The Power of Introverts

So I've heard about TED talks before - in fact I've even started watching a few.  But this is the first one I've ever actually watched all the way through.  Susan Cain is amazing!  Now I really want to read the book - but I'm number 177 on the waiting list for the ebook from the library.  Should I just cough up the $17 for the Amazon Kindle version?

Pulled Page

Another page from Lifebook - This class was taught by Mystele
She showed how to put down the background then you look at it to find the symbols and features you want to pull out.
She said you'd probably find your recurring themes or symbols - but I don't have anything like that. Except - as soon as I looked the little boat was right there dead center! I'm not sure what it means, but it was a fun page. And it was extremely liberating to not have to line up the eyes!

Lifebook Page

I've been kind of doing Lifebook. I say "kind of" because I haven't done all the lessons so far. Some of them were really good, but some were just "meh". This one was easy - I just followed what Tam did. Except for the quote and the pinkness of it, mine is pretty much exactly like she showed it.

Done Hibernating!

I think winter might be over - hoping anyway!  I spent the last month mostly staying inside doing stuff around the house.  I did a huge spring clean and painted my bedroom peachy pink.  My favourite project was the spare room - I think I can officially call it my studio now!  It had turned into kind of a junk room so it took a while to clean and clear it.  Once it was all sorted I took off the closet doors and hardware and put some ikea shelves up in the cubby that was left.  Now I'm left with floor to ceiling arty goodness!

The before picture

After a trip to Ikea

Another Girl

I'm still working on the Supplies Me course - I'm on pastels week, but I don't have any. So I just did the drawing with colored pencils & acrylic paint.

I forgot to draw her feet, though. So I just covered the bottom with a border!

Mexico Journal

I guess I'm not a complete slacker - I did make a journal while I was on vacation.  I didn't think there'd be much ephemera, but I do like to write down what I do each day so I got a 5x7 coil bound book.  I didn't want to start completely blank, so before I left I painted some backgrounds, stuck down some borders, ribbons and bits and pieces.  I brought scissors, glue, Sharpie paint pens, some random black markers and a pile of coloured pencils.  I also had an envelope with a few images, buttons and pieces in it.  It worked out perfect because the book and my pencil case fit in my beach bag so I could just pull it out and fool around in it whenever the mood struck.

Of course, I pasted in my boarding pass, plus I ended up with a stack of tourist pamphlets so I cut out pictures and words that I liked and stuck them in too.

I had to keep pretending I lost the paper with our dinner reservation - because I wanted to paste it into my book:

Some stuff I just liked, so I pasted it in:

Some pages were maybe not so artistic, but very fun.  My mom tried to learn Spanish from watching the weather channel.  (I tried to learn it from the cute lifeguards, but that's another story entirely.)
So I passed her the book and she wrote down all the Spanish she knows for me:

I'm Back

My new year's resolution was to blog more - at least three times a week. So far I suck at it. But I do have a really good excuse! First it was the holidays, then I went away for a week.
Now I'm back and I can work on all my resolutions. Including the one to make more art. For now though, I have a new happy place:

My Windsor Page

Over Christmas I didn't have a lot of time to make art - I didn't even have most of my supplies since I was out visiting!  But I did have my homemade Teesha journal.  I had painted the background and glued on the dots.  While I was in Windsor I collected some random bits and pieces and glued them in.  I brought some markers and Sharpie paint pens so I could doodle and write too.

Except when I tried to save some wrapping paper my mom didn't believe I'd really use it.  So I cut out the Santa, pulled out my journal and glued it down right in front of her.  Then I let her look through it plus one of my sketchbooks that I had brought.  She was very happy to look and she complimented some of my drawings.  Then later she surprised me - she let me look through her book!  She's not doing art, but she took a creativity class and the poetry unit struck a chord for her.  So she has a fat journal and she let me read some of her poetry (and it's really good!)  It was kind of unusual for us, but also so good to share.  Maybe next time we hang out we can do more creative things together!

I Could've Shot My Eye Out...

I like to get stressed out for Christmas, but it always ends up that I shouldn't have worried.  I drove to Windsor to visit my family for a few days. The rest of my family all came from various places and converged at my mom's house.  Where we all promptly reverted to childhood:

My brother's Lego dinosaur attacking my Hello Kitty USB drive

One of my brothers brought a pile of random presents - no names, just pick one and open it. I think I got the best one, but I can't post a picture of it because no matter how I arrange it, it just looks strange and kind of kinky!  It's black and yellow and it's made of rubber with a handle and a brace for your arm to fit in.  It took me a few minutes to even figure out what it was - a slingshot!  The package claimed it was a Genuine Daisy and warned me to wear safety glasses and store my ammo separately.  

"Ammo?  Where's my ammo?"

I wandered around the house looking for ammo, eventually settling on a bowl of grapes.  I put them in a bag to take outside and we all started putting on our coats and boots.

Mom:  You can't shoot my grapes from a slingshot!

Jimmy:  No - no - we'll just use rocks

Mom:  Take the grapes...

We walked down to the corner where there's a big parking lot and practiced shooting it.  My oldest brother kept giving me rocks and saying things like "this one's really pointy - it'll go far!"  My sister-in-law high-fived me any time I hit something.  Which, surprisingly, happened quite often!  I didn't want to actually crash anything, so I was just aiming for the fence and the stop sign - and it turned out I have really good aim!  Who knew?  I could have spent my whole life never knowing - I'm really good at slingshot.  Not sure what I'm going to do with this particular talent, but it was a fun way to spend Christmas night!

Special Effects

I love these special effects apps. I've been taking millions of gratuitous photos just so I can try them all out!

