Elements Workshop: Earth...

Happy Friday everyone!  My Book of Days page for November 26th, is a continuation of the "Elements" workshop, that I am taking over at Wild Soul Arts.  This time I am contemplating my connection to the earth...

I have to admit I am thrilled with how this one turned out.  The background is a tissue paper collage, covered with Golden Fluid acrylic in Van Dyke Brown.  The leaves are painted with gesso, and filled in with more Golden Fluids mixed with a little gesso to make them more opaque.  The hand is a happy accident.  I wanted to paint a hand right on the page, but I was afraid, so I sketched it on a scrap of an art supply catalog first.  I ended up liking it so much I just cut it out and glued it right on!  Now I love how the catalog page adds an extra element of pattern, that I wouldn't have had if I had used paint for the hand. 

One of the most important things I am learning through the process of completing an art journal spread every single day; is to trust the process.  I don't have to have an idea of what I want to do, in order to start a page.  I just start painting, or collaging or writing or anything, and the ideas and feelings form during the process.  It's an amazing bit of magic, I think!

Thanks so much for visiting!  I will see you again tomorrow!!!

Journal Page "Every Day Love..."

Hi friends!  I've got another quick Book of Days journal page to share with you today.  This one is for November 24th...

This may look like it took a lot of piecing together, but it didn't!  The base page was already a quilt of different patterned papers.  I decided why not use it the way it is. 

I added the following:
~The word today, the blue arrow & the "Every Day Love" sticker (all from Amy Tangerine's Ready, Set Go line);
~The 2 and 4 diecuts;
~The four rectangles of patterned paper at the top of the right-hand page;
~The card that says November; and
~The photo of Willie.

After that I just added the journaling and I was done.  Can you tell I've been busy lately?  My pages have been super quick; but what I feel really good about is that I'm still getting them done!  Yeayyy!

I've also been busy organizing Project Life supplies like crazy!  Once I get it all figured out and in some kind of order I will share pics.

We've extended the deadline for our special "Try Everyday" challenge at Scrapping The Music!  You now have until December 12th at midnight STM time to play along!  Click here to check it out!

Have an awesome day and thanks so much for visiting!

Thanksgiving Journal Page...

Here's another page in my Book of Days that didn't take much time...

We were gone all day on Thanksgiving, so when we got home I was tired.  I still felt like journaling, but I didn't have a lot of energy.  Simple was the name of the game.  The background is just spray ink over wet gesso.  I cut the big flower out of some gift wrap, and painted the words with a big brush and more gesso.  The photo is one that Michael took of me that day, and I feel like it captures my emotion perfectly!  A super simple page, but it still says what I want it to.  My journal is about half-full now!  I will post a pic soon.

Did you see that Mary Ann Moss is having another workshop?  It's called "Ticket to Venice," and it's going to be a really unique adventure in travel journaling.  I'm all signed up and so excited!  Check it out here.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!!!

Elements Intro Page...

My Book of Days page for November 21 is also the intro page for a workshop I'm taking at Wild Soul Arts.  It's about exploring the four elements of earth, fire, water and air.  This is my introductory page...

When I started the page, I didn't plan to do an intro to the Elements workshop.  I was just going to do a regular Book of Days page.  But as I watched Effy's BOD video, I was inspired by her use of crumpled kraft paper, so I experimented with it as a background.  I crumpled it up, flattened it out and ran distress ink pads over it, which highlighted the crumples.  Somehow the elements page just evolved out of that. 

The words inside the circle are a result of my brainstorming what comes to mind when I think of each element.

On another note I want to remind you about my upcoming Art Journaling workshop with Marit Barentsen.  It runs from February 4th through March 14th, 2013.  It's called MIXED EMOTIONS, and it's all about expressing your emotions through art journaling.  We are going to have tons of fun!!!  Here's what you get...

“Mixed Emotions” includes:

• 12 lessons with assignments in pdf format. Each lesson will focus on a specific emotion and an art technique that goes with it. Techniques will be clearly shown through photos or demonstrated on video. Both beginners and advanced art journalers will find pleasure in working with the lessons.


• Access to inspirational videos to inspire you and help your creative juices flow.


