Sandi Hester

Hey, it’s me – I’m back – sort of! I kind of forgot how to do this. I just sat and stared at the screen trying to remember what I even click on to start a new post. As most of you know, we’ve been building a house and it has totally consumed all my time and creative energy. We are finally in our new house and LOVING it out in the country. I have been sketching here and there over the last year or so. For some reason I’ve been sketching birds a lot. So over the next couple of posts I’ll share some of my bird sketches. I would like your feed back on how I post my sketches. Would you rather see the whole page in its sketchbook form like this…

Or cleaned up and cropped like this…

Here’s another example of sketch book view or cropped. The last picture is cropped because the bird’s body was wonky but I liked his little face. Maybe next time I’ll write something worth reading. Sorry – I’m a little rusty.

Well, it’s been quite a while since I posted last and I’ve been getting lots of e-mails from you guys asking (nicely) what’s up ! I’ll make this post loaded with lots of art and pictures since I have some making up to do. I haven’t been painting much lately because the house (we are building) is taking up all my creative time and energy. I may do some posts here soon to let you know a little bit about our house. But this post is about handmade journals. Click on any of the journals to see them larger.

One day I was drawn to the beautiful orange color of my prescription bottle and I decided to paint it. I had a small 5x3 plain journal that I thought I'd make into a medical journal – we don’t really use it but it sure is cute!

I LOVE journaling - I keep prayer journals, sketchbook journals, travel journals, and any other kind of journal that comes to my mind. Because journals are expensive I like making my own sometimes. Here’s just a small sampling of some of the journals I’ve made since we’ve been renting (I’m sure I have more than this they are just packed up). I use ALL kinds of methods when making my journals. Sometimes I use plain journals I’ve bought at a store and add my own art work to the front.

Others I use pages torn out of old books I find at a local used bookstore and apply them to the front and back covers. I use all kinds of books – children books, animal books, dictionaries – anything that draws my attention and is cheap! I just apply the torn pages with glue – sometimes I add tape over the picture because it has a look about it I like.

Front cover of a journal I hand bound with hand torn watercolor paper.

I used the opposite page in the book and it created a fun front and BACK cover.

This is a color chart journal I hand bound with hand torn watercolor paper. I covered cardboard I cut from a box lying around with two pictures from a children’s book. The pictures made fun front and back covers. I just punched holes in the cardboard covers and the paper and tied with ribbon – very easy!

This next one I took pictures from an old bird book and dictionary. I layered the pages and then cut out letters from another used book to form the scripture for the cover. I wrapped the map around the cover so it would show on the inside cover. There were lots of pages I wanted to use from the bird book so I decorated the front and back cover (inside and out).

This cute kitty cat journal I made from one of my own paintings. I really liked the painting and tried a new printer to make some prints but they weren’t up to my standard. I couldn’t use the prints to sell but I sure didn’t want to throw them away – so this is one way that I reused a “throw away” print. I just cut it out and glued and taped it on a plain journal. You could do this with kid’s art, junk mail, or just about anything!

Here’s a small one (about 5×5) I made (again I think I just used cardboard as the base for the cover) and I covered it with an envelope from a friend in Africa. I loved the color and the stamp. I used scrap pieces of ribbon to connect the front and back cover and a simple rubber band to keep the book closed. For the back I used some black and white photo copies of some writing and bird. I have a box I keep in my art room where I throw any kinds of scraps, stickers, paper, envelopes, pictures, etc for use on things like this. I am constantly digging through that box using scraps for things.

This last one is one of my favorites and it was very simple! The cats and birdie were cut out of the same children’s book as the rooster above and glued onto the journal. I painted the little bird-cage around the birdie because I thought he’d look cute just hanging above the cats.

Here’s just a little look into another area of my art work and life of journaling. Wow – that may have been my longest post ever and it took me FOREVER because I’m quite rusty on posting. Hope to be back on here soon to share some of what we’re doing with our new house!

I came across this really neat sketchbook project that I’m really excited about. Whether your a professional artist or a stay at home mom you can participate. When you sign-up they send you a sketchbook to fill and you send it back sometime in December (I think) and it goes on tour across the country and then will be displayed in the Brooklyn Art Library, where it will be barcoded and available for the public to view. If you are interested just click on the image above and it will take you to the site for more info. SERIOUSLY – you don’t have to be an artist – you can fill it with whatever – you could even get your kids involved. I think it’s going to be a fun project.

When you sign up you pick a theme – I picked “Inside/Outside” because I think that captures on a large scale what I paint – things found inside and outside. When I received my sketchbook in the mail it was dented a little on the front cover which I was thrilled about – it helped me get over “messing” the cover up – it was already messed up! The rules say you can do whatever you want to the book as long as it stays the same dimensions. So since I paint with watercolor I unbound the book and rebound it with watercolor paper. I included some of the original paper to make notes on and describe the painting.

The inside of my rebound book

I’m going to use it as a SKETCHBOOK which means there won’t be finished perfected pictures – it’s kind of like a doodle book . I haven’t painted a single sketch in it yet – I’ve only finished the cover – but I hope to start painting in it today. I’ll do posts along the way and record what I’ve been painting in it. You can also go here to see my sketches along the way.

I thought I’d do something I’m comfortable painting for the cover – a bird. I’m not sure why I’m comfortable painting birds – I just am. I love painting them! Because I painted the cover in watercolor I’ll have to seal it with wax so moist hands don’t disturb the paint. I also got some great new letter thingies – I’m not sure what they’re called but they are made to punch/press letters into leather (my brain has stopped working – I can’t think of what this process is called – no funny comments about how my brain is never working ). I used them to press (or whatever you call it) my website into the cover. I like how it turned out and have used this method in my sketchbooks to record the date – I like how it’s kind of subtle. Ok, enough, here’s my cover – click on it to see it larger…

Let me know if you are signed up for this project or plan on signing up for it. Here’s another artist who’s participating – I really like her blog (scroll down to her 4th post to see her Sketchbook Project).