November was a month of wonderful creativity teaching 3 mixed media classes and children's craft club sessions alongside high personal stress from my eldest studying and sitting his NCEA exams and some extended family issues. As a consequence, time for my personal art suffered and I felt the lack. However, as I created my November spread retrospectively this weekend, it gave me back perspective and I remembered that creativity is always central in my life.
Click on the links to see my Banner Class, my star book class, and details of the Christmas quilt.
I wish that I had read this FB post by ELizabeth Gilbert last month :
Although it's about her response to the US election results and her personal situation dealing with a partner with cancer, her question is uppermost for me. As I head into December and the business of the inevitable overwhelm of the season, as I reflect on my "One Little Word" this year and the disappointments over some of that (more later), her words give me positive direction with where I want to go next.
As I head into school holidays I do so with the knowledge that Summer has arrived and I am entering my season of high creativity. I can't wait to share more with you.
You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads HERE.
I've changed the way I do "daily" journaling, and now do my memory keeping on a spread for the whole month. I did that for September HERE and a fun lesson from Life Book 2016 with Martha Lever was the perfect way to head up my October pages. She taught her Chunky Versals lettering and this is what I did with that :
After September, I randomly chose a spread a few pages on in my journal and started swiping off excess paint as I made journal pages.
Then I started using prompts from Documented Life to build my spread. Week 1 : hide something under your art, Week 2 : start with a doodle - the doodled October heading is glued down over some private thoughts about October.
Week 3 : Draw a line down the middle and create 2 scenes. Thought I would start by dividing the rest of the page and doing half collage and half paint, but couldn't resist adding the flowers on the painted half. Then decided I should add a face since they've been a focus for October
and Week 4 : repeat a pattern led me to create a flower similar to those created HERE.
Week 5 : Incorporate the first letter of your name finished that page. I just tore appropriate words from the top of dictionary pages, and then found some lovely words to circle in the background. They didn't start with L but deserved to be highlighted.
The other page of the spread is photos and imagery that speak to me of the month - some are obvious (changing my wardrobe over to lighter clothes, mixed weather, winning the ribbon in the quilt show) and some only make sense to me unless explained (eg. the 2 chairs by the table = lots of time supporting study with my eldest for his big NCEA exams due to start next week).
Here's the whole spread that captures my October. Hope you have a fabulous November.
Click on the photo to see it larger. Go HERE to see my Flickr album of all my Life Book 2016 projects. You can see all my posts about Life Book this year HERE. You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads HERE.
Last time I did a daily journaling post was 1st September. I noted that although I'm still trying to do something creative every day, I've been feeling less like documenting my everyday happenings and instead concentrating on meaningful journal spreads. Effy calls it 'meeting yourself on the page'. September has been a roller coaster of highly stressful events interspersed {thankfully} with times of great joy. Our One Little Word prompt from Ali Edwards for September was to pay attention and it was good for me to focus on my joyful highlights. I figure it fits my word "Transform" by artfully creating a positive spin on the month.
I used the weekly DLP 2016 unPlanner prompts for inspiration to add artful touches. September Week 1 was to add an organic element. The examples from the artists were twigs, but I needed something flatter in my journal and I was pleased to remember my microwave flower press. I haven't used it for ages :-)
The hellebore ended up quite tissue thin so I glued it carefully with gel medium as I would tissue paper, and it inspired some doodled spring flowers.
DLP Week 2 : Stitch on your card. I decided to tear a card of paint samples, and since I had a feather, decided to use that organic element as well. Plenty of stitch on this one.
I went to a Craft and Quilt Fair last month so decided to enhance my page by using some of the new stencils I purchased there.
Since buying my lovely new coloured pencils for face shading recently, I thought it would be fun to use some magic Koh-i-noor pencils on my pages - not watersoluble with multi-coloured leads. I used them a couple of times on this page to add framing.
DLP Week 3 : Mark making in black and white over colour. I enjoyed the doodling I'd done on a Book of Days page earlier in the month so used that as additional inspiration.
When you look at the final spread you'll notice I used the white pen dot to highlight quite a lot. The first weekend of the school holidays was another girls' weekend in Raumati. The weather was nice enough on Saturday to have a lovely long beach walk
The Wearable Arts show was indeed WOW! No photography allowed during the actual show, but this was The Brancott Estate Supreme WOW Award winner : SUPERNOVA by Gillian Saunders, New Zealand. Made of recycled leather, gems, marker pen ink.
To get a taste of the show, here's a link to videos. You will find close-up video of the supreme winner and click on the one called Interview : Tor Columbus & Ross McCormack which has snippets of the show alongside an interview with the Director and Principal of Choreography chatting about the creative process. See much more at the official FB page for WOW - including photos of all the section winners and a photo album of the show.
DLP Week 4 : Add stripes. Started with a wee journaling block with added white dots for sparkle
You can see in the finished spread that the addition of black & white over colour AND stripes prompts appears in various forms in lots of places. This is the completed spread of joyful things for Remember September. Click on any photo to see it larger.
