Sketchbook Challenge--Class--ART 2011--or--Tag, I'm IT!

Hello 2011!!! 

And welcome Sketchbook Challenge~~one of two art related items that I start this month. The second is an on-line class with Michael DeMeng that begins on the 11th (1/11/11.....I like that!) and something hubby got for me as a present, and I must admit I am most anxious to start.

Yes, this is what I am using for a sketchbook. Quit laughing.

Now to sketchbooks.

I was the bane of my poor high school Art teacher with sketchbooks. I hated them. He told me I would always need them, I told him they were a waste of time. I actually got a *B* once due to a honking lousy sketchbook (because he knew what I could DO~~what a good artist I was).

Boy I was mad, but it wasn't enough to start a love affair with sketching. Nope. I have a cement head. 

Here was the issue; I felt if I did the good fancy-schmancy sketch, the inner mojo for a finished work was lost. Seriously, I still work like this. I will post a few photos of thumbnail sketches I have done and scribbled notes later on so you can see what a leap of faith this is for me.

But I digress. Yesterday the challenge started and the prompt for the month was *Highly Prized* which left me looking around the studio in a bit of a blur. What fits for me?
All my art supplies. All my friends. My birds. My copious quantities of photos.........

Wait.

Photos.

I had started a rather interesting sketchbook a couple years ago that basically was inspired by photos taken in New Orleans and it got buried when paying work came in. I dug that out. But this is a theme for one month only, and that sketchbook is an ongoing project of nice drawings/paintings and mixed media. I'll keep it going no matter what.

However, I had some brown manila office tags I had gessoed and there were enough of those to put into a mini-sketchbook. I mean, I'm making my own rules here---I want something I can add to or delete from and this seemed to be the ticket! (or tag, if you prefer!) Plus, I could try a few of the DeMeng techniques on the cover tags, and a few other things I had wanted to toy with....

So the first day of the new year was spent with my fingers covered in primer and paint and gel mediums, and it was really, really NICE.

These were the results of tinkering with gels, gesso and a heat gun (which BTW you don't want to use over waxed paper....) and then using washes of fluid acrylics. 

Oh yes, this looked much like some of the worn and crusted New Orleans buildings I had come in contact with......especially the silty dirt part. (an aside: silt is everywhere in the air, on the street, etc. all from the Mississippi)

Definitely a Front.

Or Back.

And this one.....oooooooo....rusted decaying metal of some unknown source. Yes, very much like the nooks and crannies of the Crescent City. 

Wouldn't this make a great Back? Or Front?  ;-)

So these are the exterior covers, or maybe the interior of the covers as I've not done the opposite sides yet and I might like them better. We'll see. For me it's the experimenting.

And now something totally unrelated:

Yes, they are little plastic cocktail swords, normally used to skewer olives, cherries or a pearl onion or two.

But aren't they much more fun turned into excavated Pirate Swords? From a shipwreck or covering some buried treasure on a damp beach? Rusted, crusty, with lots of character and maybe one is even a relic left by the ne'er-do-well Cap'n Jack Sparrow!
I have plans for these.......

Okay, until the next time, I am off to the land of Art, sketchbooks, and mess-making. And having a wonderful time too.

Pax....