Rhythm Painting To The Stroke by Billy Squier

I was listening to The Stroke by Billy Squier and did a watercolor painting of the music. The long strokes were my fingers strumming through the wet paint.

Rhythm Painting To Doing Everything With You by Chuck Mangione

I was painting the song Dog Days Are Over with an ink stick and brush; I needed to grind more ink and this song followed on my iPod. I was entranced by the music so I cleaned up the ink, I swear I have no idea how it splattered behind me, and got out the watercolors.

Friends Don’t Care If You Are A Little Different

The gulls on Sanibel Island were watching me in case I had any more bagels or Tootsie Rolls, the other bird left to grab some crabs.

Vinegar Painting on a Chimney Cupboard

We made a chimney cupboard from a pattern found in Country Living.

I wanted to give it an outrageous finish so we painted it with vinegar paint.

It was pretty messy so we did it the driveway with an audience of neighbors trying to figure out what they heck we were up to this time.

I base coated the cabinet and sanded the painted surface after it dried. Vinegar paint is made from vinegar, sugar or syrup (for adhesion), liquid dish soap (an emulsifier), and powdered tempera paint. It's a negative painting process and dries very quickly so my husband painted on the vinegar paint and I combed through it. If you make a mistake the paint is very soluble so you can paint over it and do it again. I finished it with by spraying on Matte Fixative after the paint was dry.

Painted Cheese Box Sewing Box

I bought some wooden cheese boxes from a local deli. I painted this one with a knitting and sewing motif; I'll use it to store thread and needles.

Emphasis and Proportion Drawing

I recently had an a rather interesting assignment; make a design by tracing 3 objects, 5 numbers, and 3 lines. They would be fun to turn into pop-art style paintings.

The Day After My Birthday

OK, I didn't party to point where someone slipped a toe tag on my foot while I slept; but it is a funny drawing.

The Remainder Of The Sanibel Island Vacation Drawings

I brought 2 bagels today but the gulls went crazy as soon as they saw me; these fellas are definitely not bird brained. I ran out of bagels almost instantly and fed them tootsie rolls that my daughter had tossed in my bag. I don't think they had tootsie rolls before since they followed me along the beach until we left.
























Another beach location.
























We went to Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. I have camera envy after seeing the lenses that the bird photographers have. Osprey are everywhere. Almost every tall pole has a nesting platform that volunteers take care of.

























The Anhinga love to sit with their wings spread, warming themselves in the sun. I read they stab fish with their long, sharp beaks.
























The White Ibis seem to be standing in every fresh water source. They are huge and as plentiful as ducks are here.

























This was our favorite meal out; the ambiance was fun and I loved trying alligator.

























Bryce liked the Polo style shirt, I was a fan of the tag. The hole had a grommet which I removed since it was so darn thick to leave inside a sketchbook.

























The last day we went to Lovers Key Beach, Bonita Springs, Naples, the Everglades and our favorite part, Alligator Alley. We saw a lot of wild alligators which was awesome. To get to Alligator Alley we drove through a Panther Reserve with very high fences but we didn't see any Panthers. We drove a lot the last day since almost everything was closed.

























The only restaurants we found open were some fast food places and Perkins. I know there must be some others but they hid well; I think I know why the airport food court was packed.

Collecting Sand

We collect sand from all the places we travel to and these are the most recent. The sand is from beaches on Sanibel Island, Captiva, Fort Meyers Beach and Lovers Beach in Florida.

We normally put the sand in bottles that we cork with shells, rocks or coral. I had these bottles that held cocktail mix and they had handy screw top closures.

Ikea used to carry a wonderful decorative bottle that I can't find anywhere any more so I'm back to searching for bottles again.






















These are some of the Ikea bottles.

Bed Manners Art Journal

I bought the book Bed Manners and Better Bed Manners for the humorous cover, left it on the floor and my dog attacked the spine; I think she needs to work on her manners. It's a good thing I wanted to cut the cover off since she destroyed the spine in seconds. You can see a little of her handiwork in the lower left corner.

Backwards Potted Tree Artist Journal Ink Drawing

I'm a little obsessed lately with odd plants and this one was a fun doodle. I like that the base is at the top of the page and the upper tendrils are found below.

Dracaena Blossoms

Last night we met in the living room, wondering what the sudden stench was that filled the house and was becoming stronger by the minute.

Our Dracaena bloomed; the scent was so strong we had to clip the flowers off but we could actually see the blooms open and the smell became stronger with every tiny blossom.

I did some research and the plant would have continued to bloom over the next 3-7 evenings. It should bloom now twice a year, provided we don't make changes.

The smell was similar to night blooming Jasmine but it was too intense for a home that was closed up for winter.

Art Journal Page Wild Turkey, Lunch and Beer Label Design

It was -11 degrees yesterday morning without the wind chill. The neighbor's garage door had partially frozen in place so only half of the door opened and the garage had a crooked grin all day.

