storm clouds journal page:

the unfinished page:

just some random washes of color, along with some scratched-in texture using  some sort of an implement (a plastic fork or knife, maybe?? I don't remember, exactly).


the finished page: 

I don't often start out with an idea for my pages, but for this one, I got an idea where I wanted to take it, since it looked a bit like a rainstorm to me. I added more washes of color along with more texture to make it look even more like a storm. Once that dried, I added a couple layers of paper on the bottom along with the small figure walking 'out of' the storm. (I made this page quite soon after my second surgery- I think soon after I heard the news that I wouldn't need chemotherapy).  ...I don't remember exactly when I made it, unfortunately... Public Service Announcement: add the date to your pages when you make them! 
(edited to add: I have since 'messed up' this page by adding to it-- see that paint blob up towards the top that looks kind of like a heart- well, if you squint it does... ? Anyway, I thought I'd do something to enhance that, and I really hate how it turned out-- so, I'll be back later with another 'finished' picture of this page. I really need to learn to leave well enough alone! On the flip side, since I'm not 'finished' with it anymore, hopefully I can remember to add the date to it when I AM finished; LOL!)

July 4th rain

a few photos of the wonderful gray, drizzly Independence Day we had on Wednesday! It was really nice to wake up to the sound of rain on the roof and to enjoy the gray, overcast skies all morning long. (overcast, rainy days are truly a rarity here, so even though I never thought much about them back in Illinois, they are now a very pleasant event.)

we relaxed out on the patio most of the morning; Tom smoked a cigar while I read a book, and the dogs hung out and kept us company. (They don't like getting their feet wet, but I like to think they appreciated being outside in the fresh air!)

Above, Prescott and Bisbee appear enjoy a doggie air-kiss moment... (actually, I think he was trying to get her to play and she didn't want to!)

a bit later, they both went inside... Krista didn't quite know if she wanted to jump up onto the patio chair (it wobbles a bit), so I lifted her up onto it. She stayed there a while, but eventually she wanted down... again, it was wobbly, so she wasn't sure about it. (it took her a while, but she finally figured out how to do it!)

This is the aftermath of those 4+ inches of rain, the next afternoon-- these pictures aren't the greatest (if you click on them, they'll get larger), but they do show a bit of the mess in the wash that runs through our neighborhood-- the road was still technically blocked at this point, but it didn't stop this Jeep driver from blasting right through the water. (it wasn't that high, but the water was above the roadway, and it was still moving at a pretty good clip.)

this photo is a view north from the sidewalk... even though it's receded now, the water must have been pretty high, because it looks like the mud and muck had covered pretty much the entire wash from one side to the other. 

and I took this photo just because it was cool-looking, and I knew it wouldn't last. The thin coating of mud across the sidewalk had dried into something that looks like chocolate curls! (not quite as tasty as chocolate, though, I'm sure.)

another random photo post-

just a couple more random photos, also from the last couple weeks:

I was stuck behind a semi (road construction had it down to one lane) on my way to the library one day at lunch, and thought it was sort of cool that I could see myself in the back of the truck!

another shot of the recent dust storm... you canNOT see out into the distance at all; the fact that you can't see what's out there sort of reminds me of a setting from a Stephen King horror story, or something.  (thankfully, no scary creatures came at us out of the dust!)


We had a nice and relaxing 4th of July; we spent most of the morning out on the patio, watching the rain; it rained off and on all morning long; it was gray, and drizzly, and it was wonderful. (YAY for rain!!) I definitely have a different attitude about rain now that we live in Arizona; rain is no longer an inconvenience; it's an event to be celebrated. Even if it occasionally causes us to have a detour because the road through our neighborhood is flooded out (like it is today). 4+ inches of rain will do that, I guess... lol! (But still, yay, rain!) After it stopped raining, we grilled out, then watched the fireworks from Washington DC on television... the worst part was knowing we'd have to get up this morning and go back to work!

some recent journal pages and backgrounds-

along with painting backgrounds, another thing I did while I was recovering was go thru my magazine stash to pull out images and text I might want to use on my journal pages... it's easy to do while watching TV, and bonus, getting rid of the unwanted magazine pages made some room in my stash of stuff! (so I can buy new collage fodder, lol!)

so now I have a new stash of magazine and book images, along with some printed-out images from the internet that looked interesting.

this picture is two of those internet images, colored in and cut out, ready to use. The flower girl was colored with the watercolor paints, and the fairy on the mushroom was colored with colored pencils. (coloring isn't just for kids, you know!!)

the finished toadstool fairy page in my 5x7 journal... I kept the page layout pretty simple with a watercolor background and a couple snippets of origami paper. I spent some time coloring in the flowers with my gel pens. 

I also used my gel and metallic pens to add some additional color accents on the fairy. (have I told you I love coloring?!?)

and, here's an unfinished journal page in the 5x7 journal-- the image is from a vintage National Geographic magazine (I think it was a travel advertisement for Paris?), there's some foreign text (newspaper and a book), and the purple floral is a piece of handmade wrapping paper that I recently picked up from Cost Plus World Market. ($2.99 for one large sheet of handmade paper- no way would I use it to wrap a package, but rip it up to use in my journal? of course!!)

lastly, two-pages from the 9x12 sketchbook journal (this is the second journal I ever started working in, and I recently resurrected it off the shelf for use with the watercolor paint). The righthand page is finished: every color from the watercolor set, along with pencil and paint doodles. The lefthand page is just a start... we'll see where it goes from here.