To be honest, these last 2 weeks of the school year are slamming me and there has been no art this week! Luckily, I'd prepared the base of this blog post earlier and I wanted to share my monthly review.
The photo above is of the art I completed in November. You can find all the details if you look back through my most recent posts.
I taught my final art journal class for the year - read about that HERE.
It's been a really rewarding and inspiring experience and I hope to have the opportunity to continue teaching in 2020.
I wanted to delay this post so I could share the finish of our school quilts. We completed them in November and delivered them to the Birthing Unit on Monday
I am the adult in the photo holding a couple of quilts for girls who were away that day. Again a very worthwhile project but I will never again try and do so many at once! I DO have ideas to do it again in 2020 in a more manageable way.
I managed to create Bookmarks over the weekend to gift my student librarian helpers at school this year - read about that HERE
Creatively inspired last month by the Royal New Zealand Ballet's original production of Hansel and Gretel. Loved everything about it - get a taste HERE
No new supplies but I shared Black Friday sales and temptations HERE and decided to buy these 2 classes that I have been tempted by every time I see them! I figured it's a good sign if I still want them after more than 12 months so they are now sitting waiting for my holiday time...
Do check the sales and temptations link if you haven't seen it - has lots of FREE options there for inspiration too. Also an online friend pointed out there are lots of FREE online options through Jeanne Oliver's network - check all of that goodness out HERE.
I fell in love with Gina Ferrari's embroidered crackers and had to purchase the pattern from Etsy - instant download. Hopefully sharing my own versions once work is finished.
I also really want to participate in Kasia's FREE Advent calendar journaling event : 24 days of art journaling with prompts, exploring mindfulness, self-care and gifts of the season. Sign up HERE until 5th December (you've probably got until tomorrow given time zones). Everything crossed I can manage this in some shape or form
I did my gatherings on the weekend.
That's all I can manage to share right now since I am due at a school function in half an hour. Sun is shining in New Zealand, Summer is here, and I am on holidays in 2 weeks. Can't wait to have more time to create and share with you. Hope you are looking after yourself in amongst the busy. I promise I am and will do something creative on the weekend.
Every year I have a team of student librarians who help me in my school library. I have got into a tradition of making bookmarks for them as a thank you. These were from last year
And these from 2017
I used the same method again for this year because it's a quick way to create with lovely results and I needed to create 30 bookmarks! Beginning with 2 x A3 sized watercolour paper for my base. This year I started by painting my bases first
Spraying through stencils and mopping up onto the opposite page as I went
Once they are cut they look quite different and I looked at each one individually before adding fibre and I wondered if extra elements were required.
Turns out only a few needed extra white stamping
I just love the bright ones but not everyone has my taste and I can never predict which ones the children will choose
It's really interesting to consider each one separately - each unique in its inky patterned loveliness.
I'm always keen on the idea of December daily journals but they are a challenge to do at this busy time. This year I was inspired Kasia's FREE Advent calendar journaling event : 24 days of art journaling with prompts, exploring mindfulness, self-care and gifts of the season. Sign up HERE until 5th December. I thought about how I could manage this in a small and creative way and this is my set-up.
She suggested we follow a limited colour palette - adjacent on the colour wheel, plus one contrast and black and white of course. For me - it had to include metallic ♥ As I started to gather I was really drawn to black and white and silver with some pink and tiny bit of pale green! It's an unusual colour palette for me so am excited to see where it takes me. My initial gatherings all fit in the plastic container but contain a LOT of inspiration. I may not use all of it - I may add other things depending on the prompts... this is my starting point to get the creative juices flowing....I am very excited and inspired at this point.
From my experience with my Klimt in the Garden with Rumi art cards, it's really nice to have common elements in a series. Therefore as well as my limited colour palette, each of my pages will include both hand and machine stitching, sari ribbon, stencils and washi tape.
Then there's the size of the pages - I wanted to create SMALL separate pages so I can stand a chance of doing this regularly (daily will not be realistic for a while though), include stitch and then put them together into a book form at the end. The options I considered were :
1. tags (to be later stitched together like this)
2. working on individual pages and then mounting on concertina style background
3. work on folded 2-page spread but only one one side and then glue them together at the finish
I had a lovely old hard-cover book which I gutted (keeping the pages for lovely text in future project) and then I cut cheap watercolour paper to fit inside. I purchased the paper when I was very new to art journaling and it has sat in my cupboard for a while. Perfect for this project cos I know I can stitch through it and it will be a nice surface for the metallic paints.
Each half measures 4.5" x 6.5". The cover will need some altering as well which I love
Hopefully I can share some completed pages next weekend. Do share if you join this project too.
