Layer upon Layer

If you remember from this post, I'm taking an Art Journaling class. This weeks homework was create pages with at least 10 layers. Sounds like a lot, but not really, when you get down to it. Here's my two pages

My layers are gesso with texture, paint, more paint, more paint, stencil with paint, writing black and white, monoprint, laserjet injet method transfer, sanding, paint splatter, stamping, collage, stencil with paint, pastels, sewing.
Here's the pages closer up. They look rather flat in this photos but have a lot more dimension in real life!

These are actually Randy's grandparents, he thought on their wedding day. 1932 maybe he said. I"m sure I have it written down somewhere. I was going thru some heritage photos for a class I'm taking at Memory Bound tomorrow and thought this was a nice contrasty image that might work well for a image transfer. I made a laser print then used gel medium to transfer it right onto my page. It lifted off in a couple of places as I worked on it, but it's OK.

The colors in this flower didn't pop like I wanted them to, should have put some white paint underneath before trying to put on the orange/yellow. Oh well, next time!

Awesome, Dude...

Never seen one of these in our small town before. The building you see behind it does house our local Limo service (doesn't every small town have a limo service?), but I've never seen this beast before. WOW. And it had a license plate that indicated it was owned by this group. So, WOW, business must be GOOD! Let's go offroad!

(Another) Creative Outlet

Browsing here, I found this site, which offers a class (actually two)
in Art Journaling. I have always admired Art Journal work that others
do and am fascinated with this publication, but I've never actually
done it myself. This class looked like great fun so I couldn't resist
and signed up. The Art Journaling 102 class started last week. They
also offer a 101 class in archived format, so I crashed thru it last
weekend. It's been great fun and lord knows I have enough stash to do
this for forever. It actually has been quite liberating to realize
that all the crap I've been hoarding and collecting over the years NOW
CAN HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE. Ha. It's actually perfect for me... paint,
photography, typography, glue, paper, scissors.

And Water Soluble Oil Pastels. I know, sounds contradictory, but, amazingly, they are. And my oh my, are they fun.

Not that scrapbooking doesn't offer all that, but it's just on a different creative level.
I'm not sure why I've never done it before, I've had all the pieces
for a long time, just didn't quite know how to put them together in
this way, I guess.

Anyway, he's a few of my first attempts...

Lots and lots of layers of gesso, paint, pastels, paper, ink, more paint, etc. The gesso layers underneath have some texture that you really can't see in these photos.

This was using a stencil and playing with spray ink on gesso. My spray was pretty light and doesn't show in this photos too much but it created a nice watercolory look and has some nice puddle marks.

Using the stencil and paint. Then pastels and stamps.

Birthday card for a friend, found this cute train stencil at Hobby Lobby on clearance for .42 and couldn't pass it up! Waiting for paint to dry on above pages!

This started out completely something else and turned into this. I was trying to do a ink jet image transfer with gel medium in the upper left and that didn't turn out so good so I covered it with the blue train. The lower right image is a laser printer transfer with gel medium and it turned out OK. Then layers of pastels, watercolor pencils and paint. This page started on a non-gessoed kraft page.

Oh yeah, and the calendar thingy. When I was gessoing pages for the first time I had these coasters I did at the same time. I had gotten these little mini calendars from the scrapbook store but hadn't done anything with them yet. Ah-Ha. Here we go!

Backs:

This was a fun "get your feet wet" project!

Scrap Your Day...

Can you believe it's almost been a year of Scrap Your Day?! It sure doesn't seem like it has been that long! Here's a few photos from the day. I actually took under 30 photos that day. That might be a record!

I hate self portraits, not sure why...

Breakfast

I made this little calendar thingy last weekend and put it on my desk at work. More on this thingy later.

My messy cluttered desk. Clutter-it's everywhere-Aaarrgghhh.

Harry had to go to the vet for a glucose curve check for his diabetes. He actually gets to reduce his insulin, he's lost a little weight. And he got his annual shots.

LAD has finally gotten big enough to open the freezer all by himself. What would he possibly want out of the freezer...ice cream of course. See him in action here

Not much interest in this project...but he tries, a little...

