Come to Winter PLAY!

So last sunday, I finally got a mini lesson in polymer clay from Tracy so I could help teach it at our Winter PLAY retreat this january.  He used to teach this class in cleveland and everyone would leave thrilled with what they made.  I'll admit to a dislike of polymer clay (sculpey/fimo) but this left me wanting to play with it more...ALOT more!  I experimented with using a resin that Tracy recently learned about from Susan Lenart-Kazmer.  You can't see it here but the eyes are filled with resin as well as the background.  It is a really cool medium that we'll be playing around with at the retreat.  Anyway...this will eventually become a book cover that is coptic bound (another technique that will be taught at PLAY).  The size  is roughly 6x6.

This was what Tracy was making while teaching me.  You really can't tell from these pictures but the pieces look like they are molded from metal.  It's SO cool!

He was playing around with making a pen to journal with when he is out.  Anyway...at our Winter PLAY retreat, we create from 9am-midnight for 3 straight days.  We will be showing how to make this type of stuff along with our daughter, Tiphoni, who will be teaching self portraits with watercolor and I'll be giving a mini lesson on journaling to anyone who wants to watch.  We always set up our airbrushing station for anyone to use and will have molds galore to play with for the polymer clay creations.  At our retreats, we always share a bunch of new stuff we are currently excited about too.  It is such a fantastic time of just making stuff non-stop.  We always look forward to it.

We currently have about 15 spots left that we would love to fill.  We have both shared rooms and private rooms in the big officers houses.  

lettering video #2

lettering video #2

lettering video #1

lettering video #1

I decided to just add a link to the youtube video because it is a little bigger and easier to see than when I embed it here.  These aren't the best videos.  I did them at night...not my best time of day. 

my boom

In Japan, it is hip to say "My boom is....(and then insert what you're into at the moment)".  SO, my boom is masking tapes.  These all come from Japan and I have just recently started playing with them.  Look for MT tapes...that is the brand.  They are slightly see through and I will be doing a video on using them soon.  Certainly NOT something you need but if these look like your cup of tea, you might want to search some out.

of course you can find colored masking tapes around here too... I don't collect too much but I seem to be obsessed with tapes lately.

and lastly forgot to mention (below) that I love these derwent coloursoft colored pencils.  I can definitely live without them in my journaling but I do love to play with them many times too.  They also do a good job of shading (like the pan pastels) but you can't always use fine line pens or gel pens over the top of them.

journaling materials - misc.

So, the woman behind these PanPastels emailed me after stumbling across my video where I used them.  Come to find out, her company is just her and her husband who do it all.  I was thrilled because I love to support smaller, non corporate companies.  I really think their product is cool and am excited to use them more in my paintings and other ways.  Anyway...each color comes in a tint and a shade and a regular.  After I had bought 2 or 3 singly, I purchased the whole set of "shade" colors and really like them best for what I do in my journal.  I really haven't found much use for the lighter colors, but am sure I will one of these days.

This used to be, hands down, my favorite journaling medium.  Caran D'ache neocolor II's.  They are water soluble but I never use water with them (don't want to curl the edges of my collage).  I love the look of a good artist crayon and they go over everything!  I actually discovered the copic markers when I was looking for a pen that could go over crayons...and the sketch markers do so beautifully.  You would not want to use a fine line pen over the crayons, but they have a charm and an energy that does wonders for a page.

our waxed polyester thread we sell at www.teeshamoore.com.  One spool will last you a lifetime probably.  However...any waxed thread or cording would work for bookbinding.  this is just the best and it is a pleasure making art when you have good materials.  These are my 2 favorite colors!

journaling supplies - pens

copic markers (sketch).  I love them.  I know I said you can get them from our website but we haven't been able to get them up yet (I know...we're not good market-ers).  We sold them in sets at Journalfest.  We have one set of orange pink, yellow and red, one set of blues & greens, one set of all the jewel tones; deep red, deep blue, a dark olive and dark brown (good set to have) and the 4th set is all lighter but muted.  this set is really good for swirlies in the background.  Anyway...the sets are $24 each ...oh and we sell just black for $6.  should be up within a few days.

