Happy Valentine ‘s Day

Here comes the Sun

If only the sun was coming! I could really do with it but instead it's a damp and grey day so I will have to content myself with these sunny pages. They were inspired by the latest prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures that read: "Here comes the Sun".  This spread is also heavy influenced again by MaryBeth Shaw's lesson on Creative Jumpstart 2017. I'm working in the notebook I mentioned in earlier posts and to which I now refer as the Peacock journal because it features sparkling peacocks on the cover. To make the pages sturdier I'm gluing them together as well as added a hefty dose of gesso before I begin to work on them.

I used collage with vintage papers, tissue wrap, paper napkins, scrapbook paper, a postage stamp, and vintage  textured wallpaper. Then Distress markers and paint were added with stencil S314 Entangling Threads from Stencilgirl Products, as well as S191 Open Buildings. The sun was cut from that textural wallpaper and I added some gold accents as well as sparkles (sadly you will not be able to see this on the pictures).

 I also used a mica spray in red such as on the left hand side of the picture above. 

 Some of the stencilled images were outlined in white. 

Tea Time

It's always time for tea as far as I'm concerned. Even though I was much more a coffee person in my youth. When I first came to the UK instant coffee was the only beverage on offer in most places and tea proved to be a much better and tastier solution. We  now have an excellent coffee machine (two in fact) and I have a double espresso first thing to kick start the day but the rest of the time it's tea all the way. So what better subject to dedicate my latest project as Guest Designer for Stencilgirl Products to. I'm also very happy to tell you that they are having me back once a month next year. It will be such a pleasure!

There is a full step-by-step tutorial for these pages, done in the A4 Dylusions art journal, on the Stencilgirl Talk site here.  It mentions all the steps I took in detail, and also tells you the stencils I used with a link right to the Stencilgirl Products site where you can find them. 

I also used a paper napkin for that lovely teashop imagery and another one for the flowers. Napkins are a much underestimated art supply in my opinion. There are some gorgeous patterns and images to be found on them and to be honest I buy them almost exclusively for that as dinner parties are not really my thing. A visit to a tea shop is much more up my street.

Hope you are enjoying a lovely cuppa while reading this. And don't forget to follow the link to the tutorial.

Mistakes

The August theme on The Documented Life Project 2016 remains: And then again No - the power of saying no. Our art challenge was to use a self-portrait. You will be familiar with my younger self if you have been a regular reader of this blog. There she is, at 16, a people pleaser if ever there was one, but although unknown to her at that time with a steely core somewhere inside. I'm quite proud of how she turned out although there is always room for improvement, of course! I have shared my ideas on the virtues of saying no here on last week's post.

The background of this spread done in the 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal,  is a riot of stencilling and stamping. The stencilling was done using the medium and large stencils from the March 2016 Stencilgirl Club, as well as stencils S371 Paste Paper and the large stencil from April 2015 Club (for the blue flowers). I also collaged on bits from a flower themed paper napkin. I used a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer designed art foamie called Polka Dots (totally in love with this one!) as well as a text rubber stamp sheet from Darkroom Door.

After glueing on my self portrait I surrounded her with both written and stencilled text. The latter comes from Stencilgirl's L318 Wall of Words stencil. The hand written quotation reads: "No is a complete sentence. It does not require justification or explanation.".  I try! But not always succeed. I have however become much more aware of the occasions when the words: "I'm sorry but" are about to come out of my mouth and try and catch them before they emerge.

 Maybe one day I will be perfectly comfortable about saying no. 

Although I have made many mistakes, and will no doubt make many more, I have no regrets. Mistakes are how we learn and go on learning all through life. I do however try to avoid making the same mistake twice which is perhaps the best we can hope for.

Mystery creates Wonder

The prompt for week 20 on Colour Me Positive is: Wonder, and the art challenge to use bubbles. My spread, done in the A4 Dylusions art journal, was inspired by two gifts I received last week. In fact one was the wrapping paper my gorgeous gift was packed in which featured many colourful butterflies. The other was a package of paper napkins, featuring Ot and Sien . If you are not familiar with these characters you didn't grow up in The Netherlands! You can read more about them (in English) here.

