I've started to start and end my day with a modified mandala type of image. I start with a center of one of my automatic drawings and build out from it in a somewhat circular pattern. I do not attempt to create anything perfect. Occasionally I'll break out of the circle with shapes. I draw these with an inexpensive but water-resistant pen, usually a Zebra Sarasa or Uniball Signo in 0.7 and black ink. After I finish the drawing and pattern making I work back into the image with watercolor crayons and watercolor.

While I start with a core of my automatic drawings these are different in that I don't add to them in the same way. Rather I work in patterns around the central image.

Anyway, here's part of last night's closer, before I added water.

And one from my train ride home a couple nights ago. If you draw something like this, none of the high falutin' business people will want to sit with you. So on a very crowded train you can end up sitting alone, which is a luxury. Color was added when I arrived home.

And I'll have to write about the particular watercolor crayons I'm using, they aren't Caran D'Ache, but I'm very happy with them. That's a tease right there.

A
few months ago I came up with this plan, I called it 31 in May. It was a
good plan to get me producing art on a daily basis and then requiring
me to list it on etsy. When the plan hatched from my brain I assumed
that my last few weeks of DayJob would be uneventful, sadly I was wrong.
So 31 in May becomes 30 in June. I’ll need to come up with a new
drawing for it, but there you have the idea in a nutshell.

The
reasoning for it is that I’ve gotten out of my daily art journaling
habit. I journal but not daily and I miss it and let’s face it, I need
it. So the plan is that I work in my small coil bound Stillman and Birn
Beta journal everyday for the month of June. When the page is finished
to hold myself accountable I load that page to etsy. Each page will be a
real journal page. Sometimes with writing, but not always. I’ll work
this coil bound journal just like I’d work any other journal, keeping
process to the front of my mind. Each page will get a blog post and
possibly a video. (The video portion will be harder due to video editing
constraints. Editing a video a day is way harder than it sounds.)
Anyway, that’s the idea, thirty 5×7 inch pieces in June, all loaded up
to etsy and my blog.

I keep writing about the JF365 Challenge over on AJ ning. I keep writing about it because it's a pretty awesome exercise in keeping an art journal and it's not an easy series of prompts. The techniques are different enough that I'm getting a good artistic workout. I highly recomend the book.

Here are a few teasers:

I took an unplanned and brief hiatus from blogging. I've been doing a lot of stuff just not here on the blog.

Jane and I started the JF365 Challenge over on AJ Ning, go check it out. We're working our way through the Journal Fodder 365 book in a group. It's a tough book on journaling but I'm forcing myself to work with the ideas and styles suggested in it. It's interesting to work in a sort of new to me way. I'm adding a lot more random to my pages than I usually do. Which is fun. I'm also writing a lot more. The monthly questions are great for introspective pondering. Good stuff.

As a result of working differently I've bought a few supplies I hadn't used before, so I'll be doing a few reviews soon. Yay!

I'm wokring on translating some of the experience of working the JF365 into posts here and in the next issue of Put it on Paper.

Instagram
dropped this little nugget of garbage on us earlier this week. The ToS
were insane. So people left in droves, quite literally overnight
Instagram lost thousands of users. Then in the afternoon they released
this nugget of double speak and whatnot.

Let
me translate that for you, Instagram and Facebook Legalese to real
English, “Dude we thought you wouldn’t notice that we’re taking your
pics and we’re going to turn a profit. How could YOU not know we were
planning on making money on this? Nothing in life is free forever.
Basically we thought we’d send out an update give you some good new
filters plus the ToS and you wouldn’t notice. We didn’t plan for Flickr
to release their app this week.”

I’ve
been expecting something like this since the day they were purchased by
Facebook. These ToS are not so different from the ToS on facebook. The
big difference- not being able to opt out.

The
reality is that things like Instagram need to turn a profit to stay
viable. How do they stay viable- think facebook’s ad system. How many
ads do you see on the sidebar of your facebook feed featuring your
friends? I see plenty of them. I opted out of them.

