Marianne's Page from Lynn

Sjimmie has arrived in California. You can see him sitting on top of the state looking down on his host, Henry V. Henry plans to show him the sights, first the sunflower fields and then off to his friends the burrowing owls. Not sure what more they will do, but they'll enjoy the California sunshine before he heads East to visit Suki Poet. This 6" x 6" quiltlet is sandwiched with batting and muslin backing; donned with hand painted cotton fabrics, adorned with photos by Lynn, paper, and metallic threads. Sjimmie is black velvet just arrived from Chris' store in Shady Grove. The whole thing is top sewn free motion style.

Lisa's page for Caroline's book

Color color color. Of course we all love color.  What artist doesn't like color.??  Caroline says that color and form is what came out onto her book first.  I was in a quandry about how to depict color. The very thing I love so much.  Don't you think that the  people, places and things that you love are most difficult to depict?   When I think of my most cherished places etc I think of the outdoors.  Sunrises and sunsets inspire me to colorful thoughts.

Here is the back of the page.

I will try to get this into the mail to Lolo either today or Monday.  Cheers...

A page for Katie Jane by Caroline

Blackbird Feeding on Berries - Watercolour

click to enlarge

Phew - at last I've done it! It took me ages to decide what to do and I spent yesterday painting a picutre that I was already to post, then changed my mind! We Librans are experts at indecision! So, anyway, here it is!! This is a watercolour painting on gessoed mount (mat) board. Another new technique for me - it's amazing what the watercolour does when you apply it to the gesso surface. All sorts of interesting textures appear like magic - the paint seems to bubble and skim over or settle in brushmarks. You'll see what I mean if you enlarge the pic. However, it's not ideal if you have a fixed idea of what you want or where you want the paint, as the paint can have a mind of its own, but it's great fun to play with. Also the paint lifts off like a dream if you make a mistake! My only regret is that I didn't make the bird a little smaller - she's tending to head off the page here and I think composition wise it would have been better to have positioned her a little further to the right - or, probably better I should have painted the whole in landscape rather than portrait format - ah well, we live and learn! I hope you will like the painting Katie! Now it's on with Lynn's book - I do at least have an idea for hers (which, by the way, is so lovely - everyone seems to being using fabric...!! Hopefully it won't be long before I post again!

Suki's Book

I have to say when I received Suki's book from Caroline I was inspired immediately to do my page since there were several pages already done.  Suki you will just swoon when you get to see all the pages of your book.  It is fun.

This is the front of my page.  It is all about the great Outdoors at every season of the year.

 The back of the page has the full poem that I wrote and the description of materials etc that Suki requested.  I will be getting this into the post today, going to Lolo.

Suki's book

Ladies!!!! I have received two books this week.  One is Carolines...it is soooo colorful it has an amazing beginning that you can't see in pictures.  The other is Suki's book. Oh my gosh it is coming togetherr beautifully.  So creative. I have been so inspired.  I am off to create.....

This is my first time to participate in making a book. I so wish I had sent along a note to you all as each of these has a sweet note in it.  Just remembrer I am thinking positive, loving thoughts of you all.

Two pages - Sjimmie travels and Soulbrushes book

Joss says that her book has no theme, but Marianne did "Flying" so I carried that along to this first cloudy flying strange people.
And Sjimmie is leaving here on his worldwind tour after his stop in Massachusetts.

These books are fun, I can't wait to get more. I think I send these to Lynn...now where did I leave that list??????

Last week I received Mim's sketchbook in the Artysoulsisters round robin. Her theme is "women", as in strong women, women around the world, etc. There are already several beautiful pages in her book done by herself, Lynn, and Suki, so I had to think a bit about what I wanted to add. After much deliberation I finally ended up with Mother Nature, probably the most important woman of all. And so my contribution is this watercolor of Mother, herself.

I will be sending this off to Caroline, in Mayalsia, later this week.

Page for Lisa's book

'Ebony and Ivory'

I got Lisa's book a few days ago;what a wonderful cover and your page and Lo's page too. WOW!
Today I woke up with a clear idea of what I wanted to do.
It is based on this piece I finished recently, which I enjoyed doing so very much.
I used acrylic paints and sponge printed the hair, noses, eyes and mouths.
I listened to this song of while doing it.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard,
Oh lord, why dont we?
(Paul Mc Cartney and Stevie Wonder 1982)

I think Lisa will like this.
It flies off to Marianne tomorrow. Byyyeeeeeee little book.

My Book Cover

The front of my book cover.

Acrylic on canvas

The back
This is the way it will look when the edges are folded


Must think of a way to put it all together nicely......

And this is how I did it......

