Traveling Guild Secrets

There is lots of exchanging of secrets going on at the Traveling Guild.   At times, I feel like I have to print out a directive from the Guild Mistress, or other information.  I felt I needed to keep these together.  So, I made a folder for these special secrets.  This is an expandable folder with sides.

Another Guild House Room

My workroom in the Guild House is awesome... don't you think.  Every kind of tool, media and stashes can be found here! I will really kick up my heels when I start a new project here.

Tags for the Guild House

I decided to make some tabs for the rooms in the book I am making into a guild house (see earlier post.)  I used some tags HRH brought me from work... very nice sized manilla ones.  I gave them a wash of ink, then used some stamps to add decor.  As I finish a room at the guild (in the book),  I will add a tab to it, that is my plan.  I cut the tags in half to make the tabs.

Myo Travels to the Guild House

The Guild House is always under construction.  Here you see the basics.

The entrance to the Guild House

Started with a board book, sanded, gessoed, stamped, painted.

The outside walls with windows into the interior.

Small windows from another small accordian photo book.

The interior with windows to many lands. Matt gel medium, stamps, acrylic paint, collage.

The Great Journey Hall with map tiles on floor and portraits of previous travelers. Collage and paint.

The great compass inlaid in a special compass room. Collage and paint.

More exterior walls as the house morphs into a book.  The roof folds into the book, the walls fold into the book.

When the Guild is a book you get  a peek at all the inner secret rooms.

Myo-Alter Ego

This is a photo of my doll Myo before I added her face and hair.  She has very bendable wire wrapped arms and legs.  The "journey" has been taking most of my creative time.  I am designing a Guild House creation right now.  I have the very basics done, and now I am trying to find embellishments for it. 

I have been computerless for a couple of weeks but finally managed to locate most of my sites including this blog again.  Whew, for a while I thought I was just going to have to start a new blog... he he.

Water

It is blog action day today... we are talking about water.  I fully intended to do a piece of art about water, but other activities grabbed all my time.  I am sad about that.  What could be more important than water?  I live in a semi arid high desert environment, and water is so important to survival!  We must take care of it peeps!  I hope you will today, do something to help conserve, to help protect, to help others who might need the help to get healthy water sources, today!  Love your water and the life it ensures for us!

Change.org|Start Petition

I hope I touch someone to turn off the drips, the sprinklers, the water that is going nowhere for no good reason  I hope I get someone to be careful what we pour out into the drains and onto the ground that might contaminate our ground water sources.  Let's take care of each other!

Vintage

What do you think of when you see something vintage... like vintage clothing, jewelry, or bottles?  Do you think of a time past when life was a bit more laid back, safer, less complex?  I do.
I have collected found and vintage jewelry in my stashes for some time,  to use as decorative touches here and there in my art efforts.  Then, came the bottles, a box of them found at the YSM a summer or two ago. Suddenly, a few days ago, an ephiphiny!  I would put the jewels and bottles together, make them more agreeable to display.  One turned out so art deco, I am very much in love with it!  The others, very interesting and beautiful... each one a collectors item!
If you have stuff in your stashes that have been there awhile, why not try putting a couple of things together to make some thing useful or at least to make some eye candy?

On the left, the art deco old shoe polish bottle... I love this one!

In the middle, an unknown bottle with a "slide picture" mounted to it.

On the right, an unknown bottle with rhinestones from vintage jewelry.

I did find that the bottles that under went major scrubbing and shining are not nearly as lovable as the bottles left in their "as is" look, like the art deco one above.

Swallodonia

I have my map as far as I am going to take it for now.  I am waiting for more information before I do anything more.  Here are the steps to making my map:

I started with a 2.5 X 3 foot piece of tyvek.

I added an edge with acrylic wash.

I added a squiggly black line to the edge of the wash.

I added a gold line with a metallic marker.

I added a black and white line next to the gold line.

I dumped some ink onto the tyvek then picked up the tyvek and smooshed the ink to make an ink blot.

I did the same ink blot twice more with different colors. 

I added rivers with blue pen.

I added mountains with green pen.

I added some major spots with stickers for villages, towns and a city.

 I added some masking tape to the bottom to make the areas for the compass rose, the name, and the legend, then washed the blue waters in around the land.




The sticker areas are villages...Hatcherson is where Myo lives.

I had some lovely wrapping paper I bought at the YSM that I thought would work just right for the compass rose.  It added a bit of embellishment to the corners too.

A place for the name of the land...Swallodonia of course!

Another sticker for the largest city in the land...Featherton!

Oh, see Mount Lucifer north of Featherton?

This map was fun to make but I am ready to give it a rest. Next step:  An artist statement!

 

My Travel Journal Pictures

I took some more pictures of the paper bag journal I made for my imaginary trip.  I shopped at the YSM for some paper bags to make one, but only found two lovely deep purple ones with handles that were the right size.  So, I cut the handles off to use.  The other thing I found was a box of craft envies, size 5 X 11 inches, which when folded in half were the same size as the paper bags.  So, now I had enough stuff to make the journal.
However, I did not like the too bright manila color of the envies, so out came my stencils and out came my spray paint.  Give those babies some color and design, I said!

