Dripping Faces

Of course I could not stop at just doing the couple of dripping faces I did yesterday....



(And as the title suggests, there are more videos to come in the next couple of days!)

Say my name (right)

I've been meaning to do this video for a while now, but never got round to it, so tonight I decided to take some time out and actually do it.. It's possibly the shortest video I've ever done, but would you believe it, I had to do a billion takes because I was stumbling over my words and then it took me forever for Youtube to not make me sound like a robot on acid...

But here it is...

Bugs, a video.

Last week I did a video sitting at my desk. I did all that needs to be done: converting into a format Youtube likes, editing, finding music that fits the video, and then saving it to my computer... that last bit did not work. At all. It would take 300 minutes, Windows Movie Maker said. Oh no wait, it would take 599 minutes. Or 780.

It was music I had already used on a previous video, I didn't do anything different, but WMM just flat out refused to work. After several attempts a couple of days in a row, I just gave up. I might upload the video as a silent one, or talk over it or something, but with the music it's just not going to work.

So today, I tried again, with different footage and different music, but from the same source I always use, Incompetech.com. And guess what.. it worked! The video saved to my computer in less than a minute, and Youtube took no time at all to post the video:

I have no idea what I did wrong with the last video, but hey, it's working now so I'm not complaining!

Some pictures of the bugs up close:

Art Journal flip-through

About 1/3 into my current Art Journal I realised that there is tons of pages in this one and it would take me a good while to fill them all. So now, half way through, I decided to do a flip-through video.

In this Art Journal you will see a lot of test-pages. I'm testing out glazes, mixing my WC crayons with graphite and gesso, and trying out my Pearlescents in my mad scientist kind of way, lots of journaling, you'll see how I store my DIY tape, the piece of sheet I nearly emptied one of my pots of Pearlescents over, one of Keeshe's teeth (and I did not punch the puppy in order to get that tooth!), lots of photo's, daily emphemera, paintings, drawings...
And I'm only half way through yet!

Arting in the park

A month ago, I took my water colour set to the local park and had a blast. My video editor program however decided that the video I took of me using my water colours only had the sound but not the picture. Great! So all you could hear was kids screaming and wind blowing and me mini misting my water colours but you couldn't see anything. Hmpf.

And then our laptop refused service, and we had to reset it to factory settings. As bad as that was, it somehow made the video editor program think that hey, there's picture here too!

So here it is, arting in the park, using my Cotman studio set, Pitt pens and a BIC pen in my Moleskine Sketchbook:

Finished Travel Journal

Here is the flip through video of my finished Travel Journal. Tye was helping me with the camera work while I did the flipping, and his singing and comments were too funny to not include into the final video.... Just excuse his coughing and sniffing please.



And some pictures, too. (Yes that is sand and those are pebbles. I took some plastic baggies just so I could add some sand and pebbles to my Travel Journal.)

Resizing pictures for Artjournaling.Ning.com

Well hello there! I know it's been a while, I've been on holiday and it took me a bit to get back into the normal swing of things, plus I had this Travel Journal to work on (note to self: next time try and keep up while actually on holiday, so you don't have to play catch-up so much when you return) and on top of that I got offered a job at the pub around the corner. Just a few hours a week for now, and just a bit of cleaning and helping out once or twice a week when they do a food-night, but hey, it's a start.

Annyyywayyy...

As some of you know, I'm a moderator for Artjournaling.Ning.com, and one of the things I have to moderate is the posting of pictures. On Artjournaling, we're limited to 5 pictures a day, and they are only allowed to be under 100kbs each.

Because not everyone knows how to resize a picture to the size allowed on Artjournaling.Ning, the lovely Kerri aka ikerrilove on Twitter was kind enough to do a video on how to resize pictures.



Thank you Kerri for doing this video! Be sure to check out Kerri's blog too, and don't forget to join her Ustream show on Friday at 8 pm EST.

Car boot sale Haul

I'm sure you've seen me talk about car boot sales before. Here in the UK, usually during the weekend but in some places during the week aswell, people pack their cars full of unwanted stuff, drive to a field somewhere, pay a fee and start selling their items on tables or rugs they put down, hoping buyers are interested in their stuff.
It's one of my favourite things to do during the spring and summer months, looking for a great deal or something unique or something you've always wanted.

When we first started going, I was keeping an eye out for books, and wooden egg cups for me to paint and put up in my Etsy shop. The hunt for books is still going strong, but I'm now looking for art supplies and I have found many, many great things.
After watching a couple of haul videos people put up on Youtube after having been to craft or art stores, I decided to do a quick video of some of the items I've scored (and I really mean scored) at car boot sales.



And I haven't even shown my alphabet punches, my other punches, my stack of stencils, glitter paints, one of my art journals was a little book I found at the car boot too...

In the video I show you the embossing powders I had not used when I filmed it. Right after I cleared away all the stuff, I decided to try them out and was rather happy with the result:

Black gesso texture

The other day at the car boot sale I picked up some black gesso I have been keeping an eye out for for ages as well as a heat gun. Yayy!

Time to play, but I had no clue what to do with them just yet.

Thankfully, Ky aka Scrapacat posted a challange on her blog. So this afternoon, I cleared all the stuff off the desk (yes I know I had only just cleaned it but lots of my supplies happen to live on my desk) and try out a new camera angle while I tried out my new toys.



