Cute Poop Journal

I was wandering around in Lumsden, Saskatchewan the other day, a beautiful community in the Qu'Appelle Valley.  Such a pretty little town, old houses, big trees and the little river running through.

I enjoy snooping into all the quaint shops and found the Acorn, eco-boutique.  If you are interested you can see them here. http://www.acornecoboutique.ca/
or on facebook here   https://www.facebook.com/pages/Acorn-eco-boutique-Online/155657141116144


Since I am always look for books that I can use as journals or play around with my art in, I was thrilled to find something that I have never seen before at the Acorn.

It's a little scratch pad made from recycled Moose Poo!  

This is what the PooPoo Paper says about their product and why they decided to make paper from Poo.

POOPOOPAPER™ products are natural, recycled and odorless (!) paper products made from poop from a variety of different fiber-eating vegetarian animals such as elephants, cows, horses, moose, pandas, and donkeys. That right! Go figure!

Here’s the scoop: these fiber-eating animals eat lots of grass and vegetation everyday and they poop almost as much. Since the digestive systems of these specific animals don’t really break down the vegetation all that well, their poop has plenty of fiber even after their meal is consumed. Knowing that fibers are the base material used in making pulp for paper production (albeit tree fibers typically), we figured there was a high probability that making pulp and quality paper from poop was not only achievable but that the case for poop as an alternative fiber source to tree-based pulp was a compelling one!

 Ok, I was compelled and had to try it as an Art Journal.  I love it!  

Do you want to see some of the little, the book is only 4 x 4 inches, sketches I have done so far?  

These are colored with my Copic's.  I had to learn to use the bleeding that this paper does to my advantage.  Once I figured it out I got better at  blending.

I see many amazing stamp patterns but I like to try to draw them myself.  These are my version of some cute little monster stamps I saw in the internet.

 Notice how much bleeding there is on the back of the page.  I think I  have to do something with all that beautiful color.  Maybe I will work my way back through all the back sides of the pages once I reach the end of the book!

On this page I put down some watercolor and then Gesso before I added the pen.  I used a Micron pen, probably a .01 and a .05

Have you seen Cindy Angiel's FREE e-book?  She has lots of ideas so check her out when you get a chance.  That is where I learned to draw these 2 little birds.  

 You will find her on her website http://rainbowelephant.com/

Well if you made it all the way down here to the end of this blog post then you are in for a little treat.

When my blog post hits reach 5000, and we are almost there, I am going to give away an Elephant Poo Paper journal.  Stay tuned! 

Lori

Harvest is almost over and I better get busy.

Acrylic painting  "taking in the go"  done in 2010  sold

Acrylic painting from 2010  " Chad in the Swather"  Sold

My farmer, his brother, nephew and cousin, (it's a real family affair) have been busy every day, often until the wee hours of the next morning harvesting their crops.  Peas, wheat, canola and today they are bringing in flax.  Together they have approximately 10 thousand acres and four great big, yellow combines.  It's September 14th and they are almost done.  This may be the earliest I have seen harvest finished since I came to the farm, but that was only 7 years ago.  

Acrylic painting  "Swaths"  2010  Sold

It's a lot of work and coming to an end really soon.  

That means....I better clean up my art supplies~! 

You see, this isn't the type of operation where the women folk spend all day cooking pies and turkeys then haul it all out to the field for the men folk to have a big meal.  These guys get started and don't stop.  I pack my farmer a bunch of sandwiches, some raw veggies and fruit, maybe a cookie and a muffin or two, just make sure it doesn't make a mess and he can eat it and still steer the combine.  Easy peasy!  And that means I have lots of time to get creative.



To spark my imagination I decided to sign up for another on-line art class.  I enjoyed Joanne Sharpes classes so much I though I would check out a few other instructors.  I stumbled across Dirty Footprints Studio and her 21 Secrets Art Journal classes.  21 different teachers, 21 different ideas and 21 different ways of teaching.  I hit the mother lode!  So far I have worked my way through 15 of the classes.  http://www.dirtyfootprints-studio.com/2008/05/21-secrets-art-journal-playground.html



I have tried my hand at painting flowers with credit cards, had a great time cutting up magazines and turning them into some interesting collages and watched Jane Davenport draw her amazing ladies and put together the most beautiful journal pages.  I cut up some of my art and turned them into a book of pockets and 7 postcards for my niece.  That was Dale Anne Potter's class called Personal Acts of Kindness and it was just choc full of wonderful ideas.

I think the best thing about these 21 classes is that I am finding something in each and every one of them that is interesting and the art I'm making now is a combination of many of those ideas. 

With harvest coming to an end so will my uninterrupted hours of creative time.  I better get busy with the last 6 classes, I'm sure I'm missing out on some more wonderful ideas.