Inner Excavation...

Happy Saturday everyone!  Have you ever heard of the Book "Inner Excavation," by Liz Lamoreaux?  Effy Wild posted about it and so I checked it out, and it's AWESOME!  I can't believe I hadn't heard of it before, cuz it's right up my alley!  Here's the cover:

 

The cool thing is that Liz hosted a free seven-week read along of the book last year, and now Effy is inner-excavating along with Liz's posts, and inviting everyone to do it with her as a group!  Check it out here!

Anyways, I want to share with you what I've done so far in week one...

I'm using this Graph Paper Journal, and my plan is to keep things simple.  Focus on words and images, thoughts and feelings as I respond to the prompts in the book.

I've created an introductory page...

 The phrases that start with "i" are the titles of the chapters in the book.  On the library card, I've written my intention for the journal, which is:

"This book invites the reader to explore the inner self

through photography, poetry and mixed media. 

My intention as I go through the chapters, will be

to use this journal as a place to respond from my heart. 

To be willing to express all sides of myself - that is what makes me whole."

Here is my first page.  It's a poem I wrote entitled "I Am..."

I used a really cool website to help me write the poem.  If you would like to write your own "I Am" poem, you can check it out here.

I have another "I Am" poem that I wrote a couple of years ago that I plan to also include.  It shows a whole different side of me.  I will share that when I get it done.

So that's how far I am.  I have more plans for week one pages, which I will do as I have time.

If you want to join in on the read-along with Effy/Liz, click here to go to the website.  I hope to see you there!

Thanks so much for visiting me, my friends!  I really appreciate you.  I would love it if you have time to leave a comment!  Hugs, and happy weekend!

Goddess Maeve and the Raven...

Hey there everyone!  I've been having loads of fun studying the stories of the goddesses in Moonshine!  Our Goddess of the month in May was Maeve, and I finally finished my painting of her!  I'm so excited to show it to you!


Maeve was a goddess known for her intoxicating sensual beauty, so I was going for a "come hither" look - ha...

She's  9" x 12" on a wooden canvas...

 mostly acrylic paint, with some details done in colored pencil.


Here are a few of the steps along the way.  It started out with a sketch directly onto the board...

Then some color blocking with paint...

and here's another angle of the finished painting.

Moonshine is an awesome class!  Effy Wild is a fabulous teacher!  I highly recommend it if you have any interest in learning more about the feminine divine (goddess myths).  We are doing art journaling, painting and more!  You can click on the widget in the sidebar to learn more or register!

I hope you are having a fantastic week my friends!  Thank you so much for visiting!!!

Welcome Summer and thoughts on Balance...

Hey there everyone!  Happy Sunday!  I completed an art journal spread yesterday to celebrate summer solstice (which was on Friday).  Here's how it turned out...

While I played with my paints and papers, I gave a lot of thought to my word for the year:

BALANCE

I am really loving the balance in my life right now; although I must admit it's nothing like I thought it would be at the beginning of the year (when I chose the word). 

At the beginning of the year I felt like life was too hectic, I needed to balance things out.  To figure out a way to make time for everything in equal amounts.  I thought that was the answer.  I thought giving my life more structure would ease the stress of a busy life.  Over the first half of 2013, there's been an evolution in my mind.  I have realized that balance doesn't have to mean that all things are equal; it just means that all things feel right, and I am happy with the amount of time spent in the different areas of my life.

Way back many years ago (it seems like a whole different lifetime) I remember being up late (11pm was late in those days), watching a special on Neil Young.  I think it was on Austin City Limits.  The house was quiet and I was mesmerized.  I had been a Neil fan forever, but that night I found myself really thinking about him as an artist; how he had that one passion - his music - that he dedicated himself to, long enough to get really good at it; and how cool it would be to have a passion like that. 

Fast forward to now.  I am not comparing myself to Neil Young in any way shape or form - (he is like a god to me, when it comes to music); but I have a passion.  I love to create.  And I love to do it every day.  I love to spend pretty much all of my free time creating.  And contrary to my belief at the beginning of the year - for me that IS balance.  :0)  I may have laundry piling up, but maybe the answer isn't to do more laundry.  Maybe the answer is to have fewer clothes!  I spend quality time with my husband and family, I do my day job, and I create.  I prefer a small group of close friends to lots of social activities.  When I feel called to do other things, I do, but I don't want to feel guilty about spending time on my art anymore.  I'm working on that, and I'm making progress.  Yeayyy!!!

