Journey of a page

   This month on the Dragonfly Dreamers Exploration group page the theme is art journaling.  I have been playing in art journals for 6 or 7 years now. It is probably one of my favourite things to do. There are no rules and it doesn't have to be perfect because it's just for me. I use them to experiment and try new techniques and mediums. I use them to do online class work in. I use them for doodling, drawing...well for just about anything. I have quite a few I'm working in at any given time and I often work in more than one at a time. The sizes vary from small 5"x5" handmade journals to larger 8"x12".  Mostly I like to use ones with heavy watercolour paper but a few have different paper and one is all black.

   

   Often when there is left over paint from other projects or students work, I slap it into a journal page without any thought as to what I will do with it. So my journals have quite a few pages in this ugly stage. Last week I asked people on my social media to choose a page for me to finish. This is the page they chose and it's journey.

This page was probably the nicer of the three to chose from. At this stage it's just left over paint that's been slopped on and a bit added with a stencil. I often don't have an idea when I start a page but for this one I did. I knew I wanted a kind of jungle leafy look and a face peaking out. But first I needed layers.

Since it already had some stenciling started it only seemed natural to keep going with more layers of stencils. This is all done with acrylic paints. It's amazing how fast doing some layers of stencils can bring the page together.

After the stenciling I was drawn to the circles so I accentuated them a bit with pastels and graphite.

At this point I did something that I almost regretted. I took some paint and scraped it across the page here and there. I did not like this as soon as I got it on and this stuff dries fast. I quickly took a paper towel and took some off. It didn't take it all but the effect worked after all. This is the light coloured splotches(technical term) you can see. I could live with it now.

Then it was time for mark making. For this I used pastels, Marabu Art crayons and some graphite. 

And then there are all the details. I spent quite a while, over a few days playing with the rest. For the leaves I used mostly acrylic paint and some Posca paint pens. I used Caran D'ache Neocolor II to do some shading and blending of the background. More marks were added in spaces that needed them.  It was a very fun page to do. 

I hope you enjoyed hearing a bit about the process of a journal page. Are you an art journaler?

Keep Creating!
Wendy

Monthly Explorations

   It's been an interesting year so far to say the least. I've been taking some time to reboot and work on some new projects over the winter and just when I am ready to get back to doing some workshops the world has turned upside down. Now it's time to rethink the next  steps to take.
   Being an introvert makes the social distancing an easy thing to do for me. So I'm choosing to take advantage of my extra time alone in the studio to play and catch up on things. I hope you're able to make the best of the situation and give yourself permission to play.

   One of the things that has kept me busy this year is my Monthly Explorations Themes over on my FB group. In January the theme was Doodling, Mark Making and Drawing. What's not to like about that!

8"x5" journal page on Bristol Smooth

9"x11.5" Dylusions journal page.

In February the theme was Stencils. I love my stencils and use them often. There are so many ways to use them. Here are just a few.

Since it was February I had to do a few heart cards. I made my own heart stencil with a heart die I have and then layered other stencils on top of it for the patterns. I used Distress Inks and Oxides for the colours along with some light modeling paste and Finnabair Icing Paste for the texture through stencils.

Multiple layered stencils.

This page was done with a lot of layers of collage material, paints and stencils. The mushrooms were a new stencil I got recently from Stencil Girl. I used Nuvo Expanding Mousse through the stencil. This was an new product for me and I loved the way it puffs up when heated. Once dried I coloured the mushrooms with Finnabair waxes.

9.5"x8" double page in small Dylusions journal.

This is another page done with lots of layers and even more stencils. But here the stencils are used mostly in the background instead of the focal point as the mushrooms were. 

9.5"x8" double page in small Dylusions journal.

  And now in March the theme is Watercolour. This is not a medium that I play with much or know much about so it really is about exploring and learning. 

  I made myself a small book with 5.5"x5.5" watercolour paper pages to do my playing/experimenting in. It is a nice size to try out something new.

   I did a few pages of rocks. They were great for practicing some mixing and layering of colours.

Watercolour rocks.

   These little swatch doodles were inspired by a fun Canadian Artist, Cee Cee's Creations. You can find many of her videos on Youtube. They were very fun to do. I'm sure I will be doing more of them this month. 

Watercolour swatch doodles.

  If you'd like to see more come over and take a look at Dragonfly Dreamers Monthly Exploration Themes. And of course you are always welcome to join the group.

