am enjoying the process, even if for whatever reason I haven't been wanting to sit down at my desk at all lately. I think that's why it's taken weeks for me to assemble a book. I need to find something to get really *absorbed* into. Too much of my time is spent doing pointless things at work for money.

But today I get to go out and find more embroidery thread!

(That's what I've been using for binding them. I just love the colours.)

I haven't purchased embroidery thread since I was into cross stitching... 16 years ago? How fun!

A few months ago, they started working on opening a Michael's down the street. I've been waiting impatiently for them to open, pushing my nose up against the glass and spying on the work! But I swear it's just never going to happen! I am itching with anticipation.

Journal Flip - 2011

A couple of days ago I finished the 2011 journal. I was too nervous to upload a journal flip because mine are a little more... private than others I guess. I write a lot. I write specifically. It's just the way I journal so that I can use it later as a reference.

Because I only have the built in setting on my digital photo camera, the sound quality is just not good enough for actual video taking! I muted it and left it silent.

Luckily summer is coming so maybe there will be more natural light for future photos/videos!



This journal was a treat to work in! The heavy strathmore takes whatever I throw at it. The surface can get a bit over saturated, but I'm so impressed with how flat the pages turned out in the end! I already started in another one just like this, but I'm thinking maybe I should try something different in the future?

...

Actually, I've been having issues with art journaling lately.

Mostly I just want to jot down the words while the colour/imagery becomes an afterthought. I enjoyed my first art journal the most I think because I was using papers and pics from a design book, which were really quick to stick onto the pages so I could get straight to writing!

Teesha, in her podcast, said that by sitting down and just starting, we would get sucked into the page and spend more time on it. That just hasn't been happening for me at all... Maybe it's a kind of artist's block, maybe I'm just too busy and there are too many other things I would rather do? I don't know.

Blue Butterflies

Something I had finished during the rush:



Available here.

When I did Viceroy, it quickly became my favourite thing ever and wondered what it would look like in different colours. Well here's blue.

Funny, I couldn't quite capture what it is I loved about Viceroy. It's not like I'm a bigger fan of orange than blue (well maybe so). I suspect it has more to do with composition.



Truthfully, I don't know if I'll try any other colours (I particularly would like to see it in green...)