• Extra printable collage sheets with photos, illustrations and quotes to use in your work.


• Access to a private group discussion forum where you may share, ask questions and interact with the teachers and other class participants.(Access will be activated a few days before the workshop starts or within 24 hours of payment.)


• Access to group albums for posting your completed assignments and seeing what others have done. (Access will be activated a few days before the workshop starts or within 24 hours of payment.)

I hope you will join us!!!  Click on the widget in the sidebar, or here, to find out more details and/or to register!

Thanks so much for visiting, my friends!  I will see you again tomorrow!

Project Life: October 15 - 21, Returning Home...

It's been another Project Life weekend, and here's what I finished...

October 15 - 21, 2012; which was the day we returned home from Seattle, and the week that followed...

 Here's the detail of the left side...

 

Still using little bits from Amy Tangerine's Ready Set Go line; plus some journalling cards and stickers from the P.L. Clementine kit.  Ephemera on this page includes the packaging from my Papaya Art order.  It's too beautiful to throw away!  So glad I have somewhere to put it now!  My fave picture is the "Find the cat" one.  I had to laugh when I saw Willie laying in the cupboard like that.  I don't think Michael even knew he was there.  HA.  

 Here's the detail of the right side...

 The October calendar with the owls on it is a freebie from The Owl Barn.  The 2013 edition is available now!  Check it out here.  It's so adorable and it's free! Ephemera on this page includes a colorful gum package, and the order specs from the custom notebook I had made (bottom left pocket).  I also included the advertisement from True Scrap 4. 

I am getting so excited for Project Life 2013!  I went kinda crazy this weekend and ordered six (6) organizational trays with boxes.  I am planning to make up kits for myself based on color schemes in each box.  They should fit really nicely in my Expedit cubes, along with the boxes of PL page protectors! I also plan to order the Seafoam edition when it comes out, and that will come in the same kind of tray!  One thing I'm still working on is how to store my various date and day of the week stickers, and other little doodads.  If you are doing Project Life, how are you planning to organize for next year?  I'd love to hear about it!

I hope you had a fantastic weekend, full of inspiration and creativity!  Thanks for visiting and I will see you again tomorrow!

A Journal Page on a Busy Day...

Hi everyone!  I hope you are having an awesome weekend!

I have another quick journal page share for you today.  I've been so busy lately, that I'm sure if I didnt have this goal of completing the whole journal by the end of the year; there are some days I would not be making time to journal. Instead I am working on completing journal pages in a shorter period of time when necessary.  That is a good lesson for me...

The collaged background on this page was already there, so I decided to use it as is.  I added a thin layer of gesso over the whole thing to unify it.  Then I added the tag (which I had made on a different day), and the little piece of green tape, the beetle and the date.  Then I took advantage of the lines that were already on the paper and did my journaling there.  That's it!  Easy peasy and I was done!

Now I'm excited to get out my Project Life supplies and start playing tonight.  Yeayyy!!! 

 Don't forget - there are still three days to play along with us at Scrapping The Music!  We'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to have you play!  Come on over and check it out!

Thanks so much for visiting!  See you soon!

Delight...

Hi everyone!  Just a quick post here, to share my Book of Days page for Thursday, November 15th.

I call it "delight..."

The background for this is a technique taught in Diana Trout's 21 Secrets workshop.  It was a lot of fun and so easy to do!  The duck image was cut from a magazine; and the pigeon is cut from a photo I took of the pigeons on the pier in Seattle.  I have a feeling those little guys will be showing up in a lot of future work - they were so charming!  The feathers are stamped with Amy Tangerine stamps. 

That's it for today because I must get to bed - it's LATE - ack!  Have a wonderful Thursday my friends; and if you are in the U.S. Happy Thanksgiving!

Book of Days and Some Fun News...!

Hi everyone!  I'm still going strong with my Book of Days!  I have a new page to share with you today, along with a step-by-step of how I made it.

But before I do - I want to tell you about something fun and exciting that is coming up!

Stencil Girl Products, just designed a new line of stencils - designed by my friend - the super talented and creative -  Jessica Sporn!!! Yeayyy Jessica!

And here's the extra fun part...

Starting December 6, and continuing once or twice a month through June 2013, Jessica asked me and a bunch of other artists to take her new stencils on a test drive!!!!

