Since gardening and other outdoors activities involve breathing toxic smoke for the moment, the dining room table continues to multi task-
Art journals, diary journals, junk journals… I just can’t get enough of these precious little things. It’s taken months of trial and error to find “my” style and what I enjoy. Each chronicles part of my art journey in mixed media, spilling over into other areas of my life, including metal smithing. They are all packed and ready by the door to just grab and go if we ever need to evacuate….
I had been using beautiful papers from Zazzle for some of my journal covers but they did not stand up where they were involved as part of the hinge assembly. That took me down a road for an alternate method of attaching covers and spines to the inside papers (signatures). I’ve ended up using book tape binding and I love it! Now I can use delicate paper, cloth or whatever I decide. It’s delicious!
Back to my fabric stash from mark making with the hand made brushes….
This week’s projects included 2 journals . The first one I used both fabric I marked, and paper I did at the same time, in teal and blacks. I’m not usually a teal blue kinda girl but-its what was on hand. It’s about 7×5″.
The scruffy black crow just seemed to want to be on the cover, so that’s where he went. Finished.
Book #2 was much smaller, about 2.5×3″. I’d vegetable dyed the pages many months ago with purple cabbage (yes, it works beautifully), and they were just waiting for a cover—in blues. Which I NEVER work with. I really am trying to finish some of the many half finished projects I have on the go and was determined this was going to be one of them. Blue or not.
Finding a focal for the front is always an interesting exercise. Yesterday I decided silver would look good with the black onyx stone I had on hand. The silver I had etched over a year ago and forgot it was a much heavier weight than I usually work with and after some challenges, managed to cut, drill and polish the oval piece and set the onyx. I just noticed I am missing most my right thumb nail on one side…a shop casualty I think.