The Goddess from Avalon

This week's Life Book lesson, week 34, comes to us by Alena Hennessy and is called "Painting the Muse." Currently I am reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and am enjoying it thoroughly. I have been having an image of The Goddess going through my mind as I read and I chose to paint her today.

I used acrylic paints for the background with a credit card and my fingers. I added texture with the moon using joint compound which I later covered with Texture Luxe Gold. (Note to self, always remember to put a layer of petroleum jelly around the edges of jars that will glue themselves together if you don't!) I used watercolor crayons, white and black Stabillo pencils, gold and silver Wink of Stella, and some gel pens in gold.

Hamsa and Zentangle®

Life Book, Week 31, Traced Hand Hamsa Protection Symbol with Rachael Rice is probably my favorite lesson so far this year. I loved that it was short and to the point with just enough encouragement to get us going but allowing the creative juices to flow without getting drowned in them. Of course, as a Certified Zentangle Teacher, the design work was meaningful for me. I loved playing with watercolors, markers, pens, colored pencils and pastels for this one.

Letting Go and Letting In

For week 30 on Life Book, we had a fun lesson from Flora Bowley on Letting Go and Letting In. Sometimes I find making messes like this freeing, but this week, I really didn't want to let go or let in. But, I did and this is what happened:

You Will Never Know What I'm Thinking

Life Book, Week 28. Layers of You. We started with a collage and wound up with this:

 The "doodle" is Frost Flowers, a tangle by Kerry Heun. The large "button" is chipboard with Crackle Paint and Silver Pearls.

 

 

 

 

Original Collage

Warrior Princess

Life Book,Week 26, is to draw our Inner Warrior Princess with excellent instruction from Andrea Gomol. I immediately though of a princess who, like me, is inspired by music and uses it to motivate herself.

I pulled out my Neocolor Watercolor Crayons, some Dylusion markers, my Fude pen, some silver Pearls, a musical stamp, white paint pen and a fine line Sharpie. I like her determined look.

If I Were a Man?

Life Book 2015 - Week 23 - Magic, Vulnerability & Courage with Tamara Laporte

Hummm, draw/paint a male. Interesting. I watched the first two videos and then just went off on my own because I was on a roll. I have heard that you always draw yourself, maybe your inner self, and I think "he" looks more like me than a lot of my other paintings. I used lots of different types of colors. Neocolor ll, acrylics, Distress and Tombow markers, Fude pen, and paint pens. I added stamps and a plastic heart.

Opposites Attract - Playing with Spectrum Noir Aqua Markers

Life Book, Week 21. Bonus: Black & White Cookie with Lynn Whipple. Great lesson in comparisons. All about the lights vs. darks, the good and the bad, the shadow side of things. It made me think of "opposites attract" and so I went for the storm, the flowers and the rainbow that bridges the two. 

I got my new set of Spectrum Noir watercolor markers yesterday and was just itching to play. I did the technique where you color on your stamps and spritz with water before stamping. That was a lot of fun. These flower stamps, from Totally Tracy, gave me the space to do some tangling as well. I did add a white paint pen, but everything else is my new markers.

Always Look Twice

Week 20, Unravelling through Mark Making with Jenny Doh, really had me excited to just let the lines flow. The base went down perfectly. I wanted to do a face with a pallet knife, like Jenny did. Oh, what a disaster. I looked in horror at the black mess on my paper. Not going to let it beat me! Nothing is is stone! This is fun. Smeared some white acrylic (with my pallet knife) and filled a fine tipped bottle with black acrylic and let the face come out as it pleased. I am loving this!

The Choices We Make

 Life Book, Week 19, Stamping Shadow and Light with Jessica Swift.

I love handmade stamps and have a bit of a collection, so this was fun to do. I wanted to just one page and have the transition from dark to light, as life usually happens. I wanted the dark to represent what we are not in control of, the swirls represent how life can toss us about, and the light represents how we deal with those things.

The two stamps on the top, I did today. The ones on the bottom are older ones. I had intended to use these but wound up not using the bottom star and adding a curved piece that I carved but had not photographed.

Here's Looking at You

Life Book, Week 18, Here's Looking at You!, with Kristin Van Valkenburgh. We had our childhood self write a letter to our current self. My childhood names are on the paper doll dress as well. I kind of went my own way with this one. But, don't we all? That's the fun of art journaling, no rules! 

I used acrylic for the background, added my own washi style tape, Peacock feather and clock stamps, dress stamp by Dyan Reaveley colored with Spectrum Noirs and Neocolor ll crayons. My childhood names were added in black. She was fussycut and outlined with a china marker and then a gray Neocolor ll. White for writing and accents.

Feel the Moment - A Portrait

Week 17, Feel the Moment: Painting an expressive portrait with Jenny Wentworth. I'm starting to see a common look to my face paintings. I wonder if I am painting myself? I can change the hair and the eye color, but they still look like I put a wig on them and it's really the same person. It must be the way I see people. Eyes are more important than anything else as they reflect the soul, health, and happiness of a person. Words can lie, but eyes can't.

I used many layers of acrylics and, at the end, used some Cray-Pas, colored pencils, Pitt pens for details. Her hair was done with acrylics and a sea sponge then scribbled with a brown pastel pencil. The words are with a Fude Ball pen and roughed up with sandpaper.

Enjoy Your Today

Week 16 for Life Book is  "Quick be here now painting with Alena Hennessy".

