Catching up on DLP...Weeks 21 and 22...

I've had a wonderful week away at an Amanda McCavour workshop (I'll post about that soon), so I thought I'd just pop in and post another couple of pages in my Documented Life Project calendar journal.

Week 21:

And Week 22:

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 14: It's Water Under the Bridge...

This week's DLP challenge was to explore watercolours and the challenge quote was 'It's water under the bridge.' I decided to stay away from anything too literal but still wanted to keep to the theme of the challenge.  

As I do each week, I used washi tape and some collage components to create my calendar/journalling area. This way, even if I don't get to the art on the rest of the page right away, I can still record my daily entries at the end of each day.

I used additional washi tape to create a border around the remaining part of the page spread.

Searching the Internet, I found this wonderful butterfly that I was able to resize and print in a variety of sizes. I used Tombow markers and my waterbrush to colour them. I then layered the larger ones with a piece of old sheet music and a map page from an old atlas so that when I cut them out I'd have three layers.

 I had a lovely piece of tissue paper with script on it, so I stabilized it with some fusible interfacing, misted it with a spray bottle and then painted it with a variety of Winsor & Newton watercolour paints to create a beautiful, watery wash.


Once the background had dried, I took my layered butterflies and the background sheet over to the sewing machine-this is why I had to stabilize the tissue paper.
I machine stitched the butterflies to the background sheet by sewing over the body of the butterfly, leaving the wings free.

This was then glued into my journal, leaving the border to show around the edges of the 'water'.










I think this is a beautiful quote.

"Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a lot of darkness and yet become something beautiful."

To me it ties in to the idea of the past being water under the bridge...it doesn't have to undermine the beauty that we can still have within us.

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 8: It's Worth Repeating

Sometimes things just don't go as planned...

Funny that the text I had used on this page makes sense with the 'journey' I took in doing this page! I started by laying down some layers of Gelli printing and then glueing torn paper of the words in the message onto the page. That's probably where it started going wrong because I was then forced to work around the text. Anyway, the doodles of the little doily type flower motifs kept popping up and I ended up adding them in a variety of ways (thus the 'repeating' theme). 

At one particularly ugly stage (and often there are those ugly stages in the process) I was losing hope of being able to salvage the page so I added some smaller text at the bottom...

Not a great spread, but a good 'journey' none the less.

If you're interested in joining the fun and FREE Documented Life Project, it's not too late to get on board!

DLP Week 7: Going Under Cover...

I love how the weekly prompts in DLP 2015 get me thinking outside of the box and trying new things while incorporating some old favourites that I haven't used for a while.

This weeks challenge was to 'cover up the good stuff' so I started by using Sakura Gelly Rollers to journal some thoughts in overlapping 'patches' of script on black gesso.










I then used some hand-marbled paper and a piece of scrapbook paper to tear strips to cover some of the journalling.












I cut some hearts out of the lining of an envelope that had the word love repeated in a variety of fonts. I drew in the lines suspending the 'love' hearts using a Liquitex paint marker and with a black water-soluble stabilo pencil, I added some shadows to give more of an illusion of depth and layers. A red Neocolour II crayon accented some of the circles on the marbled paper and the doily heart.



Finally I added a bit of doodling in black and white and called it done!

DLP Week 6: Don't Stop...

A walk in the backyard inspired the triangles in this week's spread. Don't you love the design on these boots? Sadly all of the paint has come off during subsequent walks in the snow.

I started this spread with gelli prints using my boots. I highlighted some of the triangles by doodling over them with a black pen. 

I also carved my own stamp to echo the triangles and I also used that stamp to create the 'stickers' for the numbered days in the calendar area of the spread.

Some circles were added, in which I did some journalling using my white pen. Then, because of a Group of Eight challenge, in which I was to use numbers in my piece, I pulled out a number stencil and added some numbers to the area on the left.

You'll also notice a few cupcakes. They were on a birthday card that was sent to me by one of my sisters-in-law last month, and I thought it was a good way to keep a bit of the card and the 'cupcake queen' comment which made me smile.

DLP Week 3: My Favourite So Far!

The Documented Life Project challenge for this week is to use the colour wheel and a particular quote of Georgia O'Keeffe.

I decided to use some acrylic ink since I only had the three primary colours and I wanted to restrict myself to those and let them mix to create other colours. I liberally painted them onto the spread with a brush.

Then I covered the page with plastic kitchen wrap and allowed it to dry for a while.

Ironically, while I was waiting for it to dry I decided to watch the the most recent episode of DMTV with Laura and Linda Kemshall. Linda was working on a journal page and I couldn't believe it, but she was using this kitchen wrap technique! Great minds!!! Having said that, she was doing some really incredible work with leaves from her garden...something I'll certainly play with at some point!

Anyway, back to my piece. Once the plastic wrap is removed you're left with a really wonderful random texture of wrinkle lines!

I added additional layers using various sizes of bubble wrap and white gesso. I seem to go back to this a lot...it's so easy and gives you those wonderful circles...definitely one of my 'go to' techniques for adding layers and texture.

I pulled out some of my Gelli print papers and made the flowers. The stems were drawn in using my white Signo pen and a permanent black pen.

Using a Terri Stegmiller stencil I added the grid lines for the quote. To soften the lines, I doodled little circles using the white pen, rather than drawing solid lines.

The text was added with a black pen, following the shapes of the grid lines and then highlighted with the white pen.

And here's the finished page:

Inside Cover...Done!

Just a very quick post today...

I just want to show you the inside cover I've done for my Documented Life Project art journal for this year.  The beautiful dragonflies were given to me by my friend Sandra Spagnuolo and I've been hanging on to them for way too long...it was time to use them in a way that would allow me to see them and enjoy them!

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: