DLP Week 19: Stitching...

I'm catching up with my DLP journal and this week was all about using fun bright bits of papers I had lying around. The Documented Life Project prompt for week 19 was 'stitching' so I machine stitched together several strips of various under papers and Gelli printed papers. These became my lines on which I wrote the weekly quote, this time used exactly as it was. I also had a sheet of silly stamped characters that I thought fit the theme of 'a life full of laughter' so I collaged them in, traced over some of the lines in black to make them pop a bit more (I had initially stamped them in blue acrylic paint). Some scribbly doodles here and there and I called it done...sometimes you just have to play and not take things too seriously!

Monday was the day I dropped Yoshi off to begin her formal training as a dog guide. I was missing her, and thinking about all three of my foster puppies, so I created this collage of them to be used as my iPhone lock screen image. I love their faces, which capture the different personalities so well.

Wafer and I have been missing Yoshi, but we've had a wonderful week of cuddling and playing together, sharing our undivided attention with one another. We're proud of our girl Yoshi, and know she's going to be great at 'puppy university'!

DLP Week 17: Playing With Inks...

The week 17 Documented Life Project challenge was to use inks. I have a good collection of acrylic inks, spray inks, Tsukineko inks, Posh Rainbow Inks by Ranger, Inktense pencils (love these!!!), India inks...you get the idea...so this week's challenge was just about pulling out the media and playing. 

Yoshi and Wafer were most interested as I added the final doodles while enjoying the beautiful evening out on the deck.


Here are a few close ups, followed by the full page spread.  

Happy Mother's Day! 

DLP Week 16: A Lot On My Plate...

The week 16 Documented Life Project challenge had us using Gelli plates for printing, and the theme was "A lot of my plate". Ironically, this page is a couple of weeks overdue because...yes, I've had a lot on my plate. LOL

DLP Week 15: Cry Me a River...

I just love how some art journal pages evolve, almost on their own.

For this week's Documented Life Project challenge, we were to use acrylic paint (a go to of mine when it comes to art journalling) and the quote "Cry me a river".

I started by tearing up some 'under paper' that I had on my desktop, and those colours led me to randomly paint the journal page using Key Lime and Teal Zircon Silks acrylic glaze. I love the intense colours and that subtle sparkle you get with Silks!

I collaged those torn bits of under paper onto the painted page, and in the process I discovered that the glue I was using, when dried and rubbed off with my finger caused an interesting lighter marked area on the page.

I liked that effect so I started making glue circles in a slight arc near the top of the page.

After the glue had some time to dry a bit, I wiped the excess off leaving the circles you see. I added a bunch of doodles to the collaged papers and circles and then I started searching on Pinterest for quotes that related to the challenge quote (I didn't want to use the quote given, but wanted to find something that related to it).

I found this quote:

Cry a river.
Build a bridge.
Get over it.

That immediately had me seeing the collaged papers as pillars and the circles as the linking bridge...

        ...a few more words and an arrow and I was done!

DLP Week 12: Inspired by a Friend's Silliness!

This week's DLP challenge was about focus, but all I could focus on was the silliness of a friends photos of his dogs. He's my stylist, and obviously has way too much fun on Sundays when he goes in to clean his salon. The 'girls', Sasha and Bella, play dress up and have photo shoots in the chair! Love these sweet dogs!

DLP Week 4: How a Page Can Take Over...

This week on Art to the 5th's Documented Life Project, the Art Challenge was 'Writing' and the journal Prompt was 'Words with Friends'. I always start my spread by setting up the journalling boxes along the right side of the spread so that I can 'document' my life for the week even as I work through the process of creating the art on the rest of the page. That way there is no pressure to hurry the art along and theoretically even if I don't finish it during the week I can always come back to it without falling behind on the actually recording of my dailies.

Because of the challenges, I pulled out washi tape that was postage related or 'writing like' and then put some actual postage stamps to use.

I have several stamps that contain various kinds of scripts so I were used to get me started filling the blank white pages.

