This is phase 2 of the process of this page. I did some distressed ink backgrounds and rubber stamp letters. I have more to do coloring in the leaves and probably using some more text. "It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in." Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) or as Tim Holtz said in the class last weekend "Don't overthink it." 

The page is never finished

I posted this first page the other day but was not very satisfied with it visually. I went back to it yesterday and colored in the letter blocks and it became so much more appealing. It continues to reinforce two lessons that are important. The first is that any drawing that I do adds something to the page that is much more interesting than just design, or letters, or rubber stamps. The other lesson that continues to reoccur over and over is not to become discouraged with a page I have created because a design never has to be finished. If it doesn't look quite right come back to it, over and over if necessary, because it usually can be redeemed. That has definite application to my daily life. It is the story of process and journey not the destination or the finished product. I know I am a work in constant process. Sometimes the pages of my life are incredibly messy and ugly, but God is in the process of redeeming it and making it a design of beauty. He is the Creator and my days are just the pages in the process of His creation. I included the beginning of the next page and thought it would be interesting to watch the process as it evolves with color and words.
 

40 Days a second time

We (Peter and I) have embarked on a 40 day journey with the rest of Arcade Church. Jake has chosen to call this "40 Days of Community". I so enjoyed the structure of the first 40 days and being more intentional about my journaling so that I was more than happy to commit to this 40 day journey. I wanted a design template before even starting out, but I am finding it is more a process of discovery and you can't have all the questions answered in the beginning. It really does have to be a voyage of discovery. In the first few days I have learned a number of lessons. I was inspired by stampersanonymous.com for the layouts; they have some wonderful stamp art in their gallery. Today I decided I liked the idea of small little boxes in some part of the design for my prayers of the day. I want to keep finding just a few words from the Bible passage I am reading that day to highlight in my journal entry. I decided I will pick up something from nature each day from my walk/run. I will bring that back to draw the following day on my page. The lesson I have been learning from that is that I always like my pages better when I have drawn something no matter what it is. I thought it would be best to only take something from the walk that is right "at hand". I love the phrase "at hand". I was pondering the idea on my walk this morning about having a get-together-craft night in the neighborhood and just invite anyone who is interested. That way I could share some of what I have learned in the classes I have taken. That is just an idea for the first of the year. I also want to use some of my stamps and inks more often in the layout of the pages. There are always so many ideas, some of which work and others that don't and get left by the wayside.
We are reading the New Testament in this 40 days. It is more reading than I usually do in the morning so Peter and I decided we will finish in the afternoon. Already we said to each other it was really nice to come back together and read God's word later in the day. Speaking of the wayside just now I was reminded of the seed that falls by the wayside that we were just reading in Matthew. The Word "entwined" with the dailiness of life. It is very good and warms the heart.
 

Classes by Tim Holtz 2

Another project this weekend at the Stamp Art Shoppe was "Fireless Raku". The same clay used for the "clay fragments" was used for the Raku. We took the clay and pressed it into a mold. When it is removed from the mold it is baked in a little appliance called a melting pot. After baking it is then painted with "Perfect Pearls" interference colors and they come out looking like Raku pottery. The second picture looks like a typical rubber stamp image but we learned how to make our own customized ink pad to give they varied colors on the rubberstamp and be able to make multiple printings from the ink pad for that particular rubber stamp. It was very interesting but I was not completely satisfied with my color choices and I am not an avid rubber stamper. I don't know that I would use this technique. The third photo is a rubber stamp of the same Christmas image stamped in black but then going back into it with colored "distressed inks". Then it was placed in the "Memory Glass" frames amd some charms were attached. It has real potential for personalized Christmas ornaments with photos in the frame. It was a great creative weekend. I am not sure what I will do with all the ideas, but I enjoyed getting to learn some new techniques and now I get a chance to think about how to incorporate them into my own work.

 

Classes with Tim Holtz

I spent the weekend in 3 classes at the Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville. Tim Holtz, a designer for Ranger Products, was the teacher. He was entertaining and an excellent instructor. The first picture is what he calls "fragments from clay". They come out looking like metal but are really just clay stamped with rubber stamps and painted with "Perfect Pearls". Most of the products mentioned are from Ranger. In the second class we made a small 90 page book. The signatures (groups of pages) are hand stitched together to make the book and then the book had two canvas covers on the front and back. The canvas covers were colored with "Distressed" Ink and then covered with a thin coating of beeswax. Then some collage materials were placed on top. I chose part of a Van Gogh drawing, a torn piece of my grandparents Hungarian marriage certificate (both of which I had printed on rice paper) and a piece of rice paper napkin. Rice papers work well because they are thin and become transluscent when covered with the beeswax. The canvas covers are then glued to the front and back of the book and the antiqued door handle is glued down. A few other little trinkets are added and the book is finished. I haven't yet decided what I am going to use it for. 90 pages is rather intimidating.


