New idea: Faith Journal

My art  journey is morphing in a way I never expected or could have foreseen. It is quickly becoming intertwined with my faith. My searches now, not only include various art techniques but also art related to bible journaling and bible study.

I have a bible that is designed for bible journaling and has in some of its margins artwork to color in if, I desire to do so. Adding my own artwork isn’t happening but maybe it will in the future.

I did do some testing of a few different mediums in my bible. I discovered a couple of interesting facts. Prang watercolors bleed through the paper. They also bleed through clear gesso! Even 3 layers of clear gesso!!! Daler Rowney watercolors from a tube, DO NOT bleed through unprepped (no gesso) bible pages!!!!!! Sorry for all the exclamation points but I found this rather AMAZING. I may have to invest in better quality watercolors if I want to use them in my bible and not have to prep the pages with gesso. I currently prep them with clear gesso so I can use sharpie markers or other markers, for highlighting or coloring, otherwise they will bleed through the page. I did a test on an untreated page using Inktense pencils, by using a waterbrush and pulling color from the pencil tip and painting it on the page. It has a high ghosting factor, not really a bleed through but possibly could if the application is too heavy. I plan to work with them more in my bible at some point and test them over clear gesso. I was quite frankly amazed regarding what would or would not bleed through the untreated pages of a bible considering how thin they are. I had expected everything to bleed through except maybe ballpoint pen or pencils.

Maybe some day I’ll do my own art in my bible.

Right now, I am more focused on my bible studies. From my searches I came upon a method some people use during their studies. I am more of a writer/note taker when it comes to studying than I am an doodler/artist creating pictures to help me remember what I’ve read. This helped me to understand why I felt a bit blocked when I tried to add artwork to my bible. Instead of drawing, I highlight and write in colorful text which in itself is pretty to my eyes.

I often find myself intrigued by how God influences my life. I find myself drawn towards things not understanding why. I was drawn to sign up for a free tutorial called Magical Manifesting Journal tutorial which I ran across on Facebook. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted yet another tutorial about manifesting. First, because I’ve tried it before with little to no success and secondly, because of my renewed faith in God. I won’t go into the spiritual implications of this. Just know I’m rethinking some of the things I have dabbled in over the years and whether they are appropriate in my life now. Manifesting is one of these things I’m reconsidering so I was intrigued as to why I would be pulled towards this course. I truly believe this was God’s influence, so he could show me how I can alter something that may seem inappropriate for my faith and make it appropriate and supportive of my changes in my life.  I believe he uses everything he can to bring us into his chosen path for us. And this is just one example.

I went ahead and signed up for the tutorial. I watched all the videos. As I reached the end of the videos, I realized I could still use the idea of the manifesting journal but altar it slightly. I had to first understand what it was I wanted. I want to build a closer relationship with God. I needed something which I could turn to and have it help restore my faith or turn my thoughts from feelings of negativity to positive feelings. I, all too often, sink into despair and depression when life just doesn’t seem to be going well for me. I wanted a quick reference to particular versus which resonate with me and help me on my spiritual journey.

So… I altered the idea of a manifesting journal to a faith journal.

What I would do is create a simple booklet from one page. You know, one of those one page wonders, where you fold a large sheet of paper into a booklet containing about 8 pages, including front and back cover. Adhering the bottom edge of the pages and not the top or sides, creates pockets, which I’ll show in another post when I start to create items to insert into the pockets.

Here is what I have created so far. It isn’t done yet, but I was so excited about how this is turning out, I wanted to share it, in case, anyone else might want to try it as well.

Front Cover

 

Page 1 and 2

  Pages 1 through 4 were inspired from last Sunday’s sermon at CAC.

Page 1: “when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” James 1:2

Page 2: “when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” James 1:3

The point of the journal is to add scripture which I can refer to when my faith begins to wain or I feel challenged and need to feel God’s support. Since I am currently facing some personal challenges these particular verses in James resonated with me and help to give me hope that there is a purpose behind these challenges.

Page 3 and 4

Page 3: “when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” James 1:4

Page 4: “if you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you” James 1:5

Page 5 came from my daily reading from a week or so ago. “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you.” 2 Kings 20:5  You might recognize it from the art journal page I showed in my previous blog. This one gives me hope that God hears my prayers and is actively helping me.

