The100DayProject

Collage 1/100
The first day and for the next 99 days my daily collages can be found on Instagram @friedaquilter and occasionally here. I am continuing my project from last year but working on A5 cards, using circles as my theme and only using paper painted or printed by me

Sunset

The Stencilfied Journal Prompt 8

This latest spread for #thestencilfiedjournal didn't quite turn out as planned. Personally I blame the weather! As you can tell Prompt Eight told us to stencil with glue. I immediately thought of all those foiling sheets lingering in a cupboard, and so I made the background in readiness for some foiling.

I used collage with Tim Holtz's tissue wrap as well as stamping with some art foamies designed by BalzerDesigns. Then I added stencilling with some stencils by Stencilgirl  Products® (one of the requirements of #thestencilfiedjournal project). I used the big stencil from the May 2018 Stencilgirl®Club as well as the small stencil from the October 2014 set of Club stencils.

Then I grabbed a red metallic foiling sheet and some Aleene's Tacky Glue and stencilled the circles with the glue through the large stencil from the May 2018 Club set (as above). Then as per the instructions I let the glue dry for 30 minutes. Alas, due to our highly unusual tropical conditions here in Scotland the glue was a bit too dry already by the time I applied the foiling sheet. Just as well I like a distressed look! So my circles are not perfect, but on the plus side they perfectly suit the words I found to use on the spread (in a 9 x 14cm journal).

Art Cards 170 - 178

 Here is the next set of 9 art cards. Remember these cards are part of the #365somethings2018 project on Instagram where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day you can find them all on my Instagram feed.

It is Round

The letter R was our prompt for Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week. I found a quotation by Dada Bhagwan that reads: "This world has been changing from times immemorial. But because it is round one cannot find an end to it". It inspired me to work with as many circle stencils (from different sources) as I could find and many layers of colours, finishing off with black and white. I used quite a few of my Lindy's Magicals too. It started to look like the universe.

I then went to my stack of gelli plate printed pages and punched more circles from them. They were glued onto the pages as shown to represent planets and the sun.

I hand wrote the quotation using a white marker but it didn't show up too well on the page so I also added it in black on the big circles. There is a lovely bit of gold sparkle on the pages (in an A5 journal) but sadly this is very hard to spot on the pictures.

Seven

The prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use the number 7 and as an optional extra to add a border. At first I didn't feel like adding a border as the journal I'm working in is only small (A5 size) but I wasn't all that happy with my spread once it was done (hey, it happens!) and thought a border might help, and it did. It looks a lot better surrounded by that black.

 I started with the background that was done with acrylic paint and the L564 Impressionist Brush Texture stencil by Stencilgirl Products.  To this I added some stamping with a Dylusions stamp as well as with an art foamie called Ring Hopscotch designed by Balzer Designs.

I glued on the number 7 (from a piece of wrapping paper) onto previously painted deli paper and then added it to the pages as shown. Part of a quotation were done on a Dymo writer and self-adhesive transparant tape. It reads: "7 colours make a rainbow, 7 chords make a music, 7 days make a week". Also added was: "7 continents make a world", but that has now vanished into the border.

To make the border I used the Dylusions Journal Block (by Ranger)and a permanent black marker. I'm still not over the moon with the pages but this was a week where snow shovelling and dog walking in snowy conditions took up most of my time  and other art stuff sort of fell by the roadside.

The snow has now iced up and it's very slippery under foot. We managed a walk in the forest without finding a deer's hoof (unlike the previous 3 days!), but that might be because we kept Flora on a very long (15feet) lead. Hopefully when the snow has vanished we will be able to conduct a full search and clear up any deer remains that haven't been taken by foxes or other dogs. However more snow is expected by midday so all bets are off!

The Windmills of Your Mind

Just like that I have reached my last appearance as Guest Designer for Stencilgirl Products this year. However I will be back bright and early in January as they have asked me to return and make a monthly project each month in 2018. Many thanks to them for inviting me and featuring my art. It is an honour as well as a challenge and a pleasure.

As always there is a step by step tutorial  on Stencilgirl Talk for these pages which were loosely inspired by Xmas ornaments but also by my enduring love for circles. I surrounded mine with song lyrics but you could also journal about the end of one year and the beginning of another. These are ornaments for your art journal! I used a 8 x 10" gelli plate by GelliArts  with the Stencilgirl stencils to make the collage elements that together form the various rings of the circles.

