Collage 46

This collage contains some of the same images as no. 45 i.e. it's the same Buddha but smaller. The postage so exactly matched the message of the collage that it felt quite eery! An other great example of synchronicity in art.

The collage was done (as were all of the others) in a 5 x 8" Moleskine journal.

New York, New York 2016

In a wonderful moment of synchronicity the prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week was to use the letter N and to include an animal. You should have seen me sitting behind my desk and almost shouting YES at the computer screen.

As it happens, it's exactly two years ago since the trip to New York and the most iconic image I have taken away from it is this view, taken from our tour bus, of the woman with her small dog standing on a street corner in Peter Cooper Village on the east side of Manhattan. I still find it hard to put my finger on why she made such an impression on me but she did (you will have seen her before on this blog if you are a regular reader), and consciously or not my little Flora bears a striking resemblance to her (at the time we still had our previous dog). It was one of those pivotal moments in life that remain in your memory forever.

You can also see her in this video of the trip.

 So I knew it had to be New York in my A5 journal this week and the background was done using the TCW729 City Buildings stencil from The Crafters Workshop. In the foreground I used the NY skyline mask from The Ink Pad shop, located in New York itself.  That was pretty much it, apart from the addition of some luminescent pink and the photo of the little dog and her owner printed from my own photograph by Social Print Studio, as well as a New York themed washi tape.

If this was a book (and it isn't!) perhaps I should go looking for her but I would rather she retained her air of mystique, and I will remain wondering about her, her life, and her little dog.

The True Mystery

This week's prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was: Mystery. Usually the first step for me is to find a quotation that inspires me, either from books of quotations, Pinterest, Google search or as in this case from a notebook where I write down lyrics, quotes, or sayings that I find inspiring and want to remember for future use. It was a quotation by Atticus that reads: "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible". It's somehow very soothing to know that humanity is still wrestling with the same philosophical questions as the ancient Greeks and Romans. It reminds me that they were as human as we are, all these centuries later.

To stick further with the mystery I used pieces of a foreign newspaper for my collage in the background. It came to me ages ago as a paper bag and was falling to bits so I repurposed it. I can't read the writing and in fact, have no idea what language it is in! Mystery indeed. I also used Tim Holtz's tissue wrap and pieces of scrapbook paper in the background collage.

Then I added Distress Crayons and fluid acrylic paints and rubbed some of it away through stencil  M093 Intersected Moon from Stencilgirl Products, using a baby wipe. For additional texture and contrast I used a stamp from Nathalie Kalbach's stamp set Masks by Stampendous. When it came to the focal point there was another of those synchronicity moments when I found just what I wanted in one of the Sunday papers' magazines. I could hardly believe my eyes but I'm getting used to such moments. That doesn't mean they don't leave me wondering what the universe is up to. Another mystery!

The final touch was the orange postage stamp top right. It needed a touch of that orange up there to unite the pages. The quotation was done with a Dymo writer and self adhesive, transparent tape.

Transform the World

Today is my 6th anniversary of blipping which means that for six years I have posted a daily picture on the Blipfoto site without interruptions. Not just that but I have enjoyed every minute of my blip adventure. Finding a picture was easier on some days than others but it has never been difficult. I love having a camera in my hand, both to take pictures of the garden, where we live, where I go and there is always my art too. What I am finding more and more difficult is keeping up with all my friends on blip, leaving comments etc. even though I love looking at all the pictures. So I'm going to scale that back, and if by chance I miss posting a daily blip I will accept that it simply wasn't meant to be on that day.

By amazing coincidence the theme on Colour Me Positive this week is: Community. The universe was definitely smiling down on me!

As there wasn't much time to make a completely new spread from scratch, what with being away teaching and the arrival of Flora I decided to use some pages I did to show my students on Tuesday. I thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate that you didn't have to use a dedicated art journal such as the Dylusions one but instead used the sketchbook they were already working in as part of the Creative Sketchbook course which was an ring bound A4 sized one from SeaWhite.

