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All Sparkled Up

~ Like dew hanging from the tip of a leaf, a single bead or word adds sparkle where there was none.

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Tag Archives: art

The Cardboard Letter Art Books

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in altered books, art, crafts

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Tags

altered book, altered books, art, art books, artist books, crafts, paper arts, scrapbooking, scrapbooks

Years ago I made these art books from hollow 3-D cardboard letters which were readily available back then. I used an X-acto knife and butcher knife to cut the letters in half. Some had strong corrugated cardboard baffles inside to keep the box from collapsing, thus the need for the butcher knife.
The “AT Dot Com” book. Since taking this photo, I have since filled the book with favorite website and email addresses.

AtDotComBookClosed

The “At Dot Com Book” is made from a cardboard 3-D @ symbol, cut in half, with an accordion page glued inside.

AtDotComBookOpen

Inside the At Dot Com Book. The accordion page is made of separate sheets of cardstock, cut and glued together to represent elements of the earth – green leafy vegetation, pink floral and blue water. For the water page, I masked off continents (which I cut from paper and taped down) and sponged blue and aqua inks over the paper.

AtDotComBooks

The “C Book” scrapbook was gifted to my daughter-in-law when my granddaughter was born.

CBookClosed

The C Book. The colored bits around the edge of the book are actually Light-Brite pegs. I was hoping to add a battery operated light inside the cover but never found one the right size so the book was finished without lighting capability. The word inside says “smitten”, which I still am. -heart-

CBookOpen

The C Book shown open.

The “D Book” was for my husband. He works in construction so I made this book with wood tones and brass nails and hinge. It only has two pages inside and will be used as a scrapbook.

DBookClosed

The D Book is closed with a clasp and secured at the spine with two hinges. Although there is an accordion page inside, the book opens as a normal book and the accordion page does not fold out because of the hinges at the book’s spine.

To decorate the “J Book”, I covered the cardboard letter halves with green decorative tissue paper and then stitched the plastic flowers on with embroidery floss.

Artist Book - The J Book, made from a 3-D letter J.

Artist Book – The J Book, made from a 3-D letter J.

The J Book was the most complicated book to create. The photos taken of flowers growing in our yard are all separate, attached together with string and suspended from the book with string. They fold into the book accordion-style. Because of the weight of the photos, I glued rocks into the base of the J book for stability. Some rocks were kept loose inside the J and are used for display when the book is opened. When the book is stored on my library shelf, I keep it wrapped with a green cord to keep it closed and to keep the loose rocks inside.
JBookOpen

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Calligraphy Aging Gracefully

31 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in art, calligraphy, Inspirational

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

acrylic artist ink, art, art journal, calligraphy, India ink, ink, migraine, old age, pen and ink

I’ve got a migraine with no med, and a back more curvy than this calligraphy. Life is lived in slow motion some days but never too slow to do something creative. Yes!

Today I pulled out an art journal. I first printed text as a guide using the charming The King and Queen font, by Bran, available at dafont.com. I dipped the pen in ink and did three lines of script before noticing I grabbed the wrong ink. I watched through pain-squinted eyes as the watery ink slowly seeped into the page, creating rough and warted lines, puddles of gray.

Calligraphy using Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Artists Ink, Black.

In slow motion, I thought Oh, it’s not me, it’s the ink. So I pulled out the bottle of better ink and did another line of script. Though the ink didn’t seep into the paper, the letters were still nonuniform, wavery and warted. And then I laughed. It’s not the ink, it’s old age! And pain. And just because it’s a very slow day.

Calligraphy using Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Artist Ink, India, Opaque, New Formula.

It’s ok to be wavery and warted and gray when you’re old.
Slow, gray days are much easier to get through with Courage and Strength.
And when Courage and Strength seem a bit shaky, try Generosity and Joy.
And when Generosity and Joy are too muddled, Thanksgiving never fails.

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The Box

06 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in art, crafts, Inspirational, projects, woodwork

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

art, box, carve, carver, carving, the box, wood box

We’re excited about life. The pieces are all there. We have plans and everything seems straight and simple.

Construction gets under way. We’re moving forward. We know exactly what we want.

And then the Carver picks up an instrument and begins the work.

We hold tight. We think I can do this. It’s ok.

But then things change and we’re not so sure.

People are brought into our lives that make us uncomfortable.

The cuts get deeper.

