Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook-October, Eva

Its been quite awhile since I had a sketchbook to work in.  I'm actually kinda thankful that some of them were delayed as the last part of 2011 was a bit busy without the stress of getting entries done and out in a timely manner. 

This book belongs to Eva and I hope you'll visit her blog and see all the lovely things she does.  I seem to have a skip in months as the last one I did was for August and this book came ready for me to do the October spread.  Not a big deal, but I had formulated some basic ideas for September and hadn't for October (Crap!!) so I had to do some serious thinking before I could start painting.  It was odd to think of Halloween when the world is inundated with Chocolates, hearts and all things Valentine.  This October I spent quite a bit of time working in a haunted house so I thought it'd be cool to try to bring some aspect of that to life for my entry.  Spooky old house with huge lit windows.  A monsterous harvest moon with tree limbs outlined in its glow.  And of course a black cat on the fence.  I really liked working on this once my idea was in place. 

I wanted to try something new, something I hadn't seen before but had an idea for, and thus the fishing line spider web took shape over top of the journal spread.

 

And then I had to incorporate something with the web on the reverse side where my thoughts on October reside.  I wrote different things that I love about October along the spider web on this spread to give it a bit more depth and interest.  I also gave my not so creepy crawly spider green glitter eyes!

This book will be sent of to Lisa later today.  I always have so much fun doing these entries and it is so wonderful to see the great art that each of them holds.  I can't wait for the next one to arrive!

Thanks for stopping by!



Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook-June/Lori, July/Kathy and Aug/Nicole

June entry in Lori's sketchbook

July entry in Kathy's sketchbook

2nd spread in July entry

August entry in Nicole's sketchbook

2nd spread in August book

It has been a very busy summer and blogging has not been foremost on my list of things I want to spend time doing.  I've been walking, fundraising, participating in Susan G. Komen 3-Day's for the Cure, doing art both for myself and for others and just enjoying a beautiful summer.  Here are my last 3 entries in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook.  I cant find an image of my 2nd spread for June and I don't know that Lori has a blog.  (Sorry if you do and I missed it!)  These entries are always fun for me.  It is funny how I can go from no idea, to a fully formed idea, and then again how it changes as I am working.  It has been a challenge to think of how to display the months in new, personal ways. 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook-May/Jaime

I was able to spend the entire afternoon with Jaime's sketchbook.  This is my spread for the month of May.  To me, May represents beginnings and endings.  It is my birthday which always makes me reflect on the past year, give thanks for the good and hopefully the bad seems less severe when revisited.  It is a time of celebration, of gathering my family around me and of hopes for what will come in the year ahead. 

May is the end to my teaching year.  It is celebrated by a nice recital where all my students can showcase their developing skills.  It is when I can sit and think about the progress each one has made, and begin to plan the directions I'd like to take them in the fall.

May is a time of stepping back my studio teaching obligations so that I may enjoy a more relaxed, free summer.  It allows me more time to spend outdoors during the beautiful Michigan summer.  It gives me time to devote to my art and time to really enjoy being by myself.

Finally, May is planting season (usually, but we've had so much rain everything is delayed this year!).  I love seeing all the freshly plowed fields while I'm out walking.  They look so neat and orderly and I've always wanted to go and play in one.  (I've managed to avoid doing this so my farmer neighbors wont be upset with me).  I also love to plant flowers while I'm surrounded by the fragrance of lilacs in bloom and the flutterings of the first butterflies of the year.  May brings many things to a close in my life, but it also opens many new and exciting doors.

I hope that Jaime likes my entry in her sketchbook.  I  had a relaxing and fun time painting it. 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook

Here's my introductory spread for the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook".  This Sisterhood is a group of 13 artists located around the world.  We'll be mailing our books through a chain every month and in a year we'll get our books back filled with all kinds of artistic goodness.  Our theme after the introductory spread is months.  We'll be painting our interpertation of the current month, loosely based.  That means that May, to me is the beginning of "Sangria season", so my spread might just revolve around that instead of a traditional "May Flowers" spread.  Its all open to how we want to interpert the month which I love!  I'm excited to get my journal on its way.  Hopefully it'll mail out tomorrow or Monday.

My first spread we were to use color.  My favorite color is orange.  I love how vibrant and cheerful it is.  The text serves as an introduction, however brief to me so the others involved with this project can get a feel for me.  Its so much fun to "meet" these ladies.  Most of us have just been introduced over the past month or two!  Its always interesting to see how much us artsy types have in common.  Including a serious ZumaBlitz obsession and competition I'm in over my head with against Cam. 

For my sign in page I had an idea of cutting out butterfly shapes that each person can alter and then attach to the opening page and also the back cover if more space is needed.  I thought we could include all our info either on the butterfly as I did, or surrounding the butterfly on the page.  I hope that's not to quirky for any of the participants.  Once I got the idea in my head there was no turning away from it. 

I can't wait to receive my first book in the mail.  I'm still brainstorming ideas to use for the spread of May.  This is all so exciting!!

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're having a beautiful mid-April day!

self portrait fun and boobies to boot!

I've been working on a journal page for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook.  The Sisterhood is a group of 13 artist who will be mailing our journals to each other over the coming year.  Each of us will do a spread inspired by the current month and in a year we'll all get our sketchbooks back filled with everyones wonderful art.  I've never participated in anything of this manner so I'm really excited and a little intimidated.  My opening journal spread will be color based and an introduction to who I am.  Most people form ideas about me from my pink hair, and I'm ok with that.  It all goes along with not conforming and I expect it.  The page will include this self-portrait with entries of "I am ________, but____________."  I'll share it when I'm finished, but so far just have the background started. Why is it I can always see my mistakes clear as day when I look at a photo of my work, but I can stare at the work itself for hours and not see the same thing?!  Dang oddball lips...

I have a question for all of you.  How do you keep the surrounding pages clean when working in a journal/sketchbook with paint?  I put paper underneath both pages I was working background on and still managed to muck up the next page.  If there is a better way around this I'd appreciate you sharing your tricks.  I'm feeling awful to send not pristine pages to someone.

In other events, I've been slowly working my way toward my fundraising goal of $2,300 for the Breast Cancer 3-Day.  This year I'm trying to do a lot of art/craft commissions, along with CD sales to fund things without asking for straight donations.  I'm doing pretty well and just hope things continue to fall into place for that.  My latest "commission" is a boob scarf.  I was sent a picture and asked if I could make one.  I gotta say, I was super excited to try.

I laughed my way through this project.  Especially after realizing I'd been considering how to make the nipples "hard" for a good 4 hours!  There are just to many thoughts that kept popping into my head.  Anyways, it was lots of fun and I thought they turned out pretty well.