Fanciful landscape

This art journal spread was all about experimentation and play. I bought some watercolour absorbent ground (a Goldens product) a while ago and decided it was time to try it out in my journal. It goes on white - obviously I had cleaned off some pink from my previous page on this!

Then it was time to add watercolours - I really like that I tried flicking the wet brush to make lovely watery splatter effects. If you click on the photo to see it larger you can see it's not really a true watercolour effect, but it does mean I can mix my media so that's an advantage when I'm wanting a softer background on old book paper.

It seemed obvious that this should be an underwater scene and after looking at a lovely mermaid book from the library for inspiration, I found my mermaids...

I sketched them in with stabilo all pencil = a word of CAUTION : If you've used the absorbant ground, this seems to hold onto the stabilo and I lost the ability to erase with a wet wipe so easily....added some pink acrylic so I can fix her face shape

White pen seemed the best to add next along with a sea horse

My go-to technique next - adding stencils. Iridescent paint seemed the logical choice for mermaid sparkles and magical sea plants

Almost there

Found words required

A little more watercolour wash to make the sea more blue and I'm happy to call it done. 

Pure play and not my usual, so a fun addition to my art journal. You might remember I began the year in this recycled book  

and I'm really happy seeing the transformation

This spread takes me to exactly half way through my journal - 21 spreads so far. 

See all the art in here in my Flickr album or through my blog posts HERE. 

October review and looking ahead....

Apart from creating art in October we had 2 wonderful weeks of school holidays and now we are getting stuck into the business end of the school year. It's finally warming up and I'm loving the change of wardrobe.
Teaching - We are almost at the end of our quilt project at school. It's been a learning curve for them and for me - supporting 15 children for this project requires a lot of extra work behind the scenes at my house....layering with batting and backing

and attaching bindings by machine ready for hand sewing to the back

but I've got some lovely helpers for our hour-long sessions with the students and everyone is really enjoying the learning together

I'll share again when the completed quilts are delivered to the birthing unit for whom we've been focusing this community project.
I'm also going to be teaching one more art journal class towards the end of November so am looking forward to that. 

We're going to do a class where we combine all they've learned this year to create a journal page from start to 'finish'. Not sure how far we'll get but it will be fun. 

I took my own advice last month about finding time to create, and have been thrilled that my #arteveryday practice of doing a little and often, listening to my instincts of what I feel like I want to add next rather than following a particular online lesson plan, has led to original art that I am loving

I've been writing in my Inner work journal more often again and being reminded of the value of getting things out of my head and working through issues instead of them just circling in my brain.

I'm all set up for November and Roben-Marie Smith posted this on her Instagram which is my focus for the coming month : 

This is my record of what I was reading and watching

Loving all the watching - many different genres! - and I had really good reading this past month too. NZ finished with a Bronze at the Rugby World Cup - great to see them get back their mojo in their last game. And WOW was wonderful - my husband and I had a fabulous weekend away together with a great show, lovely accommodation, yummy food and excellent shopping! 
Looking ahead to next month, it's time to start make decisions about online classes for next year, especially if you want early bird specials. The big collaboratives are all advertising....I'm thinking about my more limited time and developing my own style so I'm committing to less online next year. At the moment I'm definitely doing BOD 2020 - follow that link for all the info including a PDF with FREE samples from this year's content and next year's teachers

I LOVE this year's BOD - this is a preview of our offerings for the coming month with Effy, Shelley Rydellie, and Rachel Harries : 

I'm thinking hard about whether Let's Face It 2020 would be a good choice for me? 

Anyone have a comment about that one to help me out in my decision? Given the above feelings I have about my most recent pages of original art (ie. finding my own voice) I'm just not sure. The very early bird pricing ends November 30th.... 
I'm limiting joining classes online since I am also wanting to go back to a daily journal practice maybe similar to my Daily journaling practice in 2017 

which arose from my larger Documented Life in 2015 

or my 2020 process may look completely different....The group I joined in 2017 is still going, so if you want a practice you could check out the FB group or their website which continues to offer weekly prompts. You can start today and scroll back through to 2017. 
Sun shining here and it feels like Summer is on its way. Looking forward to continuing my creative practice amongst the busy of School Term 4. Happy November ♥

Klimt in the garden with Rumi : October Gratitude

Full of gratitude today cos it's a bonus day off in New Zealand ♥ Despite waking with a migraine, I had my whole family home and we went out for a lovely lunch together. I also had extra time to myself today which I used to create this month's art card. First my gatherings and the Rumi quote for October. Quite often my cards will also reference or be inspired by the art I'm currently creating. I had some serviette left over from my last art journal spread, and loved the pinks and gold I used there. The little cardboard bird element also references that page. This fabric was on the top of my Klimt fabric pile from my gatherings last month which I did with my eyes shut and then used the selvedge only. Meant to be used this time I think. Effy used a goblet for her main image and that's also inspiring me as a starting point. 

Began with those gorgeous colours but using my Dylusions sprays - trying to encourage in a Summer Vibe....feels a long way from here on this wet and wild morning!

It worked - by the time we came back from lunch it was a lot warmer and the rain had cleared. This is trying first positions of elements and a goblet shape. I've torn my quote apart for more flexibility - something different from my other cards but it felt too much of a block the way I'd printed it initially.

I wasn't enjoying this so moved to a champagne flute shape - wanting to include that stencil somewhere. 

Initial machine stitching with purple metallic thread and paper elements glued down. Love that texture at the bottom

Added gold through that leafy stencil and also through punchinella for champagne bubbles

I always like to add some hand stitching as well - the x kisses are a common element across the series  

I decided to switch up to gold metallic thread to echo stitch the flute and for the edge stitching

The cards in this series are all backed with suitable toning fabric. This hides most of the stitching, although you can see I decided to echo the flute after doing the edge stitching. It's not too obtrusive

And here's the finished card for October

I took this photo of my other cards in this series last month. 
Click on it to see it larger.

See detail of each in my blog posts HERE.