Page 5 and 6

I still have page 6 and the back cover where I can add more scripture as I come across something that resonates with me. But don’t think this is all I have room for. As I mentioned earlier, if I only glue the bottom edges of the pages together it will  leave the sides of a couple pages and the top of a couple other pages open forming pockets. I can add decorated tags or decorated paper which I can also add scripture to and store in the pockets, plus I could add tip-ins or fold-outs for even more space to add scripture. This means I have a lot more I can add to this journal. When I feel it is full, I can create another one.

Back Cover

For the text I found free fonts online I can download for personal use. I printed the scripture on computer paper and tore them out and used a bit of slightly watered down glue to adhere them to the page.

The background is several layers. First, was a collage of different paper, text, decorative paper and music pages. Next came a layer of napkins, followed by a layer of maybe 4 different colors of paint some of them metallic. The last layer was some stamping and mark making using different items like bubble wrap, a lid, the side of a gift card and so forth. I did paint the back of the page, partly to help it lay flat and secondly so the inside of the pockets wouldn’t just be white.

These pages are not done. I plan to do something to help the white paper, with the text printed on it, to blend into the background more, just haven’t settled on what I’ll do yet.  I think I want some embellishments, but again I’m not sure what. Ideas are flowing. I just need to settle on which ones I want to try and just how far I’ll take this project.

I finally feel like I’m finding a focus for my artwork, which is such a wonderful feeling.

Continued progress…

I am working on my girl, slowly but surely. After my last post, I added color for her hair. This took a couple layers of watercolor. I wanted to use a different color from the color palette I have used so far, so I chose yellows and orange with a bit of brown and black for shading. I used similar colors for her eyebrows but chose to make them a bit darker.

After adding the hair, I felt I needed to add something else.

The first thing I did was take out my Prisma Colored pencils and add some more shading to her face and a bit of blush to her cheeks. I softened her chin more.

With the puppy looking up, I needed to add something for him to be looking at. I like using napkins for collage and I had some with flowers, butterflies and birds, so I decided to get them out and see what would go well. I chose the hummingbird and a flower. They were in similar colors to what I had used. I had forgotten to take apart the layers before using matte medium to adhere them to the surface but that was okay. I didn’t really want the background showing through them. Leaving the layers intact, the napkins were sturdier but also took a bit more to glue them down.  In some areas, I had to add matte medium between the layers because they were lifting a bit.

Once the collage was dry, I used colored pencils to add some color to make the flower and bird pop out more. I also added some white ink from my Signo pen and some black ink from a Uni-ball Air pen. I attempted some eyelashes with the black pen but I’m not crazy about them. I need to practice more with creating eyelashes.

The more I work on her the more I see some of the things I would have changed if I noticed them before adding color that couldn’t be removed or changed. Her chin is definitely off center and one eye is higher than the other. I might be able to fix the eyebrow that is smaller and make it slightly larger.

I need to learn to look closer at the sketch to see if I can find these things before adding paint. Some paint can be adjusted but once more layers are added the harder it is to make any major changes.

Despite these little things, I am happy with how it is turning out. I want to do more with the background, just not sure what right now. Probably use some stencils to add some visual texture. This is where I can go really wrong if I’m not careful in choosing the right colors. I have overworked backgrounds before by doing too much to them and I don’t want to do that with this one.

 

The joys and pitfalls of layering…

It was a busy day at work. Worked more hours this week than any week since I started my job this past July. Consequently, working on anything art related took a backseat. I spent the first day of my two days off mostly sleeping, trying to recoup my energy while treating head congestion. Luckily, the congestion seems to be subsiding and not advancing into anything major.

Yesterday was my second day off of work, and towards evening I decided to try and work on Week 32 of Life Book 2017. I started two pages at the same time trying to mimic what Jodi Ohl was teaching. However, one of them I started having issues with peeling paint off of the page after a variety of layers. The other one was way too dark to do anything with. I tossed the one that started peeling because it just got worse and worse no matter what I did. The second one I have kept for now probably just as a reminder of what not to do.

It was too late at night to try a third so I decided to wait until morning. Before going to bed, I hear clearly to work with what I love, which I knew meant to go with watercolor. When I got up in the morning that is exactly what I did. Here is the result:

This isn’t anything like what Jodi Ohl taught but that wasn’t the point of the class. The class is called “Unveiling Yourself” which is what this piece did. The first two attempts taught me that acrylic paint isn’t my medium. It confirmed thoughts I have been having lately about acrylic paint. Acrylic paint for me is becoming a medium which I use as an enhancer so to speak. Let me explain the process I went through when I made this so maybe you will understand what I mean.

