Sunrise in the fog

 

Collage 21

Here is Collage 21 for my #52collages2019 and it ended up looking very differently from how it began! What message it conveys I don't know nor do I have any idea what that large looking bird is. It came from an advert for an antique fair. I also used another image (ginkgo leaves perhaps?) as well as a selfie printed on an HP Sprocket mini printer. Washi tape and a postage stamp were also added to the page in a 5 x 8" Moleskine journal. I wonder what riches will come my way?

Art Cards 324 - 332

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

Casting Long Shadows

 The rain finally stopped and the sun came up accompanied by falling temperatures, producing much better conditions for taking photographs.

With the low light the shadows become very interesting as I'm fascinated to see how they change as the seasons progress.

The idea of the picture above was to catch Flora in full tilt and I had no idea that I had caught myself too until I could look at the image without the sun falling into my viewfinder. Fun!

I collect Memories

This month's prompt on Wanderlust 2017 was to finish the following sentence: I collect........ Truth is I collect many things such as books, paints, stencils (but honestly, can you ever have too much of any of those!!). In the end though I settled for memories. We all collect those, consciously or unconsciously. When I was young it just happened as life was going on around me. Now I am much more aware of making memories as I pass through life. So I have added a very much younger version of myself to the spread in the form of a transparency.

I am working in Finnabair Mixed Media Journal, produced by Prima, on one of the craft sheets and that inspired me to use gold gesso as the bottom layer.  I collaged with a collection of vintage images and text, music sheets,  as well as wrapping and old scrapbook paper.

 I also rubber stamped using a black Archival ink pad, and one of the foam stamps from Nathalie Kalbach's Santa Fe set, as well as rubber stamps from a stamp set by ImpressMeNow. I stencilled on some text (using stencil L267 Vintage Script from Stencilgirl Products)  as well as the petals (TCW351s Mini Vine designed by Dina Wakley)

 I also added a Dutch stamp (that's where my earliest memories were made).

Glorious Mess

The prompt on Colour Me Positive 2017 this week is: Recognize the beauty in yourself. Not an easy one but I eventually found a quotation from Elizabeth Gilbert that I could work with. It reads: "Embrace the glorious mess that you are".  It seemed rather appropriate for me as there is no denying that I work best when surrounded by mess. It sparks my creativity. As the spread was meant to be all about me I added a self portrait that came from an earlier art journal page. I had it printed by Social Print Studio.

The background was largely stencilled using both sequin waste in two different sizes for the circles as well as the large stencil from the May 2016 Stencilgirl Club. I collaged on the self portrait,  images from both a magazine and a vintage Technical Drawing book, and then added the words and letters cut from a variety of sources.

I brightened up the background with some sparkling paint by Martha Steward. You can just about see it on the pages. It was combined with fluorescent pink paint.

 I've long wanted to use the image with the horse and for some reason it felt right on these pages. I found a matching postage stamp that I was given some time ago.

Decisions

I'm far behind in posting finished art on this blog and I will try and catch up this week. This spread in the 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal was done for the last week of our September theme on The Documented Life Project 2016 that was: Roll Call - Being Accountable. The art challenge was to add stripes. The spread itself was completed not this weekend just passed but the weekend before that. As you can tell I went a wee bit mad with the stripes.

 I  used two quotations on the page. They read: "Without personal accountability we cannot grow nor can we ever improve ourselves", and the other one says: "You are not a product of your circumstances. You are a product of your decisions". 

Materials: acrylic paint, deli paper (previously printed on a gelli plate), collage with tissue paper, photographs and a self-portrait printed from my Instagram account by Social Print Studio, as well as a striped postcard from Paperchase, washi tape and a postage stamp..

Tools: stencils from Stencilgirl Products: L439 Stripes and L435 Ancient Marks (on the deli paper)

Mistakes

The August theme on The Documented Life Project 2016 remains: And then again No - the power of saying no. Our art challenge was to use a self-portrait. You will be familiar with my younger self if you have been a regular reader of this blog. There she is, at 16, a people pleaser if ever there was one, but although unknown to her at that time with a steely core somewhere inside. I'm quite proud of how she turned out although there is always room for improvement, of course! I have shared my ideas on the virtues of saying no here on last week's post.

