Using Newspaper on an Art Journal Page...

Hi friends!  I'm so excited to be a guest blogger today over at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog!  Julie invited Katie, Marina and me to each make a journal page that somehow uses newspaper. 

Here's what I made...

It's a super simple process, and I share a tutorial over at Julie's blog.  I would LOVE it if you would stop by and say hello!  Here's a link to the post: 

Art Journal Every Day Challenge: Newspaper

I hope to see you there!  Have an awesome Friday, my friends!

Life Book Update...

Hi friends and Happy Thanksgiving!

I haven't done a Life Book update in awhile, so I thought I would share my latest page with you.  I'm wayyyy behind, but I skipped over the ones I missed, and did this week's lesson.

It's called "The Chemistry of Words," and is taught by Melody Ross.  Here's how mine turned out...

(acrylic, gesso, neocolor II crayons, ampersand stamp, pencil and doodling markers)

The cool thing about Life Book is that you can download all the lessons, so you have them forever.  I love that.  There is so much to learn in this class - it's amazing.

I wish you a wonderful day my friends!  Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving, or Hanukah, or are just having a regular Thursday - I wish for it to be amazing!

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

Update on Three Different Journals...

Hey friends and happy Friday!  I've got an update for you on three different journals I've been working in - My No Excuses journal, Book of Days, and Watercolor journal.

This is what I've been doing in my No Excuses journal...

I'm using a Papaya spiral notebook (love those!) right now for this.  November's theme is "dreams,"  so I've been putting a short synopsis of my dreams next to my weather, color and doodle for the day.  These doodles were all inspired by the book Creative Doodling and Beyond, which is a fantastic source for expanding your doodling repertoire! 


This is what's been going on in my watercolor journal...


I've done three more lessons for the Draw YourAwesome Life workshop. These are all done in an 8 x 10 Global Watercolor Handbook...

 Albrecht Durer Watercolor pencils

 (gelatos)

 

 (Blick liquid watercolor & Koi Watercolor)

and last but not least, these two were done in my Book of Days...

 (Seth Apter Storytime stencil, Acrylic paint, gesso, dylusions spray ink, white liquid acrylic ink, and images from a thrifted coffee table book)

(gesso on black stonehenge paper, crafters workshop birch trees stencil, acrylic paint, neocolor II crayons, white liquid acrylic ink)

I think that gets me up to date for Art Every Day Month.  I'm also linking up to Julie Balzer's Art Journal Every Day post.

I'd love to know what your journaling style is.  Do you work in more than one journal at a time, or does everything go in one?  Do tell!

Thanks so much for visiting today!  I really appreciate you taking the time to stop by!  See you again very soon!

Draw Your Awesome Life - I'm getting there!

Hey friends!  Happy Monday!  I've been working on my Draw Your Awesome Life lessons, and I have to tell you - I am SO GLAD I took this class!  I've been wanting to get into illustrated journaling, and this is just what I was looking for. 

These are all done in my 8 x 10 Watercolor journal...

Lesson Eight:  The view from my window...

Lesson Nine: Make a scene...

Lesson Ten: Draw Your Food...

I'm really starting to have fun with it now, and I can see working these kind of drawings into my ongoing journaling practice.

I'm still participating in Art Every Day Month, although I've missed a few days.

Thanks so much for visiting!  I really appreciate you! 

Art Every Day Month - Book of Days Catch up...

The first session of Book of Days 2014 is open for registration, and I'm all signed up!  I can't wait for it to start on January 1st!  In the meantime, I have a lot of catching up to do.  I haven't busted out my acrylic paints since we moved, and it's been a month and a half at least!  I have missed ten lessons in my Book of Days, which means I have a lot of fun ahead of me!  Yeayyy!  My goal is to catch up with all of the current pages before the end of the year.

So, as we continue Art Every Day Month, here's my first one...

Celebrate Life

(shipping tags, masking tape, acrylic paint, gesso, neocolor II crayons, white sharpie paint pen, foam stamps, balzer designs bubble doily stencil)

The idea was to use tags and tape for texture, and I had so much fun doing that.  My first layer was journaling (you can still see it a little bit in the girl's dress).  I've been thinking about how much I used to dance through my day (literally!), and I miss that.  I've gotten too sedentary, and I could feel it when we moved.  The packing and lifting literally wore me out!  Now that I am back to feeling normal again I plan to keep moving - it is a joyful way to celebrate life!

For more info on Book of Days, click here.
For more info on Art Every Day Month, click here.

Thanks so much for visiting!!!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Word Up - GRACE...

The new prompt is up at One Little Word!  This month we are inspired by the word GRACE. 