I am participating in the first round on December 6th (plus two more later on), and I can't wait to show you what I'm making! There will be links to other artists blogs and you are invited to participate too!

To find out more about the Stencil Drive (including a full schedule and photos of the stencils), check out Jessica's introductory blogpost here!


So now, on to my Book of Days Journal Page for Wednesday, November 14...

Here's a pic of how the base page looked before I started...

I decided I really wanted to preserve some of the pretty patterns and colors for this one, while leaving lots of room to write.  The first thing I did was glue some white tissue paper to the page with a glue stick; and then paint a thin layer of gesso over the top...

 Tissue paper is bound to wrinkle here and there when you put on a big piece, so it's a great way to get some texture into the page.

Then I grabbed a bunch of miscellaneous bits of this and that, and started making a border.  I made sure to leave some of the edges showing...

 I didn't give it too much thought, I just grabbed things from my stash that made me feel happy!


 and here's the finished page...

I knew I wanted to add some color to the journaling area, so I turned to my new Inktense pencils.  I colored a line all the way across the top, and then used a water brush to pull the color down the page a bit.  The big purple splotch on the left hand side was done with Amethyst Color Shine (Heidi Swapp).

Have I mentioned that I counted the number of spreads left in this journal and it is almost exactly the number of weekdays left in the year?  Yep - there's only one extra.  So I've decided that I will be completing a spread every single weekday so I can finish by the end of the year!  Yeayyyy!!!

If you want to find out more about the Book of Days concept, click here.  

Thanks so much for visiting my friends!!!  Have an awesome day and I will see you again tomorrow!!!

Project Life: October 8 - 14, 2012...

I had so much fun putting together this week of Project Life!  It covers the main portion of our trip to Seattle! 

Here's how it turned out...

 I made an insert by cutting the right 1/3 off of a Design D Page Protector.  I wanted the insert to be smaller than the main page. I think I will add a tab to the side to make it more obvious. You can see the second page peeking out from behind the insert...

 Still using little bits from Amy Tangerine's Ready, Set Go line to decorate...

Here's a closeup of the left side...

 I didn't include much ephemera because I had so many photos I wanted to showcase.  I did add an itinerary tho, so I would remember what we did on each day!  The photo of Kurt Cobain was a wall-size mural at the Experience Music Project Museum, and Mick Jagger is a photo of a photo that was on the wall.  When I think of Kurt, I think of him wearing that yellow cardigan.  Makes me kinda sad. The Nirvana Exhibit at the EMP was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Seattle.

Here's a closeup of the right side (insert)...

 

 The bottom left photo is a sculpture at the EMP made entirely out of instruments (mostly guitars) and it's HUGE!  The right side is photos that represent the flavor of the city of Seattle to me.  Very urban, very artsy.  Loved it.

Flip over the insert, and the page looks like this...

 Closeup of the left side (insert)...

 

 These pics are pretty self explanatory, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I LOVE the photo of the pigeons.  That guy in the middle really has personality, doesn't he?  There were tons of them down at the pier, and I took about a bazillion pics of them!

and finally, here's a closeup of the right side...

 There were tons of street musicians in Seattle, which added to the artsy personality of the city.  And last, but not least, pics of the train ride home.  Oh my goodness, what a great time we had!

Rest assured, there will be a travel journal coming.  I've got tons more pictures and lots of ephemera that I didn't include here; but what I LOVE about Project Life, is that I was able to capture our trip in a nutshell.  It was a lot of fun to relive the memories as I put these pages together.  Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Tomorrow, it's back to my Book of Days Journal.  Thanks for visiting and I will see you then!

Project Life Update...

Hi there friends!  I am so excited to have a Project Life update for you!  This one is for the week of October 1 - 7, which includes the beginning of Honeymoon 6, our trip to Seattle!  I added an 8 1/2 x 11 insert this time, to include some extra photos of our train ride.

Here's how the week turned out - first, without the insert...

Here's a closeup of the left side...

I used the Amy Tangerine "Ready, Set Go" line for my base this week. The number badges are from Ormolu, and the little alpha stickers are Cosmo Cricket.

