California's Seasons

Since I have a few hours between Monday Murals and T Time, I thought I would share another Art Journal Journey entry using Jo's from Let's Art Journal theme which is Something New.  Unlike many of my mixed media and art journal friends, I only received two Christmas gifts that I can use in my art (the lovely postage stamps I received from RO! and the lovely napkins Yvonne sent).  However, I DO have a few items I've never used before

and one of them is this brand new washi tape.

The first thing I did was find the center of the page by leaving marks at the mid-points of both the sides and lengths of the page.

Then I laid down the washi tape following the lines I drew previously.

All my friends who live in or visit California (a state on the west coast of the U.S.) tell me how great it is.  Some admit there are no seasons, though.  Granted in Southern California, it feels like spring all year long.  Day times are sunny and nights are cool.  After all, it IS, or once was a desert!  I, on the other hand, see the various seasons of California in a rather different (dare I say irreverent?) light.

Fires engulf the land,

much like parts of Australia are experiencing right now.

Of course, when it rains, there are the mudslides, because people build on the sandy sides of mountains and fail to reach bedrock to shore up their properties.

Along with the mudslides, there are floods.

When it's not raining and flooding, there is drought.  Remember, this is a desert that doesn't accept water well.  Of course, there is always the San Andreas Fault that runs through most of the state, which causes many earthquakes.  We (as scientists) are still not able to completely predict when one will occur, only let people know as it IS occurring.

I realize this is a rather cheeky look at California's seasons.  I definitely don't want to offend any of my friends who live there and call it home.

For this page, I first partitioned the page (110 lb card stock) into four sections using the washi tape.  I was determined to use only paint chip samples on this page, along with the four houses I stamped and fussy cut.  I was so proud of myself.  I only had one house mishap.  It wasn't that it didn't stamp well, it was because I dropped the clear stamp onto the paper and I had to re-ink the stamp.  I decided to add the bird because it was sitting on my table.  A bit big for the house, but I'm calling it a large sea bird.  All words and decorations were made using various metallic gel pens, which I learned didn't dry well on the paint chip samples I got at various local home improvement stores.

I am so happy that you stopped by today.  I hope to see you at Art Journal Journey, too.