I will close with a video from the man himself, Neil Young - doing one of my favorites of his.  Needle and the Damage Done.  Check it out:



How about you? Who has inspired you? What do you feel passionate about? What does the right life balance mean for you?   I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Have a wonderful week my friends, and thanks so much for visiting me!

The Marriage of Glue-it Tuesday and Summer of Color...

Hi everyone!  I haven't done "Glue-it Tuesday" in a few weeks, so I thought I would get busy and have some fun with my glue stick!  This week, I decided to marry it with the pink and orange color scheme for this week's Summer of Color challenge, so here's what I came up with...

I already had an orange painted background in my journal, so I just grabbed some pink and orange images from my image box and glued them down grid style.  Super easy!

Oh, and p.s. HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE!  It's a great midpoint day to take a look at your word for the year and see how you think it's going?  I'm going to do that tonight on a journal page.  My word is "balance," and I have to say my feelings about what that word means to me have changed a bit since I picked it in December.   How about you?  What's your word for the year?  How's it going?  Do you need to change your word? 

I'm linking up with Summer of Color and Glue-it Tuesday; and also Art Journal Every Day.

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

Jump for Joy! Stencil Test Drive...

Hey there everybody!  I'm behind the wheel for another Stencil Test Drive for my friend Jessica Sporn!

 

This time I've been playing with Jessica's Jump for Joy stencil, which looks like this...

 How fun are these images?!!!  Perfect for art journaling!

 I used the Jump for Joy stencil to create this page in my Road Atlas journal. It was so simple to do...

I wanted to journal on this page, and still be able to see the map peeking out from the background; so I busted out my distress stains in a variety of pink and orange shades, and made a bunch of huge wonky circles.  (Keeping in mind the pink and orange color scheme for this week's Summer of Color Challenge). I added in wavy lines to write on, and did the journaling with black and white journaling pens.  I left some of the circles without writing, just for variation.  

After I was done, I felt like it needed something to give it some pizazz, and Jessica's images were just the right thing!  

I used a sponge dauber, to pounce through the stencil's words and images, which worked really well  to preserve the fine detail of Jessica's design. After that, I outlined the words with gel pens, and added a little pattern to the women's outfits - just for fun.

Here's a close-up of one of the images...

Please check out Jessica's blog, and the other test-driving artists to see more ways to use this fun stencil!!!

Carolyn Dube
Maria McGuire
Jessica Sporn

I'm also linking up to this week's Summer of Color Challenge!

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

How Could I Resist Something Called "Summer of Color...?"

Hey friends - have you heard about Summer of Color?  It's a six-week long blog party put on by Kristin of Twinkle Twinkle.  Every Monday starting on June 3rd, she is putting up a color prompt, and you can play along by making anything you want in that color scheme!  How fun is that???!!! 

Anyhoo, the first week's colors are Citron Green and Turquoise.  Here's what I did...

This is my MDS (Multi-day Spread) in my road atlas journal, for June 11th through 13th.  I took a few progression photos with my iphone, to give you an idea of how this page came together...


Here's how it looked before I started...

This is my collage ephemera helper.  His name is Willie, and he is not in the mood to have his picture taken right now...

I glued down a layer of collage...

brayered on some gesso...

Sprayed a bunch of different turquoise and green inks and let them drip...

Added some pattern with turquoise and green acrylic, plus a little white with gesso...

Added a sweet puppy (from Best Friends Magazine), traced around my hand, and filled it in with some doodling, and then started my journaling...

and here is the finished spread again...

The orange and pink accents are done with molotow markers.  The image of the boy with his arms out is cut from a coffee table book I found at a thrift store.

If you want to play along with Summer of Color, click here for more info.  I plan to play every week!  Can't wait to see what the colors will be next week!

Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you are having an awesome week!

More Road Atlas Journaling, and the new Project Life kits...

Hi everyone!  I'm still having fun with my jumbo road atlas journal!  A few of you have asked me how I prepare the pages in this book for journaling.  I just take a few simple steps...

I just take a few simple steps for preparing a book for journaling...

