100DayProject prep, a Shakespearean insult owl and few journal pages

Last weekend I happened upon the website for the 100DayProject. This year’s project starts tomorrow. It sounded like a fun idea, so I’m doing it. I’m going to focus on making monoprints and using them in collage and in my art journal. On days where I have plenty of time, I’ll make a bunch of prints, and then I’ll use them in other pieces on days where I only have a little time to spend on it.

I’ve been getting ready by assembling and making bits and pieces that seem like they’ll make for interesting prints. I have a bunch of foam stamps (made of sticky-back foam stuck to thicker craft foam) and am making some more. Last night I finally tried out making texture plates from string glued to cardboard. I think those will be fun to use.

100DayProject prep

I also finally started a new embroidery project recently. I’ve had Nicole Vos van Avezathe’s Fowl Talk pattern for quite a while and finally got around to transferring it to some fabric a few days ago.

Oh, and I made a proper about page for the blog. When I first started this blog I had no idea what to put on the about page, so I just pasted my first post into with the intention of fixing it up later. Now it actually says some relevant stuff and has a dorky selfie in it.

I’ve also been trying to work up the nerve to post some pages from my art journal. It’s more of a mixed media mess than a journal, I suppose, since I mostly make stamps and mess around with paint and stamps and collaging in gelli-printed stuff rather than actually writing in it. But it’s fun, even though the results are often less than fabulous. The photo above has the beginnings of a page, with pieces of monoprinted deli paper as a background and some roots drawn over it.

Here are the last couple I finished. The one with the face — I am cringe-inducingly bad at faces. This is the least terrible one I’ve ever done, though clearly that’s not saying much. I’d like to get better, though, so I’ve started doing awkward-looking faces as practice. I’m trying to get past the gigantic alien bug-eyes thing — I tend to make the eyes much too big.