Thing-a-day.com

I got home this evening, barely in one piece, but my unwavering commitment to TAD continues to be unwaver-y. I just finished making a pretty vacation book using Blurb. I think the book is a pretty fly way to commemorate my adventures with my mother and wee-one. As usual, I also took another bajillion pictures today. Here is a picture from out landing during sunset at JFK.

It needs some work, but then again I am totally unknowledgeable about photo-editing software. Next on my creative agenda will be to take a Photoshop class.

Amelia, 15 

Copied from a photo in the book: Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield

Gouache round 2 on paper made for dry media, one day we’ll get it right gouache..

Created this page tonight and then scanned a bunch more and added them here.

-Robyn

Today I made two more pairs of book earrings. These are handbound with sewn signatures and cover papers. I am going to add them to my etsy, probably tomorrow.

-robyn

I made this small paper explosion book today. It was smaller than expected because of the size the original squares floded down to, but they say good things come in small packages. I learned how to adjust the paper size for the future.

Quick, cutesy tee-shirt graphic for ryan can’t draw.

Next I spent 1.5 hours on a gouache painting of a woodchuck.

It didn’t really work out.

I spent a couple hours at the cafe. I’m very fond of chai and mechanical pencils.

Unfortunately, all I had time to do was take this book and my ancient calligraphic supplies out of a box and look through them today.

I will have to leave playing with Calligraphy for some other time.

For day 12, I just want to get a good size chunk of time to sort some of my Firefox bookmarks.

I saw someone else make this as their thing-a-day, and I wanted one too, so I made my own. I used fabric scraps, yarn scraps, and other odds and ends as stuffing. It’s a good way to recycle those little bits that you would normally throw away.

I took my boring planner and made it pretty with modge podge.  yay!

Day eight was more quick-as-you-can scribbling in my paperback journal.  Like so.

This practice is really about getting me out of that vacuum of “I don’t want to make anything and would rather just stare at the TV since it is too late to make something anyway.”  Because, really.  How hard can it be to doodle for a few seconds?  And maybe  I’ll even be inspired by the doodling when I flip back through the book.

This is a Page A Day page that was inspired by a page in my sketchbook years ago, which was inspired by the lid of my colored pencil box seen here . The tips of the pencils left subtle gentle marks on the lid as the box jostled around in my bag. I was really mesmerized by that beauty and recreated it here by dropping my colored pencils over the page.

-Robyn

So begins another week.
I admit I’m feeling at a loss about what to do. Last week, I planned everything out so well, and this week, well, I’m going to wing it!
Given that Valentine’s day will fall in this week period, my theme will be love. But I will be stretching it I completely admit.

My thing for today is that I read a book. I LOVE reading. I read Lean, Mean, Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. I LOVE this series and just decided to read the entire book.

Here is my informal review of it:
tly what I was looking for!) I have read all the Stephanie Plum books thus far. I did like this book, but it seemed a it like a let down compared to the others. And I have to admit - part of me is ready to see her settle down with one guy or the other. OR ditch them both and bring in a new guy (isn’t that terrible of me to say LOL). And it kind of feels like that point is coming with the series. My fear is though, because the series is so popular, it will get dragged out far too long and make me not like them anymore. But hopefully that won’t happen. And I will enjoy the next book very much.

And sorry, no pictures to go with it today!

WHY, 6, WHYYYY???

http://flickr.com/photos/23386160@N08/2250179766/in/set-72157603837145031/

I made this in my page a day book today and I scanned several more older pages to add to the page a day set on flickr .

-Robyn (robayre)

Yes! I managed to make it a 2-day project instead of longer. And yes, I did completely re-do it all together from the work I had done yesterday. There is one final touch that I must complete at home this evening, and then I will take photos. But… my home computer is acting up, so the photos won’t get posted here until tomorrow (I’ll just update this particular post, so come back).

I used clip art on the cover and Microsoft Word word art for the poem title on the cover. The word art has a shadow effect and I used a green ink pen to color the shadow of the letters; it’s a nice highlight and turned out better than I expected.

