Treasure

Many times I have an idea for a page in my head but I can't get it to go to my fingers and the paper. I'm very happy to say that this time my page turned out very much like my head saw it. 

I started by using yellow spray ink I made by adding a little water to PH Martin acrylic ink. I also used more my Ann's homemade Salty Ocean Spray ink she made from a Distressed Reinker.

The ink was thick so I folded the paper onto itself to get extra texture. I love how the yellow and blue made that lovely green.

I use a set of Plaid stencils that I bought at Walmart to give the background even more texture. The small squares are gesso with a stencil and the flowers are several colors of Gelatoes rubbed through the stencil with my finger. I made so many of those that my finger was sore this morning.

The treasure chest is a color book image I found on KidsPlayColor.com   It is colored with Gelatoes.  The coins are pieces of color paper with things I treasure typed on them and then colored with gold Gelatoes and gold Brilliance Ink.  I also use a Just For Fun crackle background stamp and copper Brilliance Ink on the coins and background. 

Please note: The quote on the right by Karen Kain. I cut if off the bottom by mistake. 

 

Link to:  Journal 52, The Documented Life Project, Art Journal Everyday and Paint Party Friday.

Gelli Collage Stencil Play

This week my art journal got a twofer. The prompt for The Documented Life Project was Gelli Prints and Journal 52 was Collage.  Ta Da..... my twofer.

I think I'm finally getting toward the end of the many, many gelli prints I made when I first got my gelli plate. That means it's will soon be time to start a whole new batch. This page is a combination of three different prints that I tore horizontally and collaged on watercolor paper. 

I've said before that tearing and gluing is a very meditative experience for me. It is so relaxing to loose myself in the process. The original prints were made on recycled copy machine paper with inexpensive craft paint.


The flowers are a Donna Downey I-Stencil stencil and craft paint. The bottom two flowers were stenciled, then I painted them and then stenciled again to get the crisp lines. I let all the glue and paint dry overnight and then I stenciled the dots and zig zag lines using Artist Loft embossing paste.  

Link to: Journal 52, The Documented Life Project, Party Party Friday, Gelli Print Party

Layers and Layers and More Layers

I began by gluing pieces of leftover projects onto the substrate (which is an old Word Perfect Manual).  Gluing is sometimes a Zen like experience for me. I don't have to think about it. I can just randomly glue paper.  Next I stenciled the bird using Golden Anthraquinone Blue and a Stencil Girl stencil.

I drew the window with navy blue Stabilo All pencil. I used a water brush to lightly paint the blue.  The green is acrylic paint I bought at Tuesday Morning. I used pieces of waxed paper on the windows so the colors would be a little muted.  Next I used a Crafter's Workshop wood grain stencil and Artist Loft's burnt sienna paint to stencil some wood grain.  That stood out a little too much for me so I went over it with a bit more green paint.  It still needed something so I added the cream lines using Golden Titan Buff and a credit card.  I mixed more of the green acrylic with some embossing paste and then use a piece of drywall tape for a stencil to get the little squares of texture.

I added Titan Buff to the bird and then stenciled again with the dark blue.  The Buff was too bright so I dry brushed a bit of the blue over it to give the bird a two tone blue look.


Link to: Journal 52, The Documented Life Project, Paint Party Friday, Art Journal Every day and T Stands for Tuesday.

Stencils and Leaves

The Documented Life Project's prompt this week is leaves and the prompt for Journal 52 is stencil It. 

I made the stencils for the fern & birds from a dies a friend loaned me. I cut them from plastic packaging that I recycled.

The background was painted with purple and hot pink paint. Then I stenciled the half circles using gesso and a Michael's stencil.  After it was dry I put a light coating of blue paint over the gesso.  

Next I stenciled the ferns and branches with green paint.  

I stenciled the birds in purple paint on the journal page. Then I moved the stencil to the right a tiny bit and stenciled again so the birds would have a shadow.  Then I stenciled them again on book text. I cut out the book text ones and glued them on top of the shadows.  I love how distressed the page looks. I really like how parts of the purple peeks out through the blue.

Link to: The Documented Life Project,  Journal 52, Paint Party Friday

Sketching... It's Time to Be Brave

The Documented Life Project's prompt this week is
Sketch in your journal. I was uneasy about this. I just started trying to sketch anything other than doodle flowers and your basic jack-o-lantern.  When I do mixed media I know I can easily fix any big issues with a bit of acrylic paint or a piece of scrap paper. 

