halleday – Page 135 – Halle's Hobbies

Art - Blog - Creativity

T Tuesday: AJJ edition

November 22, 2016 - By halleday

It’s a two-fer today here at Halle’s Hobbies!

I had planned to do two separate posts on consecutive days but a bout of stomach flu wiped me out completely yesterday. The day was all about sipping lemon lime soda and eating saltine crackers. I’m nearly 100% now…thank goodness…but a little slow to get my post up and running.

After going a bit wild with the colors, I went for maximum texture with this journal page. I feels a bit ’80’s to me with the dayglow colors.

I didn’t add any personal journal thoughts on this one just some found text that spoke to me at the moment. Once the words were determined. I sought out a square brad from my stash to bring the idea home.

This was the first page in a new journal. It won’t be long until this one is full since there are very few pages. I removed about half the bulk before starting but the pages are quite brittle from age so each spread will definitely have to be glued to the adjoining page.

I’m getting caught up on tasks I failed to do yesterday while watching the rain change to sleet and snow and back again. I know eventually it’s supposed to be all snow…just hoping the teen driver gets home first.

What are you doing today?

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Blog - Crafts - Creativity

T Tuesday: renewed frame edition

November 15, 2016 - By halleday

The weather is definitely turning here in the upper mid-west. I’m drinking more hot tea than iced tea. They are saying snow possible on Friday and Saturday. Not that it will be much or even stay around long at this point.

Enough about the weather. I wanted to share what I did to make my abstract paint complete. Let me backtrack by saying that after initially hanging it on our room we kept hear this weird clicking noise in the night. When the fan would hit the light weight canvas it would make noise!!! UGH! I took it down in the middle of the night and had to reevaluate.

I remembered that I hadn’t donated the old print yet and had an idea of how I could use it. Out to the minivan I went to retrieve the framed print.

I tore random chunks and strips of kraft paper and soaked them in water while I got out my vinyl table protector(aka old ugly tablecloth). I used Golden polymer medium as adhesive to cover the chrome frame. This is the same stuff I used to renew my fridge and recycle cabinet with dictionary pages and it’s the same bottle I got for free at the recycle center!

I slipped the edges between the frame and matte for a nice crisp edge. I then painted the matte black a few inches in all the way around. I poked holes through the print and attached the canvas using zip ties around the wooden cross bars and back through the holes in the canvas. I used a little dab of hot glue in each corner for a bit of extra security.

Ta-da! Worked like a charm.

The piece is substantial now and makes a statement. I like it even more now…and total cost…nothing!!!! We’d even gotten that print for free about 20 years ago from Mr. G’s work. The glass had been broken on the print so they were throwing it out. He brought it home since the colors matched our old bedroom decor. It had hung over our bed ever since.

I’m waiting on a call from a friend as me might meet up today so my day is still a bit up in the air.

What are you doing today?

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Art - Blog - Creativity

A Tale of Two Pages

November 14, 2016 - By halleday

This tale is about the “right way” and the “wrong way” to be creative…at least this is how it went for me this weekend.

Saturday in an attempt to kill some time while waiting for some laundry to finish, I decided to challenge myself again to create for the Art Journal Journey theme of Collage~no wings, no leaves, no faces. To begin, I tore a page from a vintage basic electric manual figuring it had some good background to it already. In addition I snagged a couple of random scraps from my worktable and took the works to the sewing machine.

I then did a bit of journalling along the edge of one of the scraps. Ok…still feeling it…the creative spark was there but dim.

I added some color…still good. Then I sprayed some black mist through my circle stencil. It was as if the mist put out the spark. Instead doing the smart thing and walking away at that point to regroup…I was still waiting for the stupid laundry cycle to complete so I just kept throwing more crap at the page.

I’m still not excited about this one but that’s ok. Challenges are just that…a challenge. Otherwise it would be called super happy fun time.

On Sunday while cleaning up my workspace I felt that creative spark again. This time I made a deal with myself not to push through if I wasn’t feeling it. I noticed a freebie art paper I had pulled from an old issue of Somerset Studio. So I had a great starting point…maybe an easy way to redeem myself.

Given the fact that this page has an eye on it it wouldn’t count for the challenge away.

I didn’t do a tom to the background…I used gelatos to intensify the colors in certain places, some outlining in white gel pen, lots of stamping, gesso through a stencil and heat embossing…but all in a very subtle way. After deciding on some layers of goodies including ink stained babywipes I adding stitching over my layers and around the page in a random fashion.

Some black paint splatters and added “eyeliner” were my final touch before looking for words. see possibility everywhere was just perfect.

So my lesson to myself was to know enough when to walk away. You can’t force it. I suppose it’s something like writers block…you can stare at a page but you can’t will the words or art to flow.

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