What I want to be doing today:




What I'm actually doing:





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Jetliner Rd,Mississauga,Canada

Vintage Pictures

Yesterday I went trolling through all my discs and hard drives.  I was looking for a certain picture (of me with my e-z bake oven).   I ended up looking through piles of discs - some that I didn't even know I had!  I never did find the picture I was looking for, but I hit the vintage jackpot on a disc my sister had given me ages ago.
I can see some family resemblances, but other than that I have no idea who these people are.  I'm not sure what to do with these yet, but I'm sure a project will come to mind...

Any Suggestions?

My Remains of the Day book is coming along...I'm really liking the scrappy look of it and I can almost sew straight lines now!

But it's not even half full and it's already bursting out of the covers!  I had already bought a scrapbook kit, so I'm using the cover and doing the pages ROD style.  I was planning to use binder rings, but it's got so much stuff that it won't close!

I like the way the rings let it lie flat, but I don't want to put really huge rings on it.  I've never done any kind of bookbinding - can I tie it together instead? Would it still lie flat?  What kind of material could I use?

Prisma love

I've been having crazy lots of fun doing the Supplies Me class.  I've mostly been using the colored pencils I've had for years - they're Prismacolor Scholar.  I was considering making the jump to the Premier, then last week they went on sale at Michael's. I was being kind of cheap and thinking it couldn't really make that much of a difference, could it? But then I remembered when I finally tried Golden paints at Journalfest - it really does make a difference!! So I told myself it's my Christmas present and I went to Michael's. 

All the Prisma stuff was half price - so I got a set of colored pencils, plus...I've been having trouble with details on my faces.  Because the pencils are a bit soft, when I tried to draw small the features would be all blobby. It turns out Prisma already thought of that! They have Verithin pencils that are hard so you can draw in details - for some reason this amazed me - so I got the biggest set they had!

As soon as I got home I started drawing and coloring. I haven't had this much fun since I graduated kindergarten!  And the pencils - huuuge difference!

Sunday Sunrise

Just waiting for something to happen...

Cute Face

While I wait for the pictures to finish my ROD journal I've been working on the Supplies me class from Jane Davenport. I loooooovvve it! I did colored pencil week and I practiced for ages. I finally have a cute face!

My Sewing Machine is Weird

I realized something today - I'm taking more classes now than I did in college!  

I was planning to finish some of them before starting something new, but I couldn't wait any longer to start my Remains of the Day journal.  So I took out my sewing machine and I've kind of forgotten how it works.  It already had a bobbin in the bottom and I managed to thread the top.  But the needle wouldn't go up and down.

Being demented, the first thing I did was take it apart because you know, maybe the belt was loose or something.  This was an educational and informative exercise.  Mostly I learned not to take your sewing machine apart because springs and things will pop out all over the place.  Once it was in pieces I remembered I had a manual for it somewhere.  Ah - apparently if the bobbin threader on the top is slid over then the needle won't go up and down.

So I put all the springs and things back ...most of them anyway.  There are still two screws left over.  I absolutely could not find a place for them.

The weirdest part is that my sewing machine still works perfectly.  Huh....

Here's some of the pages I made - it's going to be a scrapbook from a cruise I went on last winter.  I used the papers from a scrapbook kit along with the brochures and receipts and stuff that I gathered along the way.  As soon as the photos are printed I'll sew them on along with the embellishments.

This is Why...

This is why I need a cat:

From I Can Haz Cheezburger

Or a dog:

From Etsy Seller: BeanTownHandmade

Pretty Picture

I was feeling lazy, so I cut a pretty picture from a magazine and painted it into my altered book:

Empty Spaces

It's kind of disorienting to work all night. Midnight shift always feels like an alternate universe. After a few days I'm in this strange zone where I can fall asleep in less than two seconds or be wide awake just as fast. 

The other weird thing is that I kind of lose the ability to censor myself - and I wind up with some very interesting journal pages! I decided to finish the project that's been taking up floor space. But I really don't like it anymore and it's nowhere near finished. And I'm also low on patience this week.

So I just called it done. The one flower I had finished went in my journal, along with some writing. My theme was knowing when to quit - and it was one of those moments when you read what you wrote and go "of course! How did I not see that before!!"

(I would totally overshare, but I named names so I decided I'd better use the blur!)

Then I put the background back in the frame and hung it up. It's my reminder that it's ok to have some empty spaces - it leaves room for something good to come in.

Have Journal, Will Travel...

Oh look...the Canada Labour Code.  How boring:

I was cleaning out one of my lockers and I found this little binder from my days as a Health & Safety Rep.  It's 7" x 9" and it seems like a nice size so I decided it would be a good travelling journal.  The reason I don't use the 9 million books I already have is that I can never decide which one I like best.  Sometimes I want to draw and other times I want to paint.  So I have all different books of paper types and brands.  I have a few pages done in each one - then it annoys me because they're all out of order!

So I took my Canada Labour Code and I threw away all the boring stuff, then I made a new cover for it:

There's a little pocket in the front, so I put a colour wheel in and I filled the binder with different kinds of paper - watercolour paper, mixed media paper, bristol board and sketch paper.  I'm thinking that once I fill all the papers or finish a theme I'll just take them out and use binder rings to make them into a complete book.

And my dream finally came true!  I saw the Peerless watercolour film at Akamai Art Supply in Port Townsend and from the moment I bought them I've been wanting to make a travel palette, like Jane Davenport shows in her video.  I finally made one for my new book!

I'm not getting on an airplane anytime soon, but for now I think it'll travel well - maybe to work or to a coffee shop.  I'll even admit - the place it's likely to travel to first...is the couch!