Believe in Magic

Another journal spread at last. I've been busy since I last shared with you. Will go into detail in my October monthly review but believe me, I haven't been idle!  This spread began by challenging myself to scrape on some colours that are not my usual

Then I felt moved to add some feather stencils in gold

Another several days passed wondering what I wanted next... I decided to try Effy's latest lesson in Moonshine - creating a 'lip up' face

and then I quickly moved on to adding more stencils around 

I sprayed her face with workable fixative to set the Stabilo pencil. Once dry, I was ready to start adding colour - I'm liking the dappled evening feel and think that apart from her face we'll just need some white/light highlights and words to be done. Let's see if that happens. First I needed more gold stenciling to blend out those hard lines of dark blue... which in turn led to gold highlights on those feathers (click on any photo to see it larger)

The dragonfly and words came to me next

Then the face....I've not tried to make her perfect. She's a bit raw - a bit fierce ♥

Once again I love all the stencil layers and textures. Although I tried to start in a different place with my colours, somehow she ended up back in my comfort zone. I guess that's my own style coming through. And here's the finished spread

The photo really doesn't pick up all the gorgeous glimmer from the gold - it glows over the dark behind it. Wishing you a creative and happy week. If you want to see the rest of my art in this altered book, check out my Flickr Album.

Book of Days : Texture love

Inspired by this month's lesson by Cristin Chambers in Book of Days this spread began with luscious modeling paste texture spread through stencils

I added my own style of face next (very influenced by Effy Wild's teaching) using a Stabilo All pencil with a combination of blending stump and water. Remember this is VERY water reactive so needed to spray with fixative before moving on

Although what I create is way different than Cristin, I love her style of teaching and enjoyed using inks around the page next

OMG the texture! Click on any photo to see it larger

Next day more stenciling in different colours - need to add more darks/lights for contrast but I'm feeling really happy with the direction this is taking

I love taking process photos so I can also see her face changing as layers are added ♥

Loving her. Thinking about what to add on the left, to add dark, and thinking about my style and wanting to include a NZ something led to the dark fern stencil

then repeating that colour a bit in the background before adding the stars

which led back to the star in her hair...and the found words came last. I think she is my favourite spread in my art journal this year ♥

You can still join us in Book of Days 2019 HERE and check out what's happening in 2020 HERE (excited!)

#arteveryday OR Finding time to create

Many people comment on how much I create. Sometimes I am surprised by that because I don't feel like I spend enough time and I don't have as many completed things to share as I would like! Keeping the blog going helps to motivate so I have something to post about and my monthly reviews remind me that I do more than I realise. Really my art practice is a combination of being able to leave things out in my studio (so blessed to have this space), of doing a little often...and I'm not much concerned with housework ;-) I work 25-30 hours a week and have school holidays off so that all helps, but I really believe that if you want to be creative you have to make that a priority. Read my original blog post about finding time to create HERE. I talk in quite a bit of detail about micro-movements = doing 15 minutes a day soon adds up. In this post in March, I shared how I went from background

to completed spread

in 7 days. Must try that again! 
The other thing that helps my art practice is taking a photo as a record to make sure I  #arteveryday. This gives me an incentive to have something to photograph and sometimes I pop some paint down on a background in the evening just to have done something - and that's a start for a new project. I began this practice back in November last year  and I am now Week 42! If you go to that November link you'll see micro-movements in action. My practice has evolved as I've got busier taking on more work hours and I recognise there are many different ways to be creative - Creating blogposts count, as does shopping for supplies, watching lessons, preparing for school quilt club, and sometimes it just doesn't happen....I thought I'd share a few examples of weeks here to hopefully inspire you. Not sharing holidays cos they're not a reflection of my usual busy. And if you want to see all my posts on this topic click on the label below this post. Click on any photo to see it larger.
Week 17 :

Week 35 :

Week 40 :

How can you fit more creativity into your week or into this weekend? Happy FriYAY