Altered book - last spread

Here's the last spread of the altered board book I am creating for CCC as part of my artist-in-resident program.

I'm working on the cover and back cover - to come!

Happy New Year

As it turns out I opened a brand-new moleskin heavy-weight paper journal for 2009. (My journals rarely begin/end with the calendar year) I love these books - smooth, ivory paper that takes ink, markers and the occassional ticket or scrap of paper glued into it, and of course, a rubber stamp or two, my favorite.

The journal has reflections, thoughts, and also a list of wishes/desires for the new year. I'll share two with you: I want to learn more about making my blog more appealing and discover new ways to approach my art. Most of my energy goes into my "paper" journals, so I have to save some time for my "blog journaling". My creative issue: fight that never-ending voice in my head: "is this art appealing? am I moving forward? how do I advance beyond doing the "same thing"?"

Yesterday a student shared her journal with me. It was incredible! She took her first class with me in November and she's filled a journal already-- with her own style and own wishes/dreams/desires. Made me very happy to see her enjoy the process and hope that I helped to inspire a new love of journaling for her! Thanks for the inspiration, Rae Ann.

Ah-oh, it's December 31st

December 31 is always a day of reflection for me, but as many of us, I tend to look at what I didn't get accomplished in the past year - or look around at what others have done and say, wow! I didn't get to that. I refused to think that way this Dec 31st and got out my journal (the one that has more writing than art, I have many different types of journals, as you know). I decided to write about the things that I was grateful for in 2008 before writing my list of new year's resolutions. As it turned out, I filled 3 journal pages with things I am grateful for that happened in 2008. I won't be listing them here, but will let you know that starting this blog was one of them!

Altered board book - YEARS spread

Here's the spread on the "YEARS" page. I'm experimenting with the best way to photograph these pages. I prefer to scan my artwork, but this book is too large and too thick. The heart is cut out of the page, so you see me dancing thru the heart window, and when you turn the page you see me in the tree thru the heart window. More to come ...

Altered board book - YEARS page

Here's a sneak peek of the next completed page for CCC's altered board book. The photo can be seen thru the cut heart-window...to come! By-the-way, my dad took this photo of me sitting in a tree on the Cedar Crest College campus over 30 years ago!

Bird pages for Caryl

I had to interrupt the making of the altered book - and switch to completing pages for my round robin project. Caryl's theme is birds/nests. I still had the theme of the altered book in my head, so this idea spilled onto Caryl's pages, as well. Try it. Take a theme and create as many different looks as you can!

CCC - Altered book "wonder" page

Still working backwards: the first spread of the CCC Altered Book, "I hope you dance". (Recognize the bubblewrap printing?) The egg nest is a transparency - hard to photograph well.