Keep Creating!

Wendy

Lachute art journaling field trip.

I have an art journaling group that meets once a month. We usually play around with some techniques and get inspiration from each other. Well this month we decided to take a field trip. We heading off very early one morning to Lachute Market in Quebec. It's a large antique market, flea market and farmers market all in one place. We had a great time and found some fun treasure. Here are my finds for the day.

I had to buy some paper ephemera since it was for our journaling meeting we were here. The mushroom poster on the right under the book was a bonus find in one of the books. The stack of envelopes have some really great stamps on that I just couldn't resist. I've already started to use them as you can see in my journal page further down.

I think these dominoes are my favourite find of the day. It may be hard to tell from this photo but they are very tiny. The tin is 2 inches by 3 inches. The tin made me laugh so I thought I should bring it home. The label says Dr. Charles Worm Chocolates "milk chocolate creams". Apparently it's "The most sure, safe and pleasant remedy for expelling worms from children and adults. Dr. Charles' Worm Chocolates expel Worms and will be of great help in all other ailments for Children such as Fever, Biliousness, lack of appetite, stomachache, restlessness at night, peevishness, sallow complexion, etc." Wow can you believe it, a cure for peevishness!

I've been looking for some crystal salt and pepper shakers for keeping my glitter in. I think these will be a good start for that.

And of course how could I resist a few more suitcases. The larger one in the back opens oddly to the sides so I thought it might be useful for displaying jewelry. It needs a little TLC inside though first.

I found a few watches for the Tin Man to take apart so I can use the gears and a little Danish plate with the Rundetaarn (Round Tower) on it. Many years ago the Tin Man and I went up in this tower. It's most interesting feature is that it has a spiraling ramp to get up to the top. It was built this way so they could transport things with a horse and carriage to the library attached to it and heavy equipment to the top for the observatory which it was originally built for.

Before going to Lachute I challenge everyone to bring their art journals and some supplies to work on a page while we were there but it turned out much colder than we expected and there was just so much to see so we never had a chance to do it. We did decide that we would do a page before the next meeting though. This is mine. I used papers from the books and envelopes that I picked up at the market and the Cropping Chic was given to me by one of my fellow travelers. I'm pretty pleased with myself that I got my page done within a few days of returning from our trip. 

Have you ever tried to art journal on a trip? How did it go? Do you have any tips you can share with me for doing it? Definitely something I will try more often.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Hand made stamps.

Yesterday in my Art journaling group we focused on hand made stamps. These ones are made with fun foam cut with dies and mounted on scrap chip board. It doesn't get much easier than this.

We also played around with rubber stamp carving and I just kept going last night. I've seen a few square stamps made so they line up when you stamp them beside each other and have been wanting to do this. So this is my first attempt at it. This was a quick stamping to see what needed to be fixed so I think they'll line up better when I take more time. Hmm the possibilities are endless for these.

Here are a few more I did. I've done a few houses before and wanted another variation on it. The tree was inspired by a small tree stencil that was given to me and the mushroom was inspired by one I saw on Pinterest. I will definitely be doing more trees and mushrooms. Now just to find a few more hours in the day for this.

We didn't actually get much done in our journals but we did have fun and I'm ready to try these out in my journal! 

Please share with me if you've made some stamps. I'd love to see them.

Keep Creating!

Wendy

Where to go from here, an Art journaling story!

As you know I've been exploring Art Journaling the last year or so. There are so many things to do and types of Art Journaling, that sometimes I just feel overwhelmed by the possibilities, although this is also probably what draws me to it too. I've just realized lately that doing backgrounds is not a problem for me. I seem to accumulate backgrounds but then I get stuck for where to go with it. So I thought I'd share some backgrounds that I have waiting to be played with. If you have suggestions of where to go with them, I'd love to hear about it.

  These are from two books I'm working in right now. The one with the spirals is an 8" by 10" multimedia book and the other one is one that I made from watercolour paper with pages that are 5.5" by 6". The smaller one is my favourite to work in right now. I love the watercolour paper because it will take anything I throw at it. I think I find the smaller size pages less daunting too.

 Many of my pages start with paint that was left over from other projects or students work. I just slap it on and then when it's covered I start to use bubble wrap and other packaging thing to add texture. I find using left over paint specially other peoples challenges me to work outside my usual colour palette. 

