Altered Book Art journals

I love working on the journals but my books in the past have seemed a bit scattered. I usually just deal with whatever is bugging or pleasing me at the moment. I have tried to keep to a theme in the past without much luck.
I am finding that by working on two or three books at once I have a much better chance of sticking to the subject. I have chosen the themes for the two regular books and the one board book. The board book is the hardest. It is just examining the topic of women.

There has been a lot of discussion on Lampwork Etc. where I go from time to time to socialize about the lack of respect for women in the world right now. Personally I think I am more concerned with the lack of self respect in the world right now. If you respect yourself and demand the same of others a lot of those problems will go away. I am having a hard time since I decided to not use words in the book just images. You would think as an artist that would be a piece of cake. Not so much. It is only 8 pages so I have to condense all that I have to say and without words to that small space. Good luck to me.....
The second book is examining all the fears and monsters from my childhood so I can put them to bed (I hope ) once and for all. That one is easier to do. The pages write themselves and I find myself lying awake at night thinking of the next page.
The third book I am working on is about community. what I feel about people and what we have in common and don't have in common. It is an interesting subject to examine.
I find myself feeling things I did not know I felt and thinking in ways I never imagined before.
So I think I will continue to work with themes from now on. I might add a daily journal to the mix.
Here are a few pages from my journals. I hope you enjoy.

Today in the Studio

I have been very busy this morning working on several projects at once. that wicker comfy chair I bought for a paltry 2.50 at the thrift shop is sucking up paint like a funnel tornado. It wants to be abandoned on the back porch grey no matter how much almond colored paint I throw its way. Oh well paint I have tons of. I will tackle it tomorrow with another coat.
I did manage to get my large painting a little further along and finish two very dark kitty ACEO's and work on a few more I plan to list on artfire this week. I have a few collages that I am working on and one I especially like that may or may not turn out to be a fairy. I think I am still reeling from the treatment of the fairies on the True Blood episode Sunday. What the heck was that all about. I understand deviating from the story line to make the story work on a different medium but thumbing your nose at the whole story is a different matter. You might as well of written Sookie in as an alien so you could use up some props you had in the back room. What the hell!!!!

Oh well back to the real world. Above are a few of the photos of the dark black gesso book I told you about. It is finished and I have started the next one.
You can see it is much lighter at least the cover is so far. I am sticking to my page a day and it is going well. I am trying to stay within the subject matter I use for the cover but it is only working in a real loose manner so far.
The photos of the aceo's I am working on:


This is the collage that is trying my patience ....I like it one moment and know exactly where I am going with it and then the next I am looking at it like it is something I just dug out of the attic and have never seen in my life. It is a problem to be solved just like 90% of life. I will figure it out or cut out the parts I do like to put in something else.


I may be able to save it but the one thing I like the most about collage is you can find a place for just about everything you do. It may be years before that patch of painting will find a place but it does have a place.
Just like we all have a place we just have to look for it and sometimes you are already there and just don't know it. I spent years thinking the next place was going to be it. What I didn't know is the place does not matter near as much as your attitude to the place does. When I first got to Texas I loved it and then hated it and now I realize it is home, really and truly home for me. I have finally learned to carry that sense of home around with me like a backpack. The only good thing that came out of Hurricane Ike for me was the realization that the brick and wood home is not where your security should stem from. It can be washed away in a second like so much flotsam and jetsam.

On another much lighter note I am going to do an altered book workshop and a collage workshop in early September so if you live in the La Porte , Deer Park or Pasadena Area of Texas just send me a message and I will get the details to you.
I also will be started a basic beginners drawing class in the fall sometime. It is a 6 week class and like all my classes and workshops will be very affordable.

A strange process......

I found my first day as a gainfully unemployed person to be a little sad. Who would think that I would miss getting up and going to work? I certainly did not.
But the second day I got my wind back and spent most of it in the studio working on my art journal.
I had decided to do one page a day before I quit and it was sometimes a chore..and believe me it showed in what I created.
What I am trying to do with the art journals is explore the world around me and inside me and try to figure out where I fit or do not fit in. I never have felt like I really fit anywhere. I would not be surprised to find out I am the product of some strange alien hybrid experiment gone horribly wrong.
So what did my first journal page after taking the plunge look like...well..




It went sort of like you would expect.... But as I got into the mood I found I had a rhythm going. Not really a finished product sort of rhythm but one of total experimentation and wild abandon that I have not felt in a long time.
I wasn't sure about the whole art journal thing. Sometimes it struck me as a little too self indulgent but then I realized that being an artist is probably the most self indulgent thing you can do. And I am not giving that up anytime soon, So I told myself to shut the heck up and get on with it.
So I came up with a few interesting bits.......





I look forward to the next month more than I have looked forward to anything since I was a child waiting for Christmas to get here. There is a lot of work to be done if I am to accomplish what I have set out to do which is finish my studio and get it set up for classes, finish a ton of projects around the house and get some art created that will speak to me and about me.
Wish me luck ....I will need it.