Midori Traveler's Notebook-style notebook cover

I was given a piece of leather (I don't know what type of leather it is) - it is soft, thin, creased and a bit worn. I love that it looks like it has had a bit of a life already!



So, I made it into a Midori-style notebook cover for my brother for Christmas. And then I made a video about it - of course!

From rubbish to useful - an experiment in re-use

I decided to make a book out of paper bags:

 and here is how I used my new book:

This page opened out into a pocket that I could  put photos, tickets, tags etc into (see below)

there is stitching along the seams and outer edge to create pockets

It's hard to see, but I tapped in a clear plastic page here - it was resused from a package

I stitched a torn book page and red striped ribbon to the flap of an envelope for some added interest

Here I tapped in a postcard and journaled on the other side. The left hand page opens out into a pocket that I inserted ephemera into from our outing (see below)

This is the pocket page opened out

Here I attached a pocket to put photos into and tapped in an envelope to put our ephemera into

Reverse of the tapped -in envelope 

This is an envelope that I opened up along the glued edges so that it could open up to become a big journaling spread

Inside I tapped a post card into the envelope to make it into a kind of book in a book

My beautiful blessings loved my book, so I made one each with them and for them.

Amazingly, I still have heaps of paper bags.

I have to exercise immense self control NOT to collect more.

Argh!

The joys of genetic hoarding.

Moleskin (art) journal pages

Creativity Likje a Flower

Flower Doodle Sketch

Garden Care

My Sonshine (unfinished)

Don't be anxious

Wallart doodle

Listen

Think! sketch

A bit of recent creativity

I made an advent calendar with my blessings.

I was inspired to make an advent calendar with my blessings this year, and then went and secretly stuffed it with all kinds of things...

Each day of December has a bible reading leading to the birth of Jesus - the reason that we celebrate Christmas.

Most days have an activity suggestion, like: look at Christmas lights; drink hot chocolate; donate some toys to charity; give some baked treats to a neighbour etc.

And then the 'gift' inside has to do with the activity suggestion. i.e. drink hot chocolate has mini marshmallows inside.

After decorating all the bags and boxes I hung them over a dead tree branch from our yard that I had twisted fairy lights around. I hung bits of sphagnum moss over it, some baubles and ribbon.

The kids LOVE opening it each morning, listening to the bible story unfold and following through on the daily suggestion.

And I'm having fun with it, too!

related and complimentary colour schemes

ARGH! The pain with the man-made designs continues! At the time we were studying related and complimentary colour schemes, so we were given the task of painting one of our designs (or a part of it) in both a related and comp colour scheme.

OK, so it wasn't that bad! I LOVE painting. I had fun doing it.

I chose one of my whimsical designs and then one of my abstract designs.

This is my related colour scheme - I have to say that it looks better in person! I used pointilism to paint the background - it took me ages!!!! The effect was worth it though. The mounted scales represent the related colour scheme as the complimentary colour scheme, which follows:

When I did the top version, I altered the brown a little to experiment with the effect. My teacher encouraged me to mount both versions in my portfolio. The bottom version includes cyan to compliment the mid orange of my original scheme. I frankly ran out of time to paint it in the pointilism method, so I just painted it. Perhaps I'll go back and redo it using pointilism - but then again, I probably won't!

Some design processes

Next on the list we some design processes that we applied to a chosen man-made object.

Given my fascination of old things and keys I chose an old key.

Firstly I created a line drawing of our object

Then I created varying sizes of it.

After that using a bunch of cheats techniques, I created a whole bunch of different designs based on my old key. My designs ranged from semi-abstract, to abstract, to completely whimsical.

I have to admit that while I enjoyed the process of doing this, I really did not enjoy the exercise as a whole!

Here are the designs that made it into my portfolio:

semi-abstract

semi-abstract

The black of my pics does not translate well on the computer!

abstract

abstract

Coming up next are my whimsical designs - once again I was the only one to come up with whimsical designs to match this brief. My brain is just a little quirky.

 I got good marks for this one, which made the pain of doing this whole exercise worthwhile! If you are reading right to the end of this, sorry for boring you! This is the part of my portfolio that I comment least on.

looking through a monochromatic window

I got a bit ahead of myself and forgot to post this assignment...

Going back to greyscale, here is the assignment attached to the greyscale assessment (the one with the greyscale tool):

The brief was to create a neutral collage, with only black white and grey.

It was harder than I thought!

White is not really white!

I used:

• dictionary pages
• white pages pages
• an old add for whitening face cream (yes, it's a real add!), 
• more of my spotted ribbon
• I cropped a photo and printed it onto canvas
• printed acetate
• chipboard window frame (2 stuck together for dimension with the acetate sandwiched in between),
• graphite
• gouache
• sharpie
• rub-ons

ummm.... I can't think of anything else.... I very much enjoyed making this collage -I continued in my desire to create it using only what I had on hand (mostly recycled and discarded stuff). I was happy with it when it was done. Once again, mine was completely different from everyone else's! I'm sure most people feel this way - when I put my work up with everyone else's and mine is way out of the box by comparison it makes me feel a little nervous. I asked myself questions like this: "Did I miss something in the brief?" "Am I way off base?" I got great feedback, though, so even though I felt a little concerned at first I walked away feeling good about it again. Makes me realise that even though I like to think that I am happy with my work because I did it, because I am true to myself etc etc blah blah, approval from my teachers is still really important to me.

On reflection, I do think that the add needs a black frame around it, to give it better balance...