 Here I used my book to remind myself how to do this book paper and crackle background technique before doing it in a workshop. The butterflies are bits of tissue tape that didn't work on something else I was working on so instead of throwing it out it got slapped in here.

 This is another one that started with left over paint. The pink kinda flowery looking things at the bottom of the page are from one day when I was cutting up celery and remembered seeing someone use them as a stamp. So I rushed into the studio and tried it out. I think they're kind of neat and with a little more detail added with a marker they could be more interesting.

 I love using sequin scraps(not sure what you call that stuff) for making circles. I have to control myself somewhat though or everything would have these little circles on it.

The background on the left came from wiping my craft mat after using glimmer mist and the doodled heart was done one night while watching TV. Not sure if it's done yet or not. The page on the right I tried something new for me. I've just finished reading Journal Junkies Workshop and one thing they suggest is doing stream of consciousness writing. This is where you just write without much thought and give yourself a time or space limitation.  So I did this here on the background with a graphite pencil and then used my new Derwent Artbars to add some colour and mess up the words a bit. I've added some stamping here and there but this page is definitely not finished. I don't expect to see much of the writing when I'm done! 

And finally a page that I finished recently, well I'm not actually sure if it's finished or not. I'm still wondering if I should add words or not. Words are another challenge for me. I think I'd like to use more words but not sure yet how I want to do that.

So what's your favourite part about Art Journaling?

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Happy New Year!!

Wow it's 2013! I do know I'm a little slow with my wishes to you but such is life right!!? It's always hard to get back on track after the holidays and these cold snowy January days don't help me want to do anything. 

So how is your new year starting out so far. I don't really believe in New Years resolutions but I do like to make plans and maybe a few goals for the year and look back on last years plans to see how I did. I also like to pick a word for the year which I've been working on the last week or so. I think I've almost figured it out but not absolutely sure so I'll have to wait to share it with you.

I did manage to do a little creating over the holiday and try out some new artsy gifts. Above is my last 2012 art journal page. How about you? Did you get some creative time recently? Have any creative goals this year? 

Share your creative projects and goals in the comment and a link so I can see them.

Keep Creating.

Wendy

Art journaling

This fall I started an Art Journaling group that meets once a month. My motives were purely selfish. I wanted to do more art journaling and thought if I had a regular time set aside for it that I would hopefully make more time during the month also. Our first meeting I showed everyone how to make a journal from one sheet of 22"x 30" 120lb watercolour paper like the ones I did here. This month we discussed and worked on backgrounds. There are so many ways to do backgrounds that it was hard to know where to start. After much thought before the meeting, I realized the method I use the most these days is the left over paint method. This just means that any paint left over from a project either my own or a students gets slopped into the art journal to be pondered over later. This method has been great to challenge myself with colour combinations that I wouldn't usually use. I tend to stick to my comfortable warm browns, oranges and copper. 
   So that is how this page started out. Another favourite technique lately is using stencils or masks. On this page I used paint with the stencils but sometimes I use inks or glimmer mists. I also used markers on this with the stencils. Just making some random shapes here and there instead of using the whole stencil. It got me thinking, how else can I use stencils other than the obvious!
   Once the background was complete I thought it had an airy feel to it, hence the 'how to fly' idea. 
   I completed the background during the meeting and left it out on my work table so I could play with it every once in a while over the next few days. So I guess the art journaling group really did work to get me going!
   Do you do some art journaling? What's your favourite background technique? Share it with me in the comments below.

Have you left your comment here to win this weeks tag yet?

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Dare to be...

   In the midst of relocating the studio and preparing for a couple of upcoming shows, life is a little overwhelming. I guess I'm torn between the two. I'm anxious to get on with moving the studio upstairs even though the lighting isn't done yet but I know I need to be disciplined  and prepare for shows. I know if I start to move my studio stuff it will suck me in and I may just lose too much time on it right now. You see I've decided while moving things it would be the opportune time to do some purging and organizing. And we all know that takes time and patience.
   So this morning, feeling particularly torn between the two and having a hard time getting started, I gave myself a little free time to do some journaling. I know that sound counter productive but sometime I just need to let it all go so it will all fall into place the way it's meant to be. The page above is the result of this mornings free time. I've started to use my journals for extra paints or just to throw stuff at when the need arises so I have a number of backgrounds waiting for that spare journaling moment. This was one of those pages, so it took about 20 minutes to finish it up and feel like I've accomplished something.
  To show you that I have been getting some jewelry ready for the show here are a couple of pieces I finished up recently.