Because I had never used a heat gun before I was surprised to see the paint start to bubble up! Perfect for this challenge! Added some Pearlescent paint I picked up at the car boot sale last year, wiping some off with my trusty babywipes and in no time I had a fun textured page.

Thank you Ky for your challenge!
It took some blood, sweat, tears and many many naughty words before it was fiiinally uploaded to Youtube (still haven't got a clue where I went wrong today, but let's not think about that anymore, it's there and that's the most important thing!) but now I can safely go to bed knowing it's all done and ready in time for Ky's deadline.
Yay!

Sketchbook video

Three updates in a day? Well, it's almost 11 pm here in the UK, so almost tomorrow..

Just thought I'd show you the sketches I've been doing lately. It's all Leslie's fault, she got me started on this!



Please note that this video is labelled 'PG 13' due to 2 nudes.. Not that I think anyone I know would mind, but hey, you never know who might get offended. Which truth be told I'd take as a compliment because that means that my scribbles actually resemble a nude lady. ;)

So I finally tidied up my desk

It was needed. Very very much needed. I could not see the desk itself anymore. It was covered in.. well, stuff that was thrown on the desk. Besides my pens and brushes and babywipes and a book or two that live there, it had grown to be the place to dump letters, things that I would take downstairs but not right now, where I kept the Hama-beads we had picked up for dirt cheap at the car boot sale to keep the nieces happy, my own beads, you get the picture, right?

So yesterday, I finally took everything off, threw out two bags of *&^$$& that I didn't need or want or even thought of keeping for 'you never know', and tadaaa.. I have a desk again! A desk I can work at! A desk, I thought today, I could sit at to work in my new Art Journal while having the camera rolling. (Not rolling exactly now that we all use digital camera's, but still...)

And here it is, the first video since my very first two that I've actually done sitting at my desk. I do apologize for the crappy camera-angle. Or not really the angle, but me forgetting where it was and what would actually show up... I'll do better next time, promise!

Another Flip-through video!

I finally finished my latest journal, Art Journal number seven already!
I made this one during Less Herger's workshop on Artjournaling.ning, using pages out of an old book I found at the car boot. You can still see the pictures and text shining through on some of the pages, which makes for a cool first layer I think.

At the end of the video I give you a quick look at my brand new Art Journal I made the other day. I used the covers of the book I took the pages out of to make AJ7 and added file folders, bounded in a way Samantha Kira taught in this video.

I already have a feeling that at least the first couple of pages aren't going to be all pretty. I have some personal stuff to work through and where I used to keep that out of my Art Journals, dear old no.7 taught me not to. Thank you Art Journal Seven!

Anyyyywayyy.. enough talking, here's the video. (Completely filmed and edited while Tye was asleep. In fact, he is still sleeping as I write this and he has no idea I just uploaded a brand new video. Woohooo! I'm so proud of myself!)

Very Important Announcement!

The show is tonight, July 8th 2010, from 7 - 9 pm Central (or 1 - 3 in the bloody morning here in the UK) and you need to go here to watch it and join in on the fun!

Twitter links:
@Blade21292 (told you I always get the numbers messed up) and @EvelineTimeless.

And ArtisticBiker/Blade's blog is right here.

See you tonight!!

Now where's that labrador of ours?

We should soooo teach him this!

It's good to look back

Here's a flip-through video of my very first Moleskine, only the second Art Journal I ever did. It's good to look back sometimes. I had forgotten about my three favourite pages, the little girl with her animal friends, the blue face and the fish. I had also forgotten all about the ugly stuff I did and how I sometimes did not even know what I was doing. I hardly added text in those days, and when I did it was silly stuff like 'I don't need anyones permission to be happy'. While that is true, it's also very sickly sweet and Hallmark-ish. Not something I would write in my Art Journal today. But it's nice to see how I've evolved as an Art Journaler and how I slowly become more confident and comfortable.

So here it is, the flip-through:


Lesson for today: it's not about the single page. What I find so much fun about flipping through an old Art Journal is the collection of pages all together. So don't get too worked up over 'ugly' pages and pages that don't 'work'. In the end, they're all part of the collection called Your Art Journal and they are just as beautiful for it as those pages that you do consider pretty.

Two blog posts in a day?

Technically no, because it's after midnight here in the UK, but to Blogger I think it's still the same day...

Annnnyyywayyy....

We were at the park again last Monday, and of course my Art Journal and camera had to come with me! I had tons of fun making this video, trying to ignore the 'cool' girls looking at me filming myself. They must've thought, what the hell is she doing?

I also edited it myself, with tons of help from Tye, but I'll try and learn how to do it all by myself so he doesn't have to wake up early in the afternoon (he works nights poor thing) because I Want My Video Done Now!

Enjoy:


(and yes, it is a self portrait, kinda...)

Art Journaling in the park

We finally had a bit of summer sun over here and to make the most of it, me and Tye decided to go to our favourite park, with some nice food, books, and of course my art journal.



Over on Artjournaling.Ning we have a special (free) workshop about playing in your Art Journal outside. Show us where you like to journal!

What a wonderful world

Let's all just sing along shall we?

My new video!

Will be posting pictures of these pages as I go along, but might not be until after Nanowrimo... As they say: watch this space!!