Paint Over Collage...

Hey there friends! I just finished my Book of Mirrors spread for this week, and I'm excited to be able to share it with you!  We used the Paint Over Collage technique; and here's how mine turned out...

Someone quoted this lyric from Leonard Cohen yesterday, and it was just what I needed to hear.  In case you can't read it, here's what it says...

"The birds they sang

at the break of day

'Start Again,' I heard them say

Don't dwell on what has passed away

or what is yet to be...

Ring the bells that still can ring

forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

that's how the light gets in."

~ Leonard Cohen

 

Paint Over Collage is a fun technique to use if you don't have the time to paint a whole portrait from scratch.  What you do is glue a photo from a magazine down in your journal (or in my case a portrait I found on pinterest); and then you paint over it.  You can change it however you want, but it gives you the basic facial structure to start with.  It's also a good technique to help you learn to shade faces.  I used pencil, neocolor II crayons and gesso to do the shading.  

Speaking of Book of Mirrors/Book of Days, Effy (the instructor), is having a sale right now, so it's a great time to check it out if you are interested!  Click here to find out more.

Thanks so much for visiting and for your comments!  I really appreciate you!

Here's what's Coming...

I miss my daily blogging practice, and I'm going to participate in this to help me get back on track...

Starting August 1st, I will be posting every day for 30 days.  Want to join in the fun?  Click here to find out more.

Reflecting on my earliest memories - Evolution of a Page...

Hey there everyone!  Happy Saturday!  I created a page for my Book of Mirrors this week that I want to share with you, but before I start, I want to say thanks to IHanna and Dawn for their suggestions about my Life Book Dilemma!  (scroll down to the post below this one to see what I'm talking about). I decided to continue on in my art journal rather than fighting with the rings, and I appreciate the support!

So, now - back to the Book of Mirrors page - I took pictures along the way so you can see the progression. 

This page is inspired by the second week of the Book "Inner Excavations,"  where you look back at your childhood to shed light on who you are.

So here we go...

I didn't get a photo of the first step, which included lots of masking tape stuck to the background for texture.  Then came a mixture of gesso and green paint, stamps, a sketch and photos and memorabilia from my childhood...

 I tried a new technique of sketching on deli paper, and I love the effect.  If you look closely, you can still see some of the tape under the paint.

 Next, I used neocolor II crayons to outline the photos, and then smeared gesso on with my hands...

 I started to color in the sketch with colored pencil.  The texture made it difficult, but I still like the effect.

 Added journaling, and captions for the photos...

A title, and some penciled doodles, and she was finished...

I hope you are having a completely awesome Saturday!  Thanks so much for visiting me!

Life Book Update...

It's been forever since I've done a Life Book update for you!  Here's what I've been doing...

This first spread is the result of Effy Wild's Artful Shamanism lesson.  This is a representation of what I saw on a journey, guided by Effy...

 I had to split it in half to fit it in my Life Book ring binder.  I thought it was interesting that the message I got in my journey was "You are Safe."  Love that.  The background was done with pan pastel, and the rest is Neocolor II crayons.

The next lesson was Dion Dior's "Divine Color."  We used twinkling H20's and Neocolor IIs to create a flower painting.  I chose pink tulips.  Here's how it turned out...

This one is going in a frame rather than my Life Book binder.

My Life Book Binder is full now, and I'm trying to decide if I should get bigger rings so I can fit the rest of the year in there; or just start incorporating my Life Book lessons into my art journal.  It would be nice to have the whole year's Life Book in one binder to look at later; but at the same time, I've been struggling using that darn ring binder.  I don't like cutting spreads in half.  Hmmm...

If you want to know more about Life Book, click here for more info.

What would you do?  Would you continue with the ring binder system, or not?

Thanks for visiting!  I really appreciate hearing from you!  Have a great week!

Book of Days Meets Lollapalooza 3 Meets Glue-it Tuesday...

Hi everyone!  I am so excited to share my new Book of Days journal with you!  This is the complement to my Book of Mirrors, which I shared in the last post.  Where the Book of Mirrors records my inner world, This Book of Days contains the daily documenting of my days, or  outer world, so to speak.   Together they cover the whole Book of Days process.

I decided to make a separate journal for these entries after taking Martha Lever's Lollapalooza 1, 2 and 3 journaling workshops.  All three lend themselves well to doing daily entries.  The first one I am using is in the style of Lollapalooza 3...

