average american girl

This prompt was fun as it gave me an excuse to wander about the house with my camera taking pictures of all of my favorite things. You know, I think I have been making art long enough now to consider myself a professional. Why? Because not one member of my household said a thing as I went about taking photos, rearranging things ‘just so’ to get the best light, etc.. Nope, they didn’t even notice.

I love taking detail shots. I reuse them a lot in other art pieces (especially in digital art). So here are some details first, then the final pages last.

I just realized that I have not redesigned my blog for October. No, I don’t redesign it each month. But I always redesign it to coincide with “Pink for October” and I have neglected to do so this year.

Expect to see changes here late in the day tomorrow as I throw together a new design to support breast cancer awareness.

I’ve done a deep pink and a light pink and a medium pink… I’ve got to head over to Kuler and come up with a new color scheme for this year.

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And let’s do it in a random sort of way

Kathryn tagged me. Thanks Kathryn! I’m actually going to also give you some insight into my personal lexicons. And I’m not going to show you my art, or even my art tools. Nope, I’m going to show you the personal lexicons in my home that are repeated in everything about me. From my art to my personal style, to what is desirable to me.

1. I love wrought iron

2. I love rust as a metal finish

First lets look at the metal and the metal finish that I surround myself with (see picture above).

I have without any planning or ‘conscious’ thought surrounded myself with wrought iron. It is litterally the only metal surface I have in my home. No brass, no gold, no silver, just wrought iron. I also prefer it in a rusty finish. Although that isn’t always available and as in the picture in the bottom left I’ve been known to force the issue. That wrought iron was originally a creamy white. I spent hours converting it to a rusted look. If the picture had been closer you could see that it even has a tiny bit of texture to it so that it appears as if the paint is flaking away with rust.

3. I love damask

Next up is fabric. Again, I am drawn without any real conscious choice to damask. There have been times when I have purchased fabric or a fabric item and only later when using does it occur to me that I have again purchased a damask fabric.

4. I am drawn to ornate designs that have leaves as a motif

Leaves. I’m sure that it is due to the ornate wrought iron that I love and that damask is generally also a floral motif but there are leaves everywhere in my home. Until I took these photos I never really thought about it. But in a collection like this it becomes very obvious.

5. I love metallic paints on non-metal surfaces and Carribean blue.

Although my metals are alway a rusted finish I do love metallics. This star was intended (designed and sold) as a Christmas decoration. In my home it is always on display. I love to move it around (it is made of wood and beautifully distressed) and find new places for it to sit. I also love Carribean blue. I have several glass and wooden vases with this color and my walls are painted a coordinating lighter version of this color.

6. Stars appear in my decor more than any other shape.

Sometimes I get really lucky and find metal stars that are made of iron and rusted. Or distressed and glittery like in the picture before this one.

Last, I have to tag six other people. Hmm let’s see I think I will tag six soul journalists whose blogs I love to visit:

1. Dove: Morning Dew
2. Suzie Q: Sues Views
3. Linda: My Little Bit
4. Adrienne: A Soul Journal
5. Connie: Altered Route
6. Karen: Karens Altered Dreamz

Now you know six random design facts about me. The tag doesn’t have to be about design at all. It just needs to be six random facts about you. I chose to do this as design facts because I was taking pictures for my Soul Journal Lexicon pages. So tell everybody six random facts about yourselves, comment on their blogs and make sure to leave a link for me in your blog post.

Happy Tagging!

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I entered a contest to use a graphic. I know, hmm not an unusual project for me right? Well, I took the bait and tried to make the image the complete focus of the project. I used color and texture and only a few small embellishements. I think I pulled it off rather well but wanted to know what you think?

Here she is:

This is the original image with some fleur-de-lis and copyright watermarks added. This is not my image so DO NOT COPY AND USE IT.

Below is the result. A 9” x 12” collage. Watcha’ think?

A slightly closer shot:

Want to see the other contest entries? You can see them here and vote for the one you think is the best!

Happy Voting!

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I finished prompt #4: Healing Love. I’m keeping the particulars to myself but I can share the spread itself with you.

Here are a few of the details:

Recently I was asked about my journal and the binding. I also mentioned that I would eventually show you how large my journal was becoming so here are some pics I took recently.

The above picture shows the plastic coil binding that my book originally came with. I am able to simply life each ring and remove all of the pages. Then when a spread is complete I can just add it to the back of the book.

This shows my working cover. This cover may or may not remain as it is. Once the journal is complete I will decide if I want to change it. You can also see that I have taken some gold spray paint to the plastic coils. Boy am I addicted to the glitz :)

These are my pages to date (not including prompt #4 yet). This includes all of the prompts from Sarah and the new prompts from Kathryn and even a couple of pages that I did that were not a part of a specific prompt but more just an inspiration from something else.

And here is a view from the top. Notice all of the pretty ribbons… these are from the bookmarks that I swapped. I plan to get more when we do the second bookmark swap! Fun stuff.

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Over on Outside The Margins Aileen’s is having an art muse contest. I purchased one of her artists manikins back in September and Aileen sent her to me right away. And she just sat and sat and sat. I would look at her, think about her but didn’t try to alter her. Then my bestest online friend Linda finished the first of her three dolls and motivated me to get mine done.

I had an absolute blast working on her and could have continued adding and adding, LOL. I decided I better stop before she looked like a charm store.

Her name is: Florence Jean and she is my muse!

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