 
 This was an interesting assignment. We were to take only 15 minutes to just let the paint flow and do what it wanted to. Alena used Yupo paper and I happened to have some since I use it for my alcohol ink work, so I thought I'd give it a try. There was no way for me to do this in only 15 minutes though as acrylic just doesn't dry quickly on the Yupo. And, I also have a life, phones ring, dogs need to go out, or hubby interrupts with whatever happens to be important to him LOL! However, I did let everything just flow with whatever it wanted to do without preplanning or much thought. For some reason, a conversation I had with one of my now grown sons when he was just a young boy kept going through my head. At bedtime, he would ask, "When will it be tomorrow?" To which I would reply, "When you wake up in the morning, it will be tomorrow." Yet, each morning, when he asked if it was now tomorrow, I would have to tell him that no, it was today. This went on for some time until one day he finally looked at me and very sadly said, "It never is tomorrow, is it?"

Enjoy your today!

It's the Little Things

Week 15, It's the Little Things, Life Book
This one was difficult for me. I kept "messing up" which means more layers. That's not always bad.

I used some Neocolors around her face and thought it was just too much.

So I grabbed some gesso and some pattern paper leftovers and covered it up, for the most part.

I did some background word stamping, added some gelli prints done with the new round one, to which I wrote "the little things" that make things special. I also stapled on part of a tag where I put the theme. I had some fun with my new Rebekah Meier stencil and Abandoned Coral Distress Inks.

Thanks for stopping by. I love reading your comments!

Shared with:
Rhedd's Creative Spirit
Sisters of Craft
Paint Party Friday
Altered Eclectics

Field Journaling Some Feathers

Life Book, Week 14 Field Journalling with Alisa Burke. I haven't done field journaling in years, and it's about time I began again. This was very motivational. I found several feathers in my back yard do to a recent altercation between a neighbor's cat and our visiting birds :( But, they were great to work with. One of the feathers was one I found online, the one on the right, and used because it was more interesting.

I used my Koi watercolors on Arches hot press watercolor paper. a white gel pen, Prismcolor Verithin colored pencils, and a fine, no bleed Sharpie in black.

Shared with:
Paint Party Friday
The Queen of Creativity
Crafting With an Attitude

Whimsical Giraffe

Life Book, Week 13, Happy painting with Juliette Crane. Juliette gave a great lesson using her favorite, an owl. My favorite, because it is my totem, is the giraffe. I usually try to make giraffes more lifelike, but Juliette encourage us to keep our animal whimsical.

I started with lots of acrylic paint that I smooshed about with a credit card (mostly because I don't like cleaning brushes). I added some shreds of deli wrap printing I had done (the dark rasberry). I drew out an outline of the giraffe with a white Stabillo pencil, added many layers of paint, used my fingers for the spots. The tree trunk was a solid dribble of green acrylic that, after dry, I added some sea sponged greens for leaves. When dry, a bit of the tangle, Meer, and white gel pen accents. Then I added some more Pitt pens to the giraffe and to the edges.

Shared with:
Paint Party Friday
Altered Eclectics

Show Some Attitude! Life Book Week 11

Life Book was hosted by Jane Davenport this week with a prompt of "Your Inner and Outer World". First we put down some collage of colors and things that we liked. We either drew or added a face that we had done in the past and cut out (this was my choice.) Then we learned (?) how to do a side view.  Below, you will find the first two steps. After adding some gesso and the face, I played with paints, and pens of too many different kinds to even begin to remember what I used. I kept changing her over and over. I love that you can do that. Layers = good thing in art journaling!

The letters and the word "always" came from a huge set that I got at Oriental Trading.
This is the "in progress" piece. Do you sometimes wish you had stopped?

Also shared with:
Paint Party Friday Self-portrait (Okay, so maybe a few years ago LOL!)

Layers of My Heart

Tam had a great lesson today, for week 10 of Life Book, using hearts to make a fan style way for us to express the layers of our heart. Each heart was constructed separately and then joined with a brad to make a heart that can fold together as one or opened as below.I used sprays, paints, stencils, collage, washi tape, pens, and more.

Then, she showed us how to make a holder that expands to hold the width of this fan.

Also shared with:
Paint Party Friday
Altered Eclectics

Life Book Week 9 Favorite Favorites with Lynn Whipple

Life Book Week 9, Favorite Favorites with Lynn Whipple.
Fun to think of all the things that are my favorites. Even though I can't have them anymore, Big Mac's. ice cream cones, and Snickers bars still made it into my favorites jar right next to my family and buying art supplies. Good thing we didn't have to put them in order of importance LOL!

Watercolor background, favorites in a variety of inks and pens, aqua acrylics, tag sprayed with Dylusions, white gel pen accents.

Shared with:
Paint Party Friday

All That Glitters Could Be Gold - Life Book Week 8

Week 8 of Life Book is "Treasure Seeking" with Mati Rose McDonough. My first thought was, "I can't do that! I have no gold leaf", blah, blah, blah. Nonsense . Who needs the materials shown in a lesson? I never have so why should today be any different. I started with the idea from the second sample by Mati Rose. I brayered on some green acrylics and then used an old credit card to scrape on the purples. Then I grabbed some gold Stickles and a gold Pearl Pen and started to play. I then did a bit of spray with Heidi Swap Color Shine in gold. I added some stamps, a bit of white, a bit of black, some Black Soot Distress Inks around the edges, and it was done. And, I love it. Can anyone guess what I used to make the black circles with?

Shared with:
Paint Party Friday

A Kittywampus Mushroom House

The second bonus for week six of Life Book comes to us from Violette Clark, Magical Mystery Tour.

I did an acrylic background with blues, lime, and purple. Added some clouds. Made myself a mushroom house to live in that was all  kittywampus with a nod to Alice. I don't like dragonflies, so a butterfly graces my mansion. I added some glossy accents to make the glasses reflect like my glasses do in photos. I loved doing this page.