now i understand...

...why people who work in mixed media journals have a few different ones going simultaneously; because if you don't, you spend waaaaaaaaay too much time waiting for stuff to dry! and patience is not really my strongest point.* right now, i'm in the middle of three books that i expect to be ongoing for at least the whole summer, so i figured i'd show you a page or two. some are finished, some are in progress, some are just practice pages that are as done as they're going to be. i told you about the journals linda brun made for sandi t and myself, and i've posted some pics on my instagram account but here's a page i finished last night. and yeah, i'm still pretty obsessed with hand lettering! :)

the other BIG project i'm super-excited about is my book for the sketchbook project. participants can choose from the official 2016 themes, or just wing it. i've chosen "distance and time" and i *think* it's going to be mostly about hawaii, but in a sort of abstract visual way, rather than a traditional travel journal. at least that's how i feel right now. i've only done a few pages so far; partially because i'm slightly struggling with the paper, which is very thin and does not love wet media. at all. i now understand why previous participants have talked about reinforcing or replacing the pages in their "official" sketchbook. haven't quite decided what i will do, but meanwhile, i've got collagey goodness:

and zentangly/mandala sketchy type things that i loved until i colored them in, and now... not so much... ah, well:

the third book is my everyday working/practicing sketchbook. one of my goals for this year is to draw more, so i try to make sure this book and my basic drawing tools are nearby so that i can mess around and try out different ideas, usually at the end of the evening. there aren't any finished pages, just lots of random patterns, little sketches, color combos, etc. i used to do this sort of thing on scrap paper, but it's kind of cool to see the progress you make; also i use it to remind myself of ideas i want to fiddle around with later. so there are a lot of pages that look like this:

today i'm headed up to paper anthology to teach the last class of my "scraptastic" cards, which is about as much fun as a papercrafter can have. i hope you are finding time to do something you ♥LOVE♥ today, darlings!

*if you are related or married to me you may have to pause here for 10-15 minutes in order to recover from a debilitating bout of hysterical snorty laughter. it's ok. join us when you're ready.