PLease excuse the muttering in the last video, especially at the end.LOL

Anyway  here it is..enjoy! If I get more questions then I would be happy to do one of these sessions once a week.

Di

I managed to get my studio tidy and then I was just itching to get going. I have some macros of this page so you can see closer up. Enjoy!

Are you doing what you love yet?????? If you have any art journal pages or mixed media art you would like to share, just add them at the bottom of this page.

Look who’s hiding in this picture!

A week or so ago I found this little brown thing hiding amongst my work space……its our funny cat Coco. She loves to hide.:-)

The other day we took mum with us and headed to Palmerston North for some shopping ( browsing) and  inspiration time. It was a fun but very busy day, as we like to make the most of our time. Went for new mall shops to secondhand/junk shops and had fun. Wayne found another good pictures frame for me and we got an old lamp that I can  paint up for mums room.  We came home exhausted but happy. Oh I nearly forgot, I splashed out on something special for the newly refurbished table.

Here’s how the corner looks now. I love having the gorgeous doll on the table. My friend Annie Hesse gave her to me as a gift

OK off to clean up, back soon with more art. BTW, how often do you have to clean up???? Do you ever get as messy as I get???

I love the little drawer it has in the side. I still have to decide what type of knob to get to put on it. It was missing.:-)

I thought, this will be my project and I got to work sanding the top with sand paper. I didn’t last long, as it just wasn’t working. Next day we went out and bought a sander, with me thinking that will just wizz the top of this little baby………………..NOT!!!!! Time to get the muscle in. WAyne ended up sanding the whole top. I imagined having the top sanded and the rest painted white and distressed. I did manage to paint the first coat.! Then Wayne got sick of it sitting there waiting for the second coat and offered to paint it for me…YAY!! When it was finally dry I sanded it back and this is what it looks like now. ( Jesse always has to be in the pictures LOL)

And here is a picture of it from the side showing the drawer, I still have to get a knob for:-)

WE are really happy with it. For $10 you cant go too far wrong. Now just to show that I can finish something……here is a picture frame that I just finished distressing. Another second hand shop find. Sorry I forgot to take a “before” shot, it was just brown wood.

I painted it an undercoat of white paint then rubbed all over the edges with a candle. The candle leaves a residue which stops the next coat sticking to the frame and the little bits of wax help it look distressed as well. Here’s a closeup.

As you will have discovered by now , I am feeling my way on this blog. I am experimenting to see what will and what will not work here. AS a lot of you know I was first and foremost a doll designer and maker, so faces were a very important part of my work. What you may not know though , is that I have never really drawn faces on paper or painted faces. It is wayy different than on fabric. So this is where my learning curve comes in. This is my first painted face on paper. Please know that I intend to get better LOL……….PLease feel free to learn along with me too.:-)

I am not sure about the color of the skin and I am not sure I like the way the eyes are looking to the side. However that’s all part of the learning process…..trial and error.

Today started off with me in the kitchen, that pinterest keeps giving me new recipes to try:-) Started off making some chocolate oatmeal cookies, then made a HUGE casserole in my new crockpot/slowcooker. I have a large amount of gorgeous vine ripened tomatoes (woohoo !!!!!New Zealand Tomatoes) in the oven slowly semi drying to put with sauted onions on a homemade pizza and will freeze the rest and I have just finished the art shown on the page.

Going to send Wayne off to get the video ” We bought a Zoo” as that looks like a good movie to watch on a cloudy Saturday. Ahhhhhhhhhhh Matt Damon…nice!:-)

OK Please leave me a comment so I know I’m not here alone in cyber space.

Di

This page I called “dream” and it was finished yesterday. As we go down the page you will see some of the first pages I finished and I am not too happy with them for different reasons. However, I need to keep them so I can see the progress:-) ( I hope!) I am working to try to end up with a journaling style that is uniquely mine and I expect that will take a while yet. Right now I still see a little Dina Wakely and Roben Smith in them but that will change as I practice adding in my own unique style.

The pages I am showing you, I have made since I decided to use bigger pages and  use them as loose pages. Before that I always used a much smaller journaling book. I do love the bigger format and I also love not having the pages attached as I can turn them around and have more freedom with them. The next two pages I am not keen on but will show them anyway:-)

Was not happy with all the different colors in this page and the white.

I think this page is far too busy and has too much going on.OK that’s it for today. If you would like to sent me some pics of your journaling pages I would LOVe to see them. MY new email addy and the only one that works right now is di54412 at gmail dot com or I would love you to tell me about your journey with art journaling.

Cya, Di

So I got out the sample paint I was using and got to work. This is the first time I have ever distressed anything.  Once the undercoat was dry, I found a candle and rubbed that around all the edges of the wooden frame. It left a film there which I was slightly worried about. However, I just got to work and painted the top coat of paint on it, then left it to dry once again.

Later I got out the trusty sand paper and just lightly scraped around the edges of the frame and sometimes on the actual frame. Where the candle wax had been the paint was just raw , down to the wood…just what I wanted. I wouldn’t say this was my best work, but as they say practice makes perfect. I will do it again soon. Excuse the crappy colored walls……they will soon be white too.