It's crazy days...

...in the Dinn Duo household, and I'm right up there with them.  With near-completed signatures all over two of my three tables,

a table filled with signatures in the making, 

and a fallen-down stack of mini books, it's my usual chaos.

Add to that there's half of the Dinn Duo (aka John) working on a table, creating boxes for the museum.

While it may appear that nothing ever gets done here, that's definitely not the case...

These three books have been completed...well, except for the one on the left which needs some enhancements on the cover before I video a look-through.  😊  Well, so maybe things never do get done - that would make me a typical artist, wouldn't it?  

Hope your week has been filled with all sorts of projects and even some completed ones!  Do catch me up on what your week has been like in the comments below... 

People are so amazing,....

 ...aren't they?  This week I received a package of papers, gifted to me from half way around the world, by Tracy of Sojourner.  Here are just some of the delights I found.

It was such a treat to open, and I can hardly wait to play with all these goodies!

And you know there's nothing more fun than getting snippets of art play from friends, especially when they come complete with a hand-crafted card.  And aren't those two little bits at the bottom fun?  They make me think of beach huts.  

I'm loving the possibilities inherent in the deli paper prints, too, since I have very few of these papers and so enjoy the way the translucency looks over top of other bits of art.

And get a load of these masks - aren't they wonderful?  I can see a gel printing session coming up!

And on the home studio front, my large journal and the black and white one are languishing on the side

while I work my way (slowly) through a binding technique with some 'Head Shots' I did some years ago.

Off to the side there are some dozen and a half mini books in various stages.  It's important to me that I start as many projects as possible while the ideas are fresh, right?  😏

My work tables seem to be heavily loaded to the book side these days, and I'm going to blame it all on Joe Rotella and Vintage Page Designs.  I just can't seem to stop.  If you're a book fiend too, I highly recommend you join the Creating Handmade Books with Vintage Page Designs Facebook group...you, too, will be drooling, stunned and addicted.

I'm wondering about your addictions - do you follow them through at the expense of everything else?  Do you do, and do, and do until you get it out of your system?  Would you rather create than eat (I wish it would go that far!)?  Tell me about your creative life!

Another week ...

...and I've more blog friends here for you.  

You'll love the digital work at Sim's Work where you'll find luscious layers of delight like this one:

A favourite romp of mine is Felix the Crafty Cat.  I'm very fond of the Masterboards that Angela creates, among other things, and it's always a treat to see the most recent cards and other exotic creations!

I can't help but appreciate the wide-ranging items done by Craftartista - Mia's creativity runs from digital to colouring books to mandalas to poetry and much more.  

A long-time artsy friend is Zsuzsa at Inky Dinky Doodle - her colour always has me drooling and her creativity is boundless.

And while we're not online friends (yet) I've been recently perusing Vintage Page Designs given my ongoing and renewed interested in hand-crafted books.

Wherever you're heading on the web, I hope you'll check out all the artists you can find; there's nothing like whetting the appetite for more creativity!

It's great to have...

so many fabulous artists friends online, and I really enjoy following their blogs.  So I'm letting you in on some good ones in this post, and will repeat this type of post periodically, 'cause there are just so many!!!

Make sure you pop over to The Stardust Factory.  You'll love the luscious layers in Deann's digital work, and when they're coupled with her oh-so-spot-on bits of quotes/poetry/songs, the double whammy is outstanding.  Here's one of her recent rich pieces called Gypsy Dreams:

For thought-provoking insights, you can't outdo Soujourner.  Tracy does wonder-full journal work as well as paintings, book-bindings and more.  Her introspective posts are clear, concise and pack an excellent humanistic wallop.  Check out the colour in this page, called 'Close to home'.

One blogger that is always great for a belly laugh is MadebyCHook.  Corrie's work is always beautiful, and often side-splitting; for that I am beyond grateful.  I swear she made this one up from my head:

For garden-inspired beautiful mixed media, I encourage you to check out Laura Leeder's work.  One can't help but think of garden light when viewing her birds and flowers and this one, Peace on Earth, is so serene.

Eileen Gidman is an artist accomplished in many areas - from watercolour to plein air painting to dyes on textiles.  It's the latter that really pulls me in.  The process is labour intensive, but the results are so worth it; her new series of wow-colour pups just makes me grin.  This one is called Playful.

I'll be sharing more of these wonderful artists soon;  in the meantime, do pop over and give these artists some love.  You'll be most welcome!

When I'm in the Project Doldrums...

... my normal go-to is gel printing.  However, after finishing the Stab-Me Binding from the last post, I've spent the week taking photos of my work and honing my design sense.  I've always really liked abstract art, but doing it is a great deal more difficult than it looks, and part of my issue is design.

So I've taken photographs of part of my artwork, cropped and corrected them for colour and light, and then done the same again.  

It's interesting that nearly every segment could be cropped more than once to create something that is pleasing to the eye.

The cropping can make a tremendous difference to the orientation of the piece as well.

And each segment of a piece can be a work of art on its own.

Really, apart from the issues of pixilation, the possibilities are endless.

Here's my question for you this week - what do you do (and how) to hone your own sense of design?  It's a life-long study for me, and I'm hoping you can help!  

A learning curve...

 ... is always very steep for me when it comes to spatial relationships, and the Japanese stab-binding book @joerotella showed us in #creativejumpstart21 was a huge one.  I've been working on it off and on for what seems like a year (exclusive of studio light reno time), and finally finished it.

The book holds about twenty-five pages of gel prints that are jam-packed with colour.  In fact, I think the book should be called 'A Wee Bit of Colour', don't you?

I'd reached a point where the covers needed to be made, and you can just see the near-ready back one in the bottom right of this photo.

Handy-dandy Mr. Dinn did his usual masterful job of drilling the holes when it was all put together.

The stitching had me bamboozled for a while, but after three seventeen run-throughs of the video and printed instructions, I managed to wrap my head around it.  I think it looks great!

And it's a perfect way to showcase some of my not-so-subtle prints.

I'm delighted it's finished, and surely if I did it once, I could do it again, right?  I've got a project or two in mind for the grandchildren.  😉😍

It's been another week...

 ...of playing in the studio.  I've done a meditative mark-making project from #creativejumpstart21, inspired by @AndreaChebeleu and turned it into a small book utilizing a suggestion from another student to bind it.

I've finished two more mini books from another lesson, with three more to go:

The black and white journal has a couple of new spreads,

progress is being made in the stabbing department (although I am still flummoxed by the choice involved in choosing the covers), 

and I delighted in a very quick and not-at-all-dirty tutorial by @SethApter.  This storyboard project (photographed on my oh-so-subtle file cabinet) took less than ten minutes, and I can see a great range of applications for playing with it.  It cracked me up that he stapled his storyboard labels to his backing, and that one can actually purchase colored staples.  Did you know that?  It opens up a whole new world of possibility, doesn't it?  😄😎😄

I just love being in the studio and trying new things.  I can see there will be a host of new classes in my pocket (and $$ flying out of it) if this Covid-thing lasts much longer.