30 Days of Get Your Art On – Day 22

Tonight I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for art-making, so I put in a movie, and started collaging some small canvases. I didn’t do a lot of collage on them, but just enough to create an interesting background for when I start painting them. I’m not sure what I’ll do to these, other than add some paint, but that will work itself out I’m sure.

The movie I watched while collaging was Serious Moonlight starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton. It was a dark comedy about a woman who finds out her husband is leaving her for someone else, and she holds him hostage. It was pretty funny, and made me laugh, which was good. I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately, mostly because I’ve been doing a lot of work that lends itself to having a movie on. Earlier in the day while I was weighing out and packaging spinning fiber that I dye & sell, I watched Lars and the Real Girl. It said it was a comedy, and I suppose in some ways it was. I think it’s one of those movies that doesn’t really fit into a category very well. It was a sweet movie in the way the community worked together to go along with Lars’s belief that this blow-up doll was a real woman that he was in love with. I won’t say anymore about it because I don’t want to give anything away. But I felt it was also a little sad. Maybe that was me, but I still really liked the movie and recommend it.

After I collaged the canvases, I decided to work in my journal. The spread is pretty sparse compared to how I usually work. But I felt it was finished and I didn’t want to have a lot going on with it visually. The image is a photo I took in the cemetery of some plastic flowers with my iPod touch. I happened to have the print laying on my table, and thought it would be perfect for this. After gluing down the photo, I applied a thin layer of gesso to the rest of the page, then added several thin layers of acrylic paint, scrubbing them off some before they dried. I wrote the  larger text using a skewer and black ink (I used Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay India Ink black). I like this ink because it’s permanent and dries a dark, rich black. After I did more writing with a pencil, I added some color to the border with one of newest favorite art supplies, Stabilo Woody Watercolor Crayons. You can see the rest of my posts for this project here.

I’ve been asked many times what kind of a printer I use for my photos. For photos that will go into my journal, I mainly use my HP Color LaserJet CP3505dn Printer. It’s a color laser printer. It’s not the kind of printer most people have laying around in their house. But don’t let the kind of printer you have keep you from using your own photos. I’ve also printed on cheapy ink jet printers and had great results also. So just go with what you have. I always feel you shouldn’t let the equipment or supplies keep you from being creative. Sometimes, they can actually get in the way.