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 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:

Blog Hop - VIVA LasVegaStamps and StencilGirl

I'm excited to be playing along in another StencilGirl blog hop, this time with VIVA Las VegaStamps.

Although my summer studio is confined to a tiny table on the deck and a small bin of supplies with which to work, it has a stunningly beautiful view and a lovely breeze off the lake!  In addition, with gates at both ends of the deck, it acts as a giant playpen to contain Yoshi, my Dog Guide Foster Puppy so that I can work without worrying about her getting into trouble!  She's even got a little wading pool to play in. LOL

I chose to work with VIVA Las VegaStamps Plate O' Rubber #1399 (Mary Vogel Lozinak's design) and Mary Beth Shaw's Gears Stencil.

I started by randomly putting paint down on my page using blue, orange, black and a bit of green.

Then, using a semi-dry brush technique and an antique white, I applied paint using a small brush and the Gears stencil.

I love how this worked...not as heavy as if I had filled in the entire stencil with paint, but still giving me all of the wonderful detail of Gears. I don't usually use the entire stencil on the page, but in this case it was exactly the background I was going for!

I tore a couple of strips of marbled dyed paper I had in my stash, tearing from the front to achieve that bit of a white border along the edge.  Those were adhered to the page using matte medium.

I stamped some of the stamp images onto deli paper, using dark brown ink.  I then tore them out, added them to dictionary paper using matte medium and an old credit card, and when they were dry I tore them out leaving a bit of a border around them.

Before adding the stamped images, I traced around them and painted a blue background to help them pop a bit more.  They were adhered to the orange strip so that they'd look like they were rolling downhill.

I decided to trace some of the key features of the stamps with a permanent black pen to give them a bit more definition.

Some white lines were drawn in (see last image) to represent motion.

Using my paint bottle as a pen, I wrote the large text. This took a long time to dry because of the thickness of the paint.  If you try this, be patient so you don't mess it up by touching it too early!

When that was dry I doodle outlined the letters with a fine permanent black pen.











And here's the final page:

GIVEAWAY!

All comments on the hop (ALL WEEK) are eligible for the giveaway. 

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to win. 

GIVEAWAY will close on Sunday, August 24th @ at 11:59PM Central Time.

GOOD LUCK!

Here's the blog hop order for today...enjoy!

StencilGirl Talk
Gwen Lafleur
Kirsten Reed
Linda Kittmer-You are here!
Karen Knight
Amy Lassiter
Viva Las VegaStamps!

If you missed the beginning of this week long blog, head back to this link on StencilGirl Talk to find the links to the first day!

My First Entry in My Walls Notebook...

By now, you've probably noticed that I've been blogging less...I gave some consideration to letting it go all together, but I really do enjoy it. At the same time, 3 times a week was getting a bit much with my commitment to my future dog guide puppies, warmer weather and life in general.  So, I've decided that I will post once a week, and more if I have things I want to share. And so, let's get on with it.

I've been playing in my new Walls Notebook...

Children's books in general, but especially Dr. Seuss books, are wonderful sources of some fabulous quotes. I've always liked this one from the book Oh, The Places You'll Go. When I was flipping pages in the Walls Notebook for a suitable page to write it, I found this one with the 'walk' sign and thought it was perfect.

 A little bit of pen work...

And some colour and shading...

So if you're feeling stuck, to quote Dr. Seuss, "Get on your way..."

Beautiful Cursive...

I have long admired the beautiful cursive writing of Lori Vliegen and her lovely, simple style of art journalling.  Being left handed, I gave up cursive writing for a personalized 'cursive' printing back in junior high when we were required to use binders for our notes and the rings interfered with my ability to write.  For some reason, I guess I hold my hand differently to print so I developed a form of joined printing that allowed me to take notes more quickly while avoiding those silly rings.  However, in spite of the fact that I think my hand writing looks okay, I've always wanted to teach myself beautiful, fluid cursive writing.

I decided to take Lori's Letter Lab online class.  It was just the bit of missing info I needed to help me refine my writing.  I've been practising for a few minutes everyday and hopefully in time it will become faster and more my own.

Add all of that to the fact that the last few days I've been feeling unmotivated and somewhat stressed, and in comes this journal page, because...

Cupcakes and a Puppy...What Could Be Sweeter!

I had a great time creating this page...with adorable inspiration like Dime, it's nothing but fun!  It makes us laugh every time we see him sit on the steps like the lower image shows. He's such a fun and funny little character!

I've also been making more cupcakes.  I love how these little snowmen turned out.

And the monsters were a lot of fun too!

I'm not sure how or why, but Google added snow to this image of my snowman cupcake. It's cute...but I don't know how they knew it was an image of a snowman. Do they have some software that analyzes images or is there some person scanning all images and adding snowfall to any that are winter related?  

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.