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.

More Catching Up To Do

Two weeks since my last post and I am still behind with my collages and Journal 52. Well after a late dash of summer type weather, we are back to winter with mostly rainy, dismal days broken up by the occasional cold but sunny day - just like today. Best to find an indoor spot in the sun and settle down for a read or a nap!

Colour Me Positive Week 20 - Wonder

This week we got a quote from Socrates: "Wisdom begins in wonder" and were given the option to use bubbles on our pages. I decided to try out my 8 x 8 Dylusions journal for this challenge spreading paint for the background with an old credit card. I then used the bubble stencil before doing a wash of crimson, and dabbing splotches of red, yellow & orange. To make the bubbles, I stamped using two different sized plastic containers.

For the bubbles, I searched on YouTube and found a suitable how-to using coloured pencils at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLJV9XPrpLk. I just changed the colours I used to match my background. A white Uniball pen provided the highlights - and I was really happy with it.

CMP Week 21 - Abundance

I enjoyed using the 8 x 8 journal so ended up using it again for this week's challenge. We are looking at how abundance comes into our lives with the quote: "Gratitude is the open door to abundance", and we are invited to use sheet music on the page. The only sheet music I have is on some Tim Holtz tissue paper, then I found another suitable quote to do with gratitude: "Be in love with your life, every minute of it!"

I used my Distress stains for the background, with a small doily to get some white space (idea from Tamara Laporte). I stencilled the girl's face and then painted her, used a bit of napkin for her dress and then tore the doily in half to make a head-dress. Markers made the ribbons, the music & quote were stuck down, and I used three key words inside the doily - abundance, gratitude, life.

Journal 52 Week 19 - Friendship

Effy's challenge was to do a page about friendship and use flowers for bonus points. Sarah's challenge was to do a page about pets or "furfriends". As I don't have a pet, I thought I would do a garden and use the quote "Friends are the flowers in life's garden", inspired by Effy.

The background started well with colours swirled over the page and a floral stencil over the top. Then I used what flower stamps I have and then painted them. This did NOT work so well and colours ended up muddy. I put it all aside for several days before going over everything and adding some pen-work. This is not my best effort, and for some reason it just defeated me!

As you can see, I haven't even cropped the photo.

Journal 52 Week 20 - What feeds you?

Effy's challenge is to look at what feeds your soul and Sarah's was food with a face! Fairly obvious that I would choose feeding my soul, and strangely enough, gratitude comes into this challenge too.

I made a list of everything that feeds my soul and that I am grateful for, and then wrote out my thanks on one page. On the other page, I drew a face and used coloured pencils to flesh her out. Inpired by some YouTube videos by Nika Rouss, I then used a stencil for her hair. The most suitable stencil I have is the leaves and I used autumn colours. My brushmarkers outlined the leaves and filled in the letters on the opposite page.

Collages - R

I think my choice of "rendezvous" was fairly obvious as it was really easy to find pictures of couples and others meeting in all sorts of places. Most of these pictures came from my Royal Auto magazines.

Collages - S

There were lots of lovely S words, but I chose "scintillating" because I knew I had the tiara photo and I also have a jewellery catalogue with lots of lovely pictures. Scintillate is a term used to describe the way gems sparkle.

That's everything that I've completed since my last post. I've done the background for the next CMP, I have an idea for the next Journal 52, and I know which T word I will use, so that's a start. Heaven only knows when I will get them done or when I will post next because work is busy and I have to work extra hours for the next 2-3 weeks.

So goodbye for now and thanks for visiting.

Three Weeks Just Flew By

I can't believe it is nearly three weeks since my last post - where did the time go? I haven't been anywhere or done anything much. With the onset of the cooler weather I tend to hunker down inside, only emerging to go to work or food shopping.

Although -- I did drive 40 minutes a couple of weeks ago, to visit my cousin. She is in her seventies, is partially blind and has difficulty walking. She is looked after by her daughters who share the care, so every few weeks Ruth moves from one daughter's house to the next. I visited at her younger daughter's home in the outer east of Melbourne, where we had a lovely afternoon catching up and talking family history.

Because I've got so much to catch up with, I won't comment much on each piece and hopefully this post won't be too long!

Colour Me Positive Week 17 - Friendship

I found the picture right after I'd done the week 9 challenge PLAYFUL, but it ended up working well for this challenge too. The quote was : "Find your tribe. Love them hard" - Danielle LaPorte.

CMP Week 18 - Healing

This week we were to use hearts on our page and the quote was : "Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing". I found the photo on-line and it dictated the colour scheme.

 CMP Week 19 - Balance

This challenge was about achieving balance in our lives and to use feather(s) on the page. I didn't use the supplied quote, but found a shorter one : "Life is a balancing act".

Journal 52 Week 8 - Hearts

This is a catch up for the challenges Hearts or Skulls. I chose hearts and interestingly finished this spread just a few days before the CMP Week 18 challenge of Healing & Hearts!!!

Journal 52 Week 17 - Rise / Fall

This feels more like a scrapbook page to me as I've used some of my photos from Alice Springs in 2006, but it just seemed like a no-brainer to use pictures of the hot air balloon trip.

Journal 52 Week 18 - Prince / Purple

The challenge FB group feed was awash with purple rain and crying doves, so I thought I would try for a different song by Prince. I looked up a song list, thought "7" was a cool title, then I looked at a YouTube video and the lyrics. The words of the chorus are written around the edge of the page and I wrote the numeral 7 in several other languages.

Collage - P

I used a torn paper technique inspired by one of the ladies in the CMP group - she does these amazing collages for each challenge. All of these came from the RACV magazine and hopefully give a "panoramic" view.

Collage - Q

Another torn paper collage, this time from the Daphne magazines. I always thought "quixotic" meant changeable/mercurial - but while looking up words for this challenge, I discovered that it actually means dreamy, romantic or impractical.

