Art Journal Calendar...

I'm continuing on with Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year online class. Although I'm behind in a lot of the lesson pages, my May calendar is filled in and June's spread is done. I'm doing my best to keep up with my daily entries...this picture was actually taken on Tuesday, so I'm up-to-date so far!

Art Calendars...April & May...

April is finished...and May has begun...

April's Calendar...

I can't believe it's already well into April! And fortunately, although it's still quite cold, the snow is slowly melting and there are some definite signs of Spring.

I'm a little behind in my art journal calendar, but I finally got the spread done and coloured in, following the awesome idea from Joanne Sharpe in her online course Draw Your Awesome Year.  This is a fun idea for journalling, and luckily I write very small so I can still document a fair bit inside these fun number spaces.

The transition from black and white to colour is always fun.  Once those bright colours are on the page it just seems to pop.
(sorry for the 'black out'...it suggests I might lead a more exciting life than I really do, LOL. I just can't reveal a secret that's not mine to tell!)

 We've had a lot of rain lately...as one would expect in April, and my purple crocuses have peeked out among the dirty snow drifts so I just had to add them to the page.  And with Easter coming there just has to be a cute, fluffy little chick.

I used my Caran d'Ache Neocolor II to colour this page. Since a lot of the areas were small, I found it easier to scribble on my craft mat, and then use my water brush to activate and pick up the pigment for 'painting' on the page.

Now In Colour!

A little while back I showed you what I was up to in my art journal.  I've been back at it, and have now added colour to the pages using Tombow markers.  I love the wonderful watercolour effects you can achieve with these fabulous markers!

I was occasionally having an issue with bleed through to the back of the page (when I used heavier layers of colour), but I've come up with a solution.  I first tried clear gesso, applying it after the black marker work was done (and completely dry!), but it added a bit more 'tooth' than I wanted.  I guess I could have lightly sanded it, but instead I tried using matte medium.  That works beautifully!  It still gives the page a slight texture, but that adds some extra interest to the page (in my humble opinion).

I'm really loving Joanne Sharpe's "Draw Your Awesome Year" online class.  I'm learning a lot of new ideas and trick to improve my drawing and art journalling.  It's not too late to sign up...all of her classes are 'forever access' too which means you can keep going back and reviewing the lessons as you begin each new year!  How awesome is that!

I've never considered myself much of a 'drawer', but I am really enjoying this process!  What a great way to build my skills. 

My Awesome Year...2014

I've been working away at pages in my art journal, and I'm really loving the idea of keeping one art journal for the year, as a way of documenting the highlights as well as the sort of art journalling I'm currently doing.  If I have the discipline to keep this up over the years, it will be really interesting to see how my art changes over time and it'll be fun to take those trips down memory lane.


In today's post, I'm sharing a couple more exercises from the Draw Your Awesome Year class I'm doing online with Joanne Sharpe.

The first is my 'mantra' page.  Last year my inspirational word was 'joy', and I decided to continue to focus on joy as an ongoing thing.  I recently read a great quote (which I can't for the life of me find!!!...should have written it down!)...it basically stated that joy has to be worked at...you have to keep choosing joy because it doesn't just happen.  So true!  I'm going to continue trying my best to be positive, celebrate the good and choose to smile, laugh and see the joy in my daily life!




This year, 'my word' is GIVE. As you may know if you've been following my blog, I have recently become a foster mom for a future dog guide puppy.  I love this opportunity to not just write a cheque, but to actually give of myself every day to raise and train this puppy so that he can go on to change someone's life!  I'm working with him 24/7, making a commitment to help and it feels great, exhausting some days...but still great!  

2014 Art Journal Adventures...

On Friday I showed you the cover art on my new journal for 2014, and today the inside title page is done...

I've signed up for Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year online class, and I've decided to make it a part of my overall 2014 art journal. You see, Joanne suggested a journal with 64 pages to accommodate all that we'll be doing in her class.  However, I chose a journal that has about twice as many pages so that I could include some other pages, as my muse calls to me.

Needless to say, for those of you doing Joanne's class, I can't go ahead and do my table of contents yet because I need to wait and see what I end up with before I commit to that.  As with my experience from academic work, I think I'll do my table of contents at the end of the whole process.