Florence Turnour's Blog

School started today, so I got behind in Creative Jumpstart while I prepped. Today I really enjoyed Nathalie Kalbach 's demonstration and snuck a little time on it. I love the result. Such a great idea, collaging a drawing. I love the line I get from the cut edge. Thanks, Nathalie! Thanks for looking!

In Rachel Greig 's Creative Jumpstart lesson, she talked about using gesso as a kind of resist. I tried painting gesso through a stencil onto paper, and then using India inks over the top. Here's the result. Neat effect. Thanks for the inspiration, Rachel!

Here is my project from Creative Jumpstart , Day 9, inspired by Diana Trout . I ordered the watercolor ground that she used, so I had to wait to give it a try. There was some bright pink gelli printing on the page before I put the watercolor ground, which you can see through on the painting. Fun project. Thanks Diane! I love that I now have a way to put watercolor into my junque journal, which has many pages full of leftover acrylic prints. Thanks for looking!

I love this mask-and-pattern technique so much! Today I did another pattern from Lisa Congdon's Pattern class on Creativebug, following Andrew Borloz 's inspiring lesson from Creative Jumpstart . You know the scene in Bridget Jones' Diary, in which she make blue soup? The pattern of the day is Harlequin, but I got some of my pieces backwards, so... This time, I kept my details a little more under control than on the paisley page . So much fun to do! I either need to use bigger regions, or make some finer detailed stencils. Thanks for gnikool.

Day 7 in Creative Jumpstart  is a lesson on the Gelli plate by Rae Missigman . It took a few tries to get the right amount of ink on the Gelli plate to make this happen, (tip: roll it on THIN), but once I got it to work, it was great fun. Here are some of my more successful and photograph-able attempts. And here is a collage I made in my art journal. It was tricky to print right into the journal. I ended up flipping the Gelli plate onto the journal page, and then slipping my hand underneath between the pages to burnish it. Thanks for looking!

You know how common sense says to just follow the recipe the first time, and then alter it after you know what's going to happen? I could have probably stood to do that. Instead, since the pattern of the day from Lisa Congdon's Patterns class is paisley, I thought I'd combine that with Andrew Borloz 's Hodge Podge Soup recipe in Creative Jumpstart . Well, my version of the recipe has quite the mix of spices! I'm going to do one with bigger-than-a-paisley patches of color, so that the patterns in the stencil will show up better (my paisleys were only a bit courser than my stenciled patterns). Still, the stencils made for excellent guides to make semi-symmetric doodles. When in doubt, more dots! Thanks for looking!

I love stencils, so I kept experimenting with the Take Away technique that Michelle Ward showed in Creative Jumpstart . This is going to be my background for Day 6's project (I seem to have skipped a day. I'm not sure what happened, but I plan to go back to it later, although Day 6 looked like it is going to be SO MUCH FUN that I may only do that for the rest of my time off). I painted paisley (tear drop-isn) shapes in gesso, and then brayer-ed on some red and magenta paint, and used my new stripy stencil to remove the paint. I used this stencil I made from hand-drawn lines. Here's my background in full (with a little of my chevron pattern from Lisa Congdon's Patterns class on the side). Thanks for looking!

I made this background using techniques from Michelle Ward 's workshop in Creative Jumpstart . Love her stencil designs and her technique. I used two stencils I made a long time ago. They are a set because they use the same shapes in different configurations. I tried it with dark paint over light background, and with light paint over dark background. The dark paint on top produced a clearer image. Thanks for looking!

Today's Creative Jumpstart workshop was from Carolyn Dube . She suggested, among other things, that we use something from the garbage in our project. My first reaction was, "I have so many wonderful supplies. I don't want to use garbage!" Then I spotted my envelope collection (we pay most bills on-line, so the blank envelopes they give us to mail in go unused). Then I looked up and noticed my coffee can collection, and my gelato container collection, and I thought about that cabinet over the pantry where, if you open it too quickly, the oatmeal containers will fall out on your head and go rolling down the hall. I did use the envelope, but took pictures of the rest of it. Toss or keep? KEEP! I made the envelope into a pocket. And here's my hand, in case you think I neglected to use a medium that was not completely under my control. The acrylic ink I used for the background got on me. And my desk. And my pant leg. And a drawing on another page (wiped it of...

I made the Junque Journal in  Julie Balzer's Make Your Own Junque Journal class.  I've made a bunch of junque journals, and a couple of books with watercolor paper, which I love working in. It's full of random gelli prints, nothing finished, and nothing that I'm unwilling to paint over. I'm hoping to add a lot to it during Creative Jumpstart. Today I painted a bird in my new Junque Journal, after watching  Mystele Kirkeeng 's video in Nathalie Kalbach's  Creative Jumpstart Workshop  series. Unidentifiable bird atop a branch of a mysterious variety of fruit.   Thanks for looking!

I had a fun day at El Dorado Nature Center today, drawing for my on-line class with Jane LaFazio . I saw an egret, who didn't make it into my sketch book, and two squirrels who did. That park is only two mile from my house, so I'll certainly be back. Thanks for looking.

I took Julie Balzer's Make Your Own Junque Journal on-line class and made two journals. I loved this project.  It's so great to use up a bit of my huge stack of printed papers, and to find a home for some fairly finished artwork that I did as part of various on-line classes. For sure this is just the beginning of a new adventure in book binding for me. In the class, they encourage us to video a "Flip-through" of our journals to other participants. I made this little video showing off both books. Here are the on-line classes and teachers I mentioned in my video, in case you are interested in checking them out. Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Make Your Own Junque Journal on-line class Carla Sonheim's Gelli Plate Plus Carla Sonheim's Cats Creative Jumpstart 2016  workshops from Birgit Koopsen Michelle Ward Julie Fei-Fan Balzer Dawn Woleslagle's Watercolor for Card Makers, Intermediate Techniques Thanks for looking!