A Productive Week

I've had a good week churning out quite a few challenge pages, so now I am right up to date with the Colour Me Positive challenges and only two weeks behind with Journal 52 (one of which I probably won't do). Very, very cold at the moment - we even had snow in the Dandenongs which are in outer Melbourne. BRRRRR!!

Colour Me Positive Week 25 - Enough

This week was to remind us that we are good enough, are loved and are awesome. The quote was "I am enough", or we could choose another positive to describe our self. I chose STRONG with (enough) in brackets to signify that I can get past negativity, ill-health, or anything else that plagues me. The background is stencilled in pastel colours, the image is from the State Library of Victoria, and I used a gold pen to highlight the strap across her body and the I in I am strong.

Colour Me Positive Week 26 - Celebrate

This week Lisa, who runs Lulu Art and the CMP challenge, celebrated her 50th birthday so the choice of word was pretty obvious. The quote is from Oprah : "The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."

I had already done the page with black gesso wanting to do something that echoed the work of an Aboriginal artist. But instead I just dabbed bright paint all over the page - thinking confetti or party lights. Whatever, it is a "party on the page". I wrote the quote in a slightly meandering way between the spots of paint.

Journal 52 Week 23 - Sunshine / Rain

Because it is winter here in the southern hemisphere, I get a bit annoyed with all the summery and flowery challenges coming out of Journal 52, so this is not my best work. I could have gone for "Rain" but honestly with all the Prince tributes we've had, I am over rain as well!

I found a quote that I liked and used the page next to my CMP "Strong" page where I had cleaned off some of the stencils and used up some extra paint. Then to keep with the theme, I went to the journal where I usually use up extra paint and found the sun-ray image and the sponged red paper. Some glueing, a few marks with my Gelatos and I had a finished page.

Journal 52 Week 24 - Weeds / Blossom

As my garden is currently choking in weeds, it was fairly obvious what I should choose. I used Sarah's quote "Take the time to pull the weeds choking flowers in your life" by Jerry Cantrell (except that I put an extra "c" in choking).

The background is Distress Stain with a gel medium photo transfer in the middle of the page. this came out very faint, so I drew over it with my brushmarkers. I also drew over the stencils and added extra marks to make the foreground messier.

Collage - X

I had three choices for this one : X-chromosome (lots of pictures of men), xenophobia (pictures of obviously foreign people) or xerophyte (plants that like dry conditions). Guess which one I chose?

Men - no, plants. Lots of magazines with plant pictures and sure enough there were enough of the type I was looking for.

So not a bad week with five challenges completed. I hope you enjoyed your visit and please visit again. Cheers.

Shortest Day

Well here we are almost half way through the year. Today is traditionally classed as the shortest day/longest night and while one of my challenges is asking for pages celebrating Summer Solstice, I am actually experiencing Winter Solstice, with much colder weather expected this week and even snow on nearby mountains, which will give a good start to the short ski season here.

I haven't been particularly inspired by the Journal 52 challenges lately and will get to them eventually when something pops into my head, but I have caught up on a few collages. So - here goes.

Colour Me Positive Week 23 - Opportunity  & 
Journal 52 Week 22 - New Beginnings/Old Traditions

For this challenge I used that same technique I saw in one of Dina Wakley's books - about covering up a messy page. This time I drew something on the page and painted around that to leave a patterned image based on an indigenous painting I saw in a book. The quote for CMP was " Every day is opportunity to make a happy ending", but I changed the words so that I could also use the page in my Journal 52 challenge.

It's a fun technique to use because you can make as much mess on the page as you like and it can look really ugly - but then you draw something, paint around it and voila - there's an interesting page and a really lively image.

Colour Me Positive Week 24 - Courage

This week was about moving out of our comfort zone and taking risks, with a quote from Christopher Columbus: "You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore". The extra prompt was to put a boat on the page.

I did not move out of my comfort zone for this one, but once again used the messy page/painted out technique. This time the image that I drew was a boat - one that I have been looking at all my life as it is etched onto a mirror which used to hang over the mantel in my parent's home and which now lives in my home.

Collages - U, V, W

I got a bit behind with these, mainly because I was having trouble deciding what words to use. In the end I think I have three reasonable pages. The last three letters may also pose problems, but after them I am going to do some colours which will hopefully prove to be easier.

Work is still busy, although I seem to have gotten my day off back again - so nice to sleep in and not rush around in the morning. Anyway, day off or not, I still have housework to do.

Thanks for visiting.

Time flies

I've been busy at work - taken on a new library - so I'm working five days a week at the moment. No day off to play with art journals.

I work for a company that gets books/DVDs/CDs "shelf ready" for libraries who don't have the staff to label, cover and add to their database.  I do the data entry side of things and some cataloguing for four different libraries around metro Melbourne - it's interesting (mostly) and I get to see lots of new books and DVDs.

Colour Me Positive Week 22 - FORWARD

This week is all about not being afraid to make mistakes as we move forward. The quote was a great one from Neil Gaiman: "Go and make mistakes. Make glorious and fantastic mistakes. BREAK RULES. Leave the world more interesting for you being here. MAKE. GOOD. ART." And of course, we were encouraged to make mistakes on our page.

After I had added lots of tissue & paper for the background, I thought it looked a bit like the aftermath of a party, so I stencilled some drips and rings. Then I drew a tipped over glass with some dregs of red wine.

As you can see, It looks too busy and the relevant elements are lost. So I took a hint that I read in one of Dina Wakley's books to cover over what you don't want. It turned out a lot pinker than I thought, but after I added the photos of the cherry muffins, it was starting to look like a messy tabletop.

Journal 52 Week 21 - Unraveling

Originally, I was going with Effy's prompt of "Stitched" which is wholly appropriate for me what with the "hole in the heart" operation when I was young and the subsequent pacemakers as I age. But I wasn't sure of what sort of image to use. So - procrastinating!!!

Then, I found this lovely poem from Michael Leunig and this page popped into my head and I completed it in a couple of hours last night. I used my Distress stains to paint the background. I tried that long drawn-out writing - obviously, I need to practice. Then I drew little motifs - a winged heart, an open birdcage, a sock unraveling, a bird and a butterfly.

The poem is as follows:

Let it go,

Let it out,

Let it all unravel,

Let it free

And it will be

A path on which to travel.

Photo quality is not the best - the flash has washed out some of the writing - will have to wait for a sunny day to take another photo.

Collages - T

Lots of these photos are from an Instagram account about Parisian floors - though I had to get the pictures from Google as I don't have an Instagram account. I love mosaic and tiled floors, so "tessellations" was an obvious choice for this collage. 

See the Instagram images at https://www.instagram.com/parisianfloors/ they are lovely.

That's it from me - I've had trouble with my keyboard tonight (an A that needs more pressure than I usually exert) - so it has taken me longer than normal just to type this little bit.

Keep well and thanks for visiting.