A day out

The school holidays has been great for chilling out and practicing some art. I have had a good go at week 2 and 3 of Lifebook. Week 2 was a start of the year affirmation from Micki Wilde. I have been doing her Paint Happy course as well, I just love her quirky little girls, so I decided to add one to my affirmation page so that it had a better composition for a double page spread.

I had such fun drawing her that I decided to draw one for a friend. 

This week was the last week the whole family was on holidays together. We decided to do a roadtrip up to Fingal Head to see the Giant's Causeway, a geological formation similar to one in Ireland. It was a great day but a bit too rough to climb down. However, the water was beautifully coloured and we saw two pods of dolphins and some eagle rays swimming by. We also stopped in at Lake Ainsworth, we all decided it would be a great place to bring the camper trailer (which we are trying to use more this year).

My Life Book 2014 Journal

I have put the book block together for my Life Book journal. It is going to be a case bound book because I am using the cover from an old novel. This is not a style of binding that I do regularly, I usually use coptic bound, longstitich or secret Belgian binding, all of which open to lie flat.

I think the novel cover and end papers are so nice, that I want to use the whole cover. The other reason that I love this cover for this particular project is that opening up the book is like looking inside of me.

The process I have used was to cut a bunch of different types of papers to the correct size and put them into signatures of between 2 and 4 sheets each. I have punched enough holes to sew them on to 3 tapes.

While I was sewing them onto the tapes, I dipped down to the previous line of sewing and caught the stitch below because I am hoping this will make the whole thing a bit more stable.

A really simple explanation of the process can be found here. And Sea Lemon has great video tutorials of all sorts of different bindings on youtube including this one on hard back books.

I still need to put some mull fabric across the spine. This will help to support the tapes when they go under the end papers.

I have started to use the book block though. I completed the two exercises from week 1 of Life Book, the warm up and my Inner Artist Guardian. I am really pleased with my results. I am following along fairly closely with the lessons at the moment, because I am still new to all of this, but I hope to develop my own style as the year progresses.

It used to be that I just got the joy out of making the books, now I want to fill them up. It never used to be that way. That is part of the reason I decided to go with a journal rather than single sheets. Also, I can carry it with me everywhere and look at it whenever I want to, which is great, because I can't stop staring at the beautiful angel. I am still amazed that she came out of me!

Life Book 2014 preparations

So, my wonderful husband heard my hints and got me a spot on Life Book 2014 for Christmas. I am very excited and a bit nervous. I have been pondering the pros and cons of doing the single sheets, as descibed by Tam, or of making myself a premade dedicated journal. This is the sort of silly nonsense that can lead me to a paralysis, then I fall behind, etc etc. I explained my quandry to Megan and I think we have come up with a plan. I am going to take the journal route.  The pages will be the same size as Tam's and if I particularly like a page I can always make a single sheet to hang in the studio!

I am going to use a book I started making years ago, I can't even remember how many. It is a hardback novel I picked up at a huge second hand book sale in Townsville. I have pulled the book block out and cut paper to make my own book block. I have used a variety of hot and cold pressed paper, so that will give me a chance to experiment a bit as well. The novel was called "The sensualist", I didn't really enjoy the story. In fact, I only bought it for the cover and the cool anatomical pictures inside.

Year in Review

So, here we are, almost the end of the year again. Megan is busily cleaning her room in her usual "pre-christmas" purge. I am also trying to get the studio cleaned out, and encourage Kirsten to do her room as well.

It has been a very eventful year as far as teaching has gone. Started off at St Andrew's but couldn't manage the massive workload. Threw in the towel after 2 terms. I thought I would quit teaching altogether, I even threw stuff away. Then I got a call from McAuley's who offered me 1 day a week till the end of the year. It turned out to be great and I rethought the whole quitting thing and decided to stick with it. I have nothing lined up for next year though, so this will be my first real summer break. Every other one has been spent on lesson prep for the next year.
I still have a lot of jobs to do on the house renovation, so I am sure I will still be busy.

I have Lifebook 2014 on my Christmas wishlist this year, so I am hoping to spend some time doing arty things as well. I have a definite desire to do arty things, but often don't find the time, get easily distracted, or lack motivation, so I am hoping that signing up for the class will help me stop overthinking and just do it. Some of my favourite artists are teaching in the course, so if I don't get it for Christmas I will still sign up for it.