The background of this spread done in the 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal,  is a riot of stencilling and stamping. The stencilling was done using the medium and large stencils from the March 2016 Stencilgirl Club, as well as stencils S371 Paste Paper and the large stencil from April 2015 Club (for the blue flowers). I also collaged on bits from a flower themed paper napkin. I used a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer designed art foamie called Polka Dots (totally in love with this one!) as well as a text rubber stamp sheet from Darkroom Door.

After glueing on my self portrait I surrounded her with both written and stencilled text. The latter comes from Stencilgirl's L318 Wall of Words stencil. The hand written quotation reads: "No is a complete sentence. It does not require justification or explanation.".  I try! But not always succeed. I have however become much more aware of the occasions when the words: "I'm sorry but" are about to come out of my mouth and try and catch them before they emerge.

 Maybe one day I will be perfectly comfortable about saying no. 

Although I have made many mistakes, and will no doubt make many more, I have no regrets. Mistakes are how we learn and go on learning all through life. I do however try to avoid making the same mistake twice which is perhaps the best we can hope for.

Be You

The Colour Me Positive prompt for week 4 of 2016 was: " Believe in yourself and magic will happen". The challenge was to: use a photo of yourself or a self-portrait. I am making my contributions for CMP in the large (A4) Dylusions journal.

There are so many layers of paint on this page that I have more or less lost the knowledge of how I got to the end result. The most significant item I applied was a diamond rubber stamp (by Tim Holtz) to stay with the magic theme. In my "magic" box of cuttings I then came up with the figure who comes from a painting by Paul Cezanne called Pierrot and Harlequin (1888), now in the Puskin Museum in Moskow.

He looked like he should have balloons in his hand so I added them in the form of punched circles featuring a self-portrait, as well as details of my art, quilts and photographs. The words Believe in Yourself were cut from magazines and the Be You letters were circled to make them stand out.

I finished by adding some sparkling Martha Stewart paint in silver as well as  a Picasso stamp, because it balanced beautifully with the figure, in colour and stance.

Sweet Sixteen

As I mentioned briefly yesterday I did sign up for The Documented Life Project 2016. It's no longer free but it is priced at only $12 so hardly expensive. When I discovered that we were going to work on making and decorating a planner I wasn't so keen. I am very happy with the Michel Design Garden Diary and as I had already bought it decided to stick with that. You will have seen in my post yesterday as well, that I have found a lovely source of new weekly prompts. However as I have obtained The Documented Life Project 2016 I do get their weekly e-mails and lo and behold it contained prompts too! I am probably not going to manage to do both prompts each week but the ones this week for DLP16 immediately gave me an idea and here it is. Our theme for January is: Going out on a limb, trying something new. And the prompt for this week reads: Incorporate 16 in your art.

The song Sweet Sixteen by The Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur sprang into my head immediately. I heard this in concert in Dublin way back when (more than likely it was 1981). I think I still have the cassette I bought at the time. I also remember the riotous pub visit afterwards but no need to go into that now! You can hear the song here. It has been swirling around in my head since I made this page so be warned. In fact I'm playing all their songs on YouTube as I'm writing this. Some of the lyrics of Sweet Sixteen are on the spread.

I also knew I had a picture of myself at that tender age during a visit to Amsterdam to see a Greek tragedy while in secondary school where I did both Latin and Greek. Again being in Amsterdam was lots more fun than the educational event although the costumes were impressive. Amazing how I remember them while the name of the tragedy is now long gone. My visual memory has been so strong from the word go. So I printed myself out and added her to the page, crowned with a CREATE hat.

I used stencils to add the ink splats and while doing that I also remembered another quotation with 16 in it. It reads:

"Remember sixteen when all the world was new and a lifetime stretched before you like fresh snow just waiting for your footprints".  

I wrote it around the edges of the spread. There were no footprint stencils or stamps to be found in my stash so I compromised with one vaguely like it (from Prima). And for trying something new I cheated slightly as I have done it before but have never felt comfortable with it. I used Dylusions sprays through the stencil. I love the sprays as they have such wonderfully vivid colours. The disadvantage of them is that they can be re-activated by water (or other fluids like matte medium) so you are never sure that they stay where you want them to. But on this spread I liked how they dripped.

The last addition were the Dutch postage stamps. They match in colour and of course at sweet sixteen that's where I lived. Queen Juliana was still on the throne as well.

