LB2016 : Dancing with shadows (paint over collage)

You may have noticed that I'm not keeping up with the weekly lessons for Life Book 2016! Since we can download and keep every lesson forever there will be time to do what I really want to. I love what I've completed in the first half of this year - 

I've got to the point where I have a few choices and don't know which lesson to do next. Rather than work through in order, my strategy is to number the lessons I am most drawn to onto pieces of paper, pop them in a bowl and draw one out randomly. If I draw out a number and I am disappointed it's not a particular lesson, that tells me what my heart wants and I go and do that lesson. So this one was drawn from the bowl and was good with my heart too...a paint over collage by Tam. You may remember that I really enjoyed this technique in her lesson from Life Book last year

This time around I especially love that I've just re-focused on my word of the year : "Transform". Tam says as part of this lesson What I love most about this technique is how different the final painting is to the original collage lending itself well for working with the concept of 'transformation'. Here's my initial collage with clear gesso layer before adding paint. It's interesting that since I posted my photo above from last year I realise I started with the same background collage colours! As you'll see, I ended up with a completely different effect this time around, although that lovely doily stencil does end up featuring again.

I added a fantail (Piwakawaka) because they are my favourite NZ native bird - pretty with their fanned tail, I love their cheeky friendliness, their call, and their dancing energy. Here we are with some colour laid down - it's really good to take progress photos I didn't realise how much she was altered already! Hoping I can keep those colours nice and soft.

I am very happy with my development with this course. I watch the lessons right through, and then go and do my page, only referring back if I get stuck. This means that I am always adding what feels right "for me" rather than always layering like the instructor suggests. 

I have a huge affinity for stencils and layering so my page developed like this

I used the same favourite tapa stencil for the pink above and the gold on her dress below

and when the background began to feel too dark, I added white

Tam's girl had a halo effect. I used that same stencil in the white above, to add a gold tiara effect

and often I feel like I need to words to complete my piece

Tam posted her original painting on her Flickr HERE

I thought you might like to see what she presented, and what I produced from those instructions. You can definitely make each lesson your own.

I ♥ seeing the original collage next to the "Transformed" finished piece 

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.
If you are inspired to try this yourself, Tam shared this technique as a Free Life Book Taster (from 2015) on her blog HERE : 

One Little Word : April and July

It's July already and we are all wondering how we got here so fast! I felt miserable yesterday with a head cold, but well enough today to take stock of the year so far and do a bit of planning for school holidays in a week and some projects that need to happen. It's hard to believe that across the other side of the world they are wearing shorts and promoting new classes called Art Journal Summer School while I'm wearing merino, boots, and layering with jackets and scarves. Winter has arrived at my place.
I joined Ali Edwards' One Little Word class a the beginning of the year, and I did well until April when I let the prompts slide. Consequently, I feel like I've been losing touch with my word Transform in some areas of my life. When I looked at July's lesson, I found the message is "What do you most need to hear this month?" 

Do you get daily email messages from the Brave Girls Club? Often I just skim and delete them, but sometimes the message comes with just when I need to hear :

Dear Diligent Girl,
Put it in your mind that quitting is not an option.
Tides will change. The wind will shift. Things usually start to come together JUST after we were sure is was time to quit.
If you are facing the direction of your most wonderful end goal, even if some days FACING that direction is all you can do...that is still part of continuing.

Some days you will take steps. Some days you will just keep yourself turned in the right direction. It's all important progress. 

Just don't give up, okay? Never never never never quit.

You can do it. You ARE DOING IT.

You are so very loved.  xoxo

I've decided that what I most need to hear this month is "Keep going. Remember why you started" :

It's ONLY July. I AM making progress in several areas. There are still 6 months before this year's transformation is done, and I need to recognise the progress I've made since January, and believe that I CAN DO IT. This month I'm going to once more use the goal tracker idea from February - practicing one new thing every day for a month. 

Next I decided to look back through Ali's prompts that I didn't complete properly - by which I mean putting them down in my journal, thus capturing their importance in my daily life. In April the question was "What does it REALLY mean to be your word?"  I remembered I'd made notes about this so I decided to create a page in my journal.  I started with paper serviettes of butterflies (a transformation symbol for me) and some journaling cards.

I quickly noticed that there were some very apt words in my background which needed to be circled

and I really love how the page turned out.

I immediately knew what needed to go on the facing page to make this a true mix of April & July's prompts. Ali talked about making cards as "a creative meditation" and I love that phrase so just started building up the kind of intuitive/meditative background and layers that I love - letting the art take me as it would. I started with soft colours to complement the facing page, and included a bit of stenciling

Then the layers built with various pattern stencils, more of that butterfly serviette I used on the facing page, some stamping, and one of my favourite word stencils by Dina Wakley

And here's the completed spread - I feel re-inspired for the second half of the year

Click on the photo to see it larger, and you can see the other journal pages created from Ali's class prompts HERE.
Encourage yourself. Be your own cheerleader this month :-)

DLP (Pick a shape and repeat, Doodle a flower) and daily journaling

In my previous post about my birthday week, I shared the first page of this daily journaling spread. I was dying to use my new gelli plates - here they are next to the cheap acrylic block I got to put them on for printing 

First I laid down some colour with the square plate

and then overlapped that with circles

I used the back of the paint brush to draw some lines in the top left ready for the day/date, and I particularly liked the effect of pressing the plate onto bubble wrap before printing (below left) and then printing with the bubble wrap (below right). Click on the photo to see the effect up closer, and between them you'll also see the ghost (second) print of that original circle.

I can see these are going to appear often....
After my birthday week, it was my youngest son's turn - he turned 12 and I made sure to print some photos of his actual birthday, but only wrote about his other party days :-)
Then it was time to get back to some prompts from Documented Life. I decided to go back to the beginning of June - Week 1 Pocket Art Card (PAC) prompt was to pick a shape and repeat. I decided that since I had that new circle gelli plate....

I used it directly in my journal, and also thought it would be fun to add to a circular "PAC". To the PAC I added some dotty tape, papers, a dictionary definition of dot, and I even found some spotty ribbon in my stash :-)

The other circles were finished using Week 2's prompt of "Doodle a flower" (I know I already did this prompt but I can't resist the opportunity to try it in a different way)

The rest of the page was calling for just a little more gelli printing! It is so easy to apply a little paint to the small square, and then draw lines with the other end of your brush

I masked my flower with a bit of paper, and stamped this twice

This is the finished spread - see details of the left hand page in my previous post.

And that's 1/2 the year gone! Thought you might like to see how my art journal is looking

Above is what I started with, and below is view from the top today. 

I have a Flickr album that contains every spread of this journal so far HERE. You can see the album dedicated to my daily journaling spreads HERE. And you can find out more about DLP 2016 the unPlanner HERE. See you in July.