I started out with watercolor paper, taping it down to help prevent curling because I knew I would be using a lot of water at first. I wet the paper thoroughly and then added a light layer of watercolor for the background using yellow, red and blue. I let that dry.

The next layer I chose acrylic paint to use through my stencil. I chose brown, yellow orange, and red. I used another stencil to add some black dots. I used a makeup sponge and a light layer of acrylic through the stencils. Then I returned to using watercolor, yellow, purple, blue and red, to add a deeper color around the stenciled areas. Then some green in the area where I used the brown paint through the stencil. This was to bring some of them to the foreground. I let this layer dry.

The next layer I chose to use a brayer to layer on some white acrylic paint, and some gold acrylic paint. Then I chose handmade acrylic sprays, yellow, pink, red, blue, bronze and black. Each of the sprays ended up spraying differently due to their nozzles being slightly clogged. Some people don’t like when that happens but I like the randomness and unpredictability of it. In some places the black was way too much so I blotted it with a paper towel. I let this layer dry.

I stopped using paint at this point and picked up my gel pens. It is hard to see in the picture but I used green gel pen around the pattern on the brown stencil, orange around the yellow orange stencil and purple around the red stencil areas. Then added the stems and leaves with blue, teal and green gel pens. The last thing I did was use black stabilo all pencil and a wet brush to add some shadow.

I love the results I received from this process much better than the previous two attempts when using acrylic paints layered with glue for crackling effect, spackle for texture and paper collage. I had problems on one of them with the paint peeling after several layers. The other one ended up way too dark. This one looks a whole lot better in person. The only thing I might add to the process would be a couple more layers of watercolor and stencils using acrylic paint to give it more depth and interest. I, however, am thoroughly satisfied with how this one came out.

When I used acrylic paint in this process I used very light layer of paint, applying it with a makeup sponge. The issues I had with peeling was either due to too thick a layer of acrylic paint or not letting my page dry enough between layers. Or it could have been because of using glue to create the crackle effect. I will have to buy a crackle medium to see if I have any different results.  The thing is I had the absolute BEST crackle effect with the glue this time. I had large crackles and I had some really small crackling. It was absolutely scrumptious. Unfortunately, it isn’t visible any more on the page I kept. At least I know now how to create such an effect or that I can do it with the Elmer’s white glue all that I used. I just might not be able to layer too much over top or I have to make sure it dries thoroughly between all the layers.

The other thing that pictures don’t show is the physical texture. Using a mixture of watercolor and acrylic paint gives that page a very pleasing surface texture than a page that is done only with acrylic paint. I didn’t use any texture paste or collage or crackle mediums on this page and yet the texture on it is like the taste of food on my tongue except it is texture on my fingers. If that makes any sense. It just feels yummy.

I will definitely be experimenting with this process in the future.

I decided to include the picture of the page I kept that was too dark. The second picture is a close up of the crackling effect I got using just Elmer’s white glue all. I might be able to save this page but I’m afraid I would end up covering up the crackling effect. Or I might use it as collage on other pages, just not sure. This page taught me a lot which I will definitely be able to use on other pages.

Madness, I say, Madness and a cute little guy…

I’ve been working on two projects this week, or should I say two classes. One from Mandala Madness and the other from Ever After 2017.

I’ll start with Mandala Madness:

These mandalas were grown from planting a seed and are from classes 7 and 8. This isn’t the first time I drew mandalas from a seed, and probably not the first time I used colored ink to do so. It is, however, the first time I was able to have them come out looking like I used a grid and not just freehand. No grid was involved with the making of these mandalas.

Just for clarification, the bright pink along one side is the washi tape I used to hide the seam where they are connected to the hinge. They have already been mounted into a signature. I now have two complete signatures and can’t wait for the rest to be done so I can bind them into a book. Not sure I like the bright pink, but I can change that later if I want.

These pages are also pocket pages so I can slip in any loose mandalas I create that are small enough to slip inside. I love how these pages feel. They have substance to them. They are not flimsy pages by any means which means the end resulting journal will have some weight to it. I will most likely use heavy cardstock but more likely chipboard for the book cover so it will have the appearance of a hard cover book. If you haven’t guessed it already, I will most likely create a mandala on the front cover, maybe even the back cover.

