I'm back and brighter than ever!

Hello my creative peeps!  I am finally back from my trip to California and am recovering from it nicely.  It did take some time to get my hands working again, of course my left one will never be fully recovered.  I am now able to continue with my art journal project and I have the pictures to prove it.

As I had mentioned, I flipped the journal cover inside out and did some really bright art on it.  I'm so craving these bright summery colors!

I used craft paint to paint and stencil the journal covers then added my girlie art to the front with gel medium and colorful paper tapes and masking tape.  This was so fun to do!  I enhanced some areas with bright prisma colored pencils using a very heavy hand.  I will add some writing and details in black.  My next post will show more detailed pictures of the finished cover.

Also I did yet another doodle girlie to put in this summery up-cycled journal...

"Summer of Love"

She was done my usual way with a black liner pen and prisma colored pencils enhanced with some neon and white gelly roll gel pens.  The colors on the original art are actually brighter than the photo here.

Yesterday I bought bright neon cerise and metallic sparkle chartreuse nail polishes.  I did my toes in the cerise and my fingers in the bright neon limey chartreuse.  I cannot wait for Summer!  We have had a cold, wet, gray spring so far and I am sick of it!!!  All of my art has been very bright to combat this depressing weather.

Art bombing update:  Due to the very short nature of my trip and the presence of too many curious eyes, the graffiti art bombing has been postponed!  I did try but conditions were not ideal.  I will look for another opportunity in the future.  I have put my graffiti tote in my truck so it will be handy for a quick hit.  I have also decided to do stickers as they are more environmentally friendly and not permanently damaging.  More to come in the future on this idea of street art.

It's only 11:00 and we are losing the tiny bit of sun we had to a new storm that's rolling in.  I must go out and fire up my John Deere lawn tractor and mow the south 40 before the rain hits!

Think "Bright" and color up some cheerful art or Easter eggs to share this week!  Happy Easter, Happy Spring!

Forever in art,  Jessica

I'm just an art bombing "Toy"!

Hello my creative friends!  Well it's time for my very quick trip to California to see my Docs and my lovely friend Sharon L.  I'm hoping to meet up with another high school friend who found me on facebook,XXXXXX.  Boy did we have some fabulous adventures back in the day!  Can't wait!

I have put together my art bombing kit for my trip.  It's a bit on the upscale side, LOL!  Andy Warhol indeed! Ha, ha, ha!  I've never heard of an avant-garde art bombing have you?

I picked up this cool tote sometime back and finally found a use for it.  I'm really not the tagger backpack type so I got a bit of a chortle out of putting this together.  In the graffiti world I'd be called a "toy" but I don't care - this is not my real scene anyway and at my age being called a "toy" is very flattering!  LOL!  Gawd, am I glad I don't take myself very seriously!

Since I have never done this before it is going to be harder than I am imagining I'm sure.  I worked up a few designs and we'll see how it goes.  Just fyi, I will only tag over pre-existing bombs so I won't be defacing any new property. 

I have been working on a new journal cover the last few days as the old one got severely out of control as seen below...!

 After I glued all the crap on and pounced some craft paint over it, I took it to my chair and doodled all over it.  Then I went back and painted on some more detail.  Yikes!  What a mess!  So now it is the inside of the cover and I have started over on the outside of it.  I will share it with you when I get back.

Music in the studio this week was...Green Day - American Idiot, and Matchbox Twenty.

So keep shaking those spray cans (or whatever blows your skirt up) and I'll see ya next week.

Forever in art,  Jessica

A Springtime Doodle and Collage

Halloooou out there! Hope this post finds everyone getting a little bit of springtime sun.  This is our 2nd day of sun and it's been wonderful!  No flowers to show you yet and tomorrow it's back to cold rain again.  I learned my lesson the hard way not to plant flowers until April.  Living in So. California most of my life, I always planted anytime I wanted to.  Not so now!  Just last week it was still freezing in the early mornings.  I won't be putting anything new into the garden this year but I can pot up some nice blooms to enjoy.

The balmy day inspired another doodle girlie, Goddess Tara.  I did her on plain white paper with my usual prisma colored pencils.  The black liner is a copic multiliner .05.  You know I always have fun doing these quickies and she helps satisfy my need for blooming flowers...

I've been in the studio working a little bit on my art journal cover.  I found a piece of cardboard that already folded over like a binder and decided to use that instead of cheerio boxes.  So far I have...

 Gessoed.  Cheerios and strawberries anyone?

 Added decorative tape - $1 from Michael's - and craft paint.

 Glued on pieces of old painted papers and copies of art...

Gessoed a bit around the edges of the 1st layer before adding more papers...

I will just keep building from here and then do some doodling on top of it all.  Not crazy about it so far but I should wait to see how it progresses before getting discouraged I suppose.  So far I couldn't sew on this cover, the cardboard is too thick.  I'll save that technique for the next one or the pages inside maybe?

I've been very busy with my physical therapy and not doing too much afterwards for fear of a flare up.  I did manage to take a drive up an old wagon road after my P.T. yesterday.  Here are a few shots...

 End of the trail.

 Looking down on Lookingglass and Melrose areas.  The Cascade mountain range is in the distance.

 Check out that blue sky!

This one hurts my soul - clearcut logging practices.

Some of the logged areas are so bad it makes me physically sick.  There is a law in place requiring them to replant but it seems like they take forever to do it and the sides of the mountains are so steep that sometimes it just doesn't get done.  When they do replant, the seedlings are just a tiny 12" to 18" tall.  Don't even get me started...!  I need to have a serious talk with the forest fairies on this one!

I'm still working on my gorilla art plan and went to Eugene this last weekend for Montana spray paint and huge paint markers.  They were all on sale at the University of Oregon art dept. store!  More on that project later...  

Thank all you lovely creatures for stopping by for a peek and leaving your encouraging and fun comments. I appreciate them sooooo much!!!  It's taking me a tiny bit longer these days to check out all your new blog posts but I will get there eventually.

If you can't get out into the garden or do a little potting yet, maybe you too can create a little bit of Spring blossoming in your art.

Keep the pen and colors flowing 'til next time!

Forever in art, Jessica