2012 Art Journal, Week 2 - Parker Pens and Creepy Dolls

 
Gifts - best and worst

I know I am behind with weeks, but I'm hoping to catch up sooner or later.  Anyways, Efemera's prompt for week 2 is as follows:

"This weeks prompt word is GIFT
1 Your best gift? could be any occasion and any time
2 Your worst? " "
3 Include some recycled packaging/ recycled card on your page"

Being disorganised I did not have Efemera's prompt in front of me when I started the page, meaning that all I could remember was "best and worst presents".  I completely forgot about the recycled packaging/ recycled card.  Although I use recycled material in virtually every project I undertake, I think that the patterned paper I found in my scrap box came free with a magazine, so it is not recycled.  (Boo.)  Normally I would be saved by a tendency to collage, so usually at least some recylced item would have found its way into the picture, but since the Moleskine journal I use doesn't exactly lend itself to layers, so I missed out on that opportunity too.  (Dang.)

In progress

Since the artists' inks bled through the Moleskine journal pages, I am wary of the same happening with fountain pens.  For this reason, I am using different bases and sticking them into the journal afterwards.  I daubed "Sunflower" coloured ink from an pad ink around the edges of the page and then drew the pen and doll in pencil and then outlined them using Lamy Safari fountain pens (fine and medium nibs).  The journalling is done with the Parker 51 itself.

Parker 51 detail

"BEST PRESENT - My original Parker 51 with its italic nib which was given to me by my father a long time ago"

 

Creepy doll detail

"WORST PRESENT - A very beautiful porcelain doll with perfect but deeply sad features.  She looked abused.  I hated her.  I couldn't stand her looking at me.

I coloured the drawings with watercolour pencils and metallic pencils and journalled around them.  I stamped a few small images (rose, sunflower and ladybird) using a dark pink ink pad, just to break up the patterned paper a little.  The edging of the journal started as vermilion ink that had bled through the previous page, so I simply touched it up to give a (slightly more) consistent colour and stuck the patterned paper on top.

Original Parker 51 with italic nib

And here is my most treasured gift!  The fountain pen is one of a pair that my father, then a young naval officer, bought when he decided to improve his (perfectly neat and adequate) handwriting, by teaching himself italics.  He changed his handwriting completely by refusing to allow himself to write in his old style.  

When I was old enough to be interested, Dad bought me a Sheaffer calligraphy set.  I adored the Sheaffer pen set with its three different italic nibs and its brilliant booklet on calligraphy (which I believe I still have!).  I used it so much that it begun to fall apart.  Under supervision Dad had begun allowing me to write using his Parkers and one day asked me to chose one of them to keep as my own.  [Note that it isn't really advised to allow other people to use your italic nibbed pens, as they wear themselves in to your handwriting and a worn-in nib could be damaged by someone with a different writing angle.]

I chose the wider nibbed pen (silver cap) over the narrower nibbed pen (gold cap).  Vintage pens are supposed to be a mixed bag, but I have been using mine every day for 20 years and besides having a chipped top replaced and a single service by a professional for good measure, it continues to be the most lovely pen to write with that I have ever come across.  Sadly, unlike my father, I never mastered calligraphy.  My "biro-style" and "italic-nib-style" look totally different and I can't describe the later as calligraphy.  Nevertheless, I mastered a signature and I still love writing with it.

Ingredients for 2012 Art Journal, Week 2

Moleskine sketch journal

Patterned paper free with magazine

All Night Media "Sunflower" pigment ink pad
Rose and sunflower rubber stamp from same set (origin unknown) and Anita's ladybird rubber stamp

Distress Ink "Tattered Rose" stamp pad

Parker 51 fountain pen with italic nib

Lamy Safari fountain pen with fine nib

Lamy Safari fountain pen with medium nib

Caran d'Ache Supracolor soft water colour pencils: white, black, umber, scarlet

Derwent Metallic pencils: pink, silver

Windsor & Newton inks: vermilion

Seahorse Birthday Card

Seahorse birthday card for William

My brother William is mentally handicapped.  He likes happy colours, especially bright, joyful pink.  Accordingly, in anything I make for Will, I always try to include a bit of pink.  The year before last I knitted him a forest green scarf, which included pink details at the edges.

The background of this card is a combination of pattern origami paper, a dark blue piece of insurance advertising literature (guess whose insurance has just come up for renewal?) and offcuts.  I layered a few pink, red, purple and gold offcut/recycled anenomes on the the background.  Then I stamped and embossed the seahorse, before backing it and hanging it on ribbon.  The embossing was weak (perhaps the embossing ink is getting a bit old), so I touched up sections with gold ink.  I then covered the background section in recycled pink netting and layered over that with more anenome pieces.  The sentiment came free with a magazine, but I jazzed it up with Glossy Accents.  Finally, I mounted everything on pearlescent blue cardstock.

When the card is held, the seahorse on its ribbon (and the seahorse's googly eye) both move behind the rustling anenomes and the netting, which I am hoping invokes an underwater feel.  If I am honest, I think that the colours and patterns are too diverse, too disjointed to work as a whole and overall the image is way too 'cute' for my liking.  That said, I think William will like it, and that is all that really matters.

Ingredients for Seahorse:

Foam seahorse stamp (no details on the stamp itself but I am fairly sure I got it from Craft Central)

Top Boss 'Tinted' embossing stamp pad, Stamp-n Stuff 'Jewelled Gold' embossing powder, heat tool 
Windsor & Newton 'Gold' ink

Cardstock in pearlescent blue, Dekon origami paper, recycled/off cuts card and paper

Recycled ribbon, recycled netting 

Lakeland googly eye

Free-with-a-magazine sentiment

Inkssentials Glossy Accents, Uhu glue, doublesided sticky tape

New Year's Resolution No 1: Eat Veg

New Year's Resolution No 1: Eat Veg

'Eat Veg' is one of my sons' favourite expressions, although I am not sure why.  I never had any difficulty getting either of them to eat fruit, vegetables or salad and don't remember ever saying it to them.  Still, I fancied the idea of putting together some ATCs around the theme of New Year's Resolutions and this was an obvious choice.

I had trouble with this one, as a lot went wrong.  I painted the inks onto a food brochure, as I like to recycle that sort of thing where I can.  I had a few disasters with the stamping, but the wonderful thing about ATC's is that if you have a disaster, you can correct it with the next layer.  The ribbon is recycled and I didn't even have a large enough off-cut of the turquoise pearlescent card to use as a single mount (I had to cut it into strips and match up the edges).

I was going to post this on the second of my new crafting forums that I have recently joined.  This is http://www.ukstampers.co.uk and like http://www.cardmakingparadise.com is populated by some extremely talented and friendly people from all over the place.  However, there might be crossover in membership and I am not sure whether or not it is appropriate netiquette to post the same work on two different sites.  Since I am generally slow about making things, I have taken the view that I am unlikely to spam people, even if they are members of both sites, but if anyone knows of any rules or protocols, I'd be very interested.

Ingredients for New Year's Resolution No 1: Eat Veg

Tim Holtz Collection 'Creative Block' #25 stamp
See-D's 'Tiled Letters and Numbers' stamps
Ink It Up 'Light Chocolate' pigment ink stamp pad
Art-Kure watercolour sketch brush: Yellow
Windsor & Newton inks: Orange, Blue, Aquamarine
Derwent Metallic pencil: Green
Inkssentials Glossy Accents
Papermania brads
Recycled food brochure paper, pearlescent card off-cuts, ATC base, recycled ribbon, ribbon hole punch