Tickets and Tags

This one took me a while to do.
And to settle on.
I'm not sure if it is finished but it will do for now.

I did it for the Blue Bazaar Art Journal Challenge which was to do some Collage Blocking.

It just so happens that I have a collection of tickets and tags and I decided to use them for this challenge. My original intention was for you to be able to see the tickets and tags but my first layer of paint dried a little too thickly and all was lost. Well, nearly all. :)

Hennyway. Here it is.


And here is a close up so that you can see the gold and sparkles :)


And here's the list of tags and tickets that I used - just in case you wondered.



There was a sticker that had the words "LEGS INSIDE" under a broad obtuse triangle (is that tautology?). Does anyone have any idea what that is from?

Eight and Seven Twelfths and other things

For the first time in Malachi's short life we decided to separate his birthday from Christmas and celebrate it closer to the middle of the year. We picked July because we don't have a birthday in July in our family.

So here's the boy with his 8+ birthday cake.


It ended up that we couldn't do sparklers that evening so we brought them out the next night and the kids had a bit of fun writing their names and swishing the sparklers all over the place. I was happy to stay behind the camera and try to capture the fun that way.


This is what you get when you forget that your camera is on the manual setting on BULB and you go to take a photo in the full sun!!!


And this is what it looks like when you get the settings right.


I had the pleasure of being able to sit in the sun and draw this challenging scene while I waited for the bus. I am so inspired but Urban Sketchers that I long for times like these - they don't come my way very often. Here's a little bit of my urban world.

Breaking In My Moleskine

Here are my first few pages in my moleskine.

The very first page was so hard to do.
I just 'wung' it!!!
And I am very happy with the result.



An unfinished page and some journalling about that moment.



I recorded a moment that was not really funny except that DH and I thought it was hilarious and cried laughing.
The elephants have no significance at all. They were already on the page stencilled from an elephant that Susannah cut out.
Ver' ver' cool.



The other day at the gym while I was jogging on the spot I read an article about focussing on what is right. It suggested that you would be surprised at how much good comes your way.
It's true you know.
The train (of thought, that is) chugged along and thought of that old hymn Count Your Blessings - gotta love a bit of ye olde English. Not that old, really.
Then I remembered that verse in Philippians (4:8) "...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
That's all on this next page!
Plus a list of as many things as I could thing of to be thankful for - many blessings.



Another unfinished page.



You should have seen Declan's face this morning.
I was making him a cup of silver tea - hot water, milk and sugar.
I have no idea where this name came from but it reminds me of Asterix in Britain :)
Anyway.
I asked Declan what kind of rice he wanted in his silver tea.
A mildly quizzical look crossed Declan's face which prompted me to revise my question.
Milk, I meant.
Oat milk or rice milk?



All my art journalling of late has been prompted, inspired and directed by Dina Wakley in her "Masterful" Art Journaling classes.

That's all for now.
:D

More sketches

I continue to be inspired by the Urban Sketchers blog. The sketches I see there just blow my mind. Generally speaking I don't make the time to go and sketch but when I am going somewhere on a train, or I know I will be waiting, I get excited that I might get to make an addition to my humble sketch book.
Here are some of my latest renditions.

Look what I found

...while looking for my wedding photos. Still!

A sketch book from about 1989ish and on a few years.

19 years

and I can't find our wedding photos!
They used to be at the studio as an example of why not to get your fave uncle to do your photos!
Now?
I don't know.

Here's a layout I did especially for today.


On Sunday night the conversation went something like this...
Her: Speaking of Tuesday (which we were, in relation to group certificates). If you haven't already done something, please don't buy flowers.
Him: I haven't.
Her: Just say Happy Anniversary.
Him: If I remember :) Happy Anniversary for Tuesday. I love you more every day (or something like that!)
Her: Happy Anniversary. I love you.

Caitlin was doing the Aussie Scrapjacked challenge so, because it is a Mum and Kids challenge, I did it too. So this is my rendition for that.

Here's Caitlin's layout.


Caitlin was just busting to use some Stewart Gill Byzantia paints to add sparkle to her layout. It's hard to see, but all the pale pink dots have a pretty pink sparkle and the green dots have a green shimmer just like the photo matt.

I'm off to see what other treasures I can find while looking for our wedding photos.

Cubism and Me

Inspired somewhat by Picasso's Le guitariste and somewhat by Femme en Pleurs is my page still me.


Nothing more to say about that, really.

Left- or right-brained?

I don't know - I think I'm straight down the middle.
Why do I ask?
Well Dina asked the question...