Color pales and we get confused.

We watch as bits of us drop away.

We look down and see what is lost. We mourn what has fallen. We don’t want to part with things we think are important.

The Carver keeps the instruments sharp. Carefully honing the blade, we hear the swish of metal on stone and we’re afraid.

We no longer recognize ourselves.

There are strange steps. Odd bits of life, ragged and raw.

The gouges are deep.

We weep over the pile of loss from the past. We focus on what is gone.

What we don’t see is how the Carver’s hands firmly and lovingly hold us.

All we see is the pile of shavings that obliterate our view.

But the Carver sees. The Carver sees a beauty on the inside that we can’t see from the outside. The Carver whittles away, bit by bit, to reveal the treasure within.

We don’t understand the Carver’s dream. But we reach a point where we must trust. Even though we don’t understand, we let the Carver work. And we begin to let go.

We begin to trust that the Carver has a greater plan. It is too big for us to understand right now. But now we think I can get through this. It’s going to be ok.

And for the first time, we’re ok with it.

♥

To be continued…

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Art tool bucket

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in art, projects

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, arts, craft tools, paint brushes, scriptures, tool bucket

I’m much too tired to post more than a quick one tonight. Today I made an insert to put in a bucket to hold craft tools – knives, paint brushes, etc. I used the hard cover of a book and cut two pieces, fitting them to the tin and slotting them together. Then I painted the piece and wrote scriptures about creativity on it. I love the idea that there are scriptures about creativity hidden amongst my craft tools.


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Word Confetti – U R Going 2 B OK

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in art, Inspirational, mixed media, projects, words

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, inpirational, mixed media, word confetti, words

I’m taking an online class, Soul Restoration 2, by Brave Girls. One of the projects is making a vision board using words cut from magazines. I snipped away at the pages until the table was littered with word confetti. As I cut, I got a panicky feeling that I might not find all the words that represented me. My magazine stock was very limited and I worried about finding enough words. The stack grew much bigger than the canvas could possibly hold but I kept snipping away, feeling as though my entire life needed to be fully represented or my perfection-driven soul wouldn’t feel complete.

I paused, scissors in hand, and looked at the pile stretched across the table. There, in a little cleared spot, was U R Going 2 B OK. Nearby were 2 others – Life Matters and Good Enough. A huge wave of relief washed over me. It was OK!
It is OK to be someone that people don’t understand. It is OK to have big ideas and not be able to put them into words. It is OK to try to do your best and still stop right in the middle to smell roses.

I have this photo as my desktop today. Please feel free to save the image for your own use.

U R Going 2 B OK. Word Confetti. Please click photo to see the larger image.

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The Art of Wild Abandonment Bloghop Post :)

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in altered books, art, painting

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

art, blog hop, bloghop, painting, the art of wild abandonment, wood blocks

Welcome and greetings if you are following the Art of Wild Abandonment Bloghop! You probably arrived here from the amazing blog of Paty Shaulis. Her artwork is exquisite!
If you didn’t start at the beginning of the bloghop, you can join in the fun by visiting http://clairesmillie.wordpress.com/ and learning all about it.

Make sure you scroll to the bottom of my blog post to get the link for the next hop on the bloghop!

I and hundreds of others recently finished the e-course, The Art of Wild Abandonment, taught by Junelle Hallstrom Jacobsen and Christy Thomlinson. The projects were crazy and colorful and we learned all sorts of new ways to get our hands messy and express our wild creativity.

In addition to learning how to draw radishes and owls and sheep, altering a purse with paint and turning a roofing brush into an art brush holder, we painted wood blocks! Here is my version of the wood block project – Bloom!

It started with a couple wood blocks my dear husband cut for me.

Supplies gathered to decorate the blocks – my sketches, paints, modeling paste, ink pad, oil paint stick, wood blocks and, not in this photo, a flower and a coffee bean.

Once I got the blocks painted, the rest followed quickly.

I decided to make a 3 tiered cake with swags of thick sweet icing around the side. The word I chose for the top was Bloom. It’s the perfect word to describe what happened to so many members of the class. We all bloomed!

A view from the top of that sugary cake.

But wait, what is this on the bottom of the blocks? Another design?

A view from the top of the blocks flipped over. But then what happened to those sweet swags of white frosting?

Is that… a sheep? 0_0

More sheep!

And a sheep on top!

