List It Tuesday - The Cages and Roadtrip Ideas!

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

'The Cage and Roadtrip Ideas'

digital collage - approx .30 minutes

Howdy and welcome,

This week for List It Tuesday, I layered one of my practice sketches of bird cages with my 2 lists of improvements hubby and I compiled for next year's NY roadtrip. Used layers, effects, transparencies and inversions in Adobe PSE (Photoshop Elements) and MS DIE (Digital Image Editor). 

I just love the look of handwriting, art lettering and Leonardo Da Vinci's sketchbooks. I'm going for texture - not necessarily legibility. Just to try something different. What do you think? Pretty wild, eh? Would love your comments on this one!

Thanks for stopping by to visit - and don't forget to chekout my give-a-way!

Peace,
LuLu

Art Lettering / Calligraphy on AJ journal pages w-i-p!

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and Welcome!

Here is a sampling of my calligraphy and art lettering on art journal pages in progress.

Front cover of wire bound art journal -
glazing covered with calligraphy and art lettering

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

I often use my version of the ancient Greek Boustrophedon style of writing alternate lines upside-down. My version does not incorporate mirroed characters - yet! Although I do write phrases, numbers and sayings in variuos languages, my art lettering is not designed to be read - I just think it makes an interesting texture layer. Texture is what my art is all about. 'The more texture the better', I say.

TOOLS

Gel pens, chisel tip and calligraphy markers are my fave tools for calligraphy and art lettering (Zig, Sharpie, sometimes Copic, whatever I can find with a chisel tip that is permanent & water resistant).

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

This page is written with Sakura gel pens - yellow and white.

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

This page is written with Sakura gel pens - yellow and white.

c mlh1 M L Haynes 2010

Most pages have been embellished with my embossed and painted metal corners. Plus most pages are edged with printed tapes (my own 'LuLu Too Beaucoup', or Tim Holtz or 7 Gypsies tissue tapes). You can see my own printed tape at the bottom edge of the bottom photo!

INSPIRATIONS FOR ART LETTERING
I've practiced penmanship and calligraphy since elementary and high school. I still communicate often by writing long letters with fountain pens. (Love fountain pens!) But my inspiration for 'art lettering' comes from discovering Martha Lever's blog and other lettering artists whose work I've admired in the Stampington mags!

What do you think of the lettering backgrounds on these art journal pages? They are so much fun to create.

Thanks for stopping by - please follow me - and come back again real soon!

Peace,
LuLu

'Luminous Beings' - art journal page

Howdy and Welcome,

This is another page 'Luminous Beings' from my 2009 art journal #2 'Never Give up - Never Surrender!'
Also almost entered in the Lots To Do Challenge. but too late...

'We are Luminous Beings, not this crude matter...'
- Yoda, from Star Wars 5: 'The Empire Strikes Back'

partial view

partial view showing layered paint textures

close up - top of page

extreme close up

ingredients:

tinted gesso, acrylic paint, highlighters, black sharpie, gel pens. mesh tape (from hardware store), pencil, tissue tape (tim holtz), calligraphy marker (zig), matte medium (liquitex), soft gel gloss medium (golden), pinking shears, chipboard tag of fairy (unknown), gem brad, acrylic paint, deli sandwich wrap, found paper (a piece of a page from my maternal grandfather's art journal! He was an opera singer and an English teacher. Very fragile and brittle paper - I had to gesso it and handle carefully. The #2 - JOY is from my  list of favorite affirmations).

techniques:

art letering, calligraphy, collage, decoupage, assemblage

This page was a long time coming.

The tag came after a long period because I knew this page was not complete - just did not know what it wanted there. One day while organizing some chipboard I found a bunch of forgotten fairies. I painted her with a toothpick using a brown acyrlic paint so she'd be darker. But then I thought the tag was still too vibrant and too bright for the page. So I decoupaged a small piece of deli wrap over her. Which did the trick - she's just sort of peeking through a layer that looks a bit like vellum.

What do you think of her? Isn't she dreamy?

Thanks for stopping by - and please don't forget to comment!

Peace,

LuLu

P.S. Yes I am a HUGE STAR WARS fanatic. I saw the first film of the first trilogy (Star Wars Episode IV) 19 times at the movie theatre! I still watch it, but now on DVD - yippee!

Checkout new poll, Theme Thursday challenge, and 'No Fear' art journal page!

'No Fear'
 -  page from art journal #2
'Never Give Up - Never Surrender!'
ingredients: Masking tape,
pencil, sepia pen, 
acrylic dabber paints, 
soft gel medium,
Sharpie paint pens,
gray and black markers,
matte medium, gessos,
and gel pens on
sketchpaper -
technique: layers of
art tettering

Howdy and Welcome,

Thanks to all of you who have found my blog!

I've been getting positive, encouraging comments on my art blog posts. I've won some contests!

So I'm wondering if I could join someone's Dream Team. I'm putting my wish out there. It would be fabulous to work full time on art! Ultimately, my art would be published in mags like Somerset Studio, Artful Blogging, CPS, travelling worldwide to teach workshops and retreats (in France and Italy) and to  host DVD's for Interweave using my own mixed-media techniques!

Wouldn't that be super-calli - fragi?!

Poll closes Sep 26 2010 at midnight. Please vote. All are welcome to vote - you do not need to be a follower to vote. And if someone wants ME to come on board right now, yippee! and please contact me pronto!

This image 'No Fear' is entered in the Theme Thursday challenge, WORDS, too! What great timing.
(Note: This is a found saying, not my own.  I read voraciously. Don't recall where I saw it.)

Thanks for stopping by to visit. Please become my follower while you're here, won't you?

Peace,
LuLu
http://www.lulu-too-beaucoup.blogspot.com/