Who could not wonder at the beauty of butterflies? They were the basis for the colour scheme of these pages. The background was made using a stencil of large sequin waste that I thought I had lost but hurray, it turned up again when I was clearing up my studio so that in itself was enough reason to put it to good use. It's much larger than the usual sequin waste and I have never seen the resulting sequins anywhere sadly.

To this background I added flowers and leaves from a paper napkin. I stamped on the background with a Tim Holtz French text stamp as well as with the required bubbles (from the Thin Lines Cube by JudiKins)

I cut out the individual butterflies and adhered them to the pages with matte medium and I did the same for the Ot en Sien image from the paper napkin. I found a quotation about WONDER that reads as follows: "Mystery creates Wonder and Wonder is the basis of man's desire to Understand". It's by Neil Armstrong who certainly had occasion to wonder in his life. It was stamped on as shown. Of course I couldn't resist adding a postage stamp.

Believe in Yourself

This week's prompt on Colour Me Positive is: expanding yourself, and the art challenge was to put some wings on your page. 

I started with the background which was done with acrylic paints and the Line Waves stencil from Stencilgirl Products. On that background I glued pieces from 2 different paper napkins; one of flowers and the other of gold ornamental scroll patterns.  I took my inspiration from the colours of the background  to go and look for imagery.

I found a golden angel (with wings!) that came from a painting by Simone Martini (dated 1333) of the Annunciation. Originally I was going to add Mary too but I decided that would take the expanding theme a step too far (or maybe several steps!). She also looked rather miserable and that didn't fit the golden theme the pages were taking on.

Instead I found a themed box of rubber stamps by Anna Griffon, called Bees & Dragonflies and stamped on the dragonflies in golden and the bees and diamond shapes in black. I then discovered another dragonfly image in my collection and glued that on too.

The words of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling to me encapsulated the "expanding yourself" theme and I knew I had cut it from a newspaper some time ago. The words I liked best were added to the page.

The final rubber stamping and the one that provided the title of this spread (done in my A4 Dylusions journal) came from a rubber stamp from Donna Downey and it says:

"Trust in

your potential,

enjoy the process,

try

something new,

explore

possibilities, 

but most of all 

believe"

I added to that at the bottom: in yourself..

I did some outlining with black and white markers and added a further quotation written in: "If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you. 

Go with all your Heart

It's a sparkling day outside with plenty of snow on the ground and with the sun high in the sky. It was a joy to walk the dog this morning even though it was very cold. The sunshine has managed to find it's way onto my journal pages too.

This spread was made for Colour Me Positive in my large (A4) Dylusions art journal. Our prompt this week was: "wherever you go, go with all your heart", and the art challenge: to collage one (or two or three) things onto your spread. I started with my sunshine background using the Scribble Scratch Handwriting stencil from Stencilgirl. I thought about the "going" aspect of the quotation as well as the heart one (hearts galore at the moment in all my online groups!) and found paper napkins with both the car image and another one with the small hearts and they were collaged on as shown.

I had to find someone to do the "going" and just a few days before I had received the perfect image to do this. I was super lucky to win one of the prizes at the Creative Jumpstart 2016 online course in the shape of Nathalie Kalbach's rubber stamp set Fashion Dame (produced by Stampendous). Nathalie is the organizer of Creative Jumpstart, a class I specially enjoyed this year as all the art was inspired by 4 great artists: Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Basquiat, and Anselm Kiefer. The lessons can be downloaded to your own computer and although I have watched them all, I know I will return to them time and again.

The stamp is wonderful and very reminiscent of those books of paper dolls and their outfits I remember from my youth, so a lovely bit of nostalgia. She was positioned by the side of the car and dressed in an outfit made from my under paper (the paper I have on my worktable when I'm painting, to catch all the drips etc.).  The stamp package also had an additional stencil and I used that in the background too, with Dylusions spray ink.

The big hearts were drawn in and also filled with that under paper glued on (another bit of collage as per the challenge) and outlined with black and white markers. The text was stamped on using one of my many sets of alphabet stamps and another stamp reading: Journey of the Heart was added to the pages as well. Finally I added another mode of going or transportation in the shape of the postage stamp.

Be Brave

Already we have received our second prompt from Colour Me Positive, a year long challenge that is entirely free and provides the participants with a prompt as well as a challenge for every week of 2016. Our prompt was: Be Brave, and the art challenge: to use a silhouette.