Here are my first few pages...

BOOK OF DAYS

Title page...

Note:  This style of journal keeping works really well for Glue-it Tuesday too!  Lots of cutting, pasting and glueing going on!

The cute little dog was cut from Best Friends Magazine (my fave source for adorable animal photos).

 July 1st...

 Its so fun to use all my supplies on these pages.  Stamps, Rub-ons, magazine cut outs, and inspirational photos of artwork that I love.  The two bigger colorful images here are from Papaya Arts, and Martha Lever.

July 2nd and 3rd...

This kind of journal is a blast to work in!  I've done a grid journal before, but Martha's techniques add a whole new level of color and fun to the process!!! 

If you want to know more about the Lollapalooza workshops, click here.

If you want to know more about the Book of Days workshop, click here.

For more info about Glue-it Tuesday, click here.

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

Book of Days Session 2 has started - yeayyyyy!!!

Hi everyone!
I'm so excited that the second session of Book of Days with Effy Wild has started - yeayyyy!!!

Book of Days started as a workshop for me, and has progressed into the regular spiritual art practice that I have always wanted.  In the Book of Days (BOD) group, we look at what's going on in both our inner and outer worlds and express them through art journaling.  The inner world pages are called Book of Mirrors and the outer world pages are called Book of Days.  How awesome are those names?  I just love them.

Anyhoo, they are taught as separate pages in one journal; but this time I decided to change it up a little and have two separate journals.  The first one is my Book of Mirrors.  I made this by following the instructions in Effy's Bookbinding 101 class (which is free by the way).  This just might be my new favorite way of binding!  Here's how it turned out...

 BOOK OF MIRRORS

The cover is cut from a big roll of canvas...

The binding allows for dangly threads, but I accidentally bound it upside down (lol), which made my danglies end up at the bottom.  Ack.  Oh well, I just cut them off...

I decided to use up all the big sheets of watercolor paper that I had left.  The pages are a mixture of white, light grey, kraft and black, which should provide for interesting challenges...

 There are a total of 120 pages, or 60 spreads!  Yeehaw!!! 

 My Book of Mirrors will be the place to reflect on what's going on in my heart.   Here are my first week's pages...

The inside front cover holds my intention for this journal...

The second one is my emotional response to an event from the week (dinner with Michael's parents).

Note: I used the same stencil in each spread (swirly garden by Balzer Designs), but in different ways. The top one with sprays and paints to create layers; the bottom one with gel medium to create a resist. 

If you want to check out Book of Days, click here to find out more info. 

I will be back next time with my other journal!  Thanks so much for visiting and I will see you then!

Last of the pages in the linen bird journal...

I've got a few more pages from my bird journal to share with you, before we move on to July...

 These are all done with backgrounds made beforehand with leftover paint from other projects...

 Just added an image here, and outlined the design on the right...

 Wrote with molotow marker on this one...

And that is it!  This journal is done - finito!  This is really an easy way to do daily pages, and it saves on paint too!  Just take an extra journal, and whenever you are finished with a project, open up a page in your extra journal, and swish the leftover paint around.  If you have extra pieces of paper, glue them on!  Anywhere! Before you know it you will have a bunch of beautiful backgrounds to work from - yeayyy!  Then all you have to do is paste an image in here and there and do your writing and you are done!

FYI - this particular journal is really blissful to work in!  It's 8 x 10", and was recommended by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer in one of her classes.  I like it so much I ordered another one.   It's this one by Global Art Materials:

It's got a beautiful linen cover, and the pages inside are a stiff watercolor paper that has held up beautifully to anything I've thrown at it.

Next time I will share my new journals that I started on July 1st.  I love new journals!  See you then!

Filling Up An Old Journal...

I've got a beautiful journal that I started in 2011, when I took Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's "30 Days in your Journal" class (awesome class by the way); and have been adding a page to here and there since then; and also using it as the place to swipe leftover paint at the end of projects.  I recently realized that all of the pages that were left now had beautiful backgrounds, (because of the aforementioned paint swiping); so I decided it was time to finish all the pages and call it complete!

Here's a look at the cover (which had also been a leftover paint-swiping adventure)...

and here are a couple of the now-completed pages...

I hope you are having a fabulous week, my friends!  Thanks so much for visiting!!!