A few weeks ago, I mentioned my notebooks and sketchbooks. I also keep a calendar-style scrapbook, using a 9” x 12” wirebound mixed media Strathmore Visual Journal as the substrate. Each two-page spread covers a single month. I glue in decorative paper, photographs, ticket stubs, and ephemera I’ve found along the way. By the end of 2013, my scrapbook documented two years of my life. It had grown fatter than its spiral binding could accommodate,…
I saw some cute little word stamps in a catalog, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually pay that much plus shipping to get them. So I made my own using inexpensive wooden alpha stamps from the craft store and a couple dabs of glue. My intention was to use them in my art journal, but I’ve also made some to use as a checklist in my daily notebook.
I keep two notebooks consistently: my sketchbook and my daily notebook. My sketchbook captures ephemeral content from my right brain: sketches, doodles, scribbles, random creative inspiration, and color combinations. This is the notebook I also take to meetings and workshops, where I can let my right brain run loose while the left brain pays attention. My daily notebook stays with me all day to capture the mundane contents of my left brain before they leak…
I recently opened my second jar of YES paste. It took me nearly two years (maybe longer) to use up my first jar of paste. A little paste goes a long long way, and it took me a while to learn to love it. I bought my first jar to use in cardmaking to glue decorative paper to the generic white cards I bought in a value pack. Glue stick was inexpensive and easy to…
When I start a new sketchbook, I open the front cover and write my name and the date on the first page. Sometimes I’ll write “NEW SKETCHBOOK!” or add a random color. It’s my way of overcoming first-page paranoia, in which the artist obsesses over what to draw on the first page of a new sketchbook and what to do if the drawing “isn’t good enough”. So now, as I open the front cover of…