The first page of the book is a stylized calligraphy Basmallah I found on-line (this style is pretty common). The Basmallah is “Bismillahir Rahmaanir Rahiim” and means “In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful” and is the common way Muslims begin anything. A way of dedicating the work or deed to Him.

The second page, I used a beautiful picture of one of my best friend Kelly “Izdihar” Crosby’s calligraphy paintings of the Prophet’s name. Under that is the poem title and a notation that it is “A Poem in Honour of Our Beloved Prophet” with the blessings written out upon him. The blessings in Arabic are “Salalahi alahi wa salaam” which roughly is asking for Allah’s blessings and peace upon the Prophet, and is often simply translated as “peace be upon him”.

On that page, I also included a notation that this is being presented to my Shaykh. Because it is better manners that a gift of this sort not simply be sent in the mail to a teacher of his standing, but be directly given to him by hand. Since I am unable to attend to him directly, I will ask a friend to allow me to mail it to them and then they will present it to him on my behalf in the appropriate fashion.

There are ten pages of the poem, separated out in the 3/2 stanza style of the poem. I used borders along the top and bottom of the pages and a box around the script of the poem on each page. So it is decorative still, but not quite so busy as my previous design.

As I did on the birthday card for my mom, I have punched a hole in the bottom corner of the book, and for the book I also did so in the top corner. I will use navy blue ribbon to tie the book closed at top and bottom, or perhaps from top to bottom (I haven’t decided which idea I like better yet and will wait until I am home tonight to try both).

You can read the text of the poem here.

UPDATE: Photos

Front Cover of Book

Last Page of Book

Today I tried something new …

I made a pillow. I’ve never made a pillow like this before. I made each side a different fabric. Now, knowing my theme is for books, this might not make much sense at first (and I suppose this is a stretch) but here is the pillow doing it’s “job”

So, it’s a book holder for me. This will certainly make knitting and reading much easier. I admit I saw earlier (with the pattern for sale). The one I saw is much nicer than mine, but truth be told, I didn’t actually want to spend 12 dollars on the pattern.
This one works well enough - although if when I make another one, I need to use wider ribbon. I need to have the ribbon lower down on the side of the pillow. I need to make the pillow wider. And I probably won’t do ribbon on both sides of the pillow because, well, it does look funny if it’s displayed that way. The fabric I used does in fact match my couch, so I could theoretically leave this one on it for fun, but the ribbon sort of turns me off.
Anyway, the one I saw also had pockets on it for pens or whatever and that seems pretty neat too. I don’t want to completely copy the one I saw and am not sure that I really need a pocket on my pillow, but I will at least keep that in mind!

Thing a Day 5 - something different

Originally uploaded by emberlexi

Took a break from drawing to work on journal covers. Here’s one I’m
really excited about. It got a coat of metal primer and now it needs
some paint to bring out the mushrooms.

This is apparently going to be a 2 or 3 day project.

I wrote a poem a few years ago that a friend suggested I should set to music and present to our teacher. I do not, however, have any musical talent whatsoever.

So I decided on putting together a small booklet instead. The poem is several stanzas that follow a 3 line/2 line pattern. So today I separated it out into each 3/2 per page, which makes 10 pages. I spent my lunch hour at work today finding appropriate artwork/clip-art on-line to decorate each page.

Upon further reflection though, I am thinking I may not stay with the design I created today. I am all for decorative, beautiful books because I think it highlights the words and takes the book up to another level of art. But I’m thinking now that the original idea is just to much. It is rather busy having a different artistic piece on each page. It may even detract somewhat from the words. I may simply choose one highly decorative border that will be used for each page and then use one of the other artwork pieces for the cover. Maybe even one for a centerpiece or endpiece.

So, of course I have no photos today, but I did do something.

Today I made another accordion book. I wasn’t as happy with this one as the last one, but it will work and it did turn out okay in the end.

My girls made projects today as well, but I’m not sure where they left them =)