Art Journal Every Day ~ May 23, 2014

i have some art journaling pages today.
and words~! ;-)
during the last few months i have managed to art journal on most days.
i definitely prefer working on the fabric art pages lately.  they take much more time but i'm enjoying the work as well as the finished pages.
 
with this in mind i made the decision to leave the Journal52 "highway" and enjoy my "scenic side road" of fabric art pages instead.   i like being able to take my time and allow the 'work' to progress intuitively and organically as i experiment with ideas and techniques on the fabric pages. this makes them generally too slow to make keeping up with the Journal52 project enjoyable.

 

remember this one 'in progress'?
btw: that's a bit of a tea bag there behind that moon.
many possibilities for sure~!


i continue to surprise myself as i enjoy the art quilting more than i ever thought i would.

traditional bed quilts are wonderful and i still enjoy making them and sleeping under them and even decorating with them but these small art quilt pages have captured my imagination in a whole new and unexpected way.

this fabric page was the result of a Journal52 prompt (found poetry). i extracted words from an old book on how to pay less taxes . . . i enjoyed the finished poem and the irony of it.
i also used this page for experimenting with using cheesecloth as a base for some improvisational weaving. i LOVE the results and am now thinking of creating some soft yet bright curtains for the long side windows by my front door as well as one for the window in the front door itself using this technique. i have another example of this experimentation on one of the postcards in a previous post.

this simple page is a further experiment in weaving. this time using leftover skinny strips of fabrics combined with stitching.
lots of possibilities here as well.

this page is the result of a few very small scraps of my own hand dyed fabrics with an inclusion of a batik that i liked (the spiral printed pieces).
i enjoyed using different weights of thread as well as varying the stitch lengths. i see that quilting can be so much more than just a small running stitch in fine thread . . . not quite embroidery but definitely some complexity to add interest within certain spaces . . .

on this page i have stitched a combination of fabric and paper and will likely do more of that over time. i also used that hand made turtle stamp that i made a while back. it's a fun stamp and i enjoy using it.

 

 



i have enough fabric pages now that i am beginning to  look at ways to combine them and bind them into a book . . . i will have more to show on that stage of my fabric art journal soon.

 

 

i also have this more traditional art journaling page from march (right before i made the decision to leave the Journal52 project). i was feeling overwhelmed by many things when i created it.

funny how our feelings can come out in the creative process. i was really struggling but thankfully there's humor here too.

i reused the front side of a windowed envelope as my 'page' placing the gecko behind the window.

 

i will continue to work with paper, glue and scissors but for the now i'm enjoying the slow (thoughtfully) stitched fabric page.

 

 

 

i hope to join up with Art Journal Every Day today.
  
     


recent gifts include:

• several truly memorable days spent with my gracious daughter in her home
• time at the edge of the pond consulting the goldfish and freshening it up for the summer season (current spring counts: big fish =14/small fish=3/no sign of tiniest ones from the fall . . . yet . . .)
• many blossoms despite some frosts
• the gift of an incomplete needlework/needlepoint project and a lesson on how to complete it