Forgot something!

In my last post, I completely forgot about the last mandala that I completed in the Mandala Magic course that I did. It was quite complicated and you had to keep your wits about you to ensure you did all of the circles around the outside.

Mandala Magic - Flower of Life

I've included the mandala before and after it was coloured. It probably won't be a pattern that I return to much - although with practice you'd become quite proficient. And looking at the coloured version, I think I should have done another round of circles, just to finish off the "flowers" around the outside.

I am currently doing another mandala in response to a Journal 52 prompt, but that is for a later blog post.

Once again, have a happy Christmas and a safe New Year.

Coming up for Christmas

Well this year I managed to get a few decorations out around the house - better than last year when I didn't bother with anything. At least the place looks a little bit festive.

At work, it's always a mad rush before the holiday break to get as much done as possible, and of course, libraries want as many books & dvds as we can process. In consequence, I am working longer hours just so that I don't end up with a backlog to come back to next year!

I've added a new gadget on the left hand side of this blog showing the books that I have recently read, together with a link so you can see what the book is about. It's not all fiction - I often borrow nonfiction from the library or buy books about art, pattern, travel, etc.

On the art front, I've kept up with Colour Me Positive and done the December Mission, but have done nothing for Journal 52 since my last post - just not getting any inspiration from the prompts. Anyway, here is what I have done since last time...

Colour Me Positive Week 48 - Community

Still under the thrall of mandalas, I thought I would try an off-centre circle mandala showing some of the qualities needed by this community of artists. The paint was applied with an old credit card then stencilled over. My journaling is done with a grey marker so that it does not show up clearly.

Colour Me Positive Week 49 - New Beginnings

Lulu Art which runs Colour Me Positive has been sold and we will have someone new doing the prompts from now on. This page was an experiment with some inks which did not work as it should have. The page had been gessoed so the inks had nowhere to soak in to and just sat on top of the paper. Not my best effort!

Colour Me Positive Week 50 - Bloom

A flower mandala was perfect for this challenge and did not take long, once I had decided on the concept. The outline is done with a 0.8mm Unipin fineline pen, the colours with the cheap marker set that I bought, and I used some gold highlights.

Colour Me Positive Week 51 - Creativity

This page was also done quickly - fingerpainting with phthalo green, magenta, and naples yellow. I used a baby wipe with the stencil to bring out the decorative detail and added more paint including burnt umber to try and grunge it up a little.

Mission Inspiration - December 2016

I saw this photo in a magazine and knew immediately that I wanted to use it. For step 3, I used a christmas tree and a holly stencil and for step 5, decorated the tree with coloured hole punch waste. I think it needs something on the bottom, but I can't decide what to use.

I hope you all get some time off over the holiday season, have a lovely day with your family (no matter what you celebrate), and keep safe. I am celebrating Christmas by having lunch at my brother's house with his family, my sister and her family and my sister-in-law's mother. According to the weather bureau it will be warm, so we are having a BBQ and salads - but there will be traditional Christmas pudding for afters.

All the very best wishes for the Season and if I don't blog before then, have a safe and prosperous New Year. CHEERS!!

Mandalas and other things

I had lunch yesterday with my aunt and some cousins - mine and my father's - to celebrate my aunt's birthday (number 88). I had my great grandmother's photo album with me and we were able to add some names to faces, which means that I will be able to add photos to Dad's side of the family tree on Ancestry. I haven't done much work on my trees for a while - maybe I'll get motivated if my Dale cousins organise this family get-together they keep talking about.

Since the last time I posted, I have done a free online course on making mandalas - drawing them and colouring them. It was really interesting and I enjoyed the short lessons and was quite pleased with what I achieved. I posted some on Facebook and I think I got my niece interested - I know she spends lots of time with her partner's daughter doing colouring in and is really interested in art in general. You can see other courses at Julie Gibbon's website (http://www.juliegibbons.com/).

As well as learning about mandalas, I have completed a couple more mixed media challenges.

Lotus Mandala

The finished mandala followed by the coloured in version. I found my brush markers too dark for this, but you can see the flower structure clearly.

Concentric Circle Mandala

This was fun to do and would work well with Zentangle patterns. I'm going to try more of these, but I need a better compass first!

Hamsa

Julie showed us a really good way to draw this symbol of the hand. I think an eye in the palm is usual and after that you can put whatever patterns you like. I tried to keep it simple. This was coloured with a new set of markers - a better range of colours, but the tips were not as nice.

Colour Me Positive Week 47 - Enthusiasm

I love this one, especially the image which I found in a BBC History magazine - the article was about nudists in Germany!! I started with Distress stain over a mask and then glued on the b & w image. Using one of my favourite techniques, I painted in the scenery surrounding the girl and extending out from the photo. I did some outlining in pen to highlight the boat & the girl before writing the words on the opposite page.

Journal 52 Week 47 - #ARTISTSFORLOVE

I also love this page and am very pleased with it. The base is yellow oxide with phthalo blue, some magenta and a little phthalo green on top. I used one of Julie Balzer's stencils (a 6x6 TCW with 4 faces on it) and wiped off paint with a baby wipe. I did the same using a heart stencil and then used gold paint to stencil some butterflies on the page.

In my enthusiasm, I forgot to gesso the page so tore a bit of the page off when I was wiping away paint. To cover this I just cut a heart shape from a magazine picture & glued it in place. Then I just had to write out the manifesto with a white paint pen.

I've had a great week or so - done some good (I think!) pages, learned about a new art type and had a nice visit with some cousins. The cleaning lady came today so the house is clean - all I need to do now is tidy up. Getting the house into shape has been a long process and is still continuing - but I'm hoping to have everything shipshape by new year.

Keep well and ciao for now.