When you choose an image, do you consciously think of what it means to you, or do
you just choose it by instinct or impulse?

...and I think it is both!!!
Maybe my instinct or impulse influences my consciousness!
And then I got to wondering if this has to do with left-brained or right-brained stuff.
Maybe it has nothing to do with sides of brain.
Maybe it has a lot to do with OCD?
Maybe not.

Hennyway.

Teal is my colour of the moment. Did I tell you that already?


Then I picked the colour that I liked the 'feeling' of as my collage bit.

The figure I have used quite a lot on my art journal pages lately, is me! Well, actually, it's not really me but it represents me.
And when I use it as a mask on a book I am fussy about what words are shown on the page. Cos I wouldn't want them to say something that I didn't want them to say. Not that any of you read them, eh?!


So here's a journal page.


The journaling is about being happy about my weightloss. You don't need to be able to read it :)

The red touch just does it for me.

So really, I've mixed up a bit of van Gogh and Picasso and you'd know what I was talking about if you were doing "Masterful" Art Journaling with Dina Wakley. :) And I've mixed up my instincts and impulses with my conscious decisions.

Left- or right-brained?
Whatever!

Ain't that so?!?!?

I came across this sister quote...

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double. Toni Morrison.

and combined it with a collage challenge because I am doing the "Masterful" Art Journaling class ...

Use what's on your desk

... which I have done before - There was not much on my desk this time - and ended up with this.

Inspired by Picasso,

believe it or not!

No really. Picasso said, “Forcing yourself to use restricted means is the sort of restraint that liberates invention. It obliges you to make a kind of progress that you can’t even imagine in advance.”

I know this because Dina Wakley told me :) cos I'm doing her "Masterful" Art Journaling class. You should join in - it's great fun.


So here is what I restricted my self to...
2 colours of Glimmer Mist - the blue was very pale and didn't do what I wanted so that restricted me even more!!!
1 Heidi Swap Heart that I used as a mask/stamp.
1 Derwent Inktense Pencil - which turned out to be burgundy-coloured rather the purple I had in mind.

And here are the results of working 6 pages with the same products. I can see the progression and then the regression at No 5 and then the final one, which I really like. (The first three down the left and the second three down the right.)



More from my inspiration with Picasso soon.

Speaking of Picasso...
and restricted means...
Mr Picassohead is a fun, if not time wasting, little creative venture.
Just look at the gallery, if you don't feel creative, and see what other people have done with a limited number of drawing options.
And I'll leave you with the quote attributed to both John Lennon and Bertrand Russell. "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." :)

Kindness

I've been thinking about Colossians 3:12-13 which says "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

There's a lot in those couple of verses but the word that stood out to me in the last couple of days is "kindness".

And then I saw this quote from Tao te Ching, a Chinese classic text.
"Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love."

I told you in this post that I saw a face in this bit of art in progress.


Well, over the last couple of days I've worked on it and this is the result.


Things I worked out...
I like Manga eyes.
What Manga is.


My eyes aren't Manga eyes.
One of my eyes is closed-er than the other!
I'm into teal (the colour) at the moment.

Love Glimmer Mist

I just love Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels. It's just so pretty.

Tattered Angels has come out with a whole lot of new products and some new Glimmer Mist.

Glimmer Mist is the same great product

with a Fabulous NEW Look!

I'm telling you this cos I would love to win some, and I bet some of you might like to as well. Check out the Tattered Angels Blog for the how to.

Learning From The Masters

It's been a little while since I added something to my blog and that is mainly because it has been a while since I have finished anything to show you.

This week I have started doing another lot of classes with Dina Wakley - "Masterful" Art Journaling. Now, if you are at all interested in art journaling, mixed media, or even painting then this class would be a great place to start. (That was an ad, I guess!!!) And you can still register and do it.

So I had a bit of a play around with my paint.


Some of the results I like, Some.... hmmmm. Colour is very important to me. Some colours just don't do it for me. And sometimes it is just the mood I am in at the time.


Then a bit more playing around with colour and two envious artists wishing they could join me. Caitlin and Susannah joined in the fun.


Bet you can't tell whose is whose!!! Is that the right grammar? ... looking it up now - who's/whose. Okay. It's right!

Then these.


The left one, as you can see, was just calling out to me for some bubble wrap printing in orange. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted - it's a bit stark - but I'm working with it. Then the vintage rose plum type colour (actually Making Memories Razzleberry) was calling to me as well so I applied some to my corrugated cardboard piece and stamped that on as well.

I can see a face in it too. Wait 'til you see where I go with that!

That's all for now.
:D