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 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.

Writing On The Train...

A couple of weeks ago I saw this great quote while I was in Toronto and I thought this page in my Walls Notebook was perfect for it.

In spite of doing all of the text in pencil first, it wasn't until I had traced the words that I noticed a problem...

Fortunately with a bit of problem solving and some fun tape I was able to cover it up. LOL

After adding the colour and highlights I realized that the message was maybe getting a bit confused since reading straight across made it seem I was saying, "leadership is not laying the track".



Add a simple arrow to direct the reader and I'm happy:

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..."

Secrets Revealed...

You've seen lots of bits and pieces as I've been working on this piece, from the sketches back in the fall, to the thread sketching and lettering so I'm excited to finally share it with you. This piece was done as a GOE challenge, although I had started the sketches before the challenge was issued.  As soon as I hear that the challenge was 'secrets', this quote popped into my head and I knew what I wanted to do with all the eyes I had been working on!

Presenting...(imagine a drum role here)...Secrets Revealed

You've Got To Love Garage Sales...

For some time now, I've enjoyed Lori Vliegen's art journalling, and especially the pages she's done in her copy of Sherwood Forlee's Walls Notebook .  So, you can imagine my delight when I found this pristine copy of the Walls Notebook in a garage sale book bin for only 50¢!  I'm not a garage sale shopper for the most part, but this is another perk of walking a dog on weekend mornings.

I've decided to use it to record some of my favourite quotes, so I created my personal 'title page' on the blank page opposite the copyright page.

 It started as just a plain yellow brick wall, so I wrote in the text, framed it with some doodled lines and then attached it to the wall with some short chains. 

A bit more colour and some shading and it's done.  I think this will be a fun way to play with my 'artful' writing while recording some favourite quotes along the way.

They Just Move Somewhere Else...

I recently saw this quote and I couldn't help thinking how true it is.  Oh, to go back to the simplicity of childhood when a hug and some reassuring words from Mom would get those monsters under control so that we could have a good night's sleep!

I guess as we get older, it takes a lot more 'self talk' to control the monsters, but they can still be tamed!

This spread isn't a favourite in terms of it's over all look...I'm not very happy with the composition or colours, but there's a lot of good 'talk' going on in that blue journalling, so I guess it has served a purpose!

And now I'm off to visit my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day (and to get one of those great hugs...'cause they never get old!)

Wishing all you Mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day!

Wise Words...

I love this quote from Winnie the Pooh, and when Kim's challenge this week was to use 'wise words' this immediately came to mind.  I've used some photos shot this week of Arbour and Casey, but I've also dipped into the archives to pull out shots of Spencer (we lost him to kidney disease a couple of years ago) and some of the oldies from when they were just young'uns.

As you can see, our dog, Casey, loves her cats.  When we first got Arbour she was so tiny I worried that Casey would accidentally crush her, but she was always so careful.  Arbour loved to snuggle in her 'arms' and that centre shot where Casey is looking at her like a loving mother is one of my favourites!  Now Arbour tends to sleep in my studio on whatever I'm trying to work on LOL, but she also loves to cuddle with the teddy bears on our antique settee.

Spencer was our 'puppy cat'.  He seemed to identify more with Casey than Arbour and although they all got along well, he preferred to be with Casey whenever he could.  I love the shot of them cuddling on our bed as well as the shot of the two of them on their respective steps.  As you can see in the bottom row, when he was sleeping alone, he had an odd way of lying with his butt raised up...too funny!

To quote my husband, "I'm going to have a little nap 'cause it's too early to start doing nothing..."

Hope you all find time to have a little snooze of your own today.  Siesta time is way underrated!

For those of you interested in the processing, I created the collage in Lightroom's Print module and then added the text and textures in Photoshop Elements. Here's a screen shot of what I did in Photoshop Elements:

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday.

The Journey Continues...

A couple of weeks ago, I started a journal (you can see the first post here), and today I have finally finished the second spread.  The journey is all about thinking positive thoughts and moving forward on a healing journey.  I can't think of a better way to do that than through art!

You can see a couple of the stages the page went through as I worked on it.  I just love seeing the transformation as colour and shading is added to the page.

I use a 0.005 Micron to do the actually journalling on the page once the art is done.

My writing is super tiny, but it allows me to get a lot of thoughts onto the page and work through the many things I've been reading and thinking about.  I also like the added texture that the background text gives the page.  It's a great way to make a pretty looking spread (if I do say so myself) while keeping the 'heavier' underlying text from taking over the page.

Winston Churchill

A few weeks ago, while in Toronto, I took these shots of the Winston Churchill statue.  I love this quote by the great man!















Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday.

Tulips Two Ways...

 For this weeks 2-For eDition, in addition to using two textures on the image I'd also do two different images, in two different ways.  I was intrigued by these purple tulips and the fact that one still looked so beautiful while all of the others had dropped their petals so I took this shot, and as I was processing it this quote came to mind...how perfect for that one tulip to hang in there in spite of what was happening around it.  :o)

The second image is another colour palette.  I just about went crazy making it because my colour squares kept coming up sort of soft and almost pastel and it just wasn't right.  I actually deleted all of the layers and started again...Note to self:  Make sure brush is at 100% opacity before stamping! :P

If you're interested in the steps I used for processing, you can see the screen shots of each image below.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday

Water and Ice...

I took this photo a few weeks ago while exploring along the Bruce trail.  It was a mild winter day, and the textures in the ice and the water were stunning.  I did a couple of very minor adjustments to the levels and contrast and then I added a subtle gradient mask to get a bit more of the sparkle back in the water without loosing the definition in the ice.

I added a layer of Kim Klassens "cool grunge' texture using a hard light blend mode at 15% and then finished off by creating a soft frame using an inverse selection and adding a colour adjustment at a low opacity with a soft light blend mode.