Just a quick thought as I'm writing this. You could easily use the same method to make actual ornaments to hang in the tree. If you start now you will be ready for Xmas next year!! Oh, if only I would take my own advice occasionally.

I was right about the ice situation today. It has been the coldest night so far this winter and in fact our outside thermometer was so frozen that we couldn't read the temperature. It was great that we had cleared paths through the snow yesterday. It made things so much easier today but although we could get out of our drive with the car the lane itself is like a sheet of ice so we will cosy up at home today.

Apart from the dog walks, of course, and what a joy it was to set out this morning with Flora accompanied by sun and snow. I couldn't help myself and just had to take some more pictures. Here they are:

the tree at the top of the forest

Notice the Pentland Hills in the distance

coming out of the forest through the tunnel (drainage ditch)

Some pictures from this afternoon’s walk;

What comes around, goes around

Here is another set of mandalas I made following the instruction on both the online class and The Mandala Guidebook by Kathryn Costa. They were done in an A5 sized Moleskine sketchbook that had previously been used to mop up left over paint, wet stencils (all these came from Stencilgirl Products, I think), stamps etc. Having a background to work on is so much more inviting than a blank page.

The mandala on the right came from the book and Kathryn calls it Seed of Life Mandala, while the one on the left is from the online class and has been filled with Zentangle patterns. I coloured in the Seed of Life one with Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen brushes in a variety of colours and used the blue to also outline the other mandala as well as the circles that were on the pages already.

These mandala pages reflect my love of circles and also serve to celebrate today when it is the 7th anniversary of joining Blipfoto. When you jump on a circle you have no choice than to keep on going and see where it takes you. Putting up my very first picture on Blip was a very similar adventure. I have added the picture at the end of this post. I began on the 30th November 2010 as the result of reading a small notice in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper.

I have no idea any longer what possessed me. At the time we were on a dial-up connection of 44Kb (yes, really!) and it took forever to post. My very first Blipfoto below is sized 94Kb and taken with a small point and shoot Lumix camera that gave up the ghost soon after when I dropped it in the snow. I continued blipping using a more up-to-date Lumix, and also occasionally using my old but digital Canon DSLR. The next step was a Canon SX50 bridge camera (I took today's pictures with that one) and then I progressed (or should that be regressed) to using an iPhone 6+. The quality of the pictures taken by the phone are somewhere in between the Lumix and the Canon. The main reason is the utter convenience as the phone is always with me.

Taking a daily picture has become so much part of life that I no longer give it much thought. My camera (in whatever form) is with me and my eye is constant on the lookout for pictures, that is when I'm not using images of my art. Being on Blipfoto has honed my eye even more than it was before and being a blipper has enriched the way I see the world.

my first blipfoto taken 30/11/10

I need hardly add that I will continue blipping with the additional blessing of now having fibre-optic broadband at home. What a difference it has made but the fact that I persevered despite the difficult conditions in the early days signifies that the desire was there from the start to do it, and to do it well. I never missed a single day and have only had to backblip once way back when, and then I was only one day late.

 So here's to the next 7 years! 

Full Circle

The prompt this week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was: Outward from the Center. By one of those flukes that make life so interesting I had just finished the perfect spread for this prompt. Only problem was that it is not meant to be revealed till December. So I decided to see what else I could come up with. I started the spread in my A5 sized notebook/art journal by glueing vintage papers all over the background.

I continue to be busy destashing the house (mainly books at the moment) and have come across some interesting finds, the existence of which I had long forgotten about, both in books and in other possessions.

I found a stack of vintage postcards of Venice and managed to persuade myself that because I hadn't missed them in all the years, it would be okay to cut thme up. Two of them became the centers of my circles.The next round were rings from a vintage French dictionary. I made sure to incorporate some imagery on the pages I choose to use.  The last round also consists of vintage imagery, this time from an art book dated the end of the 19th Century.

I then coloured in the rounds with yellow and violet markers and added turquoise to the background. I also doodled on the violet ring. There was a lot of rubbing out and spreading the marker with my fingers till I was happy with the result. The turquoise background with lightened with a baby wipe.

There needed to be more texture on the pages so I grabby some of my artfoamies, one (the rings) designed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, and the other one by Nathalie Kalbach (I used gold paint with this one). I also stencilled on some small circles using sequin waste.

