The Land of Lost Luggage

The theme for this week is....

manipulated journal page 9x12"

Biiig sigh.. will find out about camera soon. The lifeless body of my love will be delivered this afternoon to the Canon facility. Meanwhile, enjoy this poor scan of a page too big to fit on the scanner bed.

Bulls eye

8x8 mixed media journal page

I feel like making a cheese plate and sitting outside with a glass of white wine...that's what kind of day it is. A cheese plate day.

I can't forgo mentioning that Maya Road has some pretty cool cut-out-type-scrapbooking-plastic-ish 12x12" papers out now that make pretty good spray paint stencils....look for them..can't find a link at the moment..

Now...go get some really great, fresh cheese...

edit: click here for the Maya Road "Sheer Sheet" I mention. Scroll down...

Crusade 27: Shape up!

 

click me!

Hidy ho, Crusaders! Happy January.

There is a new love in my life.....

It started last year with capturing sun flare in pictures....and grew into my current passion for creating bokeh.

Even funner yet is the new set of bokeh textures I ordered from Michelle Black (she's having a sale)..It's the mysterious quality...ghostlike...that gets me every time...kind of a Close Encounters moment.. I'm, just drawn to it.. So is it a shape? Yes indeed.

Carve a stamp (because...you know...you can never find the right sized bubble wrap when you need it.)

will be a journal cover soon...

 

will be another journal cover soon....

I spend a lot of time waiting for the paint to dry to the precise level of dryness only to rub it off to make the circles transparent...yet defined. (I admit it...I am out of my mind.)

9x12" page.....

 So there you have it. Bokeh...in my journal...forever... what shape are you in? I want to know.

You are really great...

Aunt Fran photographed in 1923 sitting on current day South Mission Beach, San Diego, CA

I appreciate your visits and comments so much... I'm feeling a lot better this morning...ready to get back into the swing of things...slowly. Five more days of medicine.......

Aunt Frances was photographed on vacation in Florida...I'm sure she would find the San Diego coastline just as lovely. I love how she looks like an apparition......dreaming of things old and new...

I'm journal-less...working on non-journaling projects...keeping disciplined to stay on track and meet deadlines.......missing my journal...but I know how a quick visit can easily turn into hours of dreaming..

 Dear Journal,

I will be back to see you soon.

Love, Julie.

So this is Christmas....

  Happy Holidays to all and to all a goodnight!

Housekeeping before company comes...

recent journal page awaiting words; reminds me of cranberry sauce. 

There isn't really any company coming...

I wanted to step in and thank the following lovely ladies for extending these awards to me recently. I really appreciate the recognition! Blog awards really  mean a lot to me...and they really helped put a smile back on my face this week. We're having pretty rough days in Casa de Luggage...so these emails are a welcome distraction.

      Thank you, Christine!

     Thank you, Toni!

   Thank you, Trish!

   Thank you, Serena!

I nominate everyone on my favorite link list for these awards....seriously. I think you are all fantastic. Feel free to put these buttons on your blog and if anyone asks, tell em' Julie's passing out nice awards!

Now about my link list....I am so embarrassed..seems my html was disrupted or something. More than half of my favorite links have gone missing...and I don't know why! I am trying my best in between everything to get everyone back onto the list...so please, if you notice your link is missing, please let me know and I will gladly get it back onto the list!

Some of you have asked about getting prints of my digital work. Well, I cannot offer them straight from my home considering it would take about 40 print sales to recoup the money for the printer..so I have to do things the old fashioned way and continue to save money before I can buy the printer out right. In the meantime, I can upload the prints to imagekind and you can purchase professional grade prints, giclee canvas in many different sizes as well as cards. The link to my imagekind gallery is on the right, so feel free to take a look if you're interested.

I think that is all for now... to all my friends in bloglandia, I hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving!

Shaken, not stirred.

       

8x10 original painting: acrylic on wood available here.

A new series of paintings from last weekend. I'm working slower...fully ingesting every layer and texture. I'm proud of myself for not having the feeling that I need to crank out artwork on a daily basis anymore. Even better...less time sitting is good for my back, which most of you know is pretty messed up. I feel a lot better this week...I even ran a short distance Monday night. I felt really good.

So in between many many layers of drying time, I played with the painting images digitally. This one came out pretty cool....I think it's mighty attrractive.

Hope you're having a good week! Thanks for coming by.

Free Truth.

There used to be a phone number we called when we were kids, "The Story Lady". Every few days, the Story Lady would change her answering machine greeting to a 2-3 minute short story for children. I loved that number. The Story Lady lives on my grandmother's street, although we've never met. I used to love calling that number...sometimes I wish I could hear her voice again.

Have a great weekend.

Clear and windy....54 degrees.

We drove to Julian yesterday for lunch and a walk around the town.. It was really windy and cool. Compared to 80 degrees at the house, Julian was a brisk 54 around noon. Had a nice little home cooked lunch and walked in and around the shops for a while. Truth be told, I was freezing. Most of my friends know I have a strict policy: I don't go outside if it is less than 60 degrees.

Friends posting pictures of beautiful fall foliage...my husband and I were in awe at the number of burnt trees...a vivid reminder of where we live and what can happen during dry, windy conditions. This area burned very, very badly in 2003.

I have acquired a blackberry and am smitten with text messaging...There is a link to my Twitter on the left. I'm new at this, but you can follow my "tweets".. Coupled with all of my new found friends on facebook, there is so much catching up to do! Really in awe with all this technology.

Have a great weekend...I'm hoping for some fun time this weekend. Cheers!

Something about yesterday....

 First there was a journal page...

 

...then there was a close-up of this guys wing..plus lots of clicking...

 ...to end up with the final product. Remember I said there were so many possibilities?

 A close-up cropped section of this guy is my banner background!

I can't offer you a photoshop tutorial because, truth be told, if I had to recreate yesterday's art from scratch, I probably wouldn't be able to exactly match it. There is so much you can play with and adjust, my best advice to you is to open up your photo editing program and PLAY. (Oddly enough, that was the same advice given to me at the beginning...as I pulled my hair out and emailed for desperate help from fellow artists.) Like journaling...there is no right or wrong way to do it.

What else? You should splurge and get the premier issue of Digital Studio. It's an annual publication. So many light bulbs went off when I read this beauty...I still refer to it! One more thing...I'm a huge fan of anything Ree. Put her photo blog in your feed list...her tutorials on photoshop won't teach you (at least not so far) mixed media digital journaling, but you can follow along and get familiar with tips and tricks to add to your artwork later.

Start building your image library...it's a new way of thinking for me and el camera.. it took some work at first, but in everyday activities I am not only looking for complete shots but "parts" that can be used later too! Save your images in large file formats...you're gonna to need a bigger boat.

Photoshop can be intimidating at first...but like anything you desire to be good at, it takes practice and focus to learn the ropes. You don't need the big fat fancy version...there are so many other programs you can try too..why not give it a shot today?