New Journal Pages

Wheeewwww! School is almost over - just 6 more days. I don't know who is more excited - the kids or me! We've been working on art journals in our class. Here's a picture of some of the kids. I'll post some of their pages soon. I have some very talented artists in my class!

I've been working on lots of chunky pages for swaps, but have managed to finish 2 journal pages. I'm really enjoying the Zetti style pages. I've just got to figure out a good way to organize all the magazine pieces I'm cutting out! When I figure it out, I'll be sure to post. I'm not the most organized person in the world (alright - I wasn't born with the organization gene at all), but I can't work in complete chaos. I hate spending time digging through the piles on the dining table to find that perfect piece that I just saw a minute ago. I have cleaned the dining table, it's Memorial Day and the kids & grand kids are coming over, so I figured unless I wanted toddler bbq finger prints all over my pages I'd better put things up. So things are a little organized, but I know I need to find a better way. Any one out there with a good solution for sorting and storing all the strips I've cut for boarders, thumb shaped pieces, triangles, and so on? I've got the heads, bodies, arms, legs and accessories all organized in sandwich bags, but all the rest is in a pile in a box. I'll have to give this some thought.

I have the same problem at school. I would post a picture of my desk, but I'm too embarrassed. I've just discovered a new book by Debbie Diller called "Spaces and Places". It's about organizing your classroom so at the end of the year it only takes 1 day to pack everything up so the cleaning crew can wax the floors. It usually takes me 2 weeks. I have too much junk. Debbie suggests working on one area at a time & purging. It's working well at school because I have so many duplicate copies, out-dated stuff, and stuff from when I taught kindergarten years ago. Purging actually feels good! At first I was very reluctant to throw stuff away, so I put extra copies in a box for my students to take home this summer. Believe it or not, so 4th graders still like to play "school" during the summer. I'm also giving a lot of the kindergarten stuff to my daughter who is an assistant director of a preschool. Other stuff has been sent to recycle and some actually ended up in the trash. My father lived through the depression and was a certified hoarder, so it's been hard not to follow in his footsteps. The feeling of being able to find stuff in my classroom outweighs the fear that I am throwing something away that I might need. If I haven't used it in the last year (or 2 or 3 years!) then I really don't need it.

Now, if I can just apply this to my art area. The problem is that in art, everything is usable :) I know, I'm hopeless - hee hee. Seriously though, any solutions to storing all the little bits and pieces, please share.

Chunky Book Pages

The end of school is near & hopefully I'll have more time to make art!!! I have been making chunky pages for swaps on swapbot and atcsforall. Lots of fun - the 4" X 4" page size is quick to complete. The Mother's Day page is more my usual style, sort of vintage and pastel, but I'm really loving the bright colors, inks, paint and wild creatures I'm working with now. Here's some of the pages I've been doing.

Zetti Pages

Even though we had house guests for 9 days, I actually got some work done! I'm beginning to love this style art. I'm mulling over the idea of doing a journal using only one magazine with the idea being to use as much of it as possible. I got this idea as I was digging pieces of magazine pages out of the trash in my classroom as my students began their own art journals. I began showing them the many ways to use what they were viewing as "trash" and one of the kids made the comment that it looked like I was going to use all their trash!

Am I crazy? Probably - but the seed of an idea has been planted. Hummmm - definitely worth thinking over.

Zetti Parts

I've been trying out the Zetti style and created several pages for my journal. After spending hours at the computer and thumbing through magazines to find arms and legs for my art, I decided to stick them on a page & scan them in for others to use. The first arms I did (on the leg page) I cut out completely. On my second attempt, I left them together with a bit of background. I used my paint pen to cover that area (to save ink when printing). Now I can actually find a pair when I want them! I cut out the parts and store them in plastic baggies, so they're ready to go when I want to sit down & create something.

My disclaimer: I collected these pictures from Flickr Creative Commons, magazines and Public Domain pictures as far as I know. If you see something that is copyrighted, please email me so I can remove it. I'm not selling these pages, they are free for you to use in your art, but PLEASE don't sell the images as part of a collage sheet or on CD. I don't own the rights to these pictures and am only using them under Creative Commons. I'd love to see what you create with them. Please email me!