The two kitten photos on the top are my new little "niece" Daisy Mae, who belongs to my sister Renee.  Isn't she cute? I especially love the photo of Michael when we were about to board the train.  The excitement of that moment is a great memory. The bottom sunset photo was taken from the train.

 Here's a closeup of the right side...

 The journaling card is a PL grid card with a little red-marker doodling.


Here's a photo of the spread with the insert...

 The enlarged my fave photo from the train ride for the front;

 and the back side of the insert has a collage of different things we saw out the window as we traveled along...

I have dedicated weekends to working on Project Life, which is working out really well.  I love having that time set aside.  I hope to have the second half of our trip (October 8 - 14) ready to share by tomorrow's blogpost!

For more info about Project Life, click here to go to Becky Higgin's site.

If you are doing Project Life, how's it going?

Thanks so much for visiting!  I appreciate you!

A Very Special Challenge at Scrapping The Music...

My Book of Days entry this Monday was inspired by our current song challenge at Scrapping The Music.  This challenge has a very special story behind it.   The song was submitted to us directly from the artist himself; who was inspired when he found Scrapping The Music by chance!  I let him tell the story himself at the STM blog - here's what he said...

Hi Music Scrappers,

My name is Dave Erdmann..I was finishing up my latest cd and needed some "artwork" for the sleeve.  I found a wonderful fiber artist artist named Sharon Wheat  www.sharonwheat.com ...

I was mesmerized by her work and started digging a bit to find more.....Somehow a link called "Scrapping The Music"  popped up and while skimming the site I noticed a series of "challenges"  for the participants....Find some inspiration in music and throw that on a visual image..fascinating....Real people, real emotion and creation for the sake of the artistic process......

I am a songwriter and I am inspired by people that "Try Everyday"....  The inspiration for the attached video was the "saga" of America's most decorated alpine skier Bode Miller.  He has been up & down, criticized, judged....through it all, he has persevered.  He was deemed "washed up" and all but dismissed by his coaches, peers and the US ski federation.. Then last season he crushed the competition on Americas toughest downhill ski course The famed "Birds of Prey" in Colorado. 

How cool is that?  Check out his video:


To see what the other designers made, and find out more about Transistor Rodeo, click here to go to the challenge!  We would love to have you play along with us!!!

Here's the journal page I made that was inspired by "Try Everyday..."

This journal page is a promise I have made to myself to to create everyday.  Sometimes life gets in the way, and it's easy to just let the things you love doing fall to the wayside, but I know that I am happiest when I am making art; so I make it a priority to Make Art Everyday.

Here's how the page looked with just the first light coat of gesso on it...

 I almost didn't want to cover this one up cuz the papers were so pretty, but it wouldn't work with the theme I had in mind, so on went the gesso!   You can still see a little bit of the patterns sticking out around the edges of the page.

I'm sorry I didn't have time to take photos of the process, but here it is in a nutshell...
I thought it would be a good time to experiment with some Stabilo water soluble pastel pencils that I haven't used much to lay down the stripes of color, but I found out that they don't work well at all over gesso, so I went with inktense pencils; and those things are indeed inktense!!!  If you want a vibrant set of watercolor pencils these are indeed the ones to get!  I used them for all of the color in the background except for the very top where I wanted it to drip.  The blue and purple are Color-Shine sprays.

The word "art" is painted with gesso, and the word "everyday" is hand-drawn and cut out of dictionary paper.  The bird is a print-out of a sketch I did awhile ago.  I just cut him out and pasted him down with white glue.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

P.S. I just got this book in the mail today and it looks fabulous!  Lots of tips and techniques by various art journalers and their styles are all different.  Very fun!

One of the artists featured is Julie Balzer, who I am a huge fan of.  You can read more about the book on her blog here.

I hope you are having a super groovy week my friends!  I can't believe it's Friday tomorrow already, can you?  Eek!

Thanks for visiting!

Every Little Thing...

Hey there everyone!  I hope you're having a great week!  It's flying by for me - super busy, but having fun too!  I have a quick journal page share for you - it's my Tuesday entry for my Book of Days...