I usually don’t talk about personal things here. I’m going to make an exception to that for a moment. First, I’m so grateful to Barb Owen for building these classes not just for all the things I’m learning in them but also because mandalas have been an integral part of my stress relief and anxiety release process. This class has helped me to remain sane through a difficult period which is riddled with so many challenges I can’t go into right now. I will mention one.

I experience daily pain in the wrist of my dominant hand. This pain increases with the use of pens or pencils or similar objects to create/write with. We have done ultrasound and x-rays which all indicate I have a very healthy bones, so the prognosis is possibly tendonitis. I see a physiotherapist today and hopefully they will give me some helpful information and suggestions. I mention this because making mandalas may come to a screeching halt. I may be required to give it a rest, which will mean no drawing, at least with my dominant hand. I’ve been practicing with my non-dominant hand but the results are less than satisfactory and mentally an unbelievable challenge to create just a straight line. I haven’t been able to bring myself to attempt a mandala with my non-dominant hand. It is too frightening to think about what it could come out looking like.

With that said, I have found certain mediums not so painful, watercolors for one, or water soluble products which require only a light touch with a wet brush to activate. Working on other projects/classes are not so pain ridden, though they can be if I’m not careful.

One of these is Ever After 2017 which I must say is challenging in many ways. The option I have contains style development classes too so it doesn’t just challenge me in regards to my artistic abilities. It challenges me to dig deep inside to discover the reasons why I create and what I like and don’t like about something I’m working on. I’m pushed to do things as close as possible to the instructor’s lessons even if I don’t like part of the lesson. That, however, was not the case with this little bonus lesson on creating a cute bear. I so love Tam’s style. She makes it easy to create “cute” and have fun doing it.

Normally this isn’t something I would come up with on my own but she makes me wish I did with extreme frequency. I tend toward realism even when I try to be whimsical or characteristic in my creations. What I’m realizing is, I am very good at copying, or rather following an instructor’s lesson almost exactly even when it is something I don’t enjoy.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy creating this adorable little guy. I’m glad there was no collage involved. I would leave collage out of any lesson if I thought it would still come out looking great but some lessons are based on the collage. It isn’t the doing of the collage which I don’t like. It is just that I don’t have an abundance of pretty papers to use and I’m not great at selecting different patterns that will look good together. I lean more towards using old text pages from books because there is no risk of offending the eyes because of poor color and pattern choices. (Okay, yes, I love, I mean absolutely LOVE the look of text behind my artwork.) Yes, I know, working with colorful pattern paper in collage is something I need to work on which is why, for now, I do the collage when instructed to do so in a lesson.

Speaking of not having an abundance of pretty papers for collage. The one thing I’m learning from Barb (from her live streams) is how to create such pretty papers instead of buying them. Or altering those not so pretty pattern papers to make them gorgeous. She has often mentioned how she likes to make all the things she uses in her projects, including the pretty papers. Before I ever knew Barb existed and I had started on my art journey, I knew I wanted to create my artwork from only those things I created, excluding paints, mediums and the tools, such as paint brushes, and palette knives and so forth. What I mean is, pretty papers, stamps, stencils, stickers and so forth, I want to be all my own creations. I don’t want to have to worry about copyright infringement if someone would ever want to buy something I created, or if I wanted to market it in a print of some sort. Besides, there is something special about being able to say, “I made that completely with my own hands and every pattern is of my own making.”

So… if I’m given the directive later today to rest my dominant hand, meaning stop using it to the point of excruciating pain, then I may focus on creating pretty paper using my non-dominant hand which could make for interesting abstract designs seeing as how I can’t draw a straight line for my life with my left hand.

First lesson from Ever After 2017

Ever since I won a seat in the Ever After 2017 course organized by Tamara Laporte, I’ve been excited to get started. The course started July 1st, so you may wonder why it has taken me so long to complete the first lesson.

The seat I won included package 2 which includes style development. Tam takes her lessons very seriously and style development is no different. She provides a workbook that asks some very poignant questions. This is important for one who really wants to develop their own style. I’ve been lost about how to do this and after reading the first set of questions and working on answering them, I can understand why finding my own style has been a challenge.