The pages are great for sketching but not ideal to use with acrylic paint. So I started (as I usually do anyway!) by gessoing and I also made sure that the adjoining pages on both sides of the spread I'm working on are blank and after finishing the spread I glue the spread to those pages which makes them a lot more sturdy and also straightens them out.

The background of this spread was more or less done before class and for the challenge I outlined some of the elements and added the quotation that reads: "Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world" (Howard Zinn). It combines what Blipfoto stands for and also reflects the Community theme on Colour Me Positive.

 Techniques used: collage, rubber stamping, stencilling

Materials: for the collage I used old scrapbook paper featuring roses, wrapping paper, Tim Holtz tissue wrap and a handmade paper with a little flower pattern which can only just be seen. I also  collaged with deli paper onto which I had stencilled a pattern. For the rubber stamping I used a small detail from a stamping sheet from ImpressMeNow. I also used the following stencils, all from Stencilgirl Products: L435 Ancient Marks (on the collaged deli paper),  medium and small stencil from October 2014 Stencilgirl Club, small one from the October 2015 Club and also the small one from the August 2015 Club set.

I'm very grateful to have been a part of the Blip community for the last 6 years and it's good to know that together the members have ensured Blip's survival into the future. Having paid for a year's membership recently you will find my daily pictures there as well as here, hopefully for years to come.

Listen to Your Inner Voice

Some time ago I started work on one of the lessons from the Fall 2015 21 Secrets series of classes (now no longer available but a new series of classes is coming up soon). It was the class by Robin Kalinich and I worked on it in my large vintage ledger art journal (size of a double spread = 16 x 22"). I had come to a bit of a stop with it when up popped the newest week 11 prompt for Colour Me Positive. It was: Intuition. And the art challenge was: use an animal somewhere on your page.

What I had done so far in my ledger already had several birds and butterflies on it and the words: "Listen to Your Inner Voice" rose up in my mind almost immediately I started thinking about finishing the spread for this week's Colour Me Positive.

This was a wonderful example of synchronicity and the spread came together beautifully after I geared to towards the prompt.

As this was a class I won't give you a lot of info about how I started off but I will say that the birds and butterflies all come from vintage books. I used stencils from Stencilgirl Products in the background as follows: the words come from the Mixed Media stencil (designed by Carolyn Dube) and I also used the Kilim stencil (by Cathy Nichols).

The title was stamped on using a metallic stamp pad. Then for no good reason other than that I happened to come across it while locating that metallic pad I finished off my pages with Special Effect Wax by Liberon, colour Verdigris. I had completely forgotten I had these waxes (and have no idea now how or why I obtained them) but I love the effect they had on these pages. The colour looks wonderful,  the wax has added a lovely smell to the pages and they are now completely smooth and don't stick together. The wax has sealed in the acrylic paint completely so it's fair to say I will be using these again.

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.

I have lost the Plot

We have reached the end of The Documented Life Project 2015 and are staying with the December theme of: Storytelling with the written word. Our last art challenge is: Storytelling, and the journalling prompt: storytelling as an underlying fabric.  I honestly had a vague sort of idea of where this might lead me but I was wrong! The spread took me by the hand and lead me nowhere.

It started well enough as I glued on two pages from a vintage book on the facing pages of my Dylusions journal. I covered the pages with watered down gesso and used paints and all the stencils from our December club by Stencilgirl. You might get a glimpse of some of that. But as it happens I wasn't very happy with the result so went over the entire spread with gesso again,  and then wiped some of it away again with a baby wipe.

I added a lot of rubberstamping with text stamps  to provided that "underlying fabric" of storytelling. One of the stamps I used is an absolute favourite, Romantic Text designed by France Papillon for Stampotique. The stamp itself tells a story and I love the cursive font.

