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.

January Complete...February Spread Ready to Go...

I've finished all of the little vignettes in my January calendar and I've got February set up and I've started to fill in the first few days.

My February dailies are going to be black and white sketches and or text so that the only colour on the page will be the various pinks, reds and purples that you see now.

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. 

A Blog Hop with StencilGirl and Xyron...

Thanks to the folks at Xyron, today I'm exploring ways to use their Xyron High Tack Adhesive Dots and Double-Sided High Tack Tape along with StencilGirl Stencils.

I started by playing around with the Xyron products, journalling about what I was coming up with as I went along.

My husband is a talented wood worker, and as a byproduct of what he was creating, he was making this fabulous pile of Padauk wood shavings.  I love the colour and thought it would give me some incredible texture.  While leaving the paper backing on the double-sided tape, I dipped the sticky side into the wood shavings.  I then peeled the paper backing off and stuck this wonderfully textured 'wood tape' to my journal page.  I also made some wood shaving dots, in much the same way.

Next I started looking at my collection of stencils to find patterns that would create some interesting tape using embossing powder.  I settled on Jamie Fingal's Houses to start, but was really interested to note that most of the stencils have some elements that can be isolated for fabulously patterned tape.
I started by laying the tape down on my non-stick craft mat, sticky side up (release paper down).  I gently put the stencil over it so that it was sticking ever so slightly to the tape and I sprinkled a bit of the first colour of embossing powder over it.  I used a soft brush (any soft paint brush would do or use a brush made for embossing powders).  

I then carefully lifted the stencil and sprinkled the second colour onto the exposed areas of the tape.  Using the soft brush, I brushed away the excess embossing powder and used the heat gun to melt the embossing powder.


I also made a few embossed dots using one colour of powder per dot.  Here's the journal page with my notes for future reference:

Using a couple of these ideas, I pulled out Sue Pelletier's Loose Dress #3 stencil and my black Pitt pen and I traced all the lines on the stencil.  Then I added a bunch of the 3/16" Xyron dots to create a pretty polka dotted dress.  I sprinkled on the pink embossing powder, brushed off all the excess and then pulled out the heat gun to get them to melt and shine! It's difficult to see, but the dots are raised, adding a wonderful texture to the page.

I added the 1/2" Xyron Double Sided Tape along the top and bottom of the page, leaving about a 1/4" between the edge of the page and the tape.  I thought Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch's Bubbles stencil would add the perfect compliment to the polka dot dress.  After sticking the tape onto the page, I pulled up the protective paper and as described above, I added pink embossing powder to the stencil first, to get pink dots, and then filled in the background space with green.  I found dipping the brush into the green and touching it to the exposed tape worked really well without dropping too much excess embossing powder.


 

 Here's the page after the embossing was finished.  I really like it as is, but I decided to use my Tombow markers to add a watercolour effect to the page.

The final touch was a bit of hand written text around the dress using a white Uni-ball Signo pen.

Just The Right Inspiration

For a few weeks now, I've been meaning to create a journal to record my thoughts as I work through a book called Healing From Trauma by Jasmin Lee Cori (which I highly recommend if you're looking for this sort of book).  Anyway, I hadn't quite decided on the format I wanted to use until my friend Kathie told me about Valerie Sjodin's art journalling.  Valerie is an incredible artist and she has created a number of stunningly beautiful art journals.  This gave me a jumping off point.  I loved the idea of some interesting edges and flaps as well as little pages within the bigger ones.  

Once I had the journal bound, I got started on the first spread.  I've decided to call it 'a healing journey', so the journey begins with that first spread.  I've mentioned in the past that it is my goal to do Art Every Day because I find it very relaxing and even healing at time.  Today was no exception.  As I started working on the page, thinking about things as I worked, I felt the burning need to start journalling.




I stopped working on the overall spread so that I could quickly finish the lower left area in which I knew I wanted to do some journalling so that I could get my thoughts down on the page.

Once I had written down my thoughts, I got back to finishing the rest of the page.

I incorporated part of a map into the top of the page and drew a bicycle to represent my other passion, cycling, which is another vehicle (no pun intended) for allowing myself to work through issues when I just need some 'zen' time to burn energy and think.  Those endorphins do wonders!

Here's the finished spread:

Playing with Words

On Valentine's Day, our Letter Love 201 exercise was to write the words, "Love, love, love. Do what you love" (I can hear you from here Leah! LOL). So I played with different letter styles and had some fun.  I especially like what I came up with for the last word at the bottom. 

 I really liked how using the word to create the word worked for me, and I thought my clever (if I do say so myself) little hearts wrapped around the bottom border where fun. I also really liked the black and white, so I left it there...

Then, this morning I decided to play some more with this technique.  I wrote the words "Play with your words", again using words to create the letters.  I also hid a subliminal message in the page...

I like the ribbon effect that I'm achieving, and I had fun again wrapping it around the border.

This page didn't pop, probably because everything is the same weight and there's really not focal point, so I got the Tombow's out and created a shadow effect with this pretty aqua colour.  This close up shows the effect of the Tombow before the ink was activated with water, creating the sharper shadows (right and bottom) and the softer watercolour effect achieved by activating the ink with a water brush (left and top).

And here's what the whole page looks like: 

The hidden message...the large words obviously say "Play with your words".  The word play was made by repeatedly writing play as you can see in the close up above.  However, with is made up of the words 'but' (the w and i) and 'not' (t and h) and the word 'your' is made of 'with' (y and o) and your (u and r) and then 'words' is made by repeatedly writing 'food'.  My mother's in my head today. :o)

Now, you've all heard the expression "Leave well enough along."  I wish I had...

Perhaps if I go back and do some more, stronger watercolour in the negative space I can salvage it...or maybe I just put down the brush and walk away...

Playing With Colour

I decided to sign up for Joanne Sharpe's Color Love 101 in an effort to learn more about using some of the wonderful, colourful watercolours, markers and other media I have in my studio.  I've always been a little afraid of watercolour paints in particular, so I hope that this gives me some knowledge about how to make the most them.

This first image is a page I did using watercolour paints and Tombow markers.  It already has some dimensionality showing, but after playing a little more with my Intense pencils, pencil crayons and my trusty 'White Out' pen, I'm happy with the bright, crisp colours and the 3-D effect I've been able to achieve.  Wow.  To think this is just the first lesson and I'm already feeling more confident!