Because my word of the year for 2015 was COURAGEOUS I have acquired many rubber stamps with courage related words that came in very handy for this spread in my large Dylusions journal. Despite the fact that this is only my 2nd spread in this journal I already had to do some repair work. Last year I filled up a similar journal without any remedial work at all. Anyway, I had added some strong tape which as it happened had the images of bird cages on it. This made me think of escaping from the cage in which we very often lock ourselves and that led to the entire spread.

The background was made using acrylics and stencils from Stencilgirl. I used S232 Inky Circles,  the large stencil from March 2014 Stencilgirl Club and the large Cornish Petals one. The rubber stamped quotations were added and the daisy images (from paper napkins).

I added the silhouette by cutting out a face from a fashion magazine, gluing it on and painting it black, leaving the eye, and the lips exposed. The bird (from an old Flow magazine) was glued on as shown. Some vintage text about courage and bravery(from an old dictionary) was added as well as a postage stamp featuring a lion (a symbol of courage). Finally some outlining was done with white and black markers and I added the quotation: "Creativity takes Courage" from Henri Matisse.

Gratitude

The Documented Life Project 2016 is now under way and reading about it before hand I thought it was going to concentrate more on making and decorating a planner. I have a gorgeous diary (Michel Designs Garden Diary) and wasn't really that interested. So I looked for alternatives to continue working in art journals and I found it in the shape of Colour Me Positive, a year long project with weekly themes. You can find it here (the website is based in Australia). It has now been revealed that DLP16 will also have themes which I can use to art journal. Not sure I have the time to do both each week, but I will simply do what I can and what inspires me. The first spread I have done in my new large Dylusions journal is for Colour Me Positive's first theme of Gratitude. You will be able to see all my contributions for CMP by clicking on the new label (underneath this post, and in the sidebar) of Colour Me Positive.

I used a different Gratitude quotation than the one we were given as I wanted to use a flowery theme on the page to lift the greyness of the weather outside.  It reads: "Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul" (Henry Ward Beecher). The background colours are garden inspired and I used Stencilgirl's August 2015 stencils.

I added images of pot plants by glueing on paper napkins (using only the top layer). The circular flower images on the right came from photographs I took last summer and which were featured on Instagram. I had them printed by Social Print Studio and punched out the circles. They also fulfil the challenge set on Colour Me Positive this week of using something from 2015.

 The stamped flowers and flower texts come from the Full Bloom 2 stamp set by Darkroom Door.

I added a self-portrait from 2015 as well and then added just some of the things I'm grateful for in the shape of words cut from a variety of magazines. Washi tape was added in various places as shown. The quotation was hand written on a fragment of a page removed from that old ledger I mentioned recently. I used Distress Ink to vintage it up.

It felt great to have that first spread in the journal. Can't wait to fill them all up over the course of 2016.

L'Art de Vivre

When I made the spread I posted here yesterday I noticed that there were only 2 spreads left in my Dylusions art journal. They were beckoning me to finish the journal this year.  I made the above pages yesterday and I will do the last spread within 2015! I wish I could leave those uber ambitions behind me but they seem to be too deeply ingrained.

Today is also an anniversary of sorts for me as it was exactly 36 years ago that I first came to the UK. Not in a VW van, I'm sad to say, but a bit of poetic licence is what art is all about. It was a very stormy crossing!!! Fortunately I don't suffer from seasickness. I think I can truly say that I didn't fully embrace l'art de vivre (the art of living) till I landed on British soil. I do always remember it. It's one of those dates stamped somewhere on my heart. It hasn't always been plain sailing but I have never regretted it either.

The background of the spread was made with a variety of paint colours and again using the large stencil from the Stencilgirl Club December 2015. Before I even used the paints I had already stamped on the pages using another 2 rubber stamps designed by France Papillon for Stampotique (Rusted Rivets and French Journal Page). I just love her designs. The twigs with buds came from a paper napkin. The van came (appropriately!) from a Dutch magazine, while the lad up the tree is vintage and the woman from the latest issue of Vogue. A strange mix but somehow they work together to tell my story.

 The wise owl knows what it all means!

