working small

 

Steve's drawings now live in my journal

 

I find myself returning to my small moleskine journal, again & again, page after page! The 3.5" x 5.5" size means it does not take a lot of time to complete a spread and it is fun to do. While I was gone in Boston Steven surprised me by drawing a cartoon of our cat Lightning, scanning it & emailing it to me! Steven is an excellent cartoonist and it was such a treat to receive this when we were apart. It made me laugh!! When I got home I framed the original drawing, as you'll see below.  I also found his "practice" drawings in my studio and decided to incorporate them into my moleskine journal. I so love this!

 

Steven's cartoon of Lightning 

 
 
 

 I used StencilGirl's small Corrugated Lines stencil with a sponge and acrylic paint to make a background for the sketches, then added blue watercolor crayon. I added one old rubber stamp I have of a sleeping cat that reminds me of Lightning to balance out the drawings for an even number. Then I used both a Bic "wite out" pen and a black Ohto Graphic Liner to doodle some designs on top of the page. I am so pleased with this!! Love having Steve's sketches in here.

Next I used luggage stickers and plane ticket receipts to cover a set of pages that I had also used the corrugated lines stencil on. I did not take a photo, but this was originally mostly black and white. I sprayed various inks/dyes over the travel stickers including some white color shine by Heidi Swapp. The pages stayed like that for a day, but when I returned to work again, I decided to add 2 more stickers I found, plus a thin layer of paper napkin saved from the gathering Steve & I went to on Sunday night. 

 
 

I like this look even better, once I added the paper napkin's leaves and flowers. I did that adding by brushing gel medium on both sides, so that the napkin would dissolve into the background. I like that it is a reminder of my end of September trip (see the SRQ and US AIRWAYS stickers) and that I used the cocktail napkin from Jim & Ann's party!  I still have a few more pages to share, but I will end here for now and return later to share them. :o)

I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
— Joseph Campbell