I used to think of myself as a deep thinker but realized there are areas I haven’t even considered. Answering the questions wasn’t always easy. It took days for me to pick up a pencil and begin the first art lesson after answering those questions. It took even more days after the sketch was completed to add color. Every time I approach a page no matter what it is, I have to face my inner demons. Demons that were planted in childhood of not being good enough. It is funny how something as simple as vacuuming and dusting a living room and being criticized for it, can make one think they can’t do anything well.

It took me one day to create the main character sketch, and another day to add some sketches of the embellishments being planned. It took the same amount of days to add the color, collage and details. I finished it yesterday, the 16th. Sixteen days from when the course started.  Yes, I have done other artwork in those days as well. The other artwork helped to build my confidence up and bravery up to approach this page with paint.

I don’t think the feelings I have when approaching the page will ever completely go away. What I hope will happen is my confidence will increase over time and I will be able to push through the fear and hesitation more quickly so I can experience the joy of creating.

This page wasn’t without its trials and tribulations. One area in particular on the large bear gave me trouble because I chose a color that was not suitable and was almost impossible to cover up. I ended up using gesso which then became a challenge to get the mediums I was using to work over it. Yes, I had to improvise and choose a different medium to lay down something that would accept other mediums so it would hopefully blend seamlessly with the rest of the bear. In the end, I discovered I could do it and be happy with the result.

I am not a fan of collage but Tam’s instructions are to follow the instructor’s lesson as closely as possible in order to learn what you like and don’t like in order to discover and develop your own style. So… I did the collage. My materials for collage are few. I haven’t created a variety of stock to use for collage because early on I realized I wasn’t a fan of it. At the most, I do like to use collage on thinner paper to build up thickness so it would not disintegrate under wet mediums. In that case, I generally like to use text paper from old books.

Because this is a course one has to purchase I will not go into any more details of the lesson. If you want to learn more, check out Tam’s list of courses. All of them even the free ones are phenomenal in my opinion.

This is my version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears lesson that is given by Tamara Laporte. I am thrilled with how it turned out. I finished the followup questions today which I realized I should have been considering and making notes on as I worked on this lesson. I think I remembered enough of my experience to answer the questions appropriately.

I would love to do this again but with just watercolor, and maybe I’ll try it or incorporate it into the last lesson for part 1 of the course. The last assignment of part 1 is to then take what you have learned from the instructor led classes and create your own. It is early to think about that right now. I have three more lessons in part 1 and a bonus lesson to do yet and it is already over half way through the month of July.

More watercolor facial studies….

In my last post I talked about the first watercolor facial study I did for a 21 Secrets class I took. Repeating the technique was not so easy on my next watercolor study which was focused on the nose, a feature I often have difficulty with. I didn’t have any left over skin tone mix from the first one, and several days had gone by, so the skin tones do not match.

On the same day, I also worked on a study of the mouth, mostly just the lips.

Several more days passed before I worked on the last one, which was the left eye. This one I actually worked on today. In the class, Jodi Ohl demonstrated both the dry method and the wet method for applying watercolor to the paper and though her wet method ended up very loose, mind did not.

I started all of them by wetting the paper first and then applying the watercolor. I will admit the perfectionist in me immediately started trying to control exactly where the colors went. If you haven’t worked with watercolor, then you don’t know how ridiculous that statement sounds. On this last one I tried to be looser than all the others ones and was not very successful. Loose technique in anything, just may not be my style. I’m working on it though. I’m better at loose technique when it is abstract.

After I completed my watercolor study today and it dried, I decided to see how all four of the pieces looked displayed together. Here is what it looks like:

She is a bit wonky but that is to be expected since I didn’t lay down all four pieces of watercolor paper and sketch her out first so all portions would be symmetrical. Even so, I like how they all look in a collage. I may mount them this way permanently but not sure at this time.

My next venture in watercolor? Maybe, I’ll try to do her whole face and see if she ends up looking anything like the reference photo.

~Patti

Watercolor cloud story telling…

I did an earlier painting using this process from a class I took. During the class, I did three pages with the watercolor technique that forms a sort of abstract cloud. My earlier painting was posted here.

Yesterday, and today, I took the two pages left from the class and completed the painting and the story which came out during the painting of each one. Here are the two paintings:

I have really enjoyed this process.