Finally outlining was done with black and white markers as well as a luminescent pink one. Pink paint was splattered over the pages. The words (by Tracey Gold) were added using a Tiny Alphabet sticker set from Making Memories.

Circular

More Artmarks

blended

Here are the next 4 prompts on #artmarks30daychallenge, a challenge done on Instagram and instigated by Rae Missigman. I'm working in a small 3.5 x 5.5" notebook that has been turned into an art journal by glueing pages together and heavy gessoing.  The prompts for each page are mentioned underneath each picture. I used a wide variety of materials and techniques such as collage, washi tape,sequin waste, postage stamps and stencilling (with Stencilgirl Products stencils).

blotted

stippled

fluid

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Finally some art on this blog again after a week of mainly photographs, and without many words. I have several deadlines that I need to meet and also 2 quilts to finish that have lingered in the studio so long that I'm getting fed up with the sight of them. I know that in order not to lose my momentum they need to be cleared of the table. I finished one yesterday, and photographed it this morning and the other one is getting the binding put on today and then needs some beading. The end is in sight!

Large slices of the day are taken up with dog walking and playing so it's only when Flora takes a nap that work gets done. I am loving our dog walks in Penicuik Estate and playing with her is a joy so I don't begrudge any of it and simply enjoy the moments.

It is also good though to cross some stuff of my To Do list (only to add something else!) and this is my contribution to the prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures that read: include curvy or round elements. I'm in my element when I use circles so the choice wasn't hard.

The background was done with the following stencils from The Crafters Workshop: TCW2024 Rubber Bands Frags, TCW278s Mini Circle Explosion (designed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer), TCW2038 TinyRing Bits (also by Julie) and TCW426 Cut Circles.

|I then punched out circles from a pink previously gelli plate printed sheet of paper and collaged that into the centre of the circles, and outlined it with water soluble oil pastels. I stamped on the quotation: What goes around, comes around. It envelops the feeling of karma.

A Shadow of Your Former Self

The latest prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to: use a silhouette. My silhouette ended up being a lot more interesting than the way it started. It was a magazine image which was completely black. I glued it on to the background with a glue stick and then rubbed it with a baby wipe to adhere it better. The baby wipe removed some of the black,  and all kinds of colours from brown to grey started to appear. I must admit to being really taken with the effect and I will keep it in mind for future work. It did make her look a bit like Dark Vader in the end as someone helpfully commented!.

 The background (made in the small Peacock journal) started with white and gold gesso. I scraped on the gold while the white was still wet. I then used a variety of colours and the large stencil from the August 2015 Stencilgirl Club.  I added collage with text and images from a vintage Technical Drawing book as well as with deli paper that had been pre-stencilled using the large stencil from the January 2017 Club.

I also stamped on the background using one of the stamps from the Kaffee Klatsch stamp set, designed by Nathalie Kalbach, as well as one of the stamps from the Patterns H, Set 113 set by Impress Me Now.

An alphabet set of stamps was used to add the text: "A shadow of your former self". Finally I added some postage stamps (all Hungarian) in toning colours and I also dripped some fluorescent pink acrylic ink down the pages.

Mood of the Moment

I finally managed to finish my spread for last week's prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures just before the new one will appear at midday today. The prompt told us to: transform the edge of your page. The reason it took so long was the amount of layers on these pages. I tend to let my pages dry au natural rather than using a heat gun, and the cold, damp weather last week here in Scotland didn't help.  The layers also mean that it is hard to see the collaging I did in the background. It consisted of paper from Flow magazine, vintage cards and receipts as well as a transparency of one of my own photographs. I also added washi tape although the only sign of that now is the texture. The imagery on them has mainly disappeared under other layers, and paint. Touches of fluorescent paints in pink and orange helped to brighten the mood of the pages.

I used the large stencil from the 2017 February Stencilgirl Club and also the large one from September 2014 in the background.  The latter one also provided the blueprint for the edge of the page on the right hand side. The spread was done in the very last pages of my A4 Dylusions art journal so that I won't have to deal with that edge in future spreads.

Rubber stamping was added for more texture. Both are from unknown sources which means that there is no name on them and the packaging has long since disappeared.

I added further collage on the top layer using the bird image (from Country Living magazine) and the words (no idea where I cut them out from). I'm an inveterate cutter out of whatever catches my eye at any one time.

The shapes and images were outlined with black and white markers.