10 minutes a day : 7

A reminder of where we left the page yesterday.

Obviously needing more work on that right hand side.
SET THE TIMER :: Kelly loves using pens in her work, and I started by adding some green with a Sakura gel pen to the pohutukawa flower image.

This inspired me to introduce some more colour when I added the paper and sticker tape to the right-hand side (below). Next I looked at the page wondering what to do next. I was thinking how much I love that background paper and didn't want to cover more of it, so was inspired (again a Kelly idea) to highlight some of the elements with colour. Started using the glaze pens when TIMER STOP. This is the page at that point - I couldn't leave it there.

Continued to add green and blue to the background, and the blue ended up on the Pohutukawa flower as well - I love the look.

The glaze pens have a lovely transparent feel, so I was able to add my journaling as well, and still have the effect of the lovely paper behind. 

All the pen work took less than 10 minutes and this page was finished.

As I explained when I did my post about micro-movements last year, a couple of things happen when you try & do "a little and often" :: just 10 minutes a day working in your art journal adds up to more than 1 hour in a week....The other thing that happened was that because I told myself I only had to work for 10 minutes, often I'd be sucked into journaling for longer. Once you light the flame, it's going - so it's a really good thing to try if you're in a creative slump. Just keep showing up, and art will eventually happen. How great is that?
These are the other pages that I completed this week  - look back through this week's posts for details of what I did.

Hopefully I've now got 10 minutes a day for art journaling established as a habit. Will continue to share my pages as I complete them.
Looking forward to welcoming September and the first day of Spring tomorrow. Hoping you find 10 minutes today to start creating.

10 minutes a day : 6

For today's 10 minutes I'm starting with this next mainly blank page and will follow a lesson from Kelly Kilmer's Journey Within class.

I gather an image and some pieces of background paper to tone with my base page.

SET THE TIMER :: Tried out some arrangements of papers and focal - the composition moves a bit more quickly when working from one of Kelly's collage templates. Was happy to glue down what I first tried.

The hands are just begging for something to hold - if you know my work at all you can guess what that will be. The lesson prompt includes adding tape.

I used the black leaf tape again that I used on yesterday's page. I don't have a huge collection of tape, and I like how using the same tape across different pages unifies the journal. Also remember that you don't have to use tape - a cut or torn piece of paper will still give you that line, although I love the transparent look of the tape above.
TIMER STOP ::

Tomorrow's the last day of the challenge. Wonder if I'll get this page completed.

10 minutes a day : 5

Next page in the journal you may remember from my Taupo trip.

I need another image to interplay with the heart.
SET THE TIMER :: A flower seemed a natural addition to the page and I quickly found one in my stash.

Outlined it with pen, then added the lovely black leaf tape. I liked the graphic look of this on the page, so added more of it, and more of the bird tape along the top. All it needs now is some writing, and I thought a quote from Emily Dickinson would be just the thing.
TIMER STOP ::

Love how this page turned out.
Will be starting tomorrow's 10 minutes with a much more blank background.

10 minutes a day : 4

I was going to use the next blank page in my journal, but I've started the next few pages so decided to see where I can get to in 10 minutes from this starting point.

SET THE TIMER :: I needed a proper focal and I like to include butterflies so that was where I started. Knew I wanted the Mucha as soon as I laid hands on it. Added a bit of tape and some white doodles while I was thinking about that butterfly.

When I looked in my box of journaling "junk" I found a couple of useful bits from previous projects : a piece of paper embossed with distress embossing powder from a playday 

and the remains of the green metallic painted modelling paste that I cut circles from for my indian wall-hanging. The torn bit of modelling paste paper looked enough like a wing to turn her into an angel. And I decided she needed a couple of tattoos so I used some small rub-ons.

I glued everything in place and TIMER STOP ::

I thought the page only needed some writing so looked for a pen. But as I considered what to write I decided the page is complete without anything else.
Once again, as happened yesterday, I decided I wanted to spend more than 10 minutes in my journal so I turned the page.

This page already had such a wonderfully full background, I thought it would need little effort to complete it...Turns out it took a lot longer than another 10 minutes to complete this page, but I had fun doing it and that's what it's all about after all.

10 minutes a day : 3

A reminder of where we finished yesterday, and start today.