This page was a collage of various papers and ephemera when I started.  The bottom layer is ink that was sprayed onto wet gel medium, and then spread around with a foam brush.  A trick I learned from Effy Wild and I love it!  After that I added some gesso, and used Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's stencil and some pan pastels to add the clouds.  The bird was an image on some scrapbook paper that was already on the page, so I just painted around him.  The date is done with a no. 13 card from a board game (Flint I think?).  I stayed up way too late to finish this one, but I've made a commitment to myself to do a spread a day through the end of the year; and I feel really good that I got it done!

Thanks so much for visiting!  I really appreciate it!  Have an awesome Wednesday!

Live Life in Color...

This week I did a multi-day journal spread for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  It started with the idea of expressing how I was feeling on Wednesday (happy and bubbly!)...

 Here's an example of how easy it is to fix a lop-sided face.  I noticed after I drew her face that one side was extremely wider than the other!  I just drew in a new line where I wanted the side of her face to be, and covered over the old part with gesso.

 and here is the finished journal page, after I added to it on Thursday and Friday...

Most all of this was done with acrylic paint over gesso.  The outlining on her face was done with india ink and a small brush, and the pinkish shading was done with inktense pencils and water.  The "ENFP" refers to my Myers-Briggs Personality Type.  Are you familiar with those?  It's a test you can take that measures your preferences and tells you what your personality type is.  We learned about it at work many years ago, and I still think about it.  Here's a link to my type description, and you can take the test yourself to find out what your type is - it's super fun!

In other news, I worked on Project Life for October yesterday at my girlfriends crop.  I had so much fun, and made tons of progress!  I should be able to share with you soon!  I don't know if doing the whole month at one time is a good idea - it's a big undertaking; but I do like breaking it up by month instead of by week.  I think....  I will keep you posted on that.  If you have evolving ideas of how to organize your project life spreads I would LOVE to hear about them!

There are still a couple of days to participate in the current Scrapping The Music challenge!  And I'm excited to tell you all about our new challenge that is coming up on November 15th!  It's a special one!

AND - don't forget about MIXED EMOTIONS ART JOURNALING WORKSHOP!  I am teaching it with Marit Barentsen February 4 - March 15, 2013 and we are going to have tons of FUN!!!  Click on the badge in the sidebar, or click here to find out more!  We'd LOVE to have you join us!!!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by my friends!  Your visits and comments mean so much to me!

Before and After...

Hey there hi there ho there!  I've got a couple of journal pages to share with you today.  I've been meaning to share with you how the base pages look before I start and I finally remembered - yeayyy!

Anyhoo, here's how the spread for November 5th look before I started.  On the left is the cover to an old Audubon magazine (thanks Lynn!); with some of my mom's vintage gift wrap pasted on top.  On the right is a piece of scrapbook paper and a vintage magazine page from the 1940's...

and here's what I ended up with.   If you really look, you can still see the base pages peeking out in places.  The layers on top include acrylic paint, gesso, stenciling and stamping.  The magazine image is from a National Geographic coffee table book.  I love the expressive looks on these kids faces.  There's a story there for sure - ha...

Here is what the base spread looked like for my November 6th page.  I really wanted to preserve the image of Jack Kerouac on the left, and the cool looking bird on the right...

Here's the finished page.  Quite different for me, and I like that.  Super super fun playing around with boxes.  Not many layers here, just acrylic paint with india ink and journaling on top.

Tomorrow I'm off to my monthly crop with my girlfriends; and I'm planning to work on my October Project Life - I'm so excited!  This will be my first time working on a whole month at one time.  I'm going to see if I like doing it this way.  I will keep you posted!

Have an awesome Saturday my friends!!!

Art is my Therapy...

My Book of Days entry for last Friday was a godsend.  I had a hard day and needed to get the bad feelings out of my system.  (nothing devastating - just work stuff) So I journaled them all out, and then collaged over the top!

I wrote my journaling in inktense colored pencils, and then used a wet brush to smear them.  That's the blue you see in the background.  Then I collaged a piece of fabric, some tissue paper and ledger paper over the top of that.  The girl is a  photocopy of a doodle I did in one of my notebooks.  I thought she deserved a proper place in my journal.  :0)

Here's how it looked after the first couple of steps.  I already was feeling better...