Wow, that was a lot to catch up on - hope you weren't bored. I am having an absolute ball doing these challenges, flexing long dormant brain cells to come up with ideas and slowly regaining technique not used in forty years or more. Bye for now.

Catching up

Instead of doing art or my household chores, last weekend was spent getting a new laptop configured and loaded with software. Some of it was easier than expected - Google Chrome brought across all my internet bookmarks and folders, and I successfully copied my Outlook folders and transferred all my archived mails.

It's a long weekend in Australia - today is ANZAC Day where we remember fallen servicemen & women, as well as those currently serving with our armed forces. The day always begins with dawn services all over the country and later in the day, a televised service from Gallipoli in Turkey as well as from France - usually Villers-Brettoneux. There are lots of special events due to the centenary of WW1.

Anyway, a long weekend means more time for everything including art.

Colour Me Positive Week 15 - HAPPY

This prompt was about how we approach life with a quote from the Buddha:"There is no path to happiness ... Happiness is the path", and with the option to use some drips or splatters on the page.

I went for a fairly literal rendition of the quote with a pathway through a garden, and used paint drips for the stems of plants and trunks of abstract trees. I kept the paint fairly liquid so the flowers look like splatters of paint.

The background was stencilled in pale pink before being washed over with blue and yellow. I used coloured pencils for the steps and pathway, and finished off with some small pops of bright yellow & orange in amongst the flowers.

Colour Me Positive Week 16 - ART

The challenge talked about art feeding the soul, teaching us to think & improvise, and how we can often use it as a sort of therapy. The quote came from Thomas Merton: "Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time", with the option of putting a bird on the page.

I immediately thought of using some of my previous art on the page. I looked at the background in various pieces and homed in on some to print. I used the background from Week 12 of Journal 52 for the letter A, and from Week 13 for R. The background from CMP Week 15 is the T, and the bird is from Week 12.

I used a very simple background for the page, just two colours and a stencil - I wanted my bird to have somewhere to perch, so the lattice was perfect.

Journal 52 Week 15 - Humble / Noble

I had a few ideas for this challenge where Sarah wanted us to use the quote: " Be humble for you are made of Earth. Be noble for you are made of Stars". I decided to go with the gothic ruin as I had a suitable stencil. I painted a rough shape along the bottom of the page, then stencilled the windows in white. The sky was painted using paynes grey.

Then it was a matter of painting a lightening sky, but still with some stars showing. The picture doesn't quite show the little touches of yellow and pink and the light at the side of the building looks a bit more like fire than light. Most of the sky was finger-painted and I found some paints did not blend as well as others.

Journal 52 Week 16 - Impossible Dream / Goals List

Effy asked us to create a page that looks at our "impossible" dreams, while Sarah wanted us to look at what our goals are this week, this month or this year.

I went with the impossible dream because that is easy and I did a goals page last year for DLP and they have not changed very much. My impossibly held dream is to design a house and have it built somewhere with a sea view. Why is it impossible? Well - first money - land is very expensive by the seaside; second money - it's very expensive to build a house; third time - I've left everything a bit late.

But I can still dream and I can still keep drawing up plans incorporating all the things I see that I think are really good ideas - one day it will be perfect!

Collages - O

Well this was a no-brainer as soon as I got hold of the Daphne magazine with lovely oriental prints to cut out and turn into umbrellas. Except, I cut them out and stuck them on my collage page together with some bits cut from an old calendar.

Now I just need to decide which P word I will use.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you liked what you saw

Week 14 and cooler weather

Well daylight saving has finished and we are back to light early mornings which makes it easier to get up in the morning - although the cooler weather makes you wish you could stay under the covers a bit longer! I love autumn with the crisp mornings and sunny days. I sleep better that's for sure.

Colour Me Positive Week 14 - HOPE

This week's prompt talked about hope being an optimistic frame of mind and how dreams/hopes can help us move forward. The quote is: "Once you choose hope, anything can happen", and we were encouraged to use some glitter on the page.

As on most weeks, I have chosen to use a different quote: "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul" - Emily Dickinson, and I had a vision of a bird flying out of the soul - hope taking wing. My page started with pastel colours squirted on the page and moved around with a credit card. The pink was a bit pale so I used a hot pink over it to brighten up the page.

Next, I used a grey paint with two new stencils from Lulu Art and the lovely Lapis blue from Dina Wakley to add some accents to the page. The soul shape and the words were done using black watercolour pencil, and I added some glitter to the word "Hope". My bird was composed of various feather shapes from a TCW stencil.

Journal 52 Week 14 - Seed / Root

So this week Effy wanted us to include a quote about seeds or spring and to paint something with seeds in it. Sarah, of course, wanted a root related quote and for us to explore metaphorical or literal roots on our page.

I found my quote first, from Khalil Gibran: " And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair". So my picture is literal for seeds and roots, but my quote is more metaphorical.

The background is my wonderful Distress Spray Stains which I enhanced by rubbing over some gold paint and pearlizing medium to give a bit of sheen. I stenciled the tree using white paint so that I would have a suitable background to colour the tree trunk, leaves and fruit. I painted the roots freehand. The seeds are just little commas of red paint with a white pen over the top.

I also stamped a little around the background but I find the black ink too dark when used over the background colour, so I will need to get a lighter colour,  possibly a grey.

Collage - N

I think the word chosen is a no-brainer as there are plenty of examples to find in the various magazines that I have, and "Needlework" is something I used to do - in fact many women in the family have been needlewomen both professionally and as hobbyists,

Unlike last week, this week ended in celebration with my niece's 30th birthday. It was lovely to get together as a family, catch up with various people and enjoy delicious food.

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you enjoyed your visit.