Checking in and sharing some blogging inspiration...

Hi everyone,

Just checking in to show you a doodle I recently did at work in my lunch hour.  I had my new collection of sharpies on hand and just used the black, blue and purple. Started with a circle drawn around the bottom of my coffee cup and went from there. 

I have been working on a couple of art journal pages for a class I am going to be teaching so can't show them just yet and really haven't had much time do do anything else lately. 

My new studio is nearly finished; it just needs some finishing touches and then i can show you my space. 

I also am late in acknowledging this but i was the lucky winner of this beautiful handmade journal and purse from the lovely Anna. I was so thrilled to receive the journal and can't wait to add to the beautiful work Anna has already done. Thank you Anna:)

In the absence of arty offerings by myself I offer you some inspiration from some blogging friends of mine, enjoy.

Paula, (Journal Artista) continues to amaze with her weekly Ustream videos and sharing of journal pages and techniques.

Kerryanne (Shabby Art Boutique) has released her new Christmas line which you will not want to miss. I have already bought mine ready for this years festive season.

Jes(Teddybearswednesday) continues to add to her oh so cute and ever-growing family of cheeky little companions. Do go and introduce yourself.

Ro (Ro Bruhn Art) has just shared some fabulous prints from her latest class. I would love to take one of Ro's classes.

Michelle (Creative Treasures) continues to inspire with her card making; a lovely collection of cards and techniques

Janet (Just Me and My Art) has just shared the greatest bargain of the decade as well as her fabulous artwork.

Rebecca (Penny Lane Ink) has been doing some fantastic artwork on hair brushes.

This Friday I am off to the Craft and Quilt Fair in Melbourne and will try really, really hard not to buy things I don't absolutely, positively need..... well maybe I won't buy things that won't fit in the car to bring home :) 

I'm not a quilter but I just love the different patterns on the materials and find them inspirational for art journal backgrounds. 

Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door is also going to be there with her stamps and things so I may just have to have one of her new stamps to try it out.

My quote today, which is actually an affirmation is from another of my favourite authors, Cheryl Richardson. I can feel a journal page coming from this affirmation

"I easily release the unconscious patterns that keep me stuck." 

-Cheryl Richardson

Have a great week everyone and I will check in after my little expedition to the craft and quilt fair.  

Namaste

Lee

Winter makes me feel so blah.....

Hi everyone

It has been a long time between posts but I really needed the break. I have tried to visit everyones blogs but can't seem to get to all that I would like. Even then, everytime I allocate time to go and contribute my comments, I get interrupted and there goes my plans. 

Yesterday I also attended a mixed media/altered art workshop by the talented Jan Fox. You can go visit her and see her work here...    

Watersoul by Jan Fox

The piece was called Watersoul and we all had the freedom to re-create Jan's piece or create our own. It was a fun day and we learned heaps about how Jan creates her lovely artwork.

I still have a bit of journaling and tweaking to do on my piece so I will show you in a couple of days.

I do have a quick doodle to share. 

I found a whole bunch of coloured Sharpies at Officeworks on sale for 50 cents each so I grabbed them and limited myself to using these colours. 

Winter can be so dreary, especially when it is wet and cold and I am stuck inside, i needed some colour to boost me up. 

I really am a Summer girl at heart. Give me a day at the beach, hot weather and a cool swim anytime.

Here is what I came up with.

This year my word was connection and this has been part of the reason for my hiatus. This then inspired my doodle, amongst other things, like not letting the dreariness get to me and  to bring colour into my daily life. Sometimes we need a jolt as a reminder and I got one this week. At the time the jolts are not really welcomed but, like every single experience in life, they are there for a reason; to teach us something, to highlight something we are not paying attention to or to just be grateful that we woke up