Another class involved blind contour. I was really resistant to doing this class. I was resistant because I thought it would be a waste of paper and I wouldn’t be able to do it very well. I was both right and wrong. The class involved doing a blind contour of a reference. I chose a bamboo plant, once the drawing is done, to then paint in the different sections in the line drawing.

This turned out better than I thought it would. I really liked how it looked but the next steps went like this. Journal over your painting. The suggestion was to journal about blind contouring but you can journal about anything. Then paint over it lightly, covering about 90% of the painting and journaling. Once dry, do another blind contour over the paint.

I really loved how my painting looked with the journaling over it. I was tempted to stop at that point. However, I was determined to do the whole class, so I continued. I painted over it and chose using a Neocolor II for the blind contouring, then I painted it and it came out like the first picture.

I absolutely hated it.

I decided to do it again, only this time stop at the end of the journaling. The second picture below is my second blind contour before the journaling. I love it even with the journaling I did later. It kind of makes me think of a short story written over a painting representing the story. I like the thought of that.

This last is from a class on creating a journal page. I used homemade texture paste which I don’t use near often enough. I love the feel of the texture and how the texture takes the paint. I’m not fond of collage, however, a collage of something I created with my own two hands felt good and I like the affect.

I finally got caught up in my classes. This is a relief. I felt pressured to get caught up though the pressure was coming only from me. I didn’t feel like I should work on other things until I got caught up. It was hard to balance my day and focus on other things knowing I was falling behind in my classes. Now that I’m caught up, I should be able to focus on some of my own ideas.

~Patti

Merging Poetry with Art and more artwork…

I have been playing around with the concept of merging my mixed media art with my poetry.  I have been wanting to find a way to do this for a while now. I have added some of my poetry to a couple of my art journal pages but something felt missing.

The below spread is from a lesson on Mood Journaling from Book of Days 2017 by Effy Wild. The concept is when something is bothering you, to sit down and just let yourself go, feel your emotions, and just reach for whatever paint color immediately comes to mind. Then just slap it on the page, making marks with whatever medium you reach for and allowing your mood to express itself through the application of the medium. Her lesson is much more descriptive of the process of how to do this and I’m hoping I’m not revealing too much by the description I have given so far.

For this piece I really didn’t have any strong emotions but did tap into some of the feelings I have. The point is to tap into your feelings and get them out. This is usually what is behind my poetry as well, which is what made me think about using the mood journaling process to help me merge my poetry with my art.

Once I completed the lesson, this is what I ended up with:

At first, I considered using it as a spread for an MDS (Multi Day Spread) for journaling my week. Then one of the individuals in the class Facebook group suggested it would be a good spread for reflection. I liked this idea. Then I thought about a poem I had written earlier in the month and thought it would go well with the spread.

I chose to add a second silhouette, making it look like she was on the other side of the window. Then, I took a picture, imported it to my editor on my computer and added the text from my poem to see how it would look. Here is the result:

I like it. I like it a lot, although the wonkiness of the boxes kind of bothers me. That perfectionist side of me being too critical but, it will do. I plan on using the spread to add text about what I learn about myself, positive things. Things that are insightful and uplifting.

At first I wasn’t sure how I would add the poetry text to my actual page. I did some calculations and found if I place a line every 1/4 inch I can have 36 spaces for writing which is just enough to fit the poem in the same way it appears above, only it will be written in my handwriting.  I won’t be placing any other pictures of it here, because the rest will be very personal.

I do, however, love this process. When I read a poem I have written, I can usually tap into the original emotions I had when I wrote the piece . I should be able to use this same process to create a mixed media page which will become the background for the poem. Maybe one day I can turn them into a book of mixed media poetry.

I worked on some other art lessons this week from Life Book 2017 organized by Tamara Laporte. This first one is a lesson given my Tamara. I love her whimsical animals. She gives them all human eyes. My daughter thinks my elephant looks cute but creepy with its human eyes. I sort of like her.

The next lesson is also from Life Book, the teacher Amber Kuileimailani Bonnici, is the Intuitive Warrior. I am loving all the different techniques I’m learning. I would not have considered using the colors I have in this piece if it wasn’t for this class.

This last is a lesson by  Melissa Dinwiddie on Less is More. I’m not crazy about how this one came out. Abstract painting doesn’t come easy to me. This is something I will need to work on if I want better results. I think I used too many different colors and too large a canvas. The instructor used small canvas so this minimalist approach seemed to look better. Or, maybe I should have had a larger variety in shape sizes. It is something to consider if I want to do another piece like this.