1.  I went through the whole book, and tore out every third page.  This will make it so the binding doesn't break down as much as I fill the book with paint and stuff.

2.  I went through the book a second time, gluing two pages at a time together with a glue stick.  I made sure to cover the entire surface all the way to the edges, and then smoothed them out with a brayer to help with wrinkling.  It still will be somewhat wrinkly, but I figure that's part of the charm, right?

3. I went through the first ten pages or so and prepped with gesso.  You could go through the whole book, but I just do them a few at a time.  On some of the pages I used white gesso, and on some of them I used clear gesso.  This just makes the page a little stronger and helps to prepare the surface to accept whatever mediums you want to throw at it.



On this page I used a very thin coat of white gesso.  I did the writing for June 6th, 7th and 8th with a permanent ink pen.  The next step was coloring all the shapes on the page with inktense pencils, and blending them with a waterbrush.  I went back and did the final journal entry for the 9th, and lastly, added a few collage elements...

The numbers are filled in with gel pens.  With each spread it's fun to decide how much of the atlas image to show/hide.  I will probably cover the next page completely, just for variety.

Also, I just wanted to mention that I was at Archiver's over the weekend and saw all of the new Project Life designs!  They are all so AWESOME!  I stopped by on Friday, and picked up the Midnight Edition, which I have been waiting for forever!  I just love the black and white graphic look, and all the handwritten cards.  So cool...

and on Saturday I discovered the HONEY Edition, and I just had to have it too!  I mean come on, look at the colors and those cute clouds!

My friend Lynn got the Jade Edition (which is also AWESOME), and she and I swapped some cards, so we each will have more variety!  I have a renewed sense of enthusiasm for Project Life now!  I got all my pages done for April, and I'm working on May.  I will share soon!

Have a great week my friends, and I will see you again soon!

Evolution of a Page...

I tried a whole new way of painting this week as part of my "Radical Wellness" class, called "painting loose and free."  The idea is to alleviate stress by painting loosely, and not worrying about getting every little detail accurate (hence the name loose and free - lol).  Just layering paint until you feel like you are done.  I had so much fun!  I took some iphone photos during the process, so that I could share them with you...

We got to use a photo just as a general reference, so I used this one from pinterest.

Here's the progression...

At this point, she magically started to look like how I envision Bloedeuwedd to look; (she is the Goddess we are learning about this month in Moonshine)!  So, I started to work with Bloedeuwedd in mind as I finished the painting...

 Here's the finished portrait...

Then, as I was doing my research (on the web), I took notes on the bits and pieces  of Bloedeuwedd's story that really resonated with me.  Here is how the finished page turned out...

The portrait is done in acrylic paint, gesso and neocolor II crayons.  The journaling is done with Molotow Markers.

If you want to know more about the story of Blodeuwedd, here are a couple websites for you:
Wikipedia
Blodeuwedd

I can't recommend Moonshine highly enough!  I am learning so much, on so many levels!  I'm developing my painting skills, learning about the feminine divine, and also learning alot about myself!  It's great fun!  If you want to know more about the Moonshine workshop, click on the widget in the right hand sidebar. 

That's all for today my friends!  Thanks so much for visiting, and I will see you again soon!

Atlas Turned Art Journal - Yippee...!!!

Hi there friends!  I'm so excited cuz I scored this awesome vintage Atlas on ebay for only $14.99!  It's in great shape and it's HUGE!  A whopping 11" x 16" (or 22 x 16" when open!)  Isn't she a beauty???

 

I turned her into my June art journal, and I'm having so much fun with it!   Here are my first two completed spreads...

 

 On this one, the purple rainbows and the word "June" are actually gelli-printed deli paper that I cut out and pasted on with a glue stick.  The red and pink titles are done with a molotow marker (my new favorite kind of marker!)

The color on this photo is off, but it gives you an idea of how huge this book is.  I have the book on my lap. Check out how little my feet look - ha!

 

Here's the first step in my page for today. It's a page with lots of info about the moon and earth.  If you look closely you can still see the images under the paint.  I left one earth unpainted...

 and here's the finished page...

The duck is actually a photo of our neighborhood duck.  The girl is a magazine image. The white writing is done with a Molotow marker.

I hope your week is starting out awesome!  Thanks so much for visiting!  I really appreciate you!