Sketching is a whole different animal. Most of the time an eraser doesn't work and whatever is there is there. I have written several times that it's ok to make mistakes in my journal but I found that when it came to sketching I really didn't want to have what I considered a "lousy" page in it.  That made me pause and realize that it was time I took a few more risks.... that I push my boundaries a bit.   It was time I put my pencil to paper and do what I've been writing about.  I needed to be brave and not afraid of screwing up.

I think I was pretty successful with my water bottle. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  The background is a inktense blocks and wet paint brush. I sketched the bottle with a regular pencil and found that my gum eraser worked better on gesso than I thought it would.  I traced over my pencil with a gray Sharpie and then used ink tense blocks for the color on the bottle.  

Here's what I've discovered about myself and sketching thus far. I usually can sketch from a line drawing better than the actually object.  (this bottle is the exception for me so far).  I have no training with perspective and I think that is why I have an issue with objects.  I also do better with simple objects and straight lines.  

I love Snoopy. I really want to draw him and I've tried. He never looks like Snoopy.  I'm not sure why. I'm going with because he's all curved lines.  If you have Snoopy pointers for me, please leave me a comment.  I want to be Snoopy when I grow up (he is brave, loyal and adventurous) and so I'd really like to be able to draw him.

I would like to thank Terri at Let's Sketch-Sketching for Everyone  for the encouragement and weekly challenges. They are helping me a lot.

Link: The Documented Life Project , Paint Party Friday, Let's Sketch-Sketching for Everyone Facebook Page

Art Houses

The Documented Life Prompt this week was houses.  I love houses. Two themes I seem to repeat are birds and houses.

A few months ago I picked up a Nashville Arts Calendar. It is full of very photos of a huge variety of art work.  These houses are made things that appeared on the calendar during the month of February. If you look closely you'll probably recognize some of the painting in the houses.

The grass/yard is cut from a Ballard's catalog.. It's actually a display of rugs that I tinted with green paint. I like how they give the illusion of hills and flats.

I love that I can make so much art using recycled things. 

Link: The Documented Life Project 

February -The Documented Life and More

I had thumb surgery in January which put a real cramp on my creative endeavors for January and February.  I thought about skipping the February challenges for The Documented Life Project, then I saw a YouTube video by Terri Kahrs at Pringle Hill Studio.  She did a wonderful video using Inktense Pencils and baby wipes.  I love the look the baby wipes give the Inktense pencils.  The video gave my mojo another shove in the right direction.


My background is not as smooth as Terri's but I am very happy with how it turned out.  I decided to make a page that would combine several of the February challenges.  I printed the quote from my Pinterest Board on a recycled page from an old paperback book. I use stencil and gesso to make the border on the page. The bird and flowers on the right hand side are from a Get Well card I received after my surgery.  

The tag is made from a piece of printed card stock on one side and the envelope from my Get Well Card on the other.  I added the tag flap next to the week in my calendar when Scoots had his teeth cleaned.  That is his drunk picture.  Poor boy took hours to get over the anesthesia.  I'm not a big doodler but I did doodle a bit on my calendar page. Over all I had a good time doing four weeks of challenges in a three page spread.












Link to: The Documented Life Project, Art Journal Everyday, Paint Party Friday, Artist Play Room , WOYWW?

The Documented Life Project

I've been in a bit of a slump as far as my art goes. I couldn't seem to get myself to the art table to play with paint. I don't know why I because as soon as I started getting painty I felt ever so much better.




I signed up for The Documented Life Project.  Click the link to learn more about it. This is the cover of my journal that I plan to use for the project.

I started with a Strathmore Mixed Media Journal.  I'm using it because the paper is thicker than plain planner paper.  It will take gesso and paint a bit better than light weight paper.  I used old book pages* to cover the front. I used gesso and matte medium to glue it down.  A watered down light purple paint is the next layer. 

The flowers are a Donna Downey stamp and I used Ranger Archival ink to stamp them so they would be permanent for my next wet layer.  The quote was found on Raw for Beauty facebook page.  I copied it into MS Publisher and changed the color so that it would go better with page.

The 2014 are The Angel Company stamps.  The green leaves are a Crafter's Workshop Stencil.  I used bubble wrap,  a piece of rubber rug backing and a medicine bottle lid to make the other decorative marks in orange, pink and yellow.  All the paint was inexpensive craft paint except for a bit of Golden's pink High Flow Acrylic.

* Part of the book paper is from an old book I found at the library for 50 cents. It's an old construction manual that is full of page after page of numbers.  I think it's formulas for mixing concrete and other building materials.  These days all of that figuring would be done on the computer.  I smile every time I use one of those pages because I know it must have been very important of some engineer years ago.

Link to: The Documented Life Project, Creative Every Day, Paint Party Friday, Artist's Play Room