I think that in all those years I have mastered the art of living and also of living my art. There was yet another reminder today that our lives are incredibly fragile (it has been a sad year in that respect) and that we have no control over how long it lasts. That means it is even more important that we make our days count and not let the years fly by mindlessly. Every day matters and for me it is my art that matters most.

Wordless

We are still telling stories with the written word for The Documented Life Project 2015 December theme. Our art challenge this week is: use quote or lyrics as storytelling. And the journalling prompt is: "One of the hardest things is having words in your heart that you can't utter" (James Earl Jones).  Well in contrast to that, my words just spilled out onto the pages this week. I started with the background in various colours where I rubbed out the words using stencils and a baby wipe. All the stencils I used were word ones, mainly designed by Carolyn Dube for Stencilgirl. 

I stencilled on more words in the more conventional way, through the stencils. Finally words were collaged on. You could say I did all this randomly but to be honest I had by that stage already decided on the image I wanted to use as my focal point and the words I glued on have some relevance to Ophelia and her fate as I was after all, story telling! Pieces of a paper napkin with hearts were added to the pages (using only the top layer). I also rubber stamped on more text.

 Ophelia took centre stage. She comes from a painting by John Everett Millais, one of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Ophelia committed suicide as told in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The words I used all in some way echo that. But mere words can't describe such an act completely. It usually leaves us WORDLESS (added through a letter stencil, outlined in black and filled in with a white marker).

As per our art challenge I also added a further quotation that comes from an old French proverb. It reads:

La vie est à moitié finie avant que l’on sache en quoi elle consiste

This is usually translated into English as: Life is half spend before one knows what life is. I'm leaving the interpretation of the story I'm telling on this spread to whoever is reading this. I'm keeping my words in my heart and won't utter them!

There needed to be a connecting line across the pages for compositional purposes, so postage stamps featuring flowers and matching colours were added in the two opposite corners of the spread. If I had known when I started in what direction the pages would move, I might have used less happy looking colours but in a way that contrast too tells it's own story.

The Tapestry of Life

The November theme for The Documented Life Project 2015 remains: Stencils, Stamps & Masks. Our art challenge this week is to use: hand carved stamps, and the journalling prompt: Tapestries". Somewhere at the back of my mind I remembered a quotation about tapestry and life but it took a bit of dedicated searching to retrieve it. It comes from Sherrilyn Kenyon's book Kiss of the Night and reads:

"Life is a tapestry woven by the decisions we make".

The past few days have taught all of us that the warp and weft of our lives are also deeply affected by the decisions made by other people. All we can do in the face of this is to continue to live our own lives as best we can, making our own choices and walking our own paths. The rest is, and will always be, out of our hands. I consciously made the choice to apply happy, bright colours to represent my tapestry.

 

I used the Cornish Petals stencil from Stencilgirl to give that impression of a tapestry. Yellow, orange, pink and turquoise Dylusions paints provided the background colours. I added tissue paper (of leaves) and pieces of a paper napkin (featuring pansies). I did use hand carved stamps as per our challenge, although the hands that carved the stamps weren't mine! Instead I used some of my small wooden flower stamps that I have collected over the years.

 

The letters of the quotation come from a Letters Sticker Book (American Crafts). They were white and I outlined them with a permanent black marker.

 

Finally I added one of my favourite art elements: postage stamps. They were primarily chosen for their colour and size and as you can see include a set making up one of Vincent van Gogh/s self-portraits, and also a painting by Manet, whose work I love.

 

In case you're wondering (as I did) about Udmurtia (where the Van Gogh stamps were issued) it's a region in the Upper Volga area of the old USSR, where both Russian and Udmurt are spoken. I had never heard of it till I Googled it and chillingly it's the birthplace of the AK47 Kalashnikov rifle. It's also one of the few regions in the world where shamanism is still actively practised. Sometimes you discover links you had much rather remained ignorant off. Even this remote and probably highly dangerous place now seems to be on the tourist map. I did wonder how Vincent made his way onto their postage stamps!

 

 

Some of the rest of the stamps are purely random but I did manage to also incorporate a Dutch stamp of Queen Wilhelmina. I was still a child when she died but remember images of her funeral very well, with all the main mourners dressed in white. It's funny how such memories drift back just by looking at a postage stamp. It's one of the reasons why I love them so much.

 

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