A page for Suki by Caroline

Click to enlarge

'Ocean Bed'
Acrylics with collage

I've been working on this piece for a few days now - mostly thinking about it!! I finally decided to try to follow the Cape theme of the previous page by Kate and ended up with 'Ocean Bed'. I'm really enjoying trying out different techniques on this project and went all out for a messy time with this one! First I tore a piece of some gorgeous embossed silver and gold wrapping paper and a couple of small pieces from a page of chinese newsprint and pasted them on the page. I then slapped gesso all over, wiping back in places to expose the wrapping paper design and some newsprint. Before it dried I made lots of different marks using anything I could find! Credit cards are great for this and a cake decorating tool I bought ages ago (and never used) works wonders! Next I drew the design in pencil and then used acrylic paint with a roller, brushes, a sponge and my fingers to tone down the bright white and work up the details.

Sending by post tomorrow to Lisa and starting work on Kate's !

suki completes her page in Mim's round robin book

At first I was stymied. The theme is women or women around the world so I had to ponder a bit. Then resolved on a collage using magazine cutouts. The red paper has Japanese calligraphy on it.
This is the back of the page. The oblong shapes were made by a friend: decorated toilet paper tubes. On Tuesday I'll mail this on to Katie Jane. Have fun!

Finally something by Caroline!

1st page of my book

Cover image

Well, at last I am able to say that I've made headway with the Artysoulsisters project! So sorry for holding everyone up; I've had visitors for the last two weeks, so no time for art! Anyway, now my book cover and 1st page are ready to be mailed out to Lisa. I have also made a start on Suki's lovely book and will post the page soon, then I have Katie's to work on ...!!!

My book didn't start out with a theme - in fact, I really didn't have a clue what to make, but just went with the flow! I started with the 1st page and the cover followed on from there - as you can see colour and shape seem to dominate! I used several sheets of paper that I had in my store. These had been painted randomly with acrylic inks and some dry gold pigment mixed with gum arabic (which you can see much better if you enlarge the pics), then sprayed with water to encourage dribbles, splashes and puddles. I pressed plastic wrap onto the wet ink, pushing the wrap so that the ink collected in the folds to make interesting patterns and left the paper to dry. I looked for suitable areas to work on and on close inspection found little landscapes, waves, or foliage in some, and birds, fish, flowers and people in others. I cut some of these into small squares and worked into a few with watercolour crayons to enhance my 'discoveries' . Thus 'Purple Haze' was born, closely followed by my bright cover image based on the colour wheel.

My book is loose leaf - the pages are 20 x 15.5 cms, which includes a 3 cm margin on the left side for binding, which I will do when my book returns home.



I've also made this small pocket which I will attach later to the inside of the book. In this is a note to you all and an arty soul sisters tag for you to add your names to, please!

I'm having a lot of fun with this project and look forward to creating with you!!

Lisa's Journal with Lolo's pages

Ta-daaaaah!!!

Here are our pages put together. I had such fun with this, thanks Lisa!

Now it's off to Soulbrush for her magical additions!

Lolo's second page for Lisa's journal

I love it when things just evolve without a plan!

Here's the flip side of my page for Lisa's journal. This pattern reminds me of vintage wallpaper. I started going through my bits and scraps of collage cuttings and this is what I got. I used another stamp with birds, a piece of my special "studio lolo' notepaper for the center, I added a little atc bag, some butterflies and rubber stampings. I thought it would be appropriate to put a postcard from Rhode Island in the mail bag with a message for you ladies! I hope you can enlarge it to read it.

What fun this is! Lisa, thank you for such a wonderful venue ;)

I'll assemble it soon and post it and then it goes to Soulbrush!

xoxo

My Page for Mim's Book!

This is the back of my page for Mim's book! The background is mono printed fabric, which I glued some quotes to. I then stamped flowers and circles using foam stamps and acrylic paint and circled the quotes with Elmer's glitter glue. And this is the front of my page.

Mim's theme is "Women"... I drew nine women in my sketchbook, (using macro pens) for the nine of us participating as artysoulsisters, gathering together from "across the miles" . I colored them using marking pens. cut them out and glued them to the mono printed fabric background glued on cardboard from a cereal box...I added a few stamps from my foam flowers and circles and acrylic paint with a little dab here and there of Elmer's glitter glue in gold.

Click on photos to see details more clearly

I'll probably let this dry all weekend and mail it to Suki on Monday.

Mim's pages arrived today!

Just wanted to let you know that Mim's pages arrived in my mail box today.
I cannot express how WOW'd I am to see these pages in person. Our computers cheat us of texture in paint brush strokes that are delicious to see in real life. Same goes for her panel of Ms Ems for each of us and our states. Okay, I know what I will be doing with my FREE Friday tomorrow!!!! Books ARE MOVING~

Lolo's page on Lisa'a Journal

yay, I finally got the muse to hit me between the eyes!

This is my first page for Lisa's journal. The other side of this paper is a different pattern which I'll show when I get it done, then I'll show you how our pages look together ;) I went with her bird theme because I love birds. I started with decoupaging the poppies from napkins, then I glittered them with a light dusting. I stamped faint leaves and purple swirls, drew and painted the Cardinals, added a stamp from a letter I got from Canada and a pretty little sticker, and then I topped it off with finding that perfect quote from a magazine.

Now I'm ready to continue! Stay tuned for page two, and then eventually I'll get going on mine.