 This bracelet started out as a leather cuff but had some technical difficulties so I decided to use some beads and chains to finish it off.

I got these resistors a while back from a friend but had no idea what I was going to do with them. When I was talking on the phone the other day to son #1 I was also going through my beading drawers to get some inspiration(I can't help but multitask) and these just sort of happened. I call them Steampunk resistors. It's funny how inspiration can hit when you're not really paying attention to it.

Well I'm off to get some more jewelry made now that I have procrastinated enough. I hope you're inspiration is working for you. What do you do when you just can't get going at what you're suppose to? Leave me a comment letting me know, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Wendy

New year new books.

2011 Art Journal

Although we're a whole week into the new year I still have that fresh, new and full of potential feeling only the new year can bring. I've been following the Creative Jump Start Summit 2012 this last week and it's been so inspiring. But when I went to do some playing in my art journal it was almost completely full. I made this journal from some scraps of water colour paper I had left over from some precious book projects. So the size was determined by the size of the scraps. Even the cover was made from a scrap piece of water colour paper. I thought it was going to be a little small for an Art Journal being only about 5"x5" but at it turned out I found this size worked out really well. It's seemed to suit me just right, it wasn't too small to work in and have room to play and it wasn't so big that it was daunting to fill the page. Although I have some other store bought journals this one has been my favourite so I decided to make a similar one for 2012.

2012 Art Journal

I didn't have much in the way of watercolour scraps this time but I did have a few large sheets of similar paper. I can't remember what kind it was, it's smoother than water colour paper but still heavy enough to be able to work in any kind of medium I want. I decided to make this one a little bigger so it's about 6"x5 1/2". I used the same Butterfly binding because I really liked the openness it gave to each page. I used a corrugated board for the cover since I seem to have an excess of it and I really like the look. So now I'm ready for a new year of Art Journaling. I hope to get more of it done this year.

When I was searching for paper for my new Art Journal I came across some nice smooth black paper in my scrap pile so I made this book to try out some white on black zentangles. Can't wait to try it out.

If you haven't noticed yet I have a new winter schedule up on my workshop page. I'll be teaching at a few local studio's in the next few months as well as here in my own studio. At Earmark Studio I'll be teaching the Piano Hinge book and Metal embossing on canvas. At Laura Daub's Studio I'll be teaching metal embossing also. These ladies are both amazing artists and have beautiful studio's. To learn more about them check out their web sites.

Wendy

Distressing

No I'm not distressed, but I am distressing. In my art journal that is, because Simon Say stamp and show some distressing. How could I not step up to this challenge. I do so love to distress.

Now I'm heading over to Simon Says to see how everyone else is distressing. Are you distressing today?

I'm also entering this in the Artistic Stamper Layers challenge.

Valentine's art journal page.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I hope you are having a wonderful Valentine's Day. Mine was more stressful than usual...too much office work with programs not co-operating. But this evening looks better, the Tin Man just called to say he's bringing supper home and he wasn't even suppose to be coming home tonight, so that was a nice surprise!

This art journal page just came about because of all the Valentine's tags I've been doing lately I think. I did the background a while ago with masking tape and Distress ink. When I went back to it a few days lately it was curling up so much I decided to put a layer of gel medium on it and then about a week later I put the hearts on with more gel medium. Once that was dry I used markers to put in grass, leaves and stems. I think I'll probably add some word but I thought it was appropriate for today even if it's not finished.

Oh here's supper, gotta go. Have a wonderfully romantic evening!

Almost forgot, if you haven't entered the OWOH contest there is still time. Check it out here.

More art journaling for February.

Julie over at Balzer Designs has asked if we would like to participate for another month of Art Journaling and I am definitely in for more of the same. I don't get to it everyday but I've certainly done more than ever before and am enjoying it tremendously. It's slowly sinking into my mind that I don't need to do a whole page at a time. It's fun to just do little bits here and there and see where it goes from there. Before, I felt that once I got started I couldn't stop until I'd completed a page and it was hard to find the time for that. So I'll continue to explore with my art journaling for another month at least.

Oh, it's time for the One World One Heart event over at A Whimsical Bohemian. It's an amazing event where you can meet many wonderful bloggers and have a chance to win too. Check out her site for more information. It's her last year she will be holding the event so don't miss out. I will have my give away posted tomorrow some time. So come on back to check it out!

Bloom...

