Oh this poor blog has really been neglected! Well, I am back and have a couple of articles on journaling and art journaling that I have in my head. Now just to find the time to do them! Thank you for sticking by while I figure this time management stuff with my artwork, children, and journal making.

But for now, I just wanted to post that I have some new mixed media journals available for sale right now at amanobooks.

The Thread that Binds
7×5 inches, handbound blank journal
mixed media covers with exposed stitch binding

If you are local to Tubac, Arizona, I actually have three of my handbound mixed media blank journals in the Holiday Artisan Show at the Tubac Center of the Arts.

The Life of Trees
8×6 inches handbound blank journal
mixed media covers with exposed stitch binding

How I wish I could be there to see the journals in this juried exhibit. The exhibit will take place November 18th-January 2nd, so if you’re in the area, stop by!

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Summer is in full swing and life has been spent playing in the sun and cooling off in the air conditioned indoors. I have been busy this summer teaching at EncaustiCamp a 4 day retreat in Oregon and showing paintings in two shows here in Chicago. And yet, I am still dedicated to making mixed media blank journals for amanobooks! Really, I am! A little late, but better late than not at all, I always say.

Visit amanobooks to see the three new journals that I have just added.

Here is one of them:

Of Early Morning
6×6 inch blank journal

This journal showcases my current obsession with really working in different media onto one panel. The cover includes an image printed on tissue paper, beeswax, plaster, and acrylic paint.

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It may not seem like it, but I am still working away over here with creating new mixed media journals for the amanobooks.com shop! I keep pretty busy with creating paintings, teaching encaustic workshops here and there, and chasing after my two little monkeys these days. But I always return to my roots, which are handmade mixed media journals. Whenever I go back to these small canvas panels, it’s like putting on a pair of old comfortable shoes. I am happy to be able to add these two new journals to the shop.

Quiet Spirit
6×6 inch blank handbound journal

Imprinted
6×6 inch blank handbound journal

Please visit amanobooks.com shop to read more about the cover art for these two journals.

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Two new mixed media journals have finally been bound up and added to amanobooks shop. Both of these journals are handbound with bright white paper, #65 cover weight. The covers are original mixed media paintings created on canvas panels. The books are bound using the coptic stitch.

Intentions
5×7 inches

To read more about the art of these two journals please visit my art blog, Contemplating the Moon.

Refuge and Sanctuary
6×8 inches

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary. ~Peter Minard

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I recently had two separate commissioned projects involving creating journals with mixed media covers. The first, and the one I am sharing in this post, was a journal I created for a customer using her own photograph that she took using a Holga camera. I really enjoyed working on this collaboration.

Big Sky and Fields of Grass
mixed media panel
6×8 inch handbound journal

This panel uses an old record sleeve to frame the photo. This is an idea that I’ve used before and I got from L.K. Ludwig at one of her workshops that I attended several years ago. To protect the surface of the photo I brushed a thin layer of beeswax. Not encaustic, just plain beeswax.

While taking on commissions is always a little anxiety producing, I do enjoy them. It pushes me to try something different, to look at a project in a different way. Because when I work on a commissioned piece, each brush stroke, each stitch, carries the thought of that person in my mind. Normally when I work, I don’t think about the audience. And so I look at commissions as collaborations. Whether the person inspires me with an image, a thought or a poem.

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handbound mixed media journal

Sepulcher
6×8 inches
available for purchase at amanobooks.com

A journal is a place to be present, to bring your entire self to. A place to bring your thoughts and feelings and to fully explore what is going on in your life and in your head. It can be a place to give voice to what may be silenced in our day to day doings. A place where we unearth our desires, our fears…and then let it be. Sometimes things just need to be released, in order to let go and move on. A burial, followed by a resurrection.

sep·ul·cher   /ˈsɛpəlkər/ Show Spelled[sep-uhl-ker]
–noun
1. a tomb, grave, or burial place.
–verb (used with object)
3. to place in a sepulcher; bury.

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Believe it or not, but new mixed media collage journals have just been added to the collage section of amanobooks.com! There are a few more in the works that will be added as soon as they are bound up. Thank you for your patience, especially to those who have been inquiring about new journals this year. I hope they don’t disappoint.

handbound blank mixed media journal

purchase xxxvi

The cover art for this journal was created using an altered photo of a winter tree. The image is encased in a thin layer of beeswax which adds to the glow of this ethereal image. Strips of white fabric frame the journal cover at the top. One strip has a flower design sewn on with gray thread. The left side of this collage includes ledger paper and strips of other torn paper. At the bottom, I included a polaroid transfer of a group of ferns.

This journal is handbound and signed by the artist.

Stay tuned….more to come!

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rootless
5×7 blank journal
original mixed media art cover

Rootless is a coptic bound journal containing 72 handbound white pages (144 pages both sides). #70 paper. The cover for this unique journal combines a new interest of mine in working metal. Most of the panel is made up of a metal sheet on which I created prints using real grass reeds found outside in a park. Above the metal piece, I attached one of my photos to the top of the panel and then encased it in a thin layer of beeswax. I really like the juxtaposition of two totally different surfaces next to each other. One, smooth and buttery, and the other cool and rough. The edges of the panel are wrapped with linen bookcloth.

The words on the metal part read:

birthed from the earth yet
without roots:
rootless
no grasp
my past

The cover of this journal is signed by the artist.

To purchase this journal, please visit the Collage Section of amanobooks.com

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Towards Wholeness
6×6 inch blank journal

I have been busy adding more blank journals to amanobooks.com. This blank journal, Towards Wholeness is now available for purchase in the collage journals section.

The cover of this journal was created on a canvas panel. The art on the cover is an original mixed media painting signed by the artist. This piece is about a journey towards wholeness. In the fragile beauty of the petals I hope to capture the beautiful impermanence in this world and the loving acceptance of our limitations.

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Last week I added several new mixed media journals to amanobooks. Bound together is the most recent addition to the offerings there.

Bound Together, 6×8 inch blank journal

For this cover, I drew upon a previous encaustic painting that I created last year called Patterns Often Overlooked. I encased the image in wax and pulled out my paints to finish off the rest of the canvas. I often like to revisit an old painting that has already left me and continue the dialogue with it again. See where my explorations take us next.

For this piece I was interested in an issue that I am always intrigued by- our connection to nature seen in the cycles of the moon and the seasons. How life begins with one little seed. But it takes so much to call forth that life. Acceptance, nourishment, cooperation, life; and then ultimately, the letting go, the passing, death. We are all connected and bound together.

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