I decided to do a grace page in my 9 x 12" watercolor journal.  Here's how it turned out...

I'm still finding my way with watercolors, so I kept it pretty simple.  It was fun to apply some of the techniques I've learned in my Draw Awesome class to my own work! This page was done with Tombow markers, Pitt Pen and a waterbrush.

Come on over to the One Little Word blog and see how the other design team members interpreted GRACE!  We'd LOVE to have you play along!  You can create anything you want that is inspired by the word - a scrapbook page, journal page, or anything else you can think of!  Click here to check it out!

Thanks so much for visiting again, as Art Every Day Month continues!  I will be back tomorrow with another project!  Take care and have an awesome day!!!

Project Life - November 6 - 10: Special Event Page...

Hey friends!  I've got a Project Life Update for you today.  This took me three evenings to put together, so I'm calling it days 10, 11 and 12 of Art Every Day Month!

It's for November 6 - 10, 2013.  Here's the full spread...

Detail of left side...

November 6th was a very special day for us.  We went to see one of our all-time favorites - Amos Lee in concert!  I decided to dedicate the whole left side of the spread to that evening.  The top right photo was taken with my iphone from our seats.  They didn't allow cameras in the auditorium, so I borrowed  the closeup (in the middle) from the web.  The bottom right photo is my favorite view of the Minneapolis skyline; and it can only be seen when driving by in the car.  Since Michael was the one driving that night, I was super excited to be able to grab a pic with my phone when we went by!  P.S. I used the Gossamer Blue November kit for this page.


Detail of right side...

This side captures the other little tidbits of the week.

I'm thinking about how I want to approach Project Life in 2014.  It's always fun to make a few changes so it feels fresh and new again for the new year.  Here's what I'm thinking so far...

1.  Go back to documenting the weeks (week 1, week 2, etc.), rather than just free-flowing the pages in each month, while still allowing the freedom of adding inserts or extra pages for each week if I want to.

2.  Focusing mostly on design a and d page protectors.  I will use other designs for extra pages or inserts.

What about you?  Are you doing Project Life in 2014?  If so, are you making any changes?  I'd love to hear about it!

For more info on Art Every Day Month, click here.

I will be back tomorrow cuz it will be time for the November One Little Word challenge!  Thanks so much for visiting, and I will see you then!

Art Every Day Month - Days 8 and 9 - No More Excuses Journal...

I'm so excited!!!  The 2014 Edition of No More Excuses Journaling is out - yeayyy!!!  If you're not familiar with No More Excuses, it's a journaling method taught by Gina Armfield, that uses a weekly desk planner as a base.   There has been a whole series of No More Excuses (NME) journaling workshops, and I've taken (and loved) each one of them.  This year, Gina has a whole new website called No Excuses Art, and a book coming out on the subject in December.

Part of the fun, for me, is picking out which day planner to use, and prepping it in advance, so I am ready to dive in come January 1st.

I was super inspired by the video in this blogpost, so this year, I am using this Moleskine Weekly Planner...

I like the fact that each spread has the days of the week on one side, and a diary side on the other, which leaves lots of possibilities for doodling, writing, etc.  The possibilities are endless!

I spent days 8 and 9 of Art Every Day Month, creating my new NME journal.  Here's how it looks, all prepped and ready for 2014...

This year, one of my goals is to focus on the monthly themes more than I have in the past.  I decided to attach tabs with the names of the themes on them, to keep them more in the forefront of my mind. Oh my goodness I had fun making these and sewing them on! 

Here you can see the full tab with the stitching and name of the month.  I also attached a 6 x 9 envelope at the beginning of each month to collect stuff...

and one piece of watercolor was taped in for each month...

There are also various small envelopes and tags taped in here and there.  I can't wait to get started!

If you want to find out more about the No Excuses Journaling Method, click here to go to Gina's new website!

For more info about Art Every Day Month, click here.

Thanks so much for visiting!  I will see you Wednesday for another post...

Art Every Day Month, Day 7 - Inky Shadows...

Hi friends!  For day 7 of AEDM, I worked on another Draw Your Awesome Life lesson.

You probably can't tell, but this is actually a crumpled piece of paper.  It was a bit of a brain teaser to draw, but super fun to shade!

 Tombow Markers and water

I've been meaning to do some journaling with these exercises, but time gets away from me.  Perhaps I will add journaling to the background later...

For the last two days, I have been busily preparing my 2014 No More Excuses journal!  Fun, fun, fun!!!  I will share that with you tomorrow!

For more info on Draw Your Awesome Life, click here.
For more info on Art Every Day Month, click here.

Thanks so much for visiting - I appreciate you so much!