I've done a couple of Art Journal pages this week but this is my favourite. I started off with text from an old book for the background, continued with layers of gesso, paint, ink and glimmer mist till the background was finished. The flowers were already almost made from a previous project and the words were stamped on.

Now I'm off the my ATC meeting this afternoon. I'll try to remember to bring my camera so I can share everyones cards with you later.

Theme Thursday

I've been checking out a lot of blog challenges in the last few week. I seem to be drawn to them for some reason(I'll have to contemplate that later!) So I'm trying to choose a few to start with but it's been hard because their are so many great ones and I'm trying to get some peace and balance into my life right now. Although I think these challenges will start me on my 2011 Journey nicely I don't want to forget my other obligations...okay maybe I do want to forget them but it's not an option! Okay maybe I'm thinking too much again LOL.

Any way when I saw my friend Sheila's new challenge over on her photo blog, I was inspired right away, which is her theme for this month. So I looked around at what has inspired me this week and within minutes I had my photo ready to post. I just got these colourful Sharpie markers the other day and was working on my Art Journal front page while watching TV that night. I don't think it's finished yet but it's coming along. Last night I was reading this great book I picked up at the library called "Scraptastic!" by Ashley Calder. It has all sorts of different mixed media techniques for scrap booking. I think these techniques could be used for so many different kinds of project though. I don't know if you can see it but the book on the bottom of the pile is Rose Reisman's Family Favorite cook book that I received from a friend before Christmas. It's a great book. I've tried one recipe so far and have a lot marked to try. So this is what is inspiring me at the moment. So how about you, what's inspiring you?

New visions...

Yes I'm still here. Sorry I've been so neglectful of you blogger friends. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and happy new year. We had a wonderful time here with the boys home for a while.

My energy level at the beginning of the holiday was low with some old shoulder and neck issues bothering me along the way also so we kept things pretty quiet. As a result very little creativity was happening around here for the last few weeks and no energy for blogging. The Tin Man helped me de-Christmas the house and do some tidying over the weekend so today I was able to start my week in the studio. What a wonderful way to start the year. I have many new ideas and visions for this year. The lists are started. How about you? Any new ideas or visions for the new year? I'm not much on resolutions but I usually find myself writing many list this time of year. Luckily January is a pretty quiet time of year for me so I can work on my lists and new ideas. I've been checking out a few new blogs lately and found some new challenges for this year. I'm looking forward to sharing them with you through out the year. My first challenge is going to be to do an Art Journal Every Day with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer at Balzer Designs. I've signed up for the month of January. I don't know about doing it each day but I'll try. So far I have one done. I'll share it with you later this week.

I'll let you know about a few of the other challenges I'm thinking of doing later this week also. For now I think I'll go and play with a few of my new toys I got for Christmas as you can see above.

Get creating!

Journal pages

After finishing my Vision Board yesterday I found I had things inside me that I still wanted to get out, so I made these journal pages. It's really just about the things I learned about myself while doing the vision board. Sometimes I make excuses for not having or being what I want. Things like this isn't the house I want, my studio isn't want I would really like etc. So this is a reminder to myself that those things really aren't important in the end. Being who I want to be and achieving what I want are not conditional to these material things. It is what I do with my life that will get me where I want to be not the pretty things around me. No excuses it's time to be grateful for what I have and just do what ever it is I want to do with my life.

Art Journaling

Here is something that is very new to me. Does anyone already do Art Journalling. I've been hearing about it here and there for a while and have wanted to try it but didn't know where to start. Well I believe that if things keep popping up in your life it's time to pay attention.


As I was blog hopping during OWOH one of the bloggers(I'm afraid I don't remember which one!) mentioned Teesha Moore's videos about art journals. Well I couldn't wait to give it a try. So a few nights later while watching the Olympics with the Tin Man, I just had to get out my supplies and give it a try. It was so much fun I can't wait to do some more.


Even thought I'm not too sure about my first attempt, here it is. I wasn't really sure what kind of journal I wanted to write so I just started writing without thinking too much about it.

I find when I start paying attention to the signs, things just come to me. The day after doing this journal page I was in Indigo looking at the magazines and what should I find but the Art Journal Magazine. I didn't even know there was such a thing. I read it cover to cover last night and couldn't get enough. Even though it's full of other peoples art journal methods it's really about making it your own. I'm ready to get one started I just have to decide what kind of book I'm going to use.

If you already have an art journal tell me about it.