Artful Soul

Sometimes when I work on a piece I know exactly what I want to do even before I start. Sometimes it just evolves as I work. This is one of those pieces. I had no idea where I was going until all of a sudden it began to speak to me and directed my strokes.

The background began with strips of tape and book pages. Then I used inks with a lot of drippage. Next layers were acrylic paints and a music stamp. I popped dotted (raised) a copy of an original bluebird watercolor I painted last week during the big snow. The quote was from Andy Warhol and just sort of fit this piece. I printed it on a piece of Braille paper. What a cool effect it gave.

I had a lot of fun with this piece. Got my fingers messy, relaxed and just created.




"art is whatever you can get away with". Andy Warhol









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Smile

This tag uses chipboard and diecuts. I made a doily stencil with one of my diecuts. Used it in the background with spray ink and then used the aluminum foil piece to put on the tag under the saying. The key is made from a recycled cardboard piece that my 18 m/o grandson painted, and then cut with TH die. The stamp saying was stamped on deli paper and was one I hadn't used yet.



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All you need is love

This art journal page was inspired by our church bulletin. The minute I saw it, I knew I had to do a page with it. It is based on I Cor. 13.




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Thankful

I've done quite a few things lately but I just haven't posted. This art journal page was a result of a challenge. I love fall and all the beautiful colors of fall. The challenge was to do something about being thankful. I have so much to be thankful for in my life, I just wanted to express that thankfulness.




I used alcohol inks on parchment paper to make the leaves. The bigger background leaves were inspired by some real leaves I found in a store parking lot. They were drawn, painted and cut out to collage on the background. After collaging I added some more color with pan pastels. The three oak leaves were die cut on some book paper and paper towels used in cleanup from another project. I used my black stabilo pen to give depth to the leaves.
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Falling Leaves

This art journal spread was really fun to create. It was inspired by a page that I saw where the artist used manilla tag's as the base to create the leaves.

This jump started my creative energy and off I went. I love this page!

I used Manila tags as the base to cut the tags, acorns, and pumpkins. The media included in these two pages were distress stains. Inks, gelatos, paints, Pitt pens, gesso, thread, stamps, TH tissue paper, glossy accents and grunge letters.




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Breathe

This page was built around the orange/rust colors in this girl. She was on a piece of junk mail that I got. When I saw her I knew I wanted to create a page in my journal around her. I just loved the colors.




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Colorful Tag

Challenge for this was to make something colorful. Use the neons if possible. I love birds so I decided on this colorful little tag.




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Mail Art Swap

Joined a mailart swap. The theme was use one color. So I decided on pink. You could use white and black also. Mailed off my little pig today. I hope the recipient enjoys her.




This is the comment from the girl that received her mail art. "Hi! I received my mail art today, too! Well, actually, it may have arrived sooner, but I just went to get the mail today, so it was a great surprise! It's so colorful, and I love the texture! Thanks for all of your hard work. Yes, it's funny we both chose pink! Great minds think alike! Haha!".

Of all the colors to choose from in the color palette, we both chose pink. Thought that was kinda funny.

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More pages for handmade journal

I added some pages to my handmade journal. At the suggestion of a friend, I documented how special some of the features of this journal are to me.
















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Handmade Journal

I handmade this journal. I used the covers from an old hymnal that I altered.

The cover: I cut out a niche in the front cover to place the gelli printed girl. The binding piece is an old paint brush with beads wired around the handle. The binding fabric I used is from a negligee I received as a wedding gift so many, many years ago.

I made the frame out of pieces of cardboard I cut with my Cuttlebug and dies. I covered them with molding paste and aged with paint. I also used some lace pieces given to me from a friend.

The crystal piece on the bottom of the frame is a crystal from my mom's old chandelier that had been ruined in hurricane Bonnie. The jeweled piece for a closure is from my grandmother's broken earring. Since neither my mom or grandmother is still alive, both of these pieces make the journal mean even more to me.

The papers: I cut pages from various types of papers. They were old book pages, used envelopes, water color paper, music pages, library cards, tags and anything else I could find to use if it appealed to me.

One of the pages is a color copied portion of a letter that my father wrote to my grandmother when he was stationed in the Pacific during World War II. You can see the edge of the letter in the picture.

Many of the pages have already been gelli printed and ready to use. Some of the pages have already been completed.

I'm very excited to work in this journal. I love so many things about this journal. It makes me smile every time I pick it up.
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Findings and Trinkets Challenge

Marianne from PAO inspired me to try a Finnabair technique. So I looked at her tag video again and attempted to make a tag sort of like hers. Learned a few things that would make it better next time. First picture is how it looked before the spray, spray, spray process. I should have let the spray layers dry a little more before adding more. Oh well.







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Indian Princess

Did another two pages in the journal. Drying time again. Just couldn't get the shine out of the picture but will be gone once it's dry. I'm really liking the journal. The background started out as a gelli print. This is in the challenge journal.




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Front and back of challenge journal

Here's the back and front covers of the journal. The whole journal is gelli printed. The cover is on the right side of picture. It is opened out for drying. I may go back later and add a quote. Haven't decided yet.




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Altered box

I was cleaning the other day and came across my Gypsy box. I needed another straight edged box to hold inks and thought this would be perfect. The bottom has a divider. I altered the bottom with gelli printed deli and tissue printed papers. Covered with gloss medium. I will do the top the same way and use for something else. Recycle and reuse!

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Walk by Faith

AJ pages using gelli print background and sentiment. Her dress and hat is also a gelli print. Saw this quote posted by a friend and decided I wanted to use it in my art journal with this girl.

"She is one of those people with a bright smile on her face, a light spring in her step, and a true sweetness in her spirit. Walk by faith."


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AJ journal challenge

Ok, so this is my first attempt at a page following the directions in our PAO challenge. You just can't hurry the drying. I probably would get a very different effect I had waited between stages for the drying. But a gal has got do to go what a gal has to do. I don't have much time to play so I just went for it. Pam said if we like it then it's alright. I am satisfied with the result. BTW, the background started as gelli prints.

The paper across the bottom is from a color copied letter my dad wrote to his mom during WWII while he was in the Pacific.




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Awesome Pig

The background pages are gelli prints and I glued them into my journal. This particular journal is an old altered book. I copied the pig in b/w from the original canvas I painted before I gave to my GD, knowing I'd want to use again at some point. Since the background is so colorful, I wanted to show the gelli prints and I did the rest in b/w. I found this quote on Pinterest and thought it perfect for the page. "Weird is a side- effect of Awesome".
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Be You

An AJ page just for fun. Quote " Be the You of your SOUL". I think she has soulful eyes and wild hair. I like her!
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February tag

I made two versions of the Tim Holtz February tag. I didn't have all the items he used so I made my version. I also made two different size tags. The first one is the smaller tag which I've opted to do for the 2013 tags. I actually like it the best. They're fun to do and don't take a long time to do.


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Monochromatic Triangles Challenge

The challenge this month was to do a project using three triangles of any size BUT you also had to make your item monochromatic.
So there are three triangles in the crown and the wings and crown form a triangle shape.
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