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

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.

New Doors

For the second year I am participating in a series of classes known as Creative Jumpstart. They are organized by Nathalie Kalbach and are meant to jump start creativity at the start of the year with classes uploaded every day during January. One of the classes was by MaryBeth Shaw, the owner of Stencilgirl Products. As soon as I watched it I just wanted to have a go myself, specially after seeing the gorgeous spreads in her sketchbook. Therefore there will be no info about how this spread was made but if you are interested you can still sign up for Creative Jumpstart 2017

While I was in the process of working on this spread the new weekly prompt for the Joggles Art Journal Adventures arrived and it was: Doors. It was great to discover a door image that fitted the spread I had made perfectly! It came from the collage sheet Ancient Doorways from Lost Art Creations. The pages were made in the notebook I have mentioned earlier here. It has peacocks on the front (with sparkles) and although I have to glue pages together to make them more substantial I just love working in it. It's sized 6 x 8".  I'll refer to it as the peacock art journal from now on.

I used the following materials. For the collage it was a mix of vintage text and images (from an old technical drawing book) as well as wrapping paper (some sparkling), firework images from the Flow calendar, and postage stamps plus the door image as mentioned above.

 For the stencilling I used sequin waste with large circles as well as L456 Buenos Aires (designed by Nathalie Kalbach)  and S414 Grid Outline 6 x 6 (designed by MaryBeth Shaw) both from Stencilgirl Products.

I used a mix of fluid acrylics, Radiant Gold paste from Colourarte, and fluorescent acrylic ink in pink, as well as a blue Pearlescent spray. The spread has a most satisfying glimmer to it. Wish I could share that but the camera refuses to pick it up.

I used two quoations: "I am not who I was yesterday" and "Old ways won't open new doors". 

Memory

One of the elements of Wanderlust 2016 was making a collage. Over the year we were given a series of guidelines (22 in total) all to be executed onto one piece of mixed media paper (I used size 11 x 14.5"). We had no idea where we were going and most of the prompts were to be done in no more than 5 minutes.

We are now nearing the end point but were asked to take photographs of our project at this stage for guildeline no. 22. This is my finished version and I'm rather pleased with it. I haven't read any further yet but I have the feeling we will be asked to cover it all up (I have been doing this art stuff for a long time now so am prepared for such eventualities!). However, I might show my rebellious side and resist. I am on the whole not good at following orders, always questioning whatever anyone tells me, and this will be another shining example of my stubborn side.

 I have already done one thing different by glueing on the word MEMORY. It was one of the words I had cut out following one of the guidelines and I strongly felt it needed to be there on the page.

 As this was part of a class I won't give you detailed info about materials and techniques used but the text stamp is one of my favourites, produced by Anna Griffin. It features vintage French text.

Although it is now way too late to sign up for Wanderlust 2016, you can already book Wanderlust 2017 at a great prize, specially if you're in The States. The pound - dollar exchange rate makes it a very good option. I am game again and specially because I loved this collage challenge as well as the bi-monthly Wanderlust Book spreads.

Mystery creates Wonder

The prompt for week 20 on Colour Me Positive is: Wonder, and the art challenge to use bubbles. My spread, done in the A4 Dylusions art journal, was inspired by two gifts I received last week. In fact one was the wrapping paper my gorgeous gift was packed in which featured many colourful butterflies. The other was a package of paper napkins, featuring Ot and Sien . If you are not familiar with these characters you didn't grow up in The Netherlands! You can read more about them (in English) here.

Who could not wonder at the beauty of butterflies? They were the basis for the colour scheme of these pages. The background was made using a stencil of large sequin waste that I thought I had lost but hurray, it turned up again when I was clearing up my studio so that in itself was enough reason to put it to good use. It's much larger than the usual sequin waste and I have never seen the resulting sequins anywhere sadly.

To this background I added flowers and leaves from a paper napkin. I stamped on the background with a Tim Holtz French text stamp as well as with the required bubbles (from the Thin Lines Cube by JudiKins)

I cut out the individual butterflies and adhered them to the pages with matte medium and I did the same for the Ot en Sien image from the paper napkin. I found a quotation about WONDER that reads as follows: "Mystery creates Wonder and Wonder is the basis of man's desire to Understand". It's by Neil Armstrong who certainly had occasion to wonder in his life. It was stamped on as shown. Of course I couldn't resist adding a postage stamp.