Art Every Day Month - Days 5 and 6...

Oh my goodness the days just fly by TOO FAST!!!  Where did this week go?  I feel like I say that every week, but it's so true!  EEK!  Anyhoo, I'm still participating in Art Every Day Month, and for days five and six I've got some more work from the "Draw Your Awesome Life" class to share... 

Here's the two-page spread...

Detail of the left side...

Detail of right side...

It was fun trying all these different techniques!  It was all the same leaf; although as I went along the leaf was getting more and more dried out, which made it interesting.  :)

For more info on Art Every Day Month, click here.
For more info on the Draw Your Awesome Life workshop, click here

I'll leave you with a pic of the sunset over our new backyard.  I'm loving living in the country!

Thanks so much for visiting!  Have an awesome weekend my friends!

Followup Article at Featuring Magazine...

I'm so honored to be featured in a followup article at the Featuring Magazine blog today!  Featuring is an awesome magazine about art journaling and mixed media.  I would LOVE it so much if you want to check out the article, by clicking here!

Project Life Update...

Hi friends!  It's day five of Art Every Day Month, and I'm bringing you a Project Life Update.  I did work on Project Life yesterday, but I didn't finish that page, so instead I'm sharing an older spread with you today. I hope you don't mind!


This spread is from May 1 - 10, 2013...

Here's the two-page spread:

What's happening here?  The weather finally got nice, I started Effy Wild's "Moonshine" workshop, participated in my friend Jessica's stencil hop, and documented some miscellaneous happenings at home.  I also started organizing my PL cards by color, so it's become harder to remember which kits I am using!  I see the Honey and Cobalt kits in here, and maybe a bit of the Seafoam?  I've included a calendar page from Willowing as an insert, to denote the beginning of the month.

Here's you can see the same spread with the insert flipped over...

Detail of left page...

In Moonshine, we are studying the goddesses, (fascinating!), so I included images of the first two we focused on in the first two cards in the middle row.  Then I included two images from the stencil hop - the stencil itself on the left, and how I used it on the right.

Kept it simple and just enlarged two photos for the back of the calendar page...

Detail of right side...

On the eighth, Johnny had his insulin levels checked and he's doing great!  I didn't have a photo, so I commemorated the day with the wrapper from the sucker I got at the vet's office. 

I want to rework my Project Life process, but I haven't figured out a system for getting caught up with it yet.  If you do Project Life, do you have any tips to share about your process?  I'd love to hear them, and I'm sure others would too!  Please feel free to leave them in the comments section!

Project Life is a scrapbooking system created by Becky Higgins.  For more info, click here to go to her website.

Thanks so much for visiting, and I will see you again tomorrow for day 6 of Art Every Day Month!

AEDM Day 4 - Life Cartoon...

Hi friends!  It's day four of Art Every Day Month; and I finished the second half of my cartoon storyboard version of my week.

Here's how it turned out...

 

Here's the whole week together...

I used a combination of Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils and neocolor II crayons for this spread, along with my beloved Pilot Permaball pen.

I'll be back tomorrow with a Project Life update!  I'm way behind on PL, but I'm working on a system to help get caught up; and I will share that with you then.

Thank you so much for visiting, and for your comments!  Have an awesome Monday!

Art Every Day Month, Day 3...

Hello friends!  For day three of AEDM I've got another set of drawings from the Draw Your Awesome Life class.  These were both done with a black tombow marker...

(I think this is my favorite lesson yet...)

This is just a quick post, cuz I am dedicating today to unpacking.  There is still ALOT to do!  EEK!  I will be back tomorrow with another AEDM update.

Thanks so much for visiting, and for your comments.  I LOVE hearing from you!  Have a great Sunday, my friends!

Art Every Day Month...

November is Art Every Day Month and I've decided to join in!  Thank you Dawn, for reminding me of this annual challenge!  I will do my best to post something each day in November, but as you can see I'm already one day behind (ha).  Anyhoo, here are a few more pages from the "Draw Your Awesome Life" workshop...

 Neocolor II crayons

 

Neocolor IIs, Gelatos and Albrecht Durer Watercolor Pencils

 

 Blick Liquid Watercolors

 

Neocolor IIs

 

 

Neocolor IIs

 It's only been a few days, and my watercolor journal is happily filling up!  Joanne really provides a lot of content in her classes, and it's so much fun!

I will be back tomorrow with another edition of Art Every Day Month.  In the meantime, it would be great if you want to visit my friend Dawn's blog and see her AEDM posts!  Click here to go to her blog.

And if you want to know more about AEDM, or join in on the fun, click here for more info.

Thanks so much for visiting!  I really appreciate you!