Hello :)

Just dropping by to post some photos of my super cute nephew, played around with some photoshop trying to get the dreamy, vintage look..here's what I got:

Isn't he adorable?

So Busy...and the Art of Non-Conformity

I haven't touched my art journal since last post...just so busy trying to finish some work before we head off to the beach for a family vacation this Thursday.  And I probably won't be able to do anything until next week.  Aww! But I'm so excited about the trip because it will be my sons first time to see Boracay which is just such a beautiful beach with fine powder white sand.  This is such a treat for us and I have my dearest brother to thank for treating my family to this vacation.  I shall post pics when we get back ;)

Before I go, I'd like to share a link to this site that I stumbled upon, its called "The Art of Non-Conformity" by Chris Guillebeau.  He talks about unconventional ideas, travel, art, life, work, personal development.  Very interesting.  I found a recent article of his, An Interview With Yourself to be a very good prompt for art journalers - he asks you to ask yourself questions like:

Dear self, you are x years old. What do you have to show for it? Are you living the dream?

As you look back on your life, what are you most proud of, what do you regret, and how do you feel about each of those things? Here are a few follow-ups:

• What’s next, self?
• Why do you do the things you do every day?
• What do you really believe in? (What do you know to be true?)
• Where do you find your security?
• What bothers you, and what are you doing about it?
• What worries you?
• If you had one year left to live, how would you spend it?   

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It's a great exercise,  I'm a little scared to answer it, LOL! Might find out I'm not living the life I want to live, whoa!  But I do know these questions would be great prompts for our journals - surely I will find some time next week to sit with my art and an interview with myself. 

Great big hugs everyone!

March Art Journal Challenge

Joined the March Art Journal Challenge over at Art Journaling.Ning.  These are the mechanics: "Prompts will be posted, which could be one word, a material, technique or even a quote and the challenge is to use it in some manner in our art journal that day."

"The idea behind this is to jump start daily art journaling. The goal is to art journal daily but not necessarily to finish a page or spread every day, just to open the journal and work."

Week 1 prompts are as follows:
March 4th: "Doodle"
March 3rd: "Blue"
March 2nd: "Credit Card(s)"
March 1st: "Start Your Engines!"

I started some pages, they are by no means finished and I will continue to be working on them...

Blue:  (far, far from over..experimented with lace and sequins and beads, 

ugh I don't know what I was thinking....)

Doodle: Uhm, yeah, I don't know where this is going yet..

And this is something I just doodled today while working,
maybe I'll play around with pastels and color her in.

And of course, that led to another...

 

And another...I kinda like her, she's cute :)

Recycled Tags are Cool!

I've been in a fog today, been waking up tired with my back aching although I see no reason for it to ache since I'm supposed to be sleeping on some kind of orthopedic mattress (or so they claim!).  Maybe its the jogging, I've been jogging lately and for the last 2 weeks have been doing 3 kilometer runs.  Today was especially hard because I kept feeling like my eyes were about to fall, even after 3 cups of coffee. 

I've also been so, so behind on my journal entries even if I have been trying to create something each day.  Although today I really could not help it and would putter around to my big table and sit for 10 minutes or so to dab some paint here and there.  I finally succumbed after dinner and sat down at my work table, keeping my son Enzo company while he was doing a school project.  I finally finished this "tag" project I had been working on sporadically for about 3 or 4 days now.

This project was inspired by a tutorial by Alisa Burke my newest mentor, even if she doesn't know it :) She had this idea to re-use those clothes tags and paint over them and use as gift tags.  What a cool idea.  Great thing I have this penchant for keeping tags I like (always thinking I may have a use for them later) Ha! You see, I just knew I'd need them (LOL!)

Except I created little miniature canvases out of them.

This is  where I started:

I still don't have gesso or gel mediums so I just brushed it with white acrylic paint 

and did some stenciling.

Next I just added some patterned paper I cut up from here and there.

Drew my images

Added some more paint and waited 2 more days till I could figure out where

I was going with this (hahaha!)

Could not resist just working on it today and just added more details, paint, collage...still something missing...

More details...That's better.

Pasted some scrapbook paper I had lying around at the back of the tag.