The spread was done in a Dylysions art journal. This one is a square 8 x 8" one. I'm going to do the DLP pages that I do this year, in which ever journal I fancy at any given time. You will be able to see the spreads in question by clicking on the DLP16 label beneath this post and in the sidebar on the right towards the bottom.

Gratitude

The Documented Life Project 2016 is now under way and reading about it before hand I thought it was going to concentrate more on making and decorating a planner. I have a gorgeous diary (Michel Designs Garden Diary) and wasn't really that interested. So I looked for alternatives to continue working in art journals and I found it in the shape of Colour Me Positive, a year long project with weekly themes. You can find it here (the website is based in Australia). It has now been revealed that DLP16 will also have themes which I can use to art journal. Not sure I have the time to do both each week, but I will simply do what I can and what inspires me. The first spread I have done in my new large Dylusions journal is for Colour Me Positive's first theme of Gratitude. You will be able to see all my contributions for CMP by clicking on the new label (underneath this post, and in the sidebar) of Colour Me Positive.

I used a different Gratitude quotation than the one we were given as I wanted to use a flowery theme on the page to lift the greyness of the weather outside.  It reads: "Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul" (Henry Ward Beecher). The background colours are garden inspired and I used Stencilgirl's August 2015 stencils.

I added images of pot plants by glueing on paper napkins (using only the top layer). The circular flower images on the right came from photographs I took last summer and which were featured on Instagram. I had them printed by Social Print Studio and punched out the circles. They also fulfil the challenge set on Colour Me Positive this week of using something from 2015.

 The stamped flowers and flower texts come from the Full Bloom 2 stamp set by Darkroom Door.

I added a self-portrait from 2015 as well and then added just some of the things I'm grateful for in the shape of words cut from a variety of magazines. Washi tape was added in various places as shown. The quotation was hand written on a fragment of a page removed from that old ledger I mentioned recently. I used Distress Ink to vintage it up.

It felt great to have that first spread in the journal. Can't wait to fill them all up over the course of 2016.

Insight

Lots of new projects are on the horizon for 2016. My greedy artist soul is always taking on more than I could ever hope to achieve in one lifetime but that never seems to stop me. In the end things sort themselves out as those projects I continue with, are the ones I feel most deeply about and fall in love with. You will hear all about them all in due course and here is the first one. Novel Approach is a paid for online class run by Tammy Garcia. There will be a follow up class later in 2016 called Groovy Grunge. It's all about art journalling, surprise, surprise. In fact all the projects are geared towards that. This particular one calls for us to alter a book. As soon as I heard that I thought of my much treasured General Ledger.

I bought this beauty some years ago in a second-hand book store because it was irresistible! Just look at those gorgeous marbled pages. The side view is totally stunning!

I had to have it just for that. Isn't it amazing how much attention was paid to a ledger filled with columns and lines to keep the accounts up to date. The ledger was never used so no one got the pleasure of writing in it till it reached my hands.

When you open it up what you see is shown beneath. More fantastic marbling and a beautiful woven bookbinding. It's beyond yummy. So when Tammy mentioned finding an altered book I grabbed this from the shelves.

There is only one disadvantage to this ledger. It is HUGE. When opened to a double spread it's sized 16.5 x 22.1/4" or if you live in metric land: 42 x 57 cm. It also weighs a ton! I can barely lift it and it's hard to manipulated on my worktable. So why am I going ahead and using this? Because I love it and I can't wait to start filling the pages with art.

The first spread is already done and you can see it at the top of the post above. It's a vision board (quite an in thing apparently as it was mentioned in an article in one of the Sunday papers this week with wonderful synchronicity). A lot of the images are meaningful to me and I'm not going into detail about those messages here, but I'm there in person too.  It also shows lots of things I'm mad about: textures, colours, vintage, fabric, beads,trees, sunshine,  you name it and it's there. That's the advantage of such a large surface! But I also ordered the largest size of Golden Fluid Matte Medium because the disadvantage is that it eats up a lot of materials!

I have prepped the ledger by taking out pages to make room for all the paints and collage, and I glued pages together to make them more sturdy. So I'm all set to go! I won't just be using the ledger for these classes but probably for other projects in 2016 too. Hopefully it will be bulging this time next year. I'm using an elastic belt with a lovely buckle (saved from the 80s, I knew it would be useful one day!) as a closure.