One Little Word 2017 : March Vision Board

I'm taking Ali Edwards' One Little Word OLW workshop. The monthly prompts encourage you to connect with your word throughout the year and I'm excited to see what happens with SHINE in 2017. This month's prompt is to make a Vision Board. We did this last year and as well as being a fun project, I was inspired to set it as my background on my computer to remind me about Transform for the rest of the year : 

This time I started out with an initial idea of myself with a halo effect of all my elements of SHINE : Share, Healthy, Inner work, Notice, Enjoy. I began with an image transfer that I shared here with my dream affirmation board from a class with Tam in Life Book February 2016. It started very patchy but I know it will be fine

This base became this : perfectly imperfect ♥

Word gathering 

Decided to start with a gold background in keeping with "Shine", and then added tapes and stencils for my base (background words on right are because I am using an altered book for my art journal)

Then I started to add all my words - I found some lovely quotes about Shine that I could include. Click on any photo if you want to read it larger.

I like the combination of different bits of imagery and lovely words all over the varied background elements

Close up of the main words

It was a fabulous exercise - all that thinking about meanings of my word while I sorted through inspiring magazines, and I enjoyed the mixed media elements I included. Lots of positive messages for me in my finished vision board spread

See all my posts about OLW 2017 HERE, and my Flickr album which includes any art featuring my word as well as the class prompts HERE. It's become my desktop background

Free classes and Bargain prices.....

Hello - I am feeling much more my usual self after my week of a head cold. Thanks so much to all of you who messaged well wishes ♥
Not a project from me today but a sharing of some bargains so you don't miss out. 
The lovely Effy Wild has a bunch of online course offerings available HERE. It's no secret that I'm a fan, and have to share this news of Book of Days on sale until April 4th : 

Book Of Days is on sale for everyone in Effy Wild's teaching network until Tuesday, April 4th. In order to get the sale pricing, you must be in one of her classes (even the free ones!). BOD is regularly $180 for the year (because WHOA CONTENT), but it's $99 right now.
In order to get in on the sale, sign up for a class in her network at http://learn.effybird.com and look for a personal email from her shortly thereafter.
These are her free offerings and they will give you a taste of her teaching style. Sign up for all of it HERE. 

Containing hours and hours of video instruction, PDFs, and other resources. This is a complete beginners workshop in art journaling, and includes the Effydori, Ultimate Notebook, and other bonuses to see you through the process of creating and filling an art journal of your own. The workshop used to contain four chapters, but it now contains six plus bonuses!
Succulent Stacks

Effy Wild will walk you through the process of creating a rich, complex, layered art journal spread that requires no drawing using stuff leftover on your painty table. You will also learn how to tip your finished spread into an already existing journal.
We're about to 'break' for the month of April so you can also just sign up for Session 2 :

It is better value to sign up for the whole year though, especially at the above price. I put 'break' in quotation marks because although we won't be getting our usual full-length lessons, the wonderful FB group continues with Effy presence, we still get a journaling prompts workbook for April, AND she's promised time-lapse lessons + bonuses while we are on hiatus! 

See all the artwork I've created from classes with Effy in my Flickr Album HERE - includes links to the blog posts.

Another bargain, an initiative called Art Bundle for Good - 55 art and creativity related courses, trials and ebooks worth US$2600, bundled together this week only for US$97.

There are some well-known names involved in this one, including Tracy Verdugo, Tamara Laporte, Flora Bowley....as I post, this ends in 4 days so click on that link sooner rather than later.

Also free, Strathmore's first 2017 workshop : the basics of brush lettering and loose watercolour painting. 

- read more and sign up HERE. Began 6th March and all lessons are now available until the end of 2017.
The free classes are included in my list of Cheap and Free online art classes that you can always get to in my top right side bar. 

