Trust in yourself and listen to your heart

Hello everyone

Thanks for visiting my little blog and leaving such lovely comments. I appreciate them very much.

I have been busy getting back to work and then packing for a week's holiday at the beach next week. I have also signed up for Louise Gale's online ecourse called Big Dreams, Small Wonders . I joined a bit late but hoping to catch up while I am sitting on the beach relaxing. From what I have read so far I just love what it is about and can't wait to get right into Dreaming Big. 

In all of that I did find time to fit in some art getting some pages base coated ready for me to doodle when I am away and finishing another journal page that was basecoated ages ago waiting for inspiration to strike.

I started with a plain base of Jo Sonja Linen

Then stipple through a lemon bag with Jo Sonja Opal. I splayed it out a bit so it looked like it was coming out from one place.

 Then I stippled on some butterflies. These are the left over pieces of vellum that I used to make my butterflies for a card in a previous post here. The colour I used this time was Jo Sonja Smoked Pearl.

 This is the result so far. I liked the softness these colours gave. As you know I am sort of a heavy handed painter, using bright bold colours, not really being able to achieve soft pastel colours in my paintings so this was the challenge for me.

 I also wanted to recycle things on this page so I found a piece of plastic that was part of a container that my new pens came in and I kept this bit of it because it looked like a good stamping pattern. I painted it with Jo Sonja Raindrop and then stamped down the pages in stripes.

 Next was a little plastic dot thingy. I don't know where it came from but I remind you that I am a hoarder and now particularly since I started doing art journals, I keep anything that I could use in the future. Anyway i dipped this in Opal and randomly dotted the pages.

 Next came a brush cleaner that I was given ages ago and it has a neat little heart pattern on the back of it.  I painted it with Jo Sonja Lilac and stamped away

Another bit of leftover paper that I had punched for another page that I will show you when I get back and this too became a stencil. I am loving this recycling!

So here it is so far with the stamping and stenciling.

 If you look on the right hand side near the bottom, there is a bit of colour that has bled through from the following page. I liked it and thought I would incorporate it on this page in a different way. It is Jo Sonja Rich Gold. With my finger I tapped into the Rich Gold and then in the Lilac and rubbed it on the pages in rough lines. I do like to get my hands in the paint. I end up with it everywhere after a painting session.

Now these were the new pens I told you about before. They are Staedtler triplus fineliner in multi colours and it says they can write on anything so I tested it out. I also used a White Inkssentials pen to do the journaling.

So here is the finished page. i journaled about why I am so drawn to butterflies at the moment and what they symbolise to me.

I have a few more journal pages to show you but haven't had the time to get them organised on my computer so until then here is a sneak peak at them.

My quote today comes from a book that arrived in the mail today by Julia Cameron called "Blessings" In it is a quote from Sonia Choquette about enthusiasm. Julia asks the reader to respond to life with lively interest, joy and delight. She adds that enthusiasm is the fuel for her endeavours. So are you enthusiastic about your endeavours, creativity, life?

Enthusiasm means "of the Gods". When you have an enthusiastic heart, all the heavens can flow through it.

Sonia Choquette

Well I must get back to the packing so I will bid you goodbye for a week. I hope you have a great weekend and to all my Aussie friends I hope you all have a fantastic Australia Day next Wednesday celebrating everything Australia. I will be celebrating with you and being grateful for every day in this great southern land.

Namaste

Lee

So many photos, so many memories

Well it has been a lot longer than I anticipated since I last posted. I feel like it has been a week when it has been two! Since then I have joined in on a free online workshop called Art Heart and Healing by the beautiful, multi-talented Tam at Willowing.It is a great course that introduces healing with your art journalling. I am running a bit behind but hope to catch up this week.

I haven't really done anything in my art journal but have been doing creative things like going through and printing out photos that I want to use in a scrapbook album for my son's 21st and then choosing the papers and embelishments for the pages. I haven't looked at some of these photos for a long time and it brought back some really good memories. It would be a lovely thing if the family sat down one evening every now and then and just went through their old photos and reminisced a bit. Boys don't seem as interested in doing this as girls are and in our fast paced hectic lives this is one thing that can bring us back to each other.
I also taught the second half of my purple iris class on Sunday. It was a lovely day to catch up with friends and paint at the same time.
So my only offerings this week are a couple of doodles that I did last week and a mandala I coloured in. It started as a photocopy from a book I have called Coloring Mandalas 2 by Susanne F Fincher and I added some more lines and curves and then coloured it in with coloured pencils.

 I like curves and swirls

 This one came after a chakra meditation. The bottom looks a bit out of shape but I like the rest of it.

 I was limited in the colours I had so probably didn't match up the colours in the way I wanted but I liked the meditative state and relaxation you feel when doing these.



I am still a bit behind in leaving comments on your blogs but I will get there this weekend. We have a long weekend with the Melbourne Cup on next Tuesday and my work always take the Monday off too so it is a really nice break.
I have just realised that I forgot to lead you guys over to Suzana at Creative Therapies. She kindly featured me on her blog during my absence and my manners flew out the window in not acknowledging that. Thank you Suzana for the mention :) Suzana is all about healing through creativity in our lives and is also currently doing the Artists Way so if you are interested in sharing that journey be sure to have a look.

I did start the Artists way a couple of weeks ago but have been unable to keep up so I have postponed it till after I have finished Tam's course. Sometimes I overload myself so have taken a self care step to drop some balls that I am juggling.

I leave you with a quote from the book

" What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us"

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have a great day everyone

namaste

Lee

this and that.

Its a rainy day here in Melbourne, the perfect weather to stay indoors and do something creative. I have couple of ideas running through my head at the moment and hope to get into them today.
I am working through The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron at the moment and it has been a great motivator to look at where I want this art to go in my life and to become more aware of who and what is really important to me and to pinpoint where I waste time and where I need to focus more. The questions are thought provoking and enlightening. I like it too because the book is structured in such a way that you can sit down and read a chapter and do an exercise in half an hour if that is all you have.

Chroma has asked all of their artists to send them scrapbooking and related ideas to them for publication so it has spurred me into doing something with some of those ideas that have running around in my head for the last couple of months. Also visited my local scrapbooking shop yesterday(very dangerous) and came out with a lot more ideas in this already crowded head (oh and an emptier wallet!). Ahh need a few more hours in the day I think....