July 2015 – Joyful Ploys

…art and a blue moon

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015Mary2 Comments

My art work has been sporadic lately…I’m kind of starting to get back into it more lately. We have taken to sitting on our deck in the back yard very late in the evenings…watching the birds, listening to tree frogs, and looking at the sky. You would be surprised at what one can see in your own backyard. We have both noticed a face in a certain tree out there and last night I grabbed my sketchbook and tried to draw some funny tree faces:

And we laughed a lot over this one:

We’ve been seeing a big moon the last few nights. I had noticed on our calendar that shows a full moon for tonight. It will be a blue moon. I always thought a blue moon is the second full moon that occurs during the same month. This article explains that there is also another definition for blue moon. Here is a great article about it: http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/blue-moon.html

Some more pages from my sketchbook:

These are from the duct tape journal I made earlier this month:

I had been obsessing over finding the perfect old book to turn into an art journal…or in my case “visual” journal since I do very little journaling in my journals. I found a book last week with a sewn binding (and the price was right ($2.00) at one of our local flea markets. I will try and finish the duct tape journal before starting a new one….or maybe not. Jane Davenport puts her own watercolor paper along with some of the book pages in her handmade journals. This is an excellent video showing how she does that:

http://janedavenport.com/art-lessons-cloth-paper-scissors/

Have a great weekend!

all kinds of books…

July 15, 2015July 15, 2015Mary1 Comment

Several months ago, I prepared some pages in an old instructional book on navigation. I planned for that to be an art journal. I put it aside to work in later. About a month ago, I picked it up to see what I could do in in it and the pages were falling out. I made a huge mistake of not checking to see how the book was put together. It was a glued binding, not stitched. You will be able to find several YouTube videos on how to prepare a book to be used as an art journal. I decided to use some of the pages from my failed project. After gluing on some collage pieces onto my background, I sketched my idea out with pencil, then went over that with charcoal, and finished with my Artline pen. (my new favorite ink drawing pen).

Last week, Diana Trout blogged about Flow Magazine in this post entitled “Good Vibes. Then, I went to Teesha and Tracy Moore’s “Artstronaunt Club” website and she showed a few pages from a Flow coloring book: Coloring is a Form of Happiness and I knew I had to have that book. It was less expensive from a seller on Ebay than ordering it on Amazon. It was in my mailbox on Monday. I think it will be a good source of inspiration for drawings.

And finally, here’s a couple of sketchbook pages:

This pencil drawing didn’t photography very well:

duct(duck) tape wars…

July 2, 2015July 2, 2015Mary4 Comments

I have been working on painting some file folders and old book pages for a new journal. I finished it yesterday…it’s ready for further embellishment. I made four signatures and sewed each one together pamphlet style (lots of You Tube videos showing how to do that). Then, I attached the signatures together with duct tape. The front and back covers were also attached with duct tape. Then I put some more on to cover the spine of the journal. I will show more of the book as I work in it. I haven’t finished the front cover yet but here are two photos showing where I attached two signatures together and also the back cover. I believe in the holding power of duct tape now 🙂