I sat down not really sure where I was going with the page except that I was going to add some pen work and I wanted her to have something else to hold. My bags of rub-ons and stickers were on the table, and I'd grabbed out some punches and more tape.
SET THE TIMER :: Used some sweet heart tape to block off the ribbons on the original image. I love this trick I saw somewhere of using a plastic bread bag tie to keep the end of your tape free.

Then I dug into the box and found the rub-on of the bird for her to hold. Felt like I needed to add something to the balloons, and since I'm thinking about Kelly Kilmer, turned to one of her favourite images and added a heart sticker. One was enough though. Added pen work, and then outlined all the balloons and the girl.

Wanted some more interest in the background, so punched some daisy shapes out of one of my original green strips of paper that didn't make it to the background, and added some doodles to link them. As an aside, I now have a cool piece of punched paper for another page :-)

Found a sweet wee birdcage image and stuck it down when TIMER STOP ::

I wanted to add some words, so I went for a look to see what I have to use for tomorrow. Found a word very quickly that inspired me to finish the page immediately. I'm now doing more than 10 minutes in my art journal today.
I love the word, but not in this form. I lay it down while I think about it and add some smaller punched daisy shapes to bring the pink back across the page.

Now I need to write. I still use the word "Hold" but in a different way. I also decide I need a longer tail on that bird to disguise the white ripped paper below. And I'm all done.

Will continue the 10 minute challenge tomorrow, but I'll be on a new page. Are you playing along?

10 minutes a day : 2

Yesterday the timer went off when I had this arrangement, nothing glued down. All I know at this point is that I want to add more pink.

First up I gathered some washi tapes, a couple of pink papers, and opened my boxes of journaling extras. The box on the left contains rub-ons, stickers, journaling tags, etc. The box on the right is my "journal junk" box where I throw anything that might go into a journal some day...you can see a coloured tag, sprayed doily, a piece of card with negatives of punched shapes, some chipboard shapes...you get the idea

SET THE TIMER :: I wanted to add one of the pink papers, and tried out a couple of arrangements. Turns out I liked both pink papers

But I really liked the green spots that I started the day with. Here's the arrangement I decided on and glued down.

Not sure where to go from here...tape seems a good place to go, so I added a strip down the right-hand side when TIMER STOP ::

10 minutes can go really fast! See you tomorrow...

10 minutes a day

Back in March this year, Kelly Kilmer posted a 10 minute Art Making Challenge - the main premise is that if you've got 10 minutes in your day to watch TV, go blog surfing, or look at Facebook, you could use that 10 minutes to make art.
I decided to give myself a week of 10 minutes every day in my art journal and see what could happen...
Day 1 - opened my journal to the next "blank" page

Rubbing on this page was from my slipper (I just had to try it!) and had randomly stuck down that bit of leftover paper at some stage.
SET THE TIMER :: gathered an image and some background papers that I liked

Cut around the image and tore some of the papers and started to lay them down. Decided that I don't want to retain the rubbing and the birdy paper just isn't go to work so ripped it off!

Playing with layout

Needs a little more

TIMER STOP :: nothing glued down...let's see how far I get tomorrow. Would love if you would join me and show me how you go.

The Indian Wall-Hanging is Finished

It's finally done!

I've had such fun making this wall-hanging.  The last 2 main spots were filled by 2 stitchy pieces. The peacock feather was purchased with this wall-hanging in mind when I went to Taupo.

It just needed some sari ribbon, beads and french knots to finish it off.

The final piece started by sponging gold metallic paint through a masked indian stencil onto silk.

Free-motion machine stitching with metallic thread got it to this stage.

Then it needed a few beads, some bells, and a little sari ribbon trim.

I added a couple of other small bits and called it done.

Special thanks to Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen's Mixed Media Melange class that started the whole thing,

my talented friend Carole for her original comment that inspired the transformation of the original piece, and for Beryl Taylor's entire body of work. Check out her blog and her website and be inspired too.

Take a look inside her book via Amazon HERE

If you want to go back and look at the detail of stages, here they are :
February  - The base and first additions inspired by Beryl Taylor
March  - TAP transfers
April- beading and stitching
13 July - embroidery on the elephant
17 July - more hand stitching
9 August  - modeling paste effects