Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The Sketchbook Project -Gray Days


I'm participating in The Sketchbook Project (click on the icon in the sidebar to read more.) and have been mulling around ideas about how I want to proceed. The papers in this 5" x 8 1/4" Moleskine are so thin that actually drawing on them as they are is out of the question as far as I'm concerned and there's not a great deal of time left in the year to draw on every single page. So. I decided to follow Marge Malwitz's lead and glue some of the pages together to create fewer, thicker pages.

What glue to use is the big issue with lots of the people who are working on this project. At MakenArt there's a long post about which glues and pens work best but I didn't read it until I had already experimented with gel medium, YES! paste, and a UHU gluestick, resulting in some badly wrinkled pages. I'm not worrying about that because I'll be making collages on the pages.

I find it so intersting to follow Marge's Creative Process that I decided I'll document my own process for you.  The title I chose from those available is "If you lived here". I'm enlarging the title to "If You Lived Here... Oregon". I'll use my own photos of various places I've been recently in Oregon and extend the photos with drawing and journaling since that's what I do.

My first 2 pages have to do with people's idea that it always rains and is cloudy and gray here in Oregon. It doesn't rain all the time. In fact the rain this week is the first we've had in Portland in 2 dry months. But one CAN count on bits of most days at the coast being overcast.

I happened to have the perfect sheet of gray washi so I cut that to fit and used 3M's 77 spray adhesive to glue it to the page, along with bits of blue washi to indicate the promise of blue skies.

The text under the pictures reads

Some say
it's always gray
here at the western edge
of the USA.

Often - yes, with a gentle mist.
But not always...
See there...
a hint of blue.

7 comments:

  1. This will be fun following you as your journal progresses. Love the texture of the washi paper.

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  2. this is awesome to be following your process now! I will do the same and link to your blog! I love your ideas-with your topic & working with your state of Oregon, the washi paper-the hint of blue and photos and your writing on the pages.

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  3. What a great spread, can't wait to see what you do next. Thanks for the link too!

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  4. Love your sketchbook so far. I just asked if I could do a collaborative sketchbook with my DH & he say yes, so I'm on my way to starting! I'm really enjoying seeing what everybody's doing.

    Just followed you, thought I'd done that months ago!

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  5. Glad you'll be sharing your process of filling this sketchbook. I've got one too and I sure need some inspiration, I was going to rebind it monday but then lost interest and did something else. Your first spread looks great! :-)

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  6. Found you through Marge's link. Love what you are doing with the theme!

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  7. It's fun to know that others of you are doing the project, too. Let's keep in touch.

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I appreciate comments and questions.