3rd Week of April

This spread is about my spring cleaning efforts in the yard and garage.

Since this involved moving some of my daylilies, I found a pretty picture as illustration. I like how the colors in the background complemented those of the flowers. That was entirely random, as the spread had been painted long before I recorded on it. It was just the next one in the notebook. I love when that happens...and it does more than one would expect.

Squirrels

This page tells of our battle with the squirrels who were systematically trying to make our house their house!

Generations

This spread will be a reminder of the first time I saw my great-nephew in person. That's my baby sister Jan holding him. She's his grandmother and that's our mother sitting next to her. On the opposite page you can see a photo of my daughter with Mother and me, and on the bottom is Mother's new dog "Miss Daisy."

Callen at 3 Months

Here's a great picture of my first great-nephew! I drew basketballs and stamped stars to accentuate the designs on his shirt.

Dawn Burgess

With the death of Dawn Burgess, only two of the Coquettes' mothers are still living...Donna's and mine. This page just commemorates some of my memories of Mrs. Burgess. What a wonderful teacher she was! I'm so sorry that her last few weeks were so painful.

Babbo Bruno

We were thrilled to discover this wonderful little Italian restaurant for JT's birthday.

This subtle background was created by overpainting reds and yellows with a taupe wash. The illustrations came from food ads, and I wrote the title with a broad-edge pen and black gouache.

Patchwork Frame

To create this very colorful page, I first painted with cadmium red, overbrushed with yellow while still damp. While this dried, I cut rectangles and squares out of a Target catalog. I adore their catalogs for the fabulous colors and designs. These were arranged and glued in place with matte medium, interspercing a couple of circular patterns . Then a black Neocolor II crayon was used to outline the frame and smudged with my finger.

Chairs, Chairs, Chairs

My daughter works for an interior designer who often gives her the opportunity to do special projects on her own time for extra income.

This background was several shades of medium greens, with bits of pale yellow and cream brushed on, and topped with a white wash. The title was done with a greenish-gray Tombow brush marker, shadowed with a lighter gray, and outlined & embellished with a black Uniball pen.

Aunt Mildred

I created this page in memory of my aunt who died in February. The background was painted by alternating two colors. Over this, I laid down a cut-out of flowers with matte medium as the adhesive. This has become my favorite way to apply cut-outs in my compo journals:

1. Position the cut-out where you want it on the page and hold it in place with the fingers of one hand while lifting one edge with the thumb.

2. Dip a flat brush (I use a 1/2" or a 1", depending on the size of the cut-out) in matte medium.

3. Brush both the underside of the cut-out as well as the place on the page where the cut-out will lie.

4. Once this bit is stuck down, you can more easily lift up the rest of the cut-out to glue it and the underlying part of the page.

This works so well for me. The cut-out almost seems to sink into the page instead of just sitting on top. When I want to reduce the shine of a glossy magazine cut-out, I also coat the top with the matte medium. Also, with this method, you avoid the curling that happens when you apply the glue all over the back and then try to stick it down. And since you are applying just a bit of adhesive at the time, it doesn't dry out before you can get it down on the page.

Note: This cut-out was from a paper bag that Hobby Lobby used to put your purchase in.

January 2007

The background was painted yellow, and after it dried, I masked off the edges and the gutter and then painted the center with black gesso. Because this dries a very matte black and looks like old-timey chalkboards, I wrote with a white Sharpie poster-paint pen (extra-fine point.) The decoration around the edges was done with a rubberstamp and colored with brush markers. The title was written with RoseArt ColorSharp metallic markers.