 

And here they are up close:

 

 
Miniature art, ready to hang on my wall, or maybe on my Christmas tree, my door, as a bookmark...I think I'll scan it and print it out on nice thick paper so I can give it away as bookmarks. 

Fun project.  Definitely!

Trying Something New

I keep thinking of the Art Journal Caravan prompt to do something new and one thing I have been dying to do is create my own stamps to use in my journals.  The problem though is I don't know where to get the supplies in my country, I emailed an art store here to find out if they have it, or its equivalent and I am waiting for their response.  I hope its not too expensive since I have such a spare budget at the moment.  The great thing though about not having the budget is that I have become so resourceful.  I am kind of impatient with respect to my wanting to do art and when I come across some tutorial - I want to try it right away!  The problem is, I don't have the materials recommended.  So I end up trying to find some alternatives and start scrounging around my home for whatever materials I can come up with.

I love the look of those decorated papers, you know, those ones with the Indian inspired stamps and prints on them, they're so yummy to look at.  Sort of boho inspired looking.  And everyone knows, I am such a Bohemian girl at heart.

So today, I was experimenting with some watercolor washes on my junk journal and I wanted some sort of stamp looking decor on it.  The closest I could come to having that look without the stamps is to do some stencils.  Again, I did not have the right materials but who was to stop me from using anything I can get my hands into.  I'm just experimenting anyway and I really love the process of discovery :)  So I just drew some shapes onto thick paper and cut them out with an Xacto knife.  Ha, ha, ha, talk about crude!  I read in the tutorial that I needed to sand the edges so I'd get a smooth shape but then again, sorry I did not have any sandpaper (mental note to self: get some sandpaper).  Anyway, I wanted the shape to be imperfect.

So, what do I use to color in my new stencil? I remembered I had a can of very light colored spray paint that I had bought by mistake thinking it was a fixative or clear lacquer.  Hah! Was I wrong, I sprayed one of my drawings on my nice side table without any newspaper under it (dumb!) and got the shock of my life to find that it wasn't clear lacquer at all but some opaque paint.  Ruined my drawing and ruined my beautiful table.  But I digress.  I thought to myself that I might as well put that can to use.  Learning my lesson, I took the can outside with a sheet of newspaper and started to spray paint the stencil.  Oooohh, I love the effect! I was so excited!

Next, I cut out another stencil shape and this time tried to use watercolor, BIG, BIG mistake - the water color just made a mess on my wonderful new paper! Oh No! Okay, don't panic Indy, lets see....well lets try some acrylics then.  Voila! it worked! Dabbed some acrylic paint over the stencil, ooohh, I love it more!

Finished it up with some more colors and took my hairdryer out for it to dry.  Now I love the paper and it looks all so pretty that I don't want to write on it, hahaha! So I scanned it in case I wanted to use it digitally or print it out.

Now I have a background freebie for you! You may right click on the photo to save the image and use it as a background digitally or print it to do as you please on your journal pages (personal use only):

I'd love to put some gold leaf looking paint in there and maybe some asian imagery...hmmm...something to think about... another page for me to continue working on next week.  

Have a great day my friends!

Art Journal #7

A quick post since I'm stepping out to watch my son in his schools annual production, this is my art journal page for the Art Journal Caravan Itinerary #6 - Blissful living.

I Love Art Journaling

I love, love, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Art Journaling! At night I go to bed dreaming of it, I awake and I'm still thinking of it and I wish I could spend the rest of the day creating in my journal.

But

I have to set aside time to work and right now, it is so so so hard to get into the work mode, big big sigh! I promise, after posting this to go start working again.  I'm doing the layouts for a school yearbook and need to finish before the week ends.  I hate scanning and I have loads of stuff to scan - I really don't know why I hate scanning, its such a chore for me to do.  Maybe its because I use a laptop and scanning involves me going to my desk and connecting all these wires and just repetitiously inserting page after page and clicking away cropping the pages.  It's like clerical work which I really loathe to do but I need to do.

Okay, I'm shutting down my wifi connection because the temptation is too big to go over and watch those wonderful video tutorials on art journaling I just discovered.

I'll be posting my new art journal page tomorrow. So, till then, I wish you a lovely day!

Yes, I love art journaling! Hahaha, I can't say that enough today.