Green Pepper Press Street Team - Crusade #53

This month's GPP Street Team theme is Mad Scientist - when playing around with paint we often get mixes of color we love. These are old journal pages that started out with a fall color background with leaves stamped on it, but it looked too "cheesy" for me. The page sat there for months, then one hot summer day I covered it all with some red paint and got all these shades of pink, orange and peach! The heart tag was from a Lynn Perrella sheet and I extended the paint onto map pages - one of my favorite techniques. I call this color: summer heat.

A more recent page is shown below. For the background on the right hand page, I used ochre ink and then layered with violet chalk ink and then finally some fresco cream glaze. I love the colors created here - which I would call golden glow and warm violet! I used a watercolor crayon to accent the cut-out heart.

Join the crusade at:

http://michelleward.typepad.com/how_cool_is_that/

Vacation mini journal

I never journal on vacation, because I don't know how to travel with my "stuff". This year I was determined to try it. So, I pulled out a mini journal I bought years ago and placed it in a plastic container with a few markers, watercolor pencils, a waterbrush, and some paper scraps from my art table. Then threw in 3 rubber stamps, some "cat's eyes" pigment ink pads and some rub-on letters. I am studying the five principles of Japanese reiki (a scrap on my table)- so these were included as well. I had to use what I had!

Here are a few of my favorite pages on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancingdrgnfly/5919681862/in/set-72157627155178820/

When I returned from vacation, I was inspired to purchase a pink "CRAFTSMAN" bag that I found. I love it - now I can take my journaling anywhere!

Koi in the pond

For fourth of July, Jay and I visited his family in the Poconos. It's a beautiful location in the woods with a beautiful pond. Many years ago Jay put seven koi in the pond. We've watched them grow over the past seven years - stunning colors of orange, white and black can be seen slowing swimming around the pond. Today, however, the largest, most brilliant orange koi died. We sensed something was wrong with him over the weekend. I started this journal page in the mountains (before I even knew he was sick!) and finished today in his honor.