What to do next? I opened my box of vintage images and picked up two I like very much and had wanted to use before but they never made it to the page. Do they tell a story? I was meant to be storytelling, after all! I came up with: frightened maiden rescued by Amazonian warrior princess. But in all honesty by this time I had lost the plot, so that became the story. It was: Destination Unknown.

This of course was pure serendipity and by wonderful synchronicity the definition of "serendipity" was staring me in the face on the back of the envelope in which my good friend Lenna send me her seasonal card. That was glued on as shown together with some Dutch postage stamps that matched the spread colour wise. I have no idea what part they play in the story!

I added the text using letters cut from a variety of magazines. The very elaborate ones come from Flow Magazine, a new favourite discovered during 2015. I am looking forward to reading it in 2016 too!

There are lots of new things happening in the way of online classes including the new 2016 edition of The Documented Life Project. It will be completely different from this year and it will now cost $12, which is a snip! That does however mean that I will be able to say less about the themes and lessons here because of copyright issues. However for that price you can oh so easily sign up yourself. The link is here.

I have loved working in my Dylusions journal this year and will be loath to leave it behind so whatever happens I will continue working in art journals. I have signed up for various other projects next year (they are in the sidebar on the right) and will be picking and mixing them all up, doing what I fancy and leaving those lessons that don't speak to me.  In a way I'm sort of making up my own year of art activities. So exciting.

Mirror, Mirror

Already it is the last day of August (we're still waiting for summer!) and we are staying with our theme of Faces, the Human Form & Characters on The Documented Life Project 2015. Out art challenge this week is Self-Portrait and the journalling prompt Mirror, Mirror. I somehow felt that self portraits were coming when the announcement came on Saturday and it was in a way well-timed as that was by pure chance also my birthday. Just the right moment, you might say, but it also meant I had little time to work on this spread so instead of drawing I choose to use my favourite medium of photography and played with a variety of filters in Photoshop Elements till I came up with a version of myself that I was happy with.

Before I adhered it to the pages I worked on the background that started with gesso and then layers of Inktense Blocks in reds and blues, activated with water. Once dry the colour becomes permanent. I added collage,so overpainted eventually that you can hardly see it but there is a glimpse on the picture below, bottom left. Then I added wave like imagery (using Stencilgirl's Ripple Effect stencil) and added a rose image too (Little Eddy Rose stencil, also by Stencilgirl)

 I found a mirror in my stash of cut out magazine images and miracle of miracle in one of the Sunday paper supplements the words Mirror, Mirror appeared, to assist me (wonderful synchronicity)

Then I discovered that I had a Donna Downey text stencil that said exactly what I wanted to say about myself and added this as shown, using black. I then outlined the letters with a white marker. Some fabric tape was added too. As per usual I finished with postage stamps and they too add meaning to my self-portrait. To finish I wrote along the side of my head: "age is a work of art". You can find the full quotation on Saturday's post. 

Time waits for no Woman

Once summer arrives time seems to take on another dimension and speed up amazingly. Already it is July. Our new theme for The Documented Life Project 2015 is: Ephemera while our art challenge this week is: using old letters, tickets, maps etc. and the journalling prompt: Life.........with a history. I have more ephemera than I will be able to use up in my lifetime so it was a pleasure to dump some of them on this spread. You can hardly make them out any more but rest assured they are there. I also added lots of postage stamps as they are my most favourite ephemera.

Many stencilgirl stencils (L248, small one February 2015 Stencilgirl club and Small Mod Ovals and Circles), were used to make the background as well. Once I was happy with the layering I started to add the main focal points. It started with a vintage image of a black ship floundering just offshore. The text of the title came from leafing through the pages of a magazine (again with wonderful synchronicity) and did, of course, read originally: Time waits for no man.

The figure gave me lots of trouble. I think, in the end, she has about 15 different layers of paint on top of her but it was using the water soluble oil pastels that finally made her stand out enough for my liking, from the background. Adding the words (again from a Stencilgirl stencil, no. L258 Uplifting Words) also helped, as well as adding the heart postage stamp.

