Sunday, October 23, 2011

October Art Journaling

October Week 1


Another one of those pages that started with leftover paint from the week before. I added the light blue with the intention of using black and the skyline stencil. The results weren't very crisp. I added a TH stamped image of a bug, and a couple of white rub ons. And our fortunes from Saturday's PF Chang dinner. Some Sakura pens for a bit more doodling, and the FC Pitt markers for most of the journaling.

October Week 2


It was an especially pink week in this pink month. I knew I wanted these pages to be pink. I used pink acrylic on gessoed pages, before the gesso was completely dry. I like how it turned out. I had picked up a pink chalk pen at Michael's -- it was among all of their BC Awareness stuff. I used it for all of my journaling. The white is a Sharpey paint pen.

Our October Colours

At this time of year, the predominant colours around here are the colours of fall: orange, yellow, a blazing red. But in the Pelletier house, our colours fall outside of the typical autumn colour range.

Green. Nick picked up a green suit to wear, possibly for Halloween, but first, for an experiment for his Abnormal Psych class.


Off he went in his green suit, for a day at school. The experiment was to create a situation out of the norm, and study the reactions. And there were reactions!


Orange. Marking the start of Flyers season. Nick dresses for school in his game day attire, on most game days.


Red: UD Lightning, Gaby's soccer team. She's #25.


Camo: not technically a colour, but in abundance in October. Archery season begins for Marc. Last year, he started hunting locally, on a co-worker's property.


For the first time in my life, for the first time in all of our years together, I went with him. Five hours to get a 15 minute glimpse of a doe that, thankfully, Marc couldn't shoot, since his license was for a buck. Best part - the 45 minute drive together, each way. Worst part - tied. Not being able to talk for over 2 hours, losing feeling in my extremities while trying to sit still, or the bugs, especially deer ticks and skeeters.


Blue: the Philadelphia Union came out to our high school. Three players, one of whom is a junior at our school. They signed autographs for over an hour, graciously signing shirts, balls, photos, cards, whatever was presented. They were awesome!


More blue: Team Maryellen, formerly Team Buststop, participating in their 3rd 3Day walk for the Cure. They first walked two years ago in celebration of the end of treatment for Maryellen, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer the year before. Last year they walked without Maryellen as the cancer had returned. This year, with heavy hearts but heads held high, they walked in her honour and in her memory.

Gaby and I got up early to catch the 7:00 opening ceremonies and start, at WG Mall.


Gaby caught the bus in time for school, and I joined the crowd at Rosario's to wait for Team Maryellen.


Once again, it was amazing to see all of these walkers, and even more emotional when Team Maryellen arrived.


Of course there was plenty of pink, the colour for Breast Cancer Awareness month.


We wore pink most of the weekend in honour of the walkers. Carole and Mike gave me, and Gaby, pink Union scarves that were distributed at the game the evening before. Lucky us!


Red, white & blue: the colour of headgear at Gaby's school's Fall Festival. The kids receive tickets when playing games, and can redeem them for a variety of prizes. These hats were one of the popular choices.


And we cannot forget Gaby's favourite colour during soccer season: dirt!


In this state, these don't make it past the front door.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Last Week's AJED

September Week Four and One Half


Last week, while I was working on these pages, Julie blogged about participating in a Sizzix blog hop, and shared the book she made for it. See it here.  I love love love the colours she used, and that was my starting point for this week. I blended acrylics to get this bright red orange. The black on the left is actually the result of a sloppy stencil job, so I covered it up. Once it was dry, I used Julie's leaf frame stencil and I love the result. Her punchinella stencil was used on the right, I added some journaling lines with the edge of an old gift card, and a piece of 7Gypsies tape filled the space on the left. Getting close to the end of the book, the left hand pages are tougher to work on away from the edges, cuz the left side is fat and lumpty. I did my journaling with a black sharpy this time. The paint finish is quite smooth, but it still seems to suck the life out of most of my pens. A sharpy is easier and cheaper to replace.