Head colds stink

I stayed home from work today because the yucky stuff I've been fighting all week has taken over my head. Luckily, I'm just missing a Professional Development day instead of a school day, so I didn't have to write substitute plans (which is a big deterrent for me from staying home sick). So, I'm lounging in front of the morning shows with my laptop and surfing blogs. I found this flicker site on a blog. Hilarious?

I had my Artists' Books class tonight and I turned in my first big assignment. It was to create a "stiff leaf" structure, and I used 2-ply mat board as the pages. I took this opportunity to create a book to house the 20 prints that I received from Nicci's Fine Art Valentine swap. I'm happy with how it turned out. The pages when open (of course I forgot to take any pictures) look like mini gallery spaces for each print. The construction isn't perfect - I didn't leave enough room in the binding and it splays open because of the combined thickness of all the prints. But, overall I'm happy with it and it was well-received at class. It was hard to relinquish it to my professor for grading because I've been working on it for a couple weeks and carrying it around for the past few days.

One cool thing is that our professor is going to put our books on display at a gallery walk downtown March 3rd. Apparently work from this class is part of the display at one of my favorite stationary stores every year.

Oh, and I have a cold & sore throat. Shoot. I thought I was going to make it until spring...

Screen printing fun

Last Friday I did some screen printing with Wendy. It was so much fun! The goat was hers - a valentine gift for the hubby.We enjoyed experimenting with colors and overlapping and background pages.

New ATCs

Where does the week go? Anyway, these are some new artist trading cards that I made for swaps on Quality Decos.

DD Feb. 9-10

My journal is really too bulky to scan well, but it is easier than holding it open to take a picture, so there ya go.

Seasons Book Sketch

The other book sketch assignment was to write 4 stanzas of poetry - one for each season, and then use those stanzas to create a book, using whatever imagery we wanted to. This was kinda scary for me, since I never write poetry, but I guess they turned out alright.
The concept is basically that there is a symbol to represent each season, and you get a little peek of the colors of the next season through the cutout. Also, there are no front or back covers, so you can continue the process over and over (just like the seasons!).
The pages are made with 2 ply matboard. I cut out a shape from each page with an x-acto knife. The poetry parts are writtten with watercolor pencils on watercolor paper and watercolor backgrounds.
Whoops! I guess I scanned that one wrong. I'll fix it tomorrow - but you get the idea. I haven't bound them together yet, but I'm planning to punch holes and use metal jump rings along the left edge, to make it easy to flip.

Book Sketches

So, I actually have lots to blog about lately, but haven't had a chance to do it. I taught my first scrapbooking class on Tuesday, which was a fun adventure. And I've been working on assignments for my book arts class and swaps for this month's mail art projects. Friday afternoon Wendy taught me how to screen print and I'm addicted! Last night Bill took me to a hockey game for a Valentine's gift, and we had a blast - and took some fun pictures. Plus, I still have to share the painting that I'm giving him on Tuesday! Anyway, I'll have to stick to one topic for tonight since I have to get to bed soon!

For my class, we have to make "book sketches" that are supposed to be quick little books in response to a theme she gives us. I made two today since I had to miss class last Tuesday (to teach the aforementioned scrapbooking class).

For this one, we were supposed to take something large and cut it into pieces to be reconstructed into a book. I choose a Van Gogh print from last year's Impressionist calendar. The pages are all different heights, and at the end of the book is a small but complete version of the painting (from the back of the calendar). I'm too tired to go into detail about how I put it together, but if anyone wants to know, I could at another time. Each page has one line from a 6 line Van Gogh quote.