And again it wasn't till the spread was finished that I discovered quite a few messages in there, including the cigar band reading Prima Lucia, and there were other more private ones. When your work is more than you thought you made it and you find unintended details that seem to have landed in it without a conscious effort on your behalf, it feels like a very special moment. As if you discover there is more to yourself than you thought there was.

 

The hand written text around the figure reads: " No more time. We all have a history and that history is ongoing till time is up". I am on a continual search for my own story as there are many hidden depths to all of us. And perhaps that's what the sinking ship refers to as well. It is in my art that I occasionally get glimpses of mine.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Laugh

It's time to share with you my latest project for Stencilgirl. They were kind enough to ask me to be their occasional Guest Designer and I'm having lots of fun producing new spreads for them using their gorgeous stencils. I have designed for a variety of companies in the past and will only take on such challenges if I genuinely love the products they make. And I completely LOVE Stencilgirl's stencils. You can find the step by step instructions on how to make this spread on the Stencilgirl Talk site here.

I used 2 stencils: the Inky Circles and the Deconstructed Bold Lily mask and stencil. 

That leaves me free to talk about some details here starting with the title, and how randomly unconnected things come together in a miraculous way, with synchronicity.

I wanted to use some vintage collage in the background and I have a whole pile of vintage text and image pages in a big box. From there I usually just reach in and grab enough to use on any particular spread. And I did that for this page.

The pile contained dressmaker's paper and also a page from a song text book dating back to the late 19th Century. As I was tearing up the page my eye fell on the text and suddenly I knew that I didn't want to waste it on the background but that it was meant to be the star of the show. So I purposely tore out the Laugh words to make it the title of the spread and then randomly glued bits of the page on as you can see on the picture of the entire spread at the top.

It was only later that I discovered that the text that landed on the figure's clothing reads: "in-side is grie-ving", and yet it so suits the figure's generally melancholic look that's it's uncanny! Meant to be, you could say. But that begs the question: Who meant it?  It wasn't me! Such co-incidences happen too often on my pages to be random but on the other hand I simply don't have any explanations for it either. Lenna and I were exchanging e-mails about this phenomenon and we agreed it's magical!

The other detail I wanted to share was the gold that you can just about see sparkling away on her outfit. This is mica and cames from Perfect Pearls Mists, in the colourway that they call Sunflower Sparkle. It's pure gold and I value it above rubies! Almost all of the spreads I make in my sketchbook have an element of sparkle to them (as do my quilts!) but sadly it's very difficult to catch that with the camera. However I think I have managed it on this occasion.

The figures I use in my sketchbook come from all kinds of sources but very often I indulge and buy a Vogue which I only start reading when I'm cutting out what I want. This particular figure wasn't randomly selected. She had that air of sadness around her that made me cut her out as soon as I lay eyes on her, in the hope that I would soon find a spread to accommodate her. And this proved to be the one.

Remember step by step instructions and more detailed pictures are here.

The Road Less Travelled

Saturday saw the announcement of the new art challenge of The Documented Life 2015: Recording Memories, and the new journalling prompt: "Take the road less travelled" while we are staying with our June theme of Travel Journalling. I used nostalgic colours on my spread (in the Dylusions journal) to stay with the memories challenge, and I have to say that I enjoyed staying away from my bright colours for once and going a bit more subdued. I made the less travelled road first by glueing on pieces of vintage maps and texts running horizontally across the page and then stencilling it with white paint using a Joggles stencil.

 The house images were stencilled too, using a Stencilgirl stencil and I also used stencil S161 map stencil (also from Stencilgirl) to add bits of map in red to the mix. Rubberstamping with a text stamp (from Stampotique designed by France Papillon) was added and the word Journey comes from a stamp by Limited Edition. Once I had the road laid out it required a traveller and by some of that wonderful synchronicity I'm so very fond of, I discovered among my stash of vintage papers that I had randomly grabbed to make the road with, a small page about hiking with map and compass, probably dating to the fifties. This also had the image of the person I added to the page.