My journey into meeting my inner artist has been and continues to be an interesting one. I’m learning a lot about what makes me happy in my artwork. I love it when I can do a face or in this case, the face of an elephant and have the shading come out so well. I am learning, I’m not a fan of collage, especially not when it comes to mixing different decorative pattern paper together. It doesn’t come out looking right to me. I have yet to put my finger on exactly what or why that is. I do, however, love collaging with old text paper. I’m learning the more I work with watercolor, and other water soluble products the more I love them and the easier it becomes to work with them, this includes acrylic paint.

This week has been the best. Finding a technique I may actually be able to use to mix my writing with my art is a feeling I find difficult to describe. Oh, heck, it makes me happy. And, I just realized, the last piece I don’t like so much? That technique will also have a place in merging with my writing. I almost missed it. Looking at it just now, I realized, with a little practice, it could become a very dynamic technique that will merge well with my writing. giving plenty of white space for text.

The other great part of my week has been, I have finally narrowed down a process for editing my ink drawings. I was getting frustrated over not having crisp, clean lines, that looked like a print shop created them. I finally realized, “Hey, these are hand drawn pieces. I don’t want them to look like they were made by a computer digital program. I don’t want them to be perfect in that way. I want them to be perfect in the imperfections that come with something made by hand.” These will be my one of a kind hand drawn pieces which once I have the majority of them edited, I can sell individually or in a collection for people who like to de-stress by coloring or just want an ink print. The editing I’m doing is to mainly clean up any stray marks and to make sure they will print clearly when enlarged.  I have over fifty drawings I can convert to digital files, most of them are mandalas. I’m looking forward to when I can open up a web store to sell them.

~Patti

Learning so much!

I can’t begin to express the excitement I’m feeling over what I am learning. But most especially on how I’m seeing my skills develop. Where I once thought I would never enjoy watercolor, and thought I would make a horrible mess of it, I’m now learning I was completely wrong. I’ve never been so glad about being wrong about something in my life!

For the past week, I’ve been rather busy trying to catch up in some of my classes. I decided to focus on Life Book 2017’s lessons. The below pictures are from weeks 14, 15 and 16.

    

I love these two girls. When looking back at my first girls from Life Book 2017, I can see so much improvement, especially in the coloring and shading of the skin. I’m thrilled to see this.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this page. Learning to divide a page into sections even before I know what words I want to say was unbelievably satisfying. It made me expand my imagination to make the words fit. Whenever, I sit down to create a page with words and I already know what words I want to use, I’m usually organizing the page around the words. The words usually end up uniform and in straight lines. I totally love how the words on this page ended up in all different forms and direction.

OH, this one, I probably can’t say enough about. This one challenged my ability to work with watercolor and I found I loved the challenge. Creating something out of blotches of watercolor was pure fun.

Looking at the blotches or clouds of watercolor and trying to come up with an image was definitely a challenge. At first, I couldn’t see anything, or rather, I saw pieces of things that ‘could be’ but had trouble finding the rest of those pieces to fit it into a whole.

I did the background blotches of color one day, but it took waiting until several hours later to see the forms I really needed to pull from the page. I did three backgrounds in total, and on each one I was surprised what developed. I only completed this one. The other two are in progress. They only have the loose sketch which wouldn’t be visible on camera at this point.

The other two are also more complicated and I wanted to focus on the easier one to get the hang of the process. The other two will be worked on as time permits or as I’m drawn to them, in between my other lessons.

So far, this will make three projects I have in progress. I don’t fret over them not being done. I know in at least one case, I’m waiting for my skills and knowledge to grow. I have an idea of where I want to take it but not yet the skills to get it there. This is where patience takes over.

As far as the watercolor cloud backgrounds, well those two, I need to contemplate because of their complexity. I want to consider what direction I want to take them before I proceed.

The thing about my exploration into art over the past year is this….

I’m only just touching the tip of the iceberg so to speak. I’ve worked with acrylic paint, water soluble crayons, gouache, soft pastels, spray acrylics, spray inks, colored pencil, oil pastels, and more. I’ve done collage, created handmade journals, painted on canvas, created card decks, designed my own mandalas and created my own fabric paper, just to name a few.

