Having New Eyes

A Whimsy Grid, using watercolors!

Sometimes I have these doubts about all the beautiful concepts and words that I see all around me, in art, posters, t-shirts, etc.  I feel like I'm being some shallow little person who has blinders on, skipping around singing and being happy, oblivious to what's REALLY going on in the world - where things are a lot shabbier and less colorful, and words like dream, believe, and hope don't really apply.  But then I remember that those words are NOT empty.  They express our imaginations, our dreams.  With words like love and peace, we describe what we suspect about the unseen world, where God is at home and tigers don't eat people.  All dogs are nice dogs that don't lick, and there is no such thing as politics.  When I try to "be practical", and shut down all the tinker bell fairytales and vacuum up the glitter, all I accomplish is darkness and depression - WHY on earth should I do THAT!?!?!  LOL - let's dance, and skip, and pretend.  Let's dream about flying, WITHOUT wings, shall we?  There IS an invisible world - there ARE angels around us, and armies of God's soldiers defending us.  Why should we give up all that wonder, to be practical?  Practical is, in the end, the pretense.

Artfully Abstracted Letter Love

I must say I am developing a new love affair with watercolors!

Artfully Abstracted Again!

When I did my original Artfully Abstracted paintings, I used markers I already had, and ordered the ones recommended by my instructor, called Tombow markers.  The Tombow markers are waterbased, unlike my sharpies and the few copics I have, which are alcohol based.  Others markers I have are either ink or paint based - Tombows are like water color markers, that I can blend from strong to pale with a brush and water.  I kinda like the effect, do you?

 

Freebie!

Here's a freebie for you.  I painted my own background paper with sprays, stencils, and stamps, drew the word laugh, and then letter loved it with black marker.  Just click the image to go to the full sized word, and right click, then save as.  It's a handy little word to stick in your scrapbooking, in your homemade stationary, or on your own webpage!

Vintage Letter Love

Learning to make my own alphabets, vintage style, by hand copying existing ones.

Lettering in a Circle

Making Use of my New Lettering Skills

If you know my husband, you are familiar with the passion he has for making walking sticks and canes.  For years he has tripped over his own feet, or driven off the road, as he looks into the depths of the forests for downed saplings that look interesting.  He's find some that had become twisted from honeysuckle vines squeezing them as they grew, or sticks with beautiful and natural markings, like the diamond willow.  Sometimes they only had really cool bug tracks/holes, or colorful bark.  He'd carry them off, and throw them in the back of the truck, barely able to wait until we got back home so that he could begin peeling the bark and otherwise finishing them.  Back in 2001 we took our first week long backpacking trip in the WindRiver Range in NW Wyoming.  I had a matched pair of walking sticks, probably sassafras, that have, over the years, warmed up in color and are now almost auburn.  Chuck preferred to use one stick.

So what has this got to do with my new lettering skills?  He recently made a cane for himself, and the handle "needed" a monogram.  

The wood part itself is a pretty little twisted sapling, fairly light in color.  He just happened to have a wonderful little scrap of antler someone had found in the woods and gave to him, and he made a great handle for the cane out of the antler!  As you can see, Chuck sanded the ends of the antler to flat smoothness, and he asked me to put a B on one end. After patiently waiting for me to take pictures, he trooped to the basement to put a sealer on the handle, and it's currently drying.  I was so proud to be able to use the lettering skills I've been gaining in my online course with Joanne Sharpe!  Sadly, though I offered to use color in the monogram, he was adamently satisfied with the black.  sigh.  Some people just don't know how to appreciate color!  (just kidding Chuck)

Whirlwind education in my jammies!

As I know I've mentioned before - online "school" is awesome awesome awesome!  No starting time - no deadlines (at least in the classes I'm taking) - lots and lots of one on one help and feedback.  In learning how to design my banner, and the navigation bar, I finally, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, recognized a need for algebra, and used it!  YYAAYY!  I know for a fact that I took at least 16 months worth of algebra in various schools, and never did it make the sense it made yesterday in the Web Design 2.0 workshop I'm taking, as presented by Elise Blaha Cripe.  (I wonder if that's her real name?)  I have to admit, though, that there have been a few nights when the html choo choo train chugging around in my head has kept me up, even when really really tired.  (doncha just get so mad when that happens, and then THAT wakes you up even more?!?)

The other class I'm in, that started on Feb 1, is called Letter Love with Joanne Sharpe.  I'm using the "other" side of my brain for this one (so's I don't wear out my out-of-shape left brain) and get to paint and glue and design with markers, paints, crayons, fabric scraps, and whatever else I can find that's glue-able!  There are 150 (!) people signed up for this one, from ALL OVER the world, and most of us are still working on our 1st day's assignment, which is to decorate a composition pad to use in learning how to...LETTER!  I'd recently seen something in a magazine that I wanted to try, adapting the materials to incorporate fabric scraps instead of paper scraps, and decided that this 1st assignment is the perfect time to try it out.  Here are the pictures of my new LETTER LOVE notebook..  1st up is an in progress picture, gluing fabric scraps using matte medium:

Next is the finished composition book:

I'd been aching to try this technique I'd seen "somewhere", using glue and fabric scraps and then using the fabric cover as a background for white and black paint.  I LOVE this technique!

 

Some other ladies who're in the class "with me":

Laurie at lauriescharmingdesigns.blogspot

and Lludria at http://miaticomismundos.blogspot.com/