Just Keep Swimming Journal 52

Journal 52, Week 26: Under the Sea. This was really a fun piece to work on. I had different techniques that I was just itching to try and decided that this was the one I would do that on. First, I grabbed a piece of tagboard that already had some gesso and splotches of blue acrylic paint on it. Then I took a piece of deli paper, wrinkled it up, sprayed it with Dylusions in blues and yellow and added it to the cardstock with Yes paste. When it was dry, I went over the top lightly with a white ink pad. The fish were cut out from some coffee filters that I had squiggled some white glue on and than dropped some inks, followed by Dylusions in yellow. I added a black ink dot eye with white gel pen highlight. The words were written with a clear embossing pen on to the deli paper. I used a white embossing powder, embossed and applied with a matte gel medium. On of my favorite yarn/spinning podcasters is Dr. Gemma, a psychologist who's mantra is "just keep swimming." I added the waves with some old gelli printed paper, bubbles with a pencil eraser and white stamp pad, hook from jewelry supplies, and a yarn worm with gold Stickles.

I love The Frugal Crafter and some of my ideas come from her. I often find ideas on the Internet and can't remember who to credit, but Lindsay showed the deli paper techniques. She has a lot of great video tutorials.

WASTE NOT
I had a wreck with my Glossy Accents. I was trying to unclog it when it decided to explode onto my work space. So, I quickly grabbed some flowers that I had punched out of leftovers and dunked them into the puddle. They dried nice and shiny. I used the same deli paper techniques for this piece as well.

Trompe l'oeil - Journal 52 Nature - Waste Not

Trompe l'oeil, fool the eye, was the prompt for Lesson 28 in Pam Carriker's Creating Art at the Speed of Life. This was a fun one. My hubby and I love to take trips on old fashioned steam engine trains and do you think I could find a suitable photo of my own to use? Of course not. But, good old Internet, I found what I was looking for. Same for the cat. I have tons of my own cats posing in all kinds of cute ways, but none looking the other way, so back to the Internet. This is my final. Both photos were printed in black and white, fussy cut, and then I had some fun with my Copics:


















Journal 52's prompt for this week was "Nature". Since I have been playing with watercolors this week as I work on classes for the Derwent Academy, I decided to do a watercolor of the miniature roses growing in my backyard.













And my "Waste Not" of the week. I found some Spellbinders dies on clearance at Michael's. They just wouldn't work for me. The paper just got stuck in the crevices and made an unusable mess. I was going to return them when I decided that I should look up the issue on the Internet. I found several places where the advice was to put waxed paper between the dies and the paper and it worked! So, I made some more passes with the dies and the waxed paper. When I finished with my pretty new cut-outs that could be used for cards or art journaling, I had the cut out waxed paper pieces too. The art journal page that I was playing with at the moment had some flowers already. I held down the waxed paper and pounced over it with Broken China Distress Paint, then flipped it over and pressed to make a reverse image, then glued down the original piece of waxed paper. (The flowers are from a stamp that I had made with craft foam and the center purple was just some paper that had overspray that I just couldn't bear to part with.)

Courage Journal 52 and a Study in Gray

Courage seemed to be the word this week. If you hop over to my Zentangle page for this week,  you will see that one of the tangles was for Beads of Courage. For Journal 52's prompt of Courage, I went to my two favorite quotes on courage. First is from Winston Churchill. I had this one hanging up in my workspace before I retired. It often got me through difficult days: "Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." And, second is the moral behind the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz: "True courage is facing danger when you are afraid."

Dylusion sprays in Cherry Pie and Vibrant Turquoise splashed with water. Circle template with shelf lining with holes dabbed with yellow acrylic. Dry wall tape dabbed with Unbleached Titanium Ecru, markers.

I also got another page done in the Creating Art at the Speed of Life. We were to do only black and gray. I had to share one of those "cute kids" moments from when my son was watching a black and white TV movie and I commented "That's what it was like when I was young." He thought about that for a moment and asked me what was it like before they invented color. He thought the "real" world was black and white LOL!

Paper Napkin Art Jounal Pages

Have you ever read about some technique that you haven't tried and gotten all excited about it but didn't have the XY or Z that you needed at the time? Then, you forgot all about it? Well, I was just at Target and saw some flower napkins in their dollar bins and remembered that I wanted to try adding napkins to my journal pages. I found a page that was really just leftovers from stencils, loaded paintbrushes, and pulled prints. So I cut out a few of the blue flowers, separated the layers so I could use the top one (I remember someone saying to blow on the napkin and it will separate - and it does! I would give them credit, but it was long ago.) I used matte medium and found that the top left one shredded a bit. Must remember to be more gentle HAHA! I also used the other layer to soften some of the black swirls too. This was a lot of fun and I am now on the hunt for more napkins!

If You Shout, I Can't Hear You

My Passion

Journal 52, Week 23, had a prompt of "Passion." I thought back to when I was a child. I wanted to be a teacher. I would line up all my dolls in front of my chalkboard and "teach" them all the things that I did not know. Learning and teaching go together in my mind. You can't be a teacher if you are not passionate about learning. As an adult, I always found myself in a bad place if I wasn't learning something new, so when it was getting time to retire, I stocked up on books and materials so that I wouldn't have a moment to become anxious. My husband says he is proud of how easily I moved into retirement. The secret, and my passion, is to keep on learning, playing, trying new things, and sharing with others.

Background was a piece of tagboard that I prepped many moons ago. I have no idea what it is. Collage, tag, stamped and written words. Stabillo pencil shadows and white highlights.

I Love Pancakes

I found that stencils are a whole lot less expensive when you buy them from the paint department at places like Home Depot. This was one I picked up yesterday for less than two dollars by Tracy Moreau from Americana that I sprayed with Dylusions in Pink Fuchsia into my Paperblanks journal. Then I added the background color with Neocolor crayons and blended with a baby wipe. I added the bird and flower with a stencil, Everyday Fun by Show-Offs, and heavy-body white acrylic, then a blue Gelato. I added some cutouts over the wing, flower and tailfeathers from some paper I had done Gelli printing on. Stamped notes (Stampendous) and butterfly (Sarah Beise), words with green Faber-Castell green Pitt pen and white accents with Molotow Pen.

Journal 52 - Traveling with Jack Sparrow and Forever Happy!

Journal 52, Week 22,  prompt was "Traveling"! Where would you like to travel and how would you get there? Well, as you can see, I am on my way to a beautiful island. I am traveling there by a ship that is captained by Jack Sparrow, and, of course, he will be unable to leave me all alone on that beach with nothing but my art supplies LOL!

I did a bit more collage that I usually do for this one. Bella acrylics in bluebird and gold nugget thickly applied to cardstock. Added a bit of white pen and molding paste for waves. Used Copic airbrush for darker sky. Sun is Copic airbrushed music paper, white paper cloud, Nana's Kids paper for blanket and umbrella, Ship and drawing supplies from an advertisement, chopstick colored with E25 Copic for umbrella holder.  Forever and Happy from Stampabilities.