I like how the stencils look on the bight envies so much, I stenciled the purple bags too.
I folded all the parts using a bone folder.  I have found the better you crease the easier to bind.
Once dry, I put the bags the the envies together in no particular order... four envies and two bags.  I poked holes with a awl, used heavy string which I pulled through some bees was to give it a bit of extra strength and sewed the book together.  I decided to let some of the envies open on top and some on the side like the bags.  So, I cut the top flap on the fold, sealed the flaps down then using scrap book sissors at random, I cut the ends or the tops of the envelops, and the ends of the bags so I now have twelve openings.
Next, I wanted twelve mini journals/pamphlets to go into the pockets of the pbag journal.  I randomly picked papers and fabric I had in my stash that were big enough to make the journals to fit in the pockets.  Cut them to fit the pockets, cut paper to fit the covers, 4 pages per booklet.  Later, I would sew the signatures in on the sewing machine.
Here are some of the covers I chose for the mini booklets:

Ahhh, you see, the stencils were there and the paint was there, so they got some paint too, lol.

 One of the envies stenciled.

How they fit in the pockets.

This mini journal cover was a laminated Dali illustration I have had for at least 20 years.  I used it when I taught art!

This cover, rather wabi sabi, was one of my cardboard experimentations from the Collage Lab book.

And an old leather brief case I dismantled some time back.  A piece just right size!

And an old soft book cover with a title... love this one.

A painted fabric one with brown craft paper for the insides.  The brown paper was already stenciled with scrolls, which I love.

And another old soft cover from a music book.  I think this one will be the first book I use, after all, it is Book One!

I am loving my paper bag journal. I am trying to decide if I need to add a latch  of some kind to it.  When it has all the journals in it, it stands by itself.  Lovely!

Map Play

Have you ever tried to draw/make a map?  I have made some pretty primitive maps in my time, but I decided I wanted to make a map that I could stand to look at... an artistic rendering if you will.  Well, not an easy task!
I found a roll of construction tyvek at the YSM, and it has a lovely feel to it so I thought it would make a great base for a map.  It could be folded many times with out it wearing out, ya know?

So I cut a piece about 2.5 ft by 2 foot for my map.  I drew a black line in from the edge aprox 2 in.  From that line out to the cut edge I gave the white tyvek a wash with the hard to pronounce and worst to spell golden acrylic... the yellowish/goldish color, with a bit of black mixed in to age it.  (Thanks Micheal DeMeng)  Then I added a curvy black line to the edge of the paint.  Then I added a gold line with a metallic marker.  Then I added a black and white checkered line like you see on maps.

The next step was to make some land.  My land!  I had no idea what I was getting into, lol.  I cut up some more tyvek to practice on.  I decided I would make my "land" out of liquid inks because I wanted the land to be light colored so I could add details with pens later.  So, on the first piece I just dropped random ink around with an eyedropper to see what would occur.  I smooched the ink about and played with it.  Here is my results:

I liked this okay but decided to gesso a sheet and try again

So, maybe two colors would be better?

Or, maybe one color but instead of smooshing the ink around I decided to pick up all the corners to make a pocket, dump in the ink, then crumple and play with the bag of ink to see what happened.

Okay, maybe a bit darker, eh?

Or lighter...nooo, I did not like the yellow so I smooshed some color after it dried.

Better!

After the tests dried, I used a damp piece of old toweling to add the water around the lands.

So, now, I could go back to my real map and make some land, having a good idea about what to do.

First I masked off the border I had already colored.  Then I made two rectangles our of masking tape to put on the map for the legend and the compass rose to reside in.  I also put a strip of the two inch tape between the rectangles so I could add a name, once I discover what the name is going to be!

A suggestion... if you are playing with liquid inks, put on a pair of gloves... my hands look pretty darn UGLY tonight!

Travel Gear

I am busy getting ready for my journey.  Here are some ideas I have been playing with:

I made a travel trunk...from core board, papers, and found items...

And a paper bag and craft envelopes book which I stenciled and filled with little mini journals to fit in the pockets...also stencilled...

Added some hair to a doll I already had on hand... one I made a few months ago who was originally going to be a Marie but she sat in these underwear until a couple of days ago when I found some wool discard from felting wool last winter which made great hair for her...

Designed a new "swallow" doll... still working on this one...her face is drying right now...

And started a map... I have the border on my tyvek base... now I am awaiting instructions to go farther with it.

I might change my whole selection of travel gear, once the fully disclosed idea and directions are sent to us!  I like many other fellow travels have just been keeping busy while we wait...

We are all so excited about our journey!

And, since it is fall, I added a fallish look to my blog... they say a change is as good as a rest... so I hope this helps!