This is what happens...

When you have a bottom freezer...ice cream...

Videos

Try again, they should work now. had them marked private for some reason!

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFG

What's a boy to do...

On a Saturday, when most of the snow is melted and he can't go sledding. When it's 30 freaking degrees and windy as heck.

He opens his sandbox, what else!

Then he climbs a few trees...



















Then plays on his playground!



















It's just what a boy does in February in Iowa!

home sweet home

Let it snow.

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Half way home...

At the dreaded Chicago. So far skies clear, flight on time. Snow expected in a few short hours.

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Thursday in MI

Today we drove south. The weather did not improve and the temperatures did not go up. Quite the opposite actually. We had to drive about an hour south to the "wrist" part of MI. On our way we experienced rain, snow (at times blowing to white out conditions, sometimes just big fat lazy flakes), sunshine and wind. That's a lot of weather for a 60 mile stretch! But we made it safely so that was a bonus!
Here's our meeting room set up and ready to go:














And here it is filled to capacity. My travelling partner Doug is in the front doing his portion of the presentation.















Tomorrow's meeting is just a half hour drive away, whoo-hooo.
Then my flight is headed out in the evening, returning to Des Moines at 9ish.
Hopefully the weather is good!

Wednesday (i think) in MI

Today we traveled to Bad Axe, the "hub of the Thumb". Sounds rough and tumble doesn't it!? I have the feeling it could be, but today it was...pleasant, for winter in MI. I'd say it was a pretty normal day. We left Lansing in drizzling rain at about 35 degrees and headed north. Bad Axe is located in the "thumb" part of MI, near the top part.











So the farther north we got, the cooler it got and the bigger the snowflakes became! Roads were a little slushy, but just normal winter weather driving, reminds me of IA! Today we got Missouri's yesterday gray day.














Doesn't this photo look like i applied some dreamy fancy filter? Nope, just a wet car window!














This was later in the day, after we were finished and heading back south. It was actually looking kind of green out, I think this may be wheat starting to show some color!














Maybe tomorrow I can actually get a photo during our meeting. Really exciting stuff I tell ya!
Wonder what I'm teaching? See here and here, if you care! Lots of talk about dairy cows and computers and PCDART.
YeeHaw, we're heading south tomorrow!

Tuesday in Michigan

Today we traveled to Tustin, MI and had our meeting at the Kettunen Center. Tustin is in the north central-ish part of the main part of MI.
It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive northwesterly from Lansing, where I am staying each night.
Kettunen Center is a full service conference center owned and operated by the Michigan 4-H Foundation. It is a wonderful facility and we had a very nice time at this location.
Here's a few photos of today's trip.

This is leaving, pulling out of the driveway of the center, this is across the highway. Such a nice contrast against the white snow and dark trees.

Another interesting barn a few miles up the road. I'm obsessed with barns, can you tell? This location appeared to be a working dairy.

Ahhhhh, look at that wonderfully large King sized bed! I slept like a log last night and expect to again tonight. Better take advantage of hogging the bed while I can!

And have you ever seen this on your pillow cases before? Me either!

Wednesday's forecast, snow. Thursday's forecast, snow. Friday's forecast, anybodies guess.
We're off to Bad Axe on Wednesday.
Nighty night!

In michigan this week

In Michigan this week for work. No warmer or less snowy here than it is in Iowa!!! Skies were basically clear today, so flights were calm. Finally out of the office to enjoy some real sunshine!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Said by the little person at 8:00 this morning, about 5 minutes after he woke up:
"Chocolate is good for breakfast."
 

"Chocolate is my FAVORITE breakfast."

Such hard decisions for so early in the morning.

So we had some chocolate for breakfast. Then we made pancakes!
Happy Valentine's Day!

Surprise!

Imagine my surprise to find this smiling face as I was cleaning and reorganizing a few weeks ago. No telling how long he had been sitting in there, gas all ran to his trunk, waiting for someone to discover him! He was so patient! And his little person was so excited to see him again!