February and March Journal Pages and RAIN!!!!!!!

Yep, it's finally raining.  We haven't had much weather around here lately.  I love, love, love rain.  I should be living in the Pacific Northwest.  

The images below are from my 9x9" Aquabee Journal.  It has brown craft paper pages.  I used gouache and a Pentel pocket brush.  

I made a new journal with 90lb. Fabriano hot press watercolor paper.  I'm ready to go back to white.  I will say that I am obsessed with having the perfect journal: perfect size, perfect weight paper, perfect surface.  I like to write with fountain pens and use wet media and collage on my pages.  I haven't found the perfect paper yet.

 Ed Schultz

 Eschiveria

 Imaginary flowers

 Chris Matthews (but I'm not a liberal or anything)

Nora's fruit bowl (Oakland, Ca, 2-25-12)

More Alphabet Pages

Here's D for duck, E for eggs and eyeless elephant, and F for flowers.

Alphabet Pages

I started illustrating the alphabet in July.  Here's A for Acorn, B for Brushes, Barbara, and Breast, and C for Clouds.

July Alphabet

I decided that I would do an illuminated alphabet for the month of July.  I started out doing just one letter per day, but then I got sick of it and I finished it this morning.  I used Derwent Inktense colored pencils, pitt superfine pen, Sharpee poster paint markers, gold Uniball pen, a little bit of gouach, some homemade rubber stamps, and a little bit of decorative rice paper.  Spread measures 10.5 x 15".

people

by accident.....

New images

I used stencils and hand carved rubber stamps for the tree series. The other ones just sort of appeared

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After I wrote that last post, things kind of fell apart for me. I was judging myself so harshly for spending so much time in solitude. I was napping a lot and I was a little sad. I decided to talk to my sponsor about it and she said I should get involved in some service work. It had crossed my mind that I could teach art to the women at the House of Hope. I ran that past her and she thought it was a great idea. After that meeting, I came home and starting researching art journaling which I had heard about in a magazine I get. I thought it would be a good project for recovering women. I had no idea that there is such a wealth of information and youtube videos on the subject. I'm completely hooked! It's like a miracle in my life. I went out and bought some supplies and made a journal. On Monday, Nora and Ann were here and I showed them how to make a journal and we spent 4 1/2 hours working on them. I have four dates set up with the House of Hope and I'm trying to think of how I can show 18 women how to fold a book and start journaling.