Last week, Girl2’s kindergarten class was given the way cool assignment of disguising a turkey.  They were each given a drawing of a turkey that they colored and pasted a disguise onto so that it wouldn’t be found on Thanksgiving Day.  My wonderful daughter put a big red nose and antlers on her turkey.  She said, “He is Rudolph. No one would eat Rudolph because that’s Santa’s reindeer.”

Can you say venison? I thought that you could.

Anyway, I thought that was a brilliant project so I decided I would paint a scene depicting a hidden turkey and journal about her project.  Initially I was going to have 21 turkeys hidden throughout the page to remind everyone that time to sign up for 21 Secrets is running out.  However, as my friend Rhomany says, once you break out the small brushes, the paintings done.  She’s absolutely right because once I painted the turkey lamp, I lost all interest in painting anything else.

I also sang a little tribute to Arlo Guthrie.

You can watch the video on The YouTube, or in the embedded player below:

This week I did one of Connie Hozvicka’s challenges from the latest issue of Art Journaling: It’s All Good. The challenge was a Boogie Monster. Also, I’m not a Bee Gee.

I decided to do The Artistic Biker Live! this week about using prompts in your art journal.  Prompts are great for when you REALLY want to work in your book, or on canvas, or anywhere else, but you just don’t have the muse.  I keep copies of Wreck This Journal and Doodle Diary around just for those times I can’t decide on what I want to work on.  The e-zine Artjournaling: It’s All Good comes out every other month and usually has TONS of prompts in it.  In this issue, for instance, Connie blessed us with a list of 101 prompts.  You should never run out of things to journal about.

You can watch the video on The YouTube, or in the embedded player below.

Continuing with my building stuff, I was able to contact Paul Overton of DudeCraft again and get him to sit down with me AGAIN. This time with sound.  I hope to have that interview and many others up this week if Dream Host will sit still long enough to allow that.  Anyway, what I’ve been building are these really cool sketchbenches.  If you’ve never seen one before, they are GREAT for life drawing or studio sketching.  You straddle the bench and use the high back to rest your sketchpad against.  It provides a great support  for your work and a comfortable way to work.  However, when the day is done and it’s time to put them away, they are VERY cumbersome.  They don’t stack well and take a LOT of space.  Not good for most of us with limited studio area to begin with.

I began looking at ways to modify this from the very first time I used one.  I wanted to figure out how I could carry one of these on the back of the bike.  When I quit going to figure drawing in Oklahoma City, I put this idea on the back burner.  However, since we’re trying to get a new studio off the ground in Chickasha, I thought of them again for our membership during figure drawing sessions.  Then I began to think about how I would store them.  That’s when I decided to make them collapsible.

I also made a video demonstration that you can watch on The YouTube or in the embedded player below:

While I was out of town several weeks ago, I had to broadcast The Artistic Biker Live! from a motel room.  During that show I had a brief interview with Paula Phillips, a.k.a. @Journalartista.  Paula has a HUGE following on You Tube because of her wonderful instructional videos demonstrating various tools and techniques for scrapbooking and art journaling.  Be sure and check out her blog Messy Mind Creative Soul and her You Tube channel.  You can also catch her Ustream broadcast on Wednesday evenings from 8-10p c at http://www.ustreamtv.com/channel/Journalartista.

Below is the interview in both video and mp3 format.  I will need to speak with her again sometime when we don’t have so many connectivity issues.

It’s so funny to me that I have to annotate the title with “2010”!  This week marks the one year anniversary of the You Tube videos.  Since I already have an Art Journal for Halloween entry, well… you get the picture.

This week’s page took a cue from Paul Overton of Dudecraft.com.  He posted a tutorial many moons ago on how to paint bricks.  If you’re not familiar with Dudecraft.com, Paul reviews web pages and videos every day to bring us some of the neatest art from simple architecture using a freight car to kinetic sculpture, to 1000 foot tall murals.  OK, I’m not so sure about the 1000 feet, but if there were something like that, you can bet you’d find out about it on Dudecraft.com.

Paul’s site is also the inspiration for the moving parts of this week’s journal entry.  If you pull on Jack’s shoulder, he will lift off his head.  And what spooky chamber would be complete without a secret passage?  Move the torch and the spooky door opens!  So, Happy Halloween and enjoy the carb crash for the next week or so.

You can watch the video at the You Tube, or just watch it in the embedded player below:

Blade’s Coffee Sharpies:

It has been a looooong time since I have released a podcast.  I intend to start publishing one a day until I am caught up with all the ones in reserve.  Then you’ll get them weekly on Sunday mornings.  They will be 20-30 in length so you can relax with a pot of coffee and catch up with some of your favorite artists from around the web.

If you or someone you know would like to chat with me on Blade’s Coffee Sharpies, shoot me an email with Blade’s Coffee Sharpies as the subject to blade@artisticbiker.com.