Sunday, November 6, 2011

Randomly Recent...

Kiddo is reading (and re-reading): Bertrand Brinley's Mad Scientists' Club series.


and I am reading (extremely randomly, when the mood hits me): 

 

Kiddo's glider from the Exploration Education kit is finally ready! We're going at a snail's pace with this kit (this is still only chapter 2 of 36 chapters) but that was the plan anyway. I'm happy to report he played a large part in assembling the glider and only needed my help with the more intricate gluing bits. We plan to test it properly at our neighborhood park (it's been raining here so we haven't had a chance to do so yet). Initial flight tests in our backyard have shown that we need to fine-tune the balance ever so often. 

The beginning: assembling the template and front section (all the parts are included in the kit).
That meter stick with red guardrails is from  another, unrelated experiment.
Halfway point: gluing balsa-wood sections together and reinforcing them.
Blow-drying the shrink-wrap.
The completed glider.


My latest project: Creative Journaling!

I was inspired to do this after stumbling upon some of the books below. I purchased the Artist's Journal Workshop and it's certainly revived my interest in expressing myself visually on paper.



The idea is to create a scrapbooky-journal feel without spending too much money on actual scrapbook supplies (i.e. to hand-illustrate as much as possible instead of cutting, gluing and pasting embellishments). So despite not having updated my paints and marker supply in ages, I decided that if I waited to buy more tools I'd never begin. Using some old markers and watercolor crayons plus kiddo's watercolor pencils, I struck while the inspiration was hot this weekend:
This was inspired by kiddo's profile while he was reading an online article on his laptop.
This was inspired by the quotation (from one of my notepads). The sketch of kiddo in the middle of the page
is based on a photo I'd taken of him when he was four years old. All hand-drawn except for the four captions.

Each page took about three or four hours to complete but it was so worth it. I hope I stay inspired enough to continue doing this for a long time. It's been too many years since I created art just for myself. :)

11 comments:

  1. Wow, your journal pages are phenomenal! I love the idea of "scrapbooking" with drawings. I would love to do some artwork myself, but I tend to just stare at a white piece of paper a lot; with too many possibilities, I get a bit paralyzed. This would be a great way to have a specific goal, yet be creative with it. Thanks for the idea, and I hope you continue to be inspired.

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  2. Kipp spent this evening building the very same glider and is just starting the Mad Scientist series as well. Great minds. . .

    As for me, I'm coveting the Artist's Workshop Journal. You are not helping my book addiction, which is becoming more painful as we contemplate the move to Washington. :)

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  3. YES to artistic journalling! Is your advertising bone coming back?! :-) I'm going to have to check out the Artist's Journal Workshop too, since I love journalling with minimal fuss. All those cutting and pasting and fussing certainly create beautiful journal pages, but that'll have to wait until I retire. Meanwhile, I can handle drawing into my sketchbooks. :-)

    Thanks for the inspiration!

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  4. Were there supposed to be photos of you are both reading? They're not showing if so :)

    Awesome glider - have fun with the test flight!

    Love, love, love your journal!

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  5. Thank you Tori! I had a lot of fun creating this. I do understand what you mean by getting paralyzed. At times like those, if I'm still feeling inspired, I peruse samples on the internet or in books to get started.

    He, he, he Annie, sorry to tempt you to add more books! I sometimes spend hours (usually late at night) clicking that "surprise me" link on Amazon's search inside function because I know I love the books but can't afford more than one.

    Neo, thanks for the support. I don't think my advertising bone ever left me (grin). I hope you can find the book in your library. I love scrapbooking supplies but find I never use them so it's perhaps a good thing that I don't mind illustrating by hand.

    Thank you Kerrie. :) It's been a fun week!

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  6. Beautiful work, Suji! Glad to see you're getting some time for your own pursuits.

    Lisa

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  7. Thank you Lisa. It's so nice to hear from you. :)

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  8. Love everything you both have been working on. It seems like such meaningful work. It inspires me!

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  9. You're so sweet Jill. We had a good time the last 2 weeks. Sigh, you won't be inspired if you could see us this week...a bit of a grind as we have a charter ES meeting coming up and there's a writing assignment due (kiddo takes ages to write one of those...bleh).

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  10. That is amazing. You are so talented and creative. Would love to see more.
    Blessings
    Diane

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  11. Thank you Diane. So kind of you to say it!

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