Things like that almost make me believe in magic. I wrote along the road with part of the text of Robert Frost's poem that our journalling prompt was based on. It says: "Two roads converged in a wood. And I .... I took the one less travelled by. And that made all the difference. 

The final addition after outlining with black and white markers, were the three postage stamps all showing travel related images.

I have no idea why I originally resisted doing the challenges for The Documented Life 2015 in the Dylusions journal as I'm now loving it.

Although I have been posting here every day last week I have mainly been using Blogsy and my iPad to do so. The days were simply too sunny and lovely to spend time behind a computer screen. I have yet to find a balance between spending too much and too little time online. Those sunny days have been incredibly productive from a creative point of view, and I have been making many journal pages during that period, completely losing myself in the process. In fact I don't think I have ever done as much art as came out of my hands last week. You will get to see it all eventually but I like to do proper write-ups about them so they will have to wait to be uploaded till the weather outside isn't suited to other photography.

F is for Frieda

Sometimes two seemingly unrelated happenings form such a perfect match that it is uncanny. At such times I need to remind myself that it's I that makes this link and were it not for that fact they would indeed be random. One of the events was our last task for The Documented Life Project 2014. I wasn't even sure I would do this till the task showed up. It was: "Draw or collage something that begins with the first letter of your first name". And that was combined with the other event: today's date: 29/12/14. For the significance of that I need to go back 35 years in time to the 29/12/79 and that brings me to the day I first arrived in the UK. So, including some years spend in the Republic of Ireland, I have been here for 35 years. I have lived in the UK far longer than in The Netherlands now and am a British Citizen (and very proud of the fact). Today it's very foggy and cold but 35 years ago it was very windy and wet. A fact that had quite an impact on the ferry crossing! Fortunately I don't suffer from seasickness otherwise I might never have made it.

I always take note of this date, the 29th December, over the years. I don't celebrate but I do commemorate. I think about it over the day with much joy and barely any regret. I am where I want to be, at home.

But this year it was the 35th anniversary and I did want to do something for the occasion. This task and resulting page proved perfect.  Needless to say those 35 years haven't always been easy. Regardless of what people may think (and the subject has become very topical!) every migrant has to deal with many difficult issues, both large and small. How they deal with them determines whether they stay or go. My decision to stay dates back almost to that very day, the 29th December 1979, but that doesn't mean it has been easy, specially over the first years. It has made me who I am today and I have added a few words starting with F that signify that. I am a female fighter who loves her freedom, who is full of flames of passion and filled with fire. And other F words. In fact when stressed I use my initials as a swear word! Murmuring Foxtrot Oscar under my breath brings relief, specially as it leaves most people mystified.

Once I started to brainstorm F words for the task I was amazed by how many I could find that were applicable to me and to this day. As for the collage part of the task, I cheated! I used a photograph of a quilt I made back in 2008, called Flames of Passion. It seemed made for this occasion (more synchronicity!) and even included an image of Frida  Kahlo (see above), one of my favourite artists, as well as many other things I feel passionate about.

I loved putting this page together and liked the fact I could make it larger (7 x 8") to fit into my new planner. I glued it into one of the first pages as you can see at the top of this post. It felt very appropriate to begin a new 2015 planner by reminding myself of who and what I am.

I also received issue 2 of Mabel Magazine, subtitled: Making a Livng. Creating a Life. This magazine is as far as I have been able to discover not yet available in the UK. I order it directly from the States but be warned the shipping costs are steep. Worth it though, in my opinion. And it arrives very quickly.

Here is the quotation that grabbed me as soon as I read it:

Every endeavor and every life contains unexpected bends in the road that open up new perspectives, and beautiful moments that might have at first appeared ugly, as well as difficult moments, which taught us the best lessons we didn't know we needed to learn.