Using two different blues and a purple pen-all I wrote 'letters' to friends, family and even myself in the spaces left by the stamps. I quickly began to overlap the script areas and stamped script in all different directions.

 I then adhered some bits of collected paper: part of an envelope in which a letter was sent to me by a friend, a little gift card envelope and a beautiful little tree. The diamond shapes were cut from a paper napkin (I take the layers apart and only use the top, printed layer).

A bit of black was added in the form of some bold black circles. These were inspired by some art I saw in a display window of a clothing store in a mall.

At this stage I started adding layers of paint, doodles and collaged elements and words. It's during this process that the page kind of took over and went from being all about letters to being more about books and words.

Because of one of my dailies, in which I wrote about the 'puppy pants'* I made using a pattern I found on this wonderful site called Mimi & Tara: Dog Clothes Patterns, I made a tag that includes a couple of pictures of Yoshi modelling her fancy pants. The tag is tucked into the little gift card envelope.
*(Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides breeds their own puppies, and since the females in Yoshi's litter are being considered for the breeding program, they are all being kept in tact until after they are brought back to the training school. As such, she may go into heat while she is still with me.) 

DLP Week 1 1/2: Laying Down the Layers

It turns out the post for the first week of DLP was intended for the first 10 days of the year. They knew we'd be anxious to get started on January 1st but didn't post again until the 10th. Well, the way I organized my journal, I've got a week in between because I started my first week with only three days, so here is my Week 1 1/2 as it develops, layer by layer:

DLP Week 2 Is Finished...

The art challenge for week two of DLP was to use gesso and the journal prompt was the quote "The beginning is always today" by Mary Shelley.

As is so often the case, I got busy having fun and forgot that I wanted to capture pictures of the process for those of you who requested seeing them.  This first image has several layers of found papers, pretty napkins (serviettes...or whatever you call them), and paint, applied with my fingers.

I then used a fun spiral stencil and dabbed on white gesso with a make-up sponge.





More paint was added to soften the contrast and then I added some subtle finger painted circles.

 Using a couple of different sizes of paint brushes I added more circles. I also traced along some of those wonderful spiral shapes with a black marker and added black dots to create a bit of a swirly border for the page.

More circles...

Haha...more circles in the form of bubble wrap...

And finally, some big bold text.  I chose to use a different quote with a similar theme.

I added some more white, using my favourite white pen (Signo) to highlight the text and I'm calling it done.

It's pretty busy, but I love all the layers.

DLP 2015...The Fun Has Begun!

As you know, I don't seem to be in the right mind set these days for my fibre art, but I have been looking forward to the New Year and the start of the Art to the 5th Academy's Documented Life Project 2015!

I have done various forms of art journalling and calendars over the years, and I really like the idea of journalling about the highlights of my day. Whether big or small, I find there is always something good on which to focus.  For example, although yesterday I was feeling terrible and spend the day on the couch due to a nasty cold and sore throat, Yoshi and Yona, my foster pup and her sister, kept coming to check on me and make sure I was okay. They knew something was off and stayed close all day!  

Since I keep my planner on my iPhone in the form of the calendar there which gives me reminders, etc. to keep me organized, this journal will be more of a diary of sorts.

It's not too late to join the fun, and best of all it's FREE!

This week's challenge was to use book paper, so after sectioning off my weekly calendar area with washi tape, on the right, I started gluing down book paper, paper bag bits, a piece of altered sheet music and even the yellow tissue hat out of a Christmas cracker.





Then I got carried away with acrylic paint, scraping it on with an old credit card, using netting and bubble wrap to print, making swirls with a paint pen and even using a small paint brush (I know...how crazy is that!).








I love that the book paper and sheet music still shows through the paint, adding to the wonderful layers.











Next, I pulled out my white pen and started doodling to add some detail to the big flower petals and other areas on the page.

I thought I was done, but after letting it sit for a day I decided to add a quote using more book paper and some rub on letters I had in my stash.  I did have to add a few letters with a black marker because some of the most often used letters were all gone from the sheet.









The best things
in life aren't things









And here's the finished page: