A New Year, A New Start

 Since my "junk journal", that was bound with washi tape, was completed at the beginning of the month, it was time to create a new one. I decided this one would have a coptic stitch binding. I took me forever to put this one together. I worked on it in dribs and drabs for two weeks. 

The paper for the cover is gel printed using multiple layers of acrylic paint and a stencil. The signatures are mixed media paper. The mixed media paper is less expensive than watercolor paper and it should hold up to multiple layers of paints, ink, and pastels.

This is the fourth coptic stitch bound book that I have made and this one has the fewest mistakes! I had one row of stitching wrong but caught it before moving forward so I was able to pull it out and make the correction. I wanted to give it an embellishment so I dug through my bead box and found this little do-dad of beads and copper wire to tie on. I think I made it when I was practicing make swirls with wire. After looking through my box I am inspired to incorporate some raku fired beads or buttons into a future journal.

So here I am with lots of blank pages staring at me. Putting down the first marks are the hardest.

Windows, Paints, and Inks

 I did a thing! I lettered the full length glass door to our pottery studio/gallery. I had been wanting to try this for almost a year. A few weeks ago I ordered the Posca paint pens that I needed to do the job. They are water based paints and easily clean off with Windex. We had a paper "masks required" sign that I printed from the health department that was taped to the door. This looks much better. We are currently open by appointment only. I added that to the window as well, but the glare in the photo makes it hard to see.

I bought the Posca pens in black, red, and white, not knowing which would work best on the door. The black didn't stand out very well, so I went with the white. Originally I thought white snowflakes and black letters.

I then went on to experiment with the black pen in my art journal. I really like how they flow on paper. This is over a sparkly ink background.

I've been experimenting with new iridescent spray inks over a stencil. They were fun to use and I think I can make some neat backgrounds for greeting cards.

I will leave you with a big piggy bank from our firing this week. I have had a lot of orders for the copper red and shino combination. I cross my fingers every time they get fired. There are so many things that can go wrong with the red. It may turn out pink, it may "crawl" all over, and many times the glaze drips down the legs and adheres to the kiln shelf. When it runs, Jeff can usually save it with his amazing Dremel tool skills. Thankfully each one came out of the kiln looking great!

 

Optimistic

 Welcome 2021! I am feeling optimistic as we start the new year. We have a vaccine for covid-19, which means there is hope for an end to the pandemic at some point this year. We will have a new president on January 20th. A president who believes in science, can keep his ego in check, and will behave as a leader should. 

I had planned to finish all the pages in my small art journal by December 31st. I didn't quite meet that goal, but I am okay with it. There were too many pots that needed to be made! I usually take a break once the last pots are shipped by the holiday deadline. This year orders continued to come in and Christmas day was my only full day off. I will admit to taking a more relaxed attitude for the last two weeks. The flow of the day has been an enjoyable one.

Here are two journal pages that I completed during this time.

The entire journal was made using gel printed, mixed media paper. I sometimes have to work hard at how to incorporate the backgrounds into a new artwork. This was one I struggled with and just decided to practice a figure painting on it. Once I got started I liked how the background became the print in her gown as well as her tangle of black hair.

I wanted to explore circles a little more and incorporated them into two different spreads. I painted a thin layer of gesso over the gel printed pages before I began. This added a little depth to backgrounds. The small circle pattern in the spread above is a raised texture. I created it using a stencil and molding paste. The spread below was created with the old photo in mind. The photo is of my sister and me, taken in front of my brother's mustang. I am quite sure we were headed to his high school graduation. My mother made our dresses. Mine was a knit material that had a rick-rack trim. I remember that it was itchy and that I never really liked to wear it. Anita's dress was madras plaid in orange, yellow, and blue. It was way cooler then mine.

I have just one full page spread left to create, and this little book will be done. Time to start binding another. This time with plain white pages.