 
I love these pens but sharpie is discontinuing them.  I do think I have enough to last me well into old age however.  LOL.  I love all the colors and all the sizes.  Sharpie Poster Paint pens (get water based, not the oil based ones).

my first favorite white pen...uniball signo from japan.  I bought them at japanese stationary stores.  now I think you can do a search for them and find them.  They are still great and gives you a nice white line (although not quite as consistent as the sharpie poster paint fine line white...above).

other pens not shown would be moonlight gel pens, faber castell pitt superfine pens OR sharpie makes a superfine pen that's pretty decent.  

supplies for journaling-collage

This is my favorite adhesive but any similiar type of tape works just as well.  Yes, you will go through maybe 3 refills on one 16 page journal but the ease of use is well worth it.

I printed up a bunch of these reproductions of my journal pages a few years ago and still have a bunch so I thought I'd see if they worked good for cutting up.  They DO!  and I certainly don't mind you cutting them up and using them in your journaling either.  we sell them on www.teeshamoore.com.

and of course, we sell collage sheets too.  I used them exclusively to cover some block canvases show here.  Other sources of collage include copies of old journal pages, magazines of ALL kinds.  You should know that I do not buy a magazine based on how good it is for collage.  I buy ones that I like to read and then glean stuff from them.  Also, children's books (with good illustrations) that you might find on the bargain table or at thrift stores.  as well as other books at thrift stores.  vintage postcard shows provide some interesting images that you can enlarge (most are way past the copyright laws).  They usually have stashes of old photos as well behind their booths (you have to ask them).  wrapping papers at those beautiful places like www.paperstudio.com are always great too.

hold tight

If any of you are wondering where the lettering video is, we will get something up soon. Life is getting in the way right now. In the meantime, keep doing penwork in the form of dots, swirlies, circles, ...lots and lots of penwork. This is the part I didn't discuss and while I do alot of the journaling fast and furious, this is the part that I slow down with and be more meditative about. There is a wonderful blissfulness that comes from allowing your right brain to simply execute random marks while keeping your left brain out of it entirely. especially when you are listening to good music at the same time. don't have good music to draw to? Go to itunes, look for the artist, "Cell". Get "live at glade festival". it may not be my ultimate favorite but it is excellent.

ps...if you want examples of doodling, just look back at previous journal page posts and you will see it now that you are looking for it. OH...and I have so many ideas for more videos! check back in a few days.

penwork 4

penwork 3

penwork 2

penwork 1

collage 4 of 4

collage 3 of 4

collage 2 of 4

collage 1 of 4

white page journaling

first layer: paint

more videos coming soon

Tracy and I were so thrilled with the feedback I got on my first video that it got us jazzed to keep going with the journaling process.  Saturday morning I woke up and couldn't wait to get started.  Tracy was working on projects of his own so I decided to do it myself.  I went through the process which took about 3 hours and when I got all through with it I realized I didn't have the camera in the right spot and most of what I was showing was off camera.  Argh!  Lesson learned.  I was so bummed that I spent the rest of the day cleaning...and being in a bad mood.  Thankfully I woke up this morning back to my chipper self and tracy was willing to stand on a chair the entire time working the camera so we could document the journaling process.  We are playing around with some stuff based on some of the comments.  One of which is that we are uploading it to youtube in hopes that you can enlarge the screen, etc.  By the end of tonight, we should have a few more videos up on youtube if you do a search for my name.  We will post them here in the next few days as well.  This is all just experimenting and playing on our part but we are encouraged to do more.  Thanks for all the feedback.  I was in shock to see so many comments.  btw...the picture at the top was the result of the demo I did on saturday that didn't tape good.  it's unfinished.

how-to: 16 page journal

we did it!  we only bought a video camera 3 years ago to make videos on how we do stuff and finally just jumped in and did it....(I hope).  I'm posting this to see if it works and isn't too big, etc.