The flowers in the bottom right corner are a magazine image.  The rest were done with india ink and a fine brush.

I painted in some of the flowers with acrylic paint, and then added some neocolor crayon to the background, and green colored pencil to her eyes...

finished her off with some white dots and a title done with white acrylic ink.  It felt great to end up with something happy!

The facing page was the cover of an old magazine.  I didn't want to do too much to it, because it had a picture of an old Delorean car - remember those?  It felt a bit too nostalgic to cover up; so I just added an appropriate quote, and did a little doodling and that was it.

How about you?  Do you create to help you work through a hard day?

Thanks for visiting and have an awesome day my friends!

Ideas (Book of Days for 11/1/12)...

My journal page for November 1st started out looking like this...

I added some spray mist through Julie Balzer's Pomegranate stencil...

then closed the left side page over the stencil and rubbed.  It gave me a nice reverse stencil effect...

I took some leftover strips of scrapbook paper, and placed them randomly on the page; then sprayed more mist

Moved the strips of paper to different spots and sprayed again, only this time with blue...

I knew I wanted to do lots of writing that day, so I rubbed some cream colored paint around the middle of the spread...

And here's the finished spread.  I ended up putting blue paint over the cream, but left a border to show the stenciling effect...

I love the idea of not being afraid to cover things up.  Using layers is really giving me a sense of freedom and I love that.

So, are any of you doing a December Daily this year?  I'm thinking of doing a January daily instead, but I'm not sure. I purchased Cocoa Daisy's December Daily Art Journaling kit.  It was designed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, so of course it's totally awesome! It comes with a free class by Julie which is also totally awesome (of course - ha).  One thing I really like about it is that it isn't Christmasy, so it would lend itself well for using during any month. Check it out here for more info.

Book of Days for October 31st...

You may know by now that I love Ravens.  I love the mystical lore and symbolism that surrounds them; and consider the raven to be my animal totem.  It may or may not surprise you to find out that my favorite poem is "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe.

I thought All Hallows Eve would be the perfect time to put the two together on a Book of Days page; so I listened to Vincent Price reading the poem on youtube to set the mood, while I put together this page...

Here's how it turned out...

 

and here are the steps I took to get there...

 I keep meaning to take a photo of what the pages look like before I start working.  Ack.  Sorry.  This one was patterned scrapbook paper on the left and sheet music on the right with some giftwrap collaged on top.  My first step was to apply some modeling paste through a stencil with a credit card.  Then I painted over the whole page with orange and pink heavy body acrylic.


 Here's a closeup of what the modeling paste part looked like...

Then I covered the whole thing with black acrylic - eek!  But I didn't wait for it to dry...

I took a baby wipe and wiped most of it off, just leaving a border.  Then I drew a raven in the corner...

 Here's a detail shot of the raven.  I first drew in a basic outline with a china marker.  Then added details with colored pencils, india ink and a little white pen for the eyes...

 

And here's another look at the finished page.  I wrote in some words from "The Raven" with india ink and a brush.  I also added my journaling around the edges of the page.  To finish it I added some turquoise neocolor II crayon scribblings around the edges.  Here's another look at the finished page...

 The journaling reads:
"I don't have kids who trick or treat or go to any parties myself; but I've come to love the mystical feeling of All Hallow's Eve.  They say that the veil between the two worlds is thinnest at this time.  Makes me wonder if it's true; who might be with me tonite."

I'm loving my Book of Days so much, I decided to sign up for the Effy Wild's Book of Days premium program, which should be fun!  It starts December 31st! For more info - click here.

I've been thinking alot about my creative plans for 2013, have you?  I'm not feeling much of a need to do regular scrapbook layouts lately; so that may just fall by the wayside next year.  This is actually good, because it will free up some time to focus on more art journaling and lots of fun with Project Life!

Also- just a reminder that "Mixed Emotions;" the Art journaling workshop that I am teaching with Marit Barentsen is scheduled for February 4 - March 14, and it's going to be tons of fun!  It's all about expressing emotion in your journaling!  My favorite thing - yeayyy!!!  Click here to read my blogpost with lots more info or on the widget in the right sidebar to register!  Let me know if you have any questions!  I hope you will join us!

Have an awesome week my friends!