It’s a whole hill of sheep! Bloom Hill, covered with sheep!

But let’s check out that cake again. The sheep are upside down. And what is that under the rose on top?

The sheep’s hooves!

To make the hoof prints, I glued a coffee bean to an eraser and used it like a rubber stamp.

Eat cake! Draw sheep! Bloom!

Have fun hopping to the next post about The Art of Wild Abandonment on the wonderful blog of Janet Terrien Bracewell. I love her art journal!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog. :)

A huge thank you to Junelle and Christy for teaching the Art of Wild Abandonment. It was a really fun e-course!
And Thank You to Clairesmillie for coordinating this bloghop!

One last pic – my owls.

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I am Creatively Made

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in art, drawing, Inspirational, painting

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

art, canvas, creativity, Jeanne Oliver, mixed media, painting, ziegfeld girls

I am Creatively Made.

I first read a promo for the online class last year. I was not familiar with mixed media and had never drawn more than a few scribbles. The only art supply I owned was a box of acrylic paints and some dried up watercolor tubes. I never had a sketchbook or worked with graphite pencils, charcoal, stencils, gel medium, or gesso before. But I was driven to sign up for the course anyway. Sometimes you just know that you know that you’re supposed to walk a new path. I was driven.

So I signed up for Creatively Made by Jeanne Oliver. Everyone else had already begun by the time I signed up several weeks late. I didn’t sign up for art classes, I signed up because I desperately wanted to hear someone say it’s ok to be creative and to pour your life into it.

Jeanne’s words over the next several weeks opened my eyes to a whole new perspective, a new way to interpret life. I always thought that my interest in art and crafts was just a hobby, something I loved to do on the side of life. But what if that is WHY I was made? What if making art WAS exactly why I was made, 100% pure Julia, with a paintbrush in one hand, a pencil in the other and a dining room table covered with art supplies, canvases, sewing machine and fabric? What if the best part of me that God put together when he knit me together in my mother’s womb was to create art with my hands?

I was not able to complete the art assignments when everyone else was doing them because my eyes were usually too covered with tears. Instead of a paintbrush, I practiced holding truth in one hand and a tissue in the other. It felt good. It felt right. It felt like oxygen.

I’m still grappling with this huge revelation. Where have I been the past 50 years? How could I have thought that something so essential to my being was just a hobby?

So here goes.

This week I finished another project from Creatively Made.

Suzanne, Donna and Julia canvases - three creative souls. Sketches inspired by a Ziegfeld Girls coloring book from 1941. Click photo to see a larger image.


The background is created from bits of tissue copies of my grandmother’s handwritten recipes and an issue of The Household magazine from 1924. The images of women are inspired from a Ziegfeld Girl coloring book that my beautiful, creative mom colored back in 1941. The writing on each piece is a tribute to my creative sisters – she Smiled, for Suzanne; she Dreamed, for Donna; and she Journeyed, for me, Julia, the only sister who moved away and stayed.

Detail of one of the canvases.

I lift a glass in toast to Jeanne Oliver, who followed her heart and made a path for others. I lift a glass in toast to my creatively made sisters, Donna and Suzanne. And I toast my beautiful mom, Lauretta Musser, who never stopped being creative.

My next canvas will have these words: Never Give Up.

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Drawing hands

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by juliamonroe in art, drawing, Inspirational

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

art, drawing, hands, paper, rock, scissors

I’m taking an art course online, Make Something Beautiful, taught by Teresa Sheeley and Kayla Johnson. I was a little nervous about it because we will be drawing people, you know the real live ones. I’ve never drawn living tissue in my life! So last night, I finally attempted the assignment of drawing my hand. I could barely sleep from excitement last night. I’ve never tried drawing anything so detailed. And living!

Rock, Paper, Scissors - Simple drawings of my left hand - click photo to see a larger image

I’ve often told people they have hidden talents. It never occurred to me that I might have one. Really, I’m in my mid 50′s. How hidden can something be at my age? ;) You never know until you try. And the only reason I’ve never tried is I expected to fail. Decades of expecting to fail at drawing. Until last night and then I found out I didn’t fail. So decades were wasted.

My last thought last night was this:
If God makes you a songbird, SING.
If God makes you an artist, MAKE THINGS.
Whatever gifts you have inside, find them and use them. They won’t go away, they are waiting for you. Even for decades.

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