Thursday 31 May 2007

My Blog is One Year Old Today

I can't believe that it was a year ago today that I started my blog. Where has the time gone? I already had a website and couldn't understand why I would want to have a blog as well. However, nothing ventured I thought. My first post read "Today I started my blog....". I thought I would be struggling to say anything in future posts and I thought "who would be interested in all my experiments anyway". Blogging has helped keep me focused. I am quite sure I have achieved more than I ever would have by having my blog.

I have learned so much in the past year about blogging and all sorts of different techniques by visiting other blogs. I have made lots of new friends. Thank you for dropping by and taking the time to post a comment, I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you also for sharing what you do on your blogs so that we can all learn.

This past little while I have been busy playing with the computer and trying new things on my blog. I have also been tying up loose ends and catching up on course work. I can now relax and get back to playing again.

When I was clearing up the studio, the log cabin outside where I do all my painting and dyeing, I found my sketchbooks from the recent C&G course - Creative Computing. I thought I would share a couple of the pages with you. I am amazed at how much work I have done. I guess I was so busy enjoying myself I didn't realise just how much work was involved.

I was playing with different types and makes of paint with these two pages. I also tried stamping with different paints/inks, embossing fluid and powders.

These are some more paint effects with stamps using the embossing fluid and powders.
I used watercolours (left) and acrylic artists ink (right) on the paper and then stamped using an impress ink pad.
The left page has a piece of lutrador laid on top and then painted with gesso. I left it to dry and then painted it with acrylic paint and stamped it - the ink is very faint. The page on the right was first painted with Golden Gel medium (with added fibres), left to dry and painted with Artists Ink. I used the same stamp to make a design from water soluble paper (when the paper was wet I added some silk paint). I left the water soluble paper to dry and glued it to the page and finally used treasure gold on the paper.
This page was first painted with a very dilute watercolour wash. The design was painted on using Stewart Gill Filgree Fluid. It's a bit like Xpandaprint but a little thinner in texture. I used various Stewart Gill paints - Galactica, Metallica and glued on some mico flakes etc. This was an experiment to see how the different paints looked.

My apologies for the quality of the picures. Some things just don't photograph very well.

To celebrate my Blog Birthday the first 6 people to comment on this post I will send one of my fabric postcards.

14 comments:

Sandy said...

How can I not comment? What a good idea for a sketchbook to show types of paints. I keep buying blank books and saving them-not sure for what! Sandy in La Center

Papoosue said...

Happy Anniversary! One year eh? How time flies:) I agree, I think having a blog does make you focus. It is fascinating to see all these pages of experiments Carol, it's such a good idea too, to be able to refer back and see just how you did something. A fabric postcard --- yum!

Susan D said...

Happy Blog Birthday Carol. What great pages from your sketchbooks. It's amazing how much work you get done isn't it. I'm just putting my work together to send to Open College of Arts for assessment at the time I didn't think I'd done a lot but when you put it all together I'm amazed at how much I have done.

Leanne Hurren said...

Happy blog birthday Carol! I love reading your musings and keeping up with all the great work you get done. I've started a surfaces/texture sketchbook where I'm trying out different paints and effects - hoping that it will be useful to refer back to.

Joanna said...

I'd love one of your postcards Carol. Happy one year! I really love reading your blog and seeing all the experiments you are trying. Best wishes for many more years!
Joanna

Tonniece said...

Only one year old Carol? WOW.... Well HAPPY BLOG BIRTHDAY.
With all you've done and shared it seem much longer. Wishing you many, many more.

Doreen G said...

Darn I missed out--Happy Blogaversary Carol and I love your book.

bookwraps by suz.com said...

Happy Happy Blog-birthday Carol...your sketchbooks are just super...I love browse-ing your blog...you do really cool things---thanks for sharing...

Françoise said...

Happy blog anniversary!

Purple Missus said...

Oh darn! Didn't see your blog until this morning. Never mind - maybe I'll be lucky next time :)
Your sketchbooks are wonderful. Do you always keep them whole or do you sometimes tear the pages out to use in a particular project?
Happy blogiversary and may you have many more of them.

Carol said...

Congratulations on one year- I agree with you totally about bloggin and focus! nice to have met so many new freinds too. well done you carol.

Nola said...

Love the idea of the sketchbooks to try out the various media. I tend to keep records along with the projects, which isn't a very useful method. Might start recording them in a sketchbook like yours - a great resource!

Happy one year!

Dianne said...

Your book looks great, I really love the last on, it looks mosaic.
Wow a year, you have done so much its hard to believe is only been a year.. You should be very proud of all the work you have done, I sure am proud of you..

Carol said...

My goodness you are all so very kind. How can I leave anyone out. I haven't got the heart to do that and so I have decided that I will send each of you that have left a comment a postcard. Thank you so much for your kind words. Just send me your snail mail addy and a postcard will be winging it's way to you (I just have a few more to make).