Daily Journaling Week 12

It's only been a week since I've posted but I feel like I haven't talked to you for much longer than that.... how are you? I've had a week of being unwell - migraines to start last Monday and that progressed to days of a heavy head cold to finish it, but at least today I can share with you what micro-movements of 5-10 minutes a day can do....
I'm following the prompts of the original Documented Life 2014. Week 12 : Cut up a magazine, add! And from the blog for Life Documented 2017 : Mandalas by Francisca Nunes. Her Prompt : doodle and use bloom Mandalas
Technique : play with washes and drips of watercolors
Even though I've not been feeling my best, I've been able to manage little bits of art time which have added up to a whole spread for my Daily Journaling last week. These photos show my small daily progress. Day 1 all I could do was add spray to paper (loving that turquoise from another project - it later informs my colour choices)

Day 2 - added another flap and then drippage - first from the tape end dripping down to make the horizontal lines for journaling

Then drippage for vertical interest on the inner spread

Day 3 Mandala doodling

Day 4 More mandala doodling

Day 5 - needed a bit more background interest with my drips so added some 'mandala-like' stencil shapes with spray and printed too

gorgeous gold shimmer

Day 6 I wanted a large mandala in the centre spread but wanted a short-cut this week, so I printed off a free colouring mandala shape from Alisa Burke (get yours HERE) and traced over some of it on carbon paper to transfer some outlines to my page

Then I went over it with Posca pen and added my own swirls for journaling spots

Day 7 added colour and lines to the mandala in my own style and glued down some of the mandalas I'd doodled on paper earlier

Day 8 Finishing touches - plenty of mandalas but I also needed to "cut up a magazine and add" - I had always intended to add found words, but as I flicked through some magazines to find them, I decided this clock face would fit well with my week of using little bits of time to create a beautiful whole. So here's the completed spread with flap closed

and open

You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE. I'm on the mend so hoping there'll be more time and energy to create this week and that I'll see you again soon.

Quilts, postcards and cricket

Hello everyone - I've had an awesome weekend of sunshine, cricket, quilts, baking and a birthday party. No time to create art, but plenty of inspiration!  First up, inspired again by the wonderful show at Feilding by Kowhai Quilters : 

The location is terrific with the quilts on display in amongst the museum pieces

Click on any photo to see it larger - I was charmed by this sweet Daisy quilt by Robin Coleman

and loved this colourful design by Marina Kitto

beautifully quilted by Paula Shailer

There were some special exhibitions by Aotearoa Quilters : The Flower Challenge

and the Yellow Challenge

Hoffman Quilts were also on display - I've seen them before and still ♥ this one - the stitched details.....perhaps there is a stitched face quilt in my future? 

Click HERE to see the 2016 Hoffman Challenge Quilts. As well as quilts to view, there were shops to be seen. I was only tempted to purchase a small stencil 

I've photographed it on the large, well-used one I already have - it's one of my favourites so thought the smaller version would also be fun. 

Did you know that Hanna is hosting another postcard swap?

See all my posts about previous swaps I've been involved with HERE. I've included it with this post because Kowhai Quilters also had a lovely display of postcards, and I thought their use of a recycled book as a display option was inspired

Thought I would finish with my yesterday : we are enjoying a late burst of Summer here in New Zealand. Yesterday we went to watch my husband in the final of their cricket competition....it was a lovely day and although they ended up with second place, it was an awesome location and great team spirit from both sides 

Hope you have a creative week ♥

Daily Journaling Week 11

I'm following the prompts of the original Documented Life 2014. Week 11 : Draw, photograph or collage a bird onto your page
And from the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE :
Theme is Bloom
Prompt is use stamps, cutting one from an eraser
I love to carve my own stamps - just don't get make enough time to do it regularly - but you can see all my posts where I share stamps I've carved HERE. So I started with a background of green gold and some of my hand-carved stamps - one of my favourite borders and one that I thought fit the "Bloom" prompt quite well

then added some more of my flora themed stamps and a bit more colour

Here you can see my "collage a bird" - I used a serviette, and I couldn't resist adding a small fantail stamp (not hand carved, but I love fantails)

While there are quite a few elements here, there's not enough for me...I added some tape around some edges and then out came my lovely Fantastix applicator again (first used HERE), used this time with a lovely airbrush colour to add both depth and brightness.

The applicators rinse out easily in water for continued use - here's the same applicator ready for the blue. The airbrush colours have been updated and can now be purchased as High Flow acrylics - they are awesome for pen work because they have the same consistency of an ink

Here's a detail of the blue hue added - doodles and dots with the fantastix applicator. 

I only dipped it once into the paint and it did all the colour you seen on the completed spread. 

That's Week 11 all complete except for the daily journaling. You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE