I used to love driving. Really, really loved it. I loved it until I started to commute over an hour each way on I95/128 here in MA. Driving 128 is enough to make the most seasoned driver anxious, adding to it a significant stretch of I95 and well, hell on earth. Leaving the corporate world means I get to leave the hellish commute behind.

Now my commute is about the same amount of time, but by train. I sit on the commuter rail and read books for school or write my papers out longhand. I sit and reflect on my class I just took. I watch the sparrows fly in and out of weeds and chainlink fence. I look at rusty poles as I wait for the train to pick me up. I talk to fellow passengers or bury my nose in my book.

I don't worry that someone will be distracted by their cell phone, drift over the line and sideswipe me. I'm not on high alert waiting for the other guy to almost kill me. I havent' had to call 911 when I've witnessed an accident.

It has been glorious and peaceful in a way.

This is just one view of my commute:

I am thankful.

I spend a lot of time working on my garden and talking about my garden but I hadn't yet drawn any part of my garden. I'm going to do a series of drawings from items in my garden. You get a sneak peak of the drawings here, 'cause I'll have them in my next issue of Evidence.

I thought that when I left my job that the summer would be all fluffy kittens and unicorns farting rainbows. Well, my luck doesn't work that way, instead, my car's engine and muffler decided to separate pending divorce and right now we have them on amicable terms but that won't last. Then the washing machine's pump decided it had enough of washing my dirty clothes and died, then well, yeah, you get the point. There were no unicorns farting rainbows. I had to spend a weekend with trolls at the laundromat sweating in places no human being should sweat. The savings ended up being spent on repairs just so we could live life.

Oh also, one of the cars wouldn't start for a month, then miraculously started and runs okay now. Go figure.

Enough bitching. Through all of this I decided I wante dto use up some of my sketchbooks that have been gathering dust, you know since I can't afford to buy another new sketchbook. So I grabbed my Canson XL Recycled Drawing sketchbook, spiral bound 9×12 inches and a handful of pens and started to sketch, doodle, and write in it, art journal style. Back to basics baby. I felt more free than I had in a long long time while art journaling. I have been so constricted by what I THOUGHT this summer should be like and when life handed me a bag of lemons all I did was suck on them instead of figuring out how to make a great lemon pepper chicken.

So after a few pages of the journal I realized I REALLY liked working in this simple illustrative doodle filled manner. I also like writing in my journal. I have no big secrets. My thoughts and doodles meshed to make neat-o pages.

Then I thought, why don't i PUBLISH this ina  quick and dirty way. Like the zines I used to make back in the late 90's and early 2000's? Black and white photocopies? Nah, go high tech with it, PDF. The idea of scanning 18 pages of B+W images hi-res bummed me out, instead I downloaded a free app called CamScanner that allows me to use my ScanBox well and make a PDF that I load to my DropBox account and then to Etsy. I'm hooked.

So I call the zine "Evidence" it's 18 pages of pure art journaling in black, white and gray.  It's scanned in with the camera on my smart phone and made into a PDF with an app. It's printable and you can share it so long as you give me credit.

Get it on  my Etsy account here. It's $5.

Some sneak peaks inside the zine:

 Check out Imperfet Impulses, he's got a bunch of AJ prompts and some great ideas.

 Danny Gregory writes about the voice in his head.

I've been thinking about independence. Check out these videos about tiny houses.

Love these black and white images.

Kelly Kilmer thinks about art and Profit.

Tracy Moore writes about no rules journaling, lot's of pictures too!

I love to read about pencils, this blog goes in depth on the… Bic Matic!

This post on the Fountain Pen Geek forum has me thinking about drawings-a-day.

Have you ever thought of making your own gelli plates? You can from gelatin. It's great stuff.

Take a look at some of my journals on etsy.

Or take a look at my art on etsy.

