Isn't She Lovely

When I think of Frida, I see rich colors. Deep blue, bright orange, sunny yellow, lime green, fushia, terra cotta....

My mother is the one who introduced me to Frida. After that, I was hooked on her art and story. A future artventure of mine is to assemble a book of some kind that pays tribute to Frida by using vibrant colors as well as altered photos of my favorite artist. File this under near future.

Chinese Artventures

"Gung Hay Fat Choy!" In honor of Chinese New Year I've posted pics from The Asian Chronicles - a workshop I once taught. The accordion book was painted in Sunset Gold Lumiere paint and embellished with ephemera gathered from a summer jaunt in China Town. I love pouring through the little dark over crowded shops looking for found treasures. Yes, I always feel like a tourist in a foreign country when I'm there. So much culture and so much to bring back home.

ChaChaChaChanges

Whether you like it or not, change happens. We can't help the aging process that it brings about. I don't want to go back to being a kid cause I'm happy where I'm at now. Even if I looked better 20 or 30 years ago, I'm glad change has happened to me regardless of my age. I'm saddened though at the change that comes about with aging parents. I still see them the same as when they stood tall and strong and I didn't have to repeat myself twenty times until they got it or heard it. LOL! It isn't until I look at old family pictures that the change kind of aches. The strong man that could once crouch down and get up without blinking in pain now needs a cane and forget about crouching. Are you crazy?! LOL! Yeah, that's the kind of change I can wait on or do without. In the meantime, if I can still walk fast, remember my name and where I live, see well enough not to kiss the wrong person, and clean and powder my coochie without any help, I'm doing A-OK no matter what kind of change I'm going through!

Seven Artveturous Day Left In January!

Where has this month gone? No wonder I can't get anything done. There isn't enough time in the day for my artventures which makes me feel guilty for those three faithful viewers who may look for me. Maybe one now. LOL! Well, here I am with one page I worked on this week! Click on the page if you want to do some serious reading! LOL!

Notice how blue this page is compared to the ones above? Same page, different look. It all has to do with when I shoot the pics. If I get home too late in the day and loose the natural light, I'm out of luck. Turning off the flash to avoid glare is my other option but the color takes on a different shade. I'll share some more pages I played with this week, tomorrow. Trying to stay true to my artful resolution of squeezing in a little art each week - at least three times! I'm finding it a little challenging this week due to work issues. Read all about it soon!

Best Foot Forward!

Here it is the weekend already and I'm ready to put my best foot forward in my artventures. In the meantime, here's a look at a couple pages from the past. I've found that in my visual journaling attempts, sometimes one word is all I need to tell it all and at other times, well, the words just don't stop! LOL!

Journal Artventuring

Even though I haven't been attacking the pages of my plain journal with loads of color and words each and every day, I've made it a point to MAKE it happen at least three times a week. This way I don't feel like I HAVE to. No better feeling like "HAVING" to do something, right? And to prove that you don't really need a journal to write into, I've put up a photo of a large 8 x 4 tag which I wrote on the back of. I taught a workshop a couple years ago where we arted up eight tags and the backs where left blank for journaling.

All of my big tags get painted several times, stamped and then a woman is placed on front of each one. I give each tag a name. The one above is "Seamstress for the Band" so it was only natural for me to write about my sewing experience in high school. I even glued a picture from the yearbook that showed me actually getting down with the machine! LOL! I was a nervous wreck.

I was inspired to write about my eating habits while cutting out coupons. It doesn't take much to get me going once the light bulb goes on! The words "Start Right - End Right" were my inspiration. You just never know what you'll find when flipping the pages of the coupon flyer!

Self Portrait Artventure

So much for my self-portrait effort. LOL! I may give it another try later. But for now, I'll have to settle for the one eyed woman. I have to confess. There are two eyeballs behind the big one but they were too close together and one pupil was actually larger than the other one. LOL! Now that I think about it, I'll skip giving it another try. I'm actually kind of happy with this one-eyed chick. LOL!


I did learn a couple things about my self-portrait attempt. 1. I need darker shades of flesh tone paints. 2. I should practice making curly hair. This is the kind of hair I wanted when I was in high school but now as an adult I'm quite happy with my au natural curly hair.

When it comes to self-portraits Frida is undoubtedly the best. Her art SCREAMED! It hollered PAIN! PASSION! SORROW! BASTARD!

The background on this journal page was created a couple years ago. Images were glued down in place and painted over. Stamped images were added. The Frida art below is a copy of a postcard I made for a Dia de Los Muertos swap I participated in.

New Beginnings

This type of weather is just the kind of "push" I need to get my "journal" game going. LOL! Only in Southern CA you can still find orange leaves clinging to branches.

It helps that my journal pages are pre-painted so that all I have to do is stamp or collage away.

This page looks are glared out but it's actually a buff color's shadow giving it that ghostly look. Love those number stamps by Limited Edition.

Here's the finished spread. It took 2 years to finally put something on it. The birds are stencils that we used in Kelly's workshop.

Past Journals Revisited

These pages are from a visual journal I assembled in one of Kelly Kilmer's class. If you ever take one of her classes you are in for a treat! She is extremely generous and does not believe in cutting corners when it comes to her class. LOL! Go to her blog cause she's doing an online course right now!

Journaling can be a form of therapy. I've suffered from anxiety attacks and more than once I was able to vent on my pages in an artful way. It's hard for others to understand the emotional roller coaster and fear that's experienced during an attack unless they've been there so rather than share it with others, it all went in my journal. It didn't stop future attacks from occurring but it helped to calm me down.

I found an article about letting your dreams happen and it all hit home. I had to glue bits of it into my journal. Another magazine with holes. LOL! My eyes are always open to interesting text to use in my journal. I like to "spring" my own comments off each bit.

I don't always use pics from an article or collaged images. Sometimes items around the house make interesting subjects and lead the way to a journal entry. In this case, my outdoor bench. Doesn't it make you wanna take a seat?

Although I'm not an exercise nut, I recently had an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of Yoga. Meet Gina, my yoga instructor. She's actually my daughter and my body felt altered afterwards! In a good way. LOL! We're also going to try Tae-Bo! Now THAT I'm really looking

forward to. She was showing me some of her moves! Don't have a pic of that. LOL!!

Journaling Artventures

Cutting words and phrases from magazines to use in my journals became a regular habit of mine. I found the best words came from rock music magazines. Very expressive.

If I found interesting images, I'd tear them out and save them in a giant envelope. My entries were anything from personal experiences to worldly issues.

This page is the beginning of my new journal. Don't know where it'll take me. Don't know what's to come but I'm ready. It's a little dark due to lack of daytime light.


I used to be really good about working in my journal every few days. Believe me, with my schedule, every few days was great. My eyes were trained to scan magazine pages for words, phrases, letters, and numbers that would be utilized for my visual journaling. I even wrote a tutorial for a group I once belonged to on how to get started on journaling. Then I let life get in the way and I stopped. I've dug up a blank journal and I'm going to start creating entries as often as I can. It may not be daily, but it'll definitely get done.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Friends! What's your resolution for 2009? More art? Less food?

Making art seems to come more naturally during the summer months when I have free time from work. I can create all night without lack of sleep issues. My mind is clear of "job" clutter making it easier for me to focus on exciting artventures.

If I were to choose a resolution, it would be to get back into my visual art journaling. For some reason it got put on life's back burner. It was something I enjoyed doing and I don't know why I stopped. Oh yeah, the back burner.

I'll try hard to do some visual journaling. In the meantime, I'll make time for a little art each day.