The final steps to the edit were to add the quote and my signature.  The quote uses 'Journal' font.

As much as I like the beauty of the ice and snow, I look forward to images of Spring, hopefully in the very near future!

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday

Artful Lettering and My January Art Journal Calendar

As some of you have long figured out, I've become a bit of a Joanne Sharpe junkie.  I enjoy her online classes and the inspiration they give me to make sure I'm doing some art every day.  

In addition to all of the machine work and hand stitching and beading I'm doing on my fibre art pieces, I've really come to love doing quick little pieces (as compared to weeks for some of the fibre pieces) of art in my journals.  And so, I am signed up for Letter Love 2...

Here are a couple of shots of the first day's play...sort of a title page for the class 'work' to come.  I had a funny sized journal (6" x 12"...not sure why I bought this size but...) so I decided to use it for this class.

And the page below is from the second lesson.  I love the transformation from the black and white version to the colour.  I used my Tombow markers and my water brush to add the colour. It would appear I like bright Towbows!  (Nothing monochromatic about this Leah! LOL).

This has me well caught up on my "TV listening" of all the shows I had PVR'ed for the last week.  Now I've got to get back to my sewing machine for a bit...

I've also included a shot of my January spread of my Art Journal Calendar.  Some of you questioned how much I'd be able to fit into those little circles.  Well, it turns out that with my tiny printing I was able to cover the highlights of my day without any difficulty. Keep in mind that the journal is a 9" x 12" book, so each 2 page spread is bigger than it might appear.

Until next time, stay inspired and make sure you make some time to play with your creative self!

Idleness...

It's been a while since I've posted any photo art, and since I got PSE11 (upgraded from 9) last week for my birthday, I thought it was time I played with some of the new features.  I spent way too much time working on the text in this image.  I'm sure there is an easier, faster way to write on straight lines while using the 'draw your own path' tool, but then again I guess I could have just written it straight and rotated it too...so much to learn :o)

I took this shot a couple of years ago, but since I've been organizing my images in Lightroom 4 (got that for my birthday too!) I came across it and just had to use it along with this quote.  I found the quote while working on a fibre art piece that uses my rust dyed fabrics.

original image

I cropped the image slightly, did a minor levels adjustment to the image, then added a couple of layers of textures.  I used Kim Klassen's new texture, kk_minus43 (you can see it, read about it's name, and get on Kim's free texture list here) and Bonnie Zieman's PDPA Beauty is... texture (you can see it and download it here).  I'd tell you more about what I did, but I don't remember and unfortunately didn't take a screen shot of my processing this time.  Sorry!


These photos are being linked to Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, and Photo Art Friday.

Focus

This week's final inspirational word from Kim, in Beyond Layers, is 'FOCUS'.  I took this photo on the weekend.  It's a beautiful flowering bush, but unfortunately I have no idea what it is called.  If any of you know, please do tell.  I chose not to do any editing on this shot because I loved it just the way it was.  I simply applied it to a background so I could put the quote underneath it.  Thanks for visiting!

Update:  Thanks to Sue Andrus, this beautiful bush has been identified as the Lacecap Hydrangea Bush.

Intentions

For today's Beyond Layers word, 'Intentions', I've come back to an image of a doll I made a few years ago.  I think, because Fiona is stitched and certainly with some flaws (I know-I made her. LOL), she is the perfect image to illustrate this Augusten Burroughs quote.

Change

Yes, today's word in Beyond Layers is 'change'.  I had two great quotes and I couldn't decide between them so I used them both.  For a change, I've given you both images to compare at the same time instead of using the 'mouse over'.  

Beekeepers

Mouse over photo to see the 'before' image.

This week in Beyond Layers, Kim's challenge to us is to come up with a quote the speaks to the assigned word of the day.  Monday's word is Life and yesterday I shot this photo of a bee.  Considering the whole 'birds and the bees' thing, it seemed like a good image to work with.  When I found this great quote by Sue Monk Kidd, I knew I was on the right track.   

I have added Kim's 'Sunday' texture as well as Bonnie's 'Antique Farewell' texture.  I've also added this minimally processed version, to the right, because I really love the original shot, too.  I just did a bit of cropping and added the subtle frame.

These photos are being linked to Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, Our World Tuesday, This or That Thursdays, Photo Art Friday, Shoot, Edit, Submit and Photo Friday Link Party.

A Bird in the Hand...

This beautiful young gold finch knocked itself into a stupor when it crashed into our cottage window last summer.  Fearing that it may die of shock (or become an interest to our dog), I picked it up and held it in my hands to keep it warm.  After a little while it was strong enough that it wanted to sit up in my hand but it continued to rest with it's eyes closed as you see here.  Finally, after about 30 minutes it started to look around and when I put it closer to a tree limb it flew up into the tree.  

This post has been linked to Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesdays, Photo Art Friday (book connection: A Bird in the Hand, by Ann Cleeves), and Photo Friday Link Party.  You might be interested in taking a look at some of the other photography that is being shared on these sites.

Bravery Personified

In Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers this week, the focus is on bravery.  Although this can mean so many different things to so many people, the first image that comes to mind for me when I think of bravery is a firefighter.  As the quote I used in this piece suggests, just the fact that someone chooses to become a firefighter is a phenomenal act of bravery.

This photo was taken last summer when I was out cycling and I came upon the tragic fire in the town of Magnetawan.  Sadly, the general store and 'June's Restaurant' as it was known to locals, was lost to the fire.
Note:  It was a really hot summer day. Add to that the heat from the fire and it must have been sweltering in that uniform!

This post has been linked to Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesdays, Photo Art Friday, and Photo Friday Link Party.  You might be interested in taking a look at some of the other photography that is being shared on these sites.