At
first it starts out that I forget to post the thing to Etsy. Then I
just decided to stop doing that altogether because well, just because.
Then I forget to post my page for the day, and I get that up first thing
the next day, then I do a half assed page the following day because I’m
stressed that I forgot the previous day. Then my washing machine dies.
Then the car’s muffler decides to go on walkabout. And I’m stuck driving
my loud car to the laundromat to wash my underwear and because I chose
to go on Saturday afternoon at an out of the way place so as to avoid
the cops on Main st, it’s me and the woman with some sort of rash and
some of the worst nail fungus I’ve ever seen doing laundry while C
returns the redbox, picks up something for dinner, and then returns to
pick up me and the wet clothing, since our drier and clothes line still
work. By the time I get home I’m tired and stressed and I forget to do a
page let alone post it.

So screw it.

Then
the 30 day challenge become a spiral of shame that I can’t stick to a
30 day Challenge, after all, it’s ONLY 30 days, wtf can’t I stick to it?
What’s wrong with me? Then i’m all, if so and so can do it, why can’t
I? (Imagine that last part in a plaintive wail.)

The
thing is, I’m being creative, I’m drawing, I’m sketching and I’m
doodling, just not in  my prescribed 5×7 book. So here’s a picture of
what I drew while I was waiting for the wash to finish.

And an idea for a bag for my bike.

Ever since Gelli plates came out, people have been gaga with excitement over gelatin printmaking. Well, I was waiting for someone to figure out how to make their own plates and here it is:

I
have a massive clearance sale of old stock items currently up on my
etsy page. (That was worded awkwardly, but you get my drift.) I’ve got
old stock jotters from my old Artfire account, around 25 or so 6-packs,
but the deal is, I get to pick the covers. I didn’t want to spend a lot
of time shooting 100’s of pics so you get what you get for covers. You
can send me a message telling me, “OMG I hate pink.” I’ll avoid pink for
you. I’ve got white paper and not white paper as well as a few packs of
lined, graph and vintage rad IBM paper. $6 a 6-pack, several $ off from
my usual price. I won’t be stitching up any more of this style of
jotter, the machine I used to stitch them died so all my future jotters
will be hand stitched. So, the time to stock up is NOW!

I
also have a bunch of art journaling and sketching supplies that I’ve
been hoarding. Several packages each of Palomino writing and sketching
pencils and some of their colored pencils. Selling WAY below list price.
I also have what I call the “Art Journaling Basic Kit.” It’s got an
assortment of pencils, colored pencils and a KUM brass wedge sharpener.
All materials I like a lot. Also selling way below lists price on these
items. These items ship free if purchased in combination with a journal
or jotter set.

I
also have a bunch of what I’m calling the Behemoth journals, 300 pages
of great paper all stitched into one of my recycled sign vinyl covers.
Why 300 pages? I miss counted when I did my paper folding and put more
sheets than usual into the journals, my mistake is your bonus. These fat
journals are just begging to be filled with your thoughts, gratitudes,
EDM sketches, doodles and art journaling. Also did I mention that they
are awesomely thick? Also, heavy.

Holy Crap! I totally forgot to post this last night.

I did a sketch in pencil of a tootsie roll pop. I as thinking out some ideas in a notebook for a bike trailer. I tore out part of a design that I decided wouldn't work and glued that to the page, partially over the sketch of the tootsie roll pop. I then flooded just the background of the tootsie roll pop with magenta watercolor.

I apologize for not including step-by-step images as I have the for the rest of the 30 in June, I got distracted.

Here's a nifty blog called "The Letter is M."

This blog has a post detailing her early journals. Awesome.

A tumblr with collages, lovely brightly colored collages. I could look at this for hours.

A contest where you nomiate the winner.. Ahem… err, yeah.

The Fountain Pen Netowrk has taken a dive recently and I'm now hooked on the Fountain Pen Geeks forum for all my foutnain pen enabling.

Art is what you make it. 🙂 Love it.

Take a look at some of my journals on etsy.

Or take a look at my art on etsy.

Have a listen to Kim Deal, formerly of the Pixies and the Breeders: (LONG LIVE THE 90's!)