 

Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundails, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetness in to the heavenly wine. Rainer Maria Rilke 

40 Days continued once more...

The 40 days ended yesterday. We serve an ever loving, ever amazing God. He moved in ways I would not have imagined. I am still processing what I learned. I do know this, I gave miniscule imperfect offerings of small sacrifice and God returned with blessings overflowing of his imcomparable love and care.


 

40 Days continued

More pages from the 40 days.


 

40 Days

42 days ago our new pastor, Jake, called on the church to fast for 40 days. That idea resonated in my heart and I asked the Lord to show me what I might offer to Him. Jake had suggested that we look at the spiritual discipline of "denying the flesh" and also think of fasting as "eliminating distractions". I prayed and felt called to relinquish some areas of my life to God for the next 40 days and embarked on the adventure with expectation. Jake had suggested keeping
a journal. Since I was already doing that I resolved to become more intentional during the 40 day time period. I journaled every day, and within a few days chose a design theme that I tried to carry through with variations during this spiritual journey.

 

Individual Tags from the Tag Book

The first tag is a rainy Romanian street. I love the car headlights reflected on the rainy street. Because we traveled with a team from our church I had the added advantage of receiving all their photos, also. It ended up being over 3,000 pictures! I used Photoshop Elements to change the photo image, and there is part of a flyer I picked up at a museum we visited. The choices I use in Photoshop are in the "filter" section of the toolbar. From the "filter" I choose "artistic" and then use "cutout" and "poster edges". The image resembles a woodcut in a way. The second tag is a photo of a very old church down the street from where we stayed in Hateg, Romania. The background uses Distressed Inks with a rubber stamp on the background. In addition to the photo are the postage stamps and part of the post card that I brought back from the trip. The third tag has a stamp, part of a brochure, some small pictures from a map, and a stamp from a museum. On top is a photo I took in Arad, Romania. The Orthodox catherdral is being built in Arad and is nearing completion. The weekend we were there the four gold crosses, one about 10 feet tall, and three 6-7 feet tall were leaning against the staircase awaiting the crane to position them on the steeples of the church. I was so excited to have a chance to photograph the crosses still resting on the ground before being lifted into place. You can see the three gold crosses if you look for them.
The phot manager I mentioned in the last post "Picasa" can be downloaded for free at www.picasa.com. It is a terrific photo organizer. The store in Roseville where I took the class is: www.stampartshoppe.com. It is a wonderful store, great classes, and the store owner, Sandy, is terrific.

 

A Tag Book: Images from Romania and Vienna

I always come back from a trip with hundreds of photos and bits and pieces of ephemera that I have gathered during the journey. The photos are filed on Picasa ( great photo manager). And the bits and pieces sit on the shelf for years. This trip's images finally found a creative home. I took an evening class from the Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville, CA on making Tag Books.
It was the perfect small, yet lovely way to show off my photos and odd gatherings. I printed some of my photos on vellum and have manipulated them on Photoshop Elements. The tags have been colored using Distressed Inks and various rubber stamps. Some of my gatherings from the trip included old post cards and stamps from an antique dealer and some wonderful yarns and strings from a yarn shop in Vienna. Everything gets cut and pasted on the tags.

 

These are pages I did in a series using each letter of the alphabet and some verses from the Psalms in Latin and English. The inspriration for this series came from a beautiful small book that is published by the Getty Museum, An Abecedarium:
Illuminated Alphabets from the Court of the Emperor Rudolf II. Getty also has The Art of the Pen and Nature Illuminated which I recommend. These are my designs for M and N.
 

So many options...

On my trip to LA and San Diego, and then later in the week to Palo Alto and Stanford campus I had so many opportunities for drawing and journaling. The first pages are from SD and LA. My son's dog I haven't quite captured his real likeness. I am going to keep trying. Then on the other side of the page is a photo of my great nephew, Liam, at a very colorful indoor playground. I am still a little intimidated to draw children. The lower journal pages
are the drawings I did in the Cantor Art Museum at Stanford and the Memorial Chapel. I have been reading a book by Peter Steinhart, The Undressed Art: Why We Draw . It has some wonderful insights on drawing. Such as: "Drawing is a way of communicating with the world, of listening to what the world has to say and answering back."
"The visual mind can only partly be understood in words." I am understanding the urge to draw in a entirely new way. It is facsinating.