You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads HERE. You can find out more about DLP 2016 the unPlanner HERE.
Welcome to September and the beginning of Spring here in New Zealand {happy dance}
I decided to change my way of daily journaling this spread. I've been feeling less like documenting my everyday happenings and just doing meaningful journal spreads, but I can't quite give the DLP prompts a miss so this time I decided to divide my spread into 4 and use a prompt for each section.
Prompt : layer 2 favourite stencils
I had some deli paper that I had gelli printed in a session with 2 stencils - it was a lovely piece to start this section (left under the August heading) - of course then I had to add 2 more of my favourite stencils....and then I was starting to get into the next prompt...
Prompt : collage
This was such fun, and I left space to add some journaling, but released myself from making it formally daily by not adding proper dates - really like how this page turned out
Prompt : document a happy thing
Double happy with the arrival of a new great niece (see the quilt detailed in my previous post) and the feeling of Spring fast approaching. Our Magnolia tree has been bursting from bud this week
- lots of pink required to celebrate these two events. I began with a couple of favourite tapa stencils in different sizes
Then decided I could use them to create a memory of the flowering magnolia
Also cool to be able to use a spring stamp - have you ever tried wetting a watersoluble crayon by dipping the tip in water and then rubbing it on a stamp? It gives a lovely soft image
Prompt : self-portrait AND highlight your favourite number
I feel like every face I do becomes a self-portrait of sorts, and I am enjoying creating faces more and more...I don't have a favourite number, but feel like "lots" is good - especially when it comes to flowers. This was how she started
The completion of that section gets me to the end of August and the latest DLP prompts -
not sure what daily journaling looks like for me in September, but you can be sure I'll share it here :-)
You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads HERE. You can find out more about DLP 2016 the unPlanner HERE.
Began this spread by laying down some colour using dylusions sprays and a couple of fav stencils. Next day when completely dry I sprayed with fixative hoping I can work on the pages without that ink moving
The prompt I used this week from Documented Life was "Add a border". Since I had my handmade foam printing plates out the other day, I rediscovered this one :
Did some fun doodling and added my first entry for the spread
Then I remembered that I really want these spreads to be arty, so next I jumped into a Life book bonus lesson - I shared the details HERE. The first layer was finger painting and unfortunately this is proof that the fixative didn't work entirely as well as I had hoped
but I still LOVE how the flowers turned out and became a very arty focal for the spread - I must remember to do this (big art on the spread) MUCH more often....
NOTE - after I did this, I watched a lesson with Effy in Book of Days and she suggests 2 layers of the fixative since Dylusions sprays are so easily activated. Will try that next time.
It was another week of birthdays for my husband and eldest son who turned 16. I made this guitar card for Craig - shared others from similar bases HERE. Although made completely independently of this journal spread, it blends very well with other colours on the page.
Added another border with the same printing plate in the bottom right corner
and here's the spread complete. I didn't change the colour of the flowers from the earlier photos, just took the final photos outside in daylight!
You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads HERE. You can find out more about DLP 2016 the unPlanner HERE.
If you've been following me a while you'll know I love to art journal {almost} every day. We had a very busy and fun last week and weekend of our school holidays and I finished my last daily spread ready to start the new term on 25th July. We've been resettling into school, getting organised for more family birthdays, trying to prune roses between wintery cold and very wet days, and although I've been working on some projects that I can't share completed yet, I'd been feeling a bit like I'd lost some of my art mojo. I decided to start fresh again for August...a new month called for a lovely new title - in June I cut a previously spray-painted piece of cardstock to use for art cards.
I used that doily HERE
and the lacey bit HERE
It was time to use that lovely henna hand creatively. I started with gelli plate background fun (I made the foam plate HERE) :
and then added the hand
With all our happenings I had plenty of photos, but was forgetting to make space for the art. The black tag is there to remind me to use it for a Documented Life prompt, but I came to a bit of a stand still last week. Then on Saturday, I found out I'd won Effy's online class Book of Days July-December! She is so encouraging with such wise words - after watching a few videos I was reminded that I NEED to art - it's good for my soul, it's good for my development, it's good from my general happiness which means my whole life benefits - I need to make priority time for it in my day and recognise that the other stuff can be done around the space I need to make for that. That afternoon I was adding more art to my spread :
And although there were some memory-keeping photos I had to add at the top of the next page, I remembered to use some tape and silver pen to add to the shivery weather feel of the day
The best way to celebrate my Book of Days win was to art it. And it was time to properly use a Documented Life prompt "Start with a black background". I began with lovely stencils of feathers = art gives me wings ♥
Then it was time to add sparkles with gelli pen work
and decided I would also like to use my black clothing tag
Attached with a small brad - I'll be able to cover the back with some paper when I turn the page.
I love how this half-page has turned out
and here's the final spread complete.
Looking forward to seeing what happens next on my art journey.
You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads HERE. You can find out more about DLP 2016 the unPlanner HERE.