I love it all, somethings, I may love more than others. For instance, I’m not that fond of collage, but sometimes it has its place and works well with what I want to do. I’m not crazy about gouache but that is probably more of needing to learn how to work with it. Today, I learned one way of using it which may work its way into my style.

The one thing I’m learning I love the most, which for my perfectionist personality is something oddly exhilarating. It is the unpredictability of much of what I create.

I have a logical and perfectionist mind, but I also have this wonderful part of my mind that loves to watch something happen that is quite unpredictable. I used to be so afraid of the unpredictable nature of things. In learning to love it in my art, I’m starting to appreciate it in life, which kind of blows away my logical side.

In some ways, I can’t help but think this is the true nature of the Gemini in me. I’ve always felt at odds with myself because of my inner conflicts. I can almost always see the two sides of a situation and understand both which makes it especially difficult to make a choice. My logical mind has to step in and weigh the pros and cons and hopefully make the right decision.

How does this factor into my art? Oh, boy, does it ever factor in. If , I let it, I could be stuck on making a choice between one color or the next or not using a color at all because of trying to predict the outcome and which would be best for the overall design.

That is why, what I’m learning this past year, has been so important to me. Learning to let go is HARD. Learning to let things flow as they will, without stepping in to guide its course or force things to go in a particular direction is even HARDER. It is why I’m only now stepping out of my comfort zone to explore creativity as it should be explored.

I’ll soon be 57 years old. I’m not a spring chicken any more. I’m also not too old to want to experiment with life, with my imagination and with how to change my perceptions of this world. Letting my creativity flourish is helping me to do just that. I’m loving every minute and even, at times, look forward to those clashes of thought and emotion when things look like they are going terribly wrong, to only find out, in the end, they were going terribly right and just as they needed to.

I just hope I can learn to approach life in the same way.

~Patti

Hope

Below is my latest art journal page.  I came across Journal52 which is a challenge run by Effy Wild. Once a week a prompt is given. When I came across Journal52 they were in week 3. At this writing they are still in week 3. Their week 1 prompt fit my previous art journal page to a tee so I counted it as week 1. Week 2’s prompt is HOPE. I wanted a fitting affirmation statement so I went on the search for one. As soon as I found “I look towards my future with hope and happiness.” I knew it was the right one. Coming across a photo to use as reference for my focal figure of the woman with a shaved head was also perfect for the message I wanted to relay.

I’ll talk about the message in a moment. First, I’ll describe how I created the art journal spread.

I did a rough sketch of the layout with graphite, some of it changed as I went but mostly it is as I intended it to be. I painted the girl, starting with an Art Crayon in flesh tone, then laying with acrylic paint until I had her the way I wanted her. I then used some prisma colored pencils for finer details and to adjust some shading.

Once the girl was done, I collaged in tissue paper in green, yellow and blue using watered down glue. I used watered down white glue to reduce costs. If this was a commission item I would use collage medium or gel medium. I crumpled the tissue paper to give more texture to the page. I also used red and green for the center of the large flower.

Once the page was dry, I used a brayer to apply acrylic paint over the tissue paper to give it more visual texture, then I used my homemade stamps to stamp in the flowers. The rabbit is a commercial stamp. I added Faber-Castell PITT pens for color and details on the flowers and rabbits. On the large flower I used Prisma Colored Pencils.

After stamping in the flowers I realized the original position for the dove was going to be all wrong. This is the only alteration to the original sketch. Placing the bird much higher has given the spread a more balanced appearance. If the bird had been where I had originally intended it to be, the painting would have been bottom heavy. I then added in the lettering using my black Painters permanent marker.

There are a lot of things I love about this art journal spread. First and foremost it is completely my own. I wasn’t following a video, or in a class, I only used the prompt to help inspire an idea. It isn’t whimsical and it is about my life.

This is where we come to the message. The affirmation statement is how I need to look at my life and future right now.  Since 2014, it has been a long and difficult road. The woman with the shaved head represents me two years ago when in 2014 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and yes I eventually shaved my head when my hair started falling out. In 2016, I was laid off of work after 33 years of devoting my time and expertise. Finding another job has been difficult and I’m still looking.

So this is very much about me surviving cancer and the blow of losing a good job I had devoted my life to and trying to maintain hope and happiness in the midst of it all.

I am doing what I love…. being creative… taking care of my daughter. These are things to be happy about. I see this in my painting.

~Patti