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

So much texture and colour.

   When people come to the studio to do the Excavating Layers workshop they are expecting to make a 12" x24" canvas. But more often than not they walk away with 4 finished pieces. 

   The first time I taught this workshop, at the last minute I decided that I would have them do some practicing with the texture layers and colours on 3 small 5" x7" canvas boards. To my surprise and the students delight they worked out so well that they ended up with 4 finished pieces of art at the end of two days. Sometimes they do similar styles on all three boards and end up with a tryptic and sometimes they try a variety of styles and end up with 3 separate pieces. 

   This weekends I had two wonderfully creative students in the studio. They did a great job on all of their canvases.

Charlotte- 5" x 7"

Charlotte- 12" x 24"

Jane- 5" x 7"

Jane- 12" x 24"

   I hope you are finding some creative time this Victoria Day weekend.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Gelli Plate fun

It has been a few months since I've had my Gelli Plate out to play. So it was great fun to teach it to this amazing group of creative women for a day. In the Intro workshop we learn the basics of the Gelli Plate and do a lot of playing. At the end of the day we all made small books with one of our many prints. They did an awesome job.

Donna

Donna

Francoise

Guylain

Guylain

Johanne

Johanne

Spike

Spike

I definitely need to get my Gelli Plate out to play more often. I plan to do more experimenting and have some new workshops in the new year.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Gelli Plate workshop fun

I've probably said this before but it still holds true, Gelli Plate printing is just about my most favourite things to do right now. It is something that I get lost in and am totally consumed by it. 
This past weekend I had a great time teaching a small group of ladies how to do my layering technique on the Gelli Plate. They did some amazing work. Some pieces are finished and some will continue to be added to or used in other piece of art.

Chris

Deb

Deb

Josee

Josee

Have you tried the Gelli Plate yet? If not I highly recommend it. 

Happy Creating!

Wendy

End of the Tag A Day challenge

I'm at the end of another monthly challenge. I realized I've learned a few things from these challenges that I thought I'd share with you.  

Day 27- Perspective

Firstly, there is a reason they are called challenges and each month there has been a point where it really was a challenge although not always in the same way. Usually there comes a point in the month where I struggle to keep going. Wondering where all the ideas have gone and why did I think I could do a whole month of these!

Day 28- Art is...

And then at some point during the month I realized I'd gone a little off track from my original idea. With this months tags I did keep with the tag and stencil idea part but I also had some other things that I thought the tags would be that didn't entirely happen. I had hoped to use a larger variety of products on the tags so they could be reference samples in the future and this did happen on some of them, and it did give me an idea for a project more devoted for that purpose. 

Day 29- Calm

I also had planned for the tags to be inspirations creations that I could enjoy in the future which for the most part I think that happened. 

Day 30 Abundance

I learned that working on one tag(or project for that matter) at a time doesn't work for me. So it wasn't really one tag a day but I did get a tag done for each day of the month. And most days there was some time spent on tags. It is always good when I become more away of how I work best creatively.

Day 31- Past/Present/Future

And last but not  least, I learned that challenging myself is a good thing. I found each challenge made me focus more on the theme of the month and as a result I learned more about it.

Now with August's challenge done It's time to work on September. It's going to be a busy month for me so I think I'll make this next one a little easier. I'll share it will you very soon.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Tag a Day with Stencils

I'm not sure about it actually being A tag a day but they did get done and that's what counts, right!? Here is the next patch.

Day 21- What if...

Day 22- Choose

Day 23- Another time

Day 24- In the moment

Day 25- Happy Layers

Day 26 Peace

Getting near the end I had to push it to get all of them done and I learned a few things along the way that I will share with you on the next post.

Happy Creating!

Wendy