A Year of Rumi : January

Last year I did Effy's A Year of Rumi art journal class. I used it in a different way from others and created a series of mixed media art cards. Check out all those posts HERE.

My art cards were inspired by the Rumi quotes but completely different from Effy's lessons. I'd always had the thought I'd go back and repeat them in my art journal more closely inspired by her art. 

We started in December 2018 with a lesson for the cover (the intention of the class is to make a calendar by the end of year so 13 pieces of art) This is Effy's (advertised on Patreon HERE)

You can find details of my art card below for this prompt HERE. I did use her techniques in my journal in August - sort of ♥

January's quote : ''The source of now is here.'' The lesson is about celebrating being in the present moment and working with a monochromatic colour scheme. This journal spread will be completely different from my art card last year which colourfully celebrated our holiday in Hawaii! Effy chose a Lotus for her focal - I've chosen the lovely Pohutukawa flower since that is all around us in New Zealand currently. Now the challenge of the monochromatic colour scheme with Red. Happily I was able to make use of a gift card from Warehouse Stationery on the weekend some of which has inspired my direction for this spread - gorgeous new pastel acrylics ♥

I have a lovely pohutukawa stencil that I applied with red first, then gold to the tips and flower base

and later the leaves. Also added tapa stencils to the background. I know this needs more dark but isn't it pretty already?

I decided to use a technique I haven't used for a while to place the quote before I did more. Type your quote into a Word document and choose a font you like - I chose Curlz MT. Print a black and white copy to see you like the font size (mine is 48). Then space the words on your page so you have room to cut them out. Get an old calendar page and hold up your test page so you can see where the position of the words will fall.

Adjust as needed, trim calendar page to fit your A4 printer. Print. Wait to dry and then I zapped with workable fixative just to be safe (since my calendar is glossy paper) before I cut and placed them. 

Decided they were softer trimmed to a curve with my dancing vellum pohutukawas from my inspiration pack above.

And now I have the colours I need to pull the rest of the spread together. Brown Faber Castell Pitt Pen can be smudged/blended with your finger when first applied and is a softer option than black. Flowers finished with gold Sakura Gelly roll metallic pen. See more detail by clicking on the photo to see it larger.

Next day I decided that all the spread needed was some gold dots to complete. It's not quite monochromatic but I am very happy with this. 

I already did both a card and a journal page for the February lesson last year : 

Not sure if I'll be inspired to repeat this lesson or if you'll have to wait until March for the next one. Find out more about A Year of Rumi with Effy Wild HERE. All the lessons are available for instant access in the classroom. There's also a very supportive and inspiring FB group. See all my posts about this class HERE.