As
of right now, I can’t opt out of Instagram’s ToS, unless I delete all
my pics and leave. Which is kinda crazy. I don’t plan on deleting
everything yet, I’ll wait until the new ToS come out to see if I still
want to leave them entirely. frankly I’m already using the new updated
flickr app and I’m content with that, it’s a service I’ve used for
years, trust and will continue to use.

You can find me on flickr.

Occasionally I'll get an idea, an idea that seems so good, I can't help but to follow it down whatever rabbit hole it takes me, and that is what I did X3 this weekend.

Rabbit Hole #1

Bookmarks. I saw these super cool book marks on someone's web page somewhere. Small, about 3 inches by 1.5 inches with a flap to grip the page- genius! I designed a quick piece in Make the Cut, slapped some of my painted bristol on the Crapcut and yeehaw, bookmarks! The came out neato.(I'll write about how well the crapcut did and didn't do in another post.)

Rabbit Hole #2

Secret Santa Gift Exploding Box. A few years ago I found a template online for a box with an attached lid that sort of screwed down on top of the box. I cna't find the one I made years ago. So I searched and searched and searched. I found a template for "wedding boxes" in the Make the Cut archive. It was pretty in accurate. I made 5 copies with tweaks to the file before I made 1 that worked properly. Also it doesn't help that the provocrap crapcut can't make accurate cuts. I ended up making a 3.25×3.25×4 inch box with lid attached. Ilike exploding box better than wedding box. After I made the 4 mock ups I made 2 in colored paper.

No,, I'm not going to tell you what's actually IN the box, not that my workplace secret santa reads my blog, but I'll tell you it's local and cute.

Rabbit Hole #3

X's and O's. Or my handmade Christmas Paper. If you've been following me for any period of time you know I make my own Christmas paper. Usually I scrounge up packing paper and what not, butthis year has been pretty thin on the packing paper front. So, I bought a cheap pad of newsprint for about $5. I then started to design a variety of stencils. X's, O's, some cool squares and what i'm calling black eye'd peas. I don't have pics of all of them since I spent 2 days designing them and not cutting them.I certainly didn't have time to use them making paper, go figure. This weekend Christiw and I will clean off the kitchen table, get out the paint and sharpies and attack some newsprint to make our own wrapping paper. (I have to say I've also convinced a bunch of my friends to do this with their kids, or so they claim.)

As a compulsive hoarder and trash picker I have many of my coworkers trained to bring me goodies- things they know I'll use in a creative recycled way. I had a coworker who used to send my way out of date and unused marketing stickers. I have rolls and rolls of them. I often use them to secure packages in lue of tape. I mean, after all, tape is expensive. They work well for that purpose.

Those stickers are all paper, meant to be torn and not last a long time. She also gave me 60 small 2×2 inch vinyl stickers, which are meant to last and last. I've been randomly sticking them all over the place- planners etc, as is. Randomly I thought to myself, "Supposedly the provocrap crapcut can cut vinyl with ease, I wonder if I can control it well enough to cut one of my shapes out of these little stickers?"

Lo and behold, hell's yeah, I figured it out, and I have 30 of these little sheep.

And then and untold amount of these. I'm telling you, making this work has made me unbelieveably happy.

So far I've only stuck these to my sketchbooks and my coworker's computer…

This led me to think, what could I do with those round paper stickers? Since I'm on a sheep kick lately, I cut some sheep out of them…

Not my most inspired thoguth. BUT! Now I'm thinking what IF I painted those round stickers? I know the crapcut will cut through paint as long as it's dry and a thin coat… So maybe I can paint and spray some stickers and get totally custom sheep. (heh< comment if you get the irony of that statement.) This may or maynot be a plot for me to go to Michael's and use my coupon to buy some liquatex spaypaint…

(Also if you haven't snagged the new flickr app for your phone, DO IT NOW, better than instagram!)