We went to lunch at Don Pablos, I had a chimichanga, guacamole, Spanish rice and corn cake. On the way home we saw a giant wild turkey. He was lunching on bird seed while his girlfriends huddled near a house.

I finished the third version of my beer label, yay!

Kakau Hawaiian Pineapple Ale Third Draft

I went back to the sun version of the turtle shell and made a temporary tattoo that is tied to the bottle with raffia. The directions for how to apply the tattoo are on the back of the tag and the image is backwards so that when it is used the name will be correct. I couldn't directly attach the tattoo to the bottle since it is moisture activated.

I occasionally sell things online and and include a value added item when I ship. People like receiving something extra and a temporary tattoo is fun while increasing the product's exposure.

















I need to pack this up for final critique and arrange for a proper photograph.

Kakau Hawaiian Pineapple Ale Second Draft

The pale ale morphed into pineapple ale; I know I'd try it if I saw it on a menu.

I redid the neck band to resemble a tattoo that would band around a surface and the spirals still have a water feel without being so obvious.

I played around with making my own font. The A has the repeating lines that are so prevalent and the K uses the popular chevron pattern. I like the font but it seems a little hard and not as friendly as the first choice.

It was helpful to make a mock-up and I like the new curved label much better. The legal and required text run vertically on both sides of the label.












I missed the friendly, laid back, K so I tried other versions in Illustrator, these are only a few of the experiments. The small "a" with a hibiscus was very Hawaiian but repeating the same "a" was too much. I remembered buying items with the long "a" so it seemed like a good solution that was also visually interesting.

Kakau Hawaiian Pale Ale Packaging First Draft

I've been designing a label for a class and decided to do a Hawaiian beer. I did several sketches of different Hawaiian images such as longboards, palm trees, whale flukes, manta rays, etc but I kept going back to sea turtles.

Sea turtles swim all around the islands but we got to see them while snorkeling off Black Rock in Maui. I wanted to incorporate sea turtles but there is already a beer in Fiji that uses a petroglygh type label.

Traditional Hawaiian tattoos use patterns similar to an art form called Zentangles and I thought it would be fun to adapt that into a label. The background uses a photograph of sea foam that I took in Florida and altered in Photoshop and Illustrator. The image of the turtle was inspired by a photo I took of the sea turtles at Xcaret.

I didn't care for the repeated turtle on the neck label and the label shape seemed a little rigid for such an organic illustration.

Hats At The Uptown DIner

I tried sketching a man at the Uptown Diner while there with my daughter but he had better radar than most. I decided to draw all the hats I saw.

I hadn't realized that they were all somewhat similar until the Chicago Rams knit cap came in.

How To Make A Wire Bound Art Journal From An Old Book Tutorial

I like making art journals from old books so here are directions on how to do it. I wanted one with black paper but I usually use acid free drawing paper or watercolor paper. Carefully cut the front and back cover off with a razor blade.































Trim the covers with a paper cutter. You don't want to cut through the thickest part, only cut along it.
















Measure the trimmed book cover. This one is 8.5" x 5 3/8".
















The paper should be smaller than the cover and life is easier if the bound edge of the paper is cut to the closest 1/2". Cutting the paper in half inch increments simplifies putting the holes in since you don't need to do any crazy adjusting. I cut the paper 8" x 5".
















Don't try cutting too many sheets at one time on the paper cutter since you want a nice, crisp line.
















What it looks like stacked up.
















Punch holes using a book binding machine. You can find them online and there is a craft version called Cinch that does a very nice job. The Cinch is strong enough to punch through a book cover but do it slowly since it's a lot for a craft machine to do.
















Now you need to make the holes in the cover. Adjust the binding machine to take into account the book cover being longer. It's a good idea to test the settings with a scrap piece of paper since you don't want to have to toss the cover because it was punched incorrectly.
















You need to punch the back cover so that the end papers are facing up. If you try punching the holes with the back cover facing up it's likely that the front and back cover will not match up. It would be a good idea to test this one as well with scrap paper to ensure a proper fit.
















Count the number of punched holes and trim the wire to the desired length; cutting where shown.
















Put the sheets of paper onto the wire.
















Place the cover on top, facing up.
















Put the back cover on top of the other layers. The end paper needs to be facing up to ensure the closed wire edge is on the inside of the back cover. You'll flip the book to the correct position after the wire is crimped.
















Shift the paper to the center of the wire binding.
















Slowly crimp the binding wire using the binding machine. I like to flip the book after crimping and do it again on the other side. I have a tendency to push harder on one side than the other and this ensures a nice even crimp. Make sure the center of the binding wire remains in the center of the press or it will become lopsided. You might want to practice with a wire scrap.

Flip the book covers to the normal position and if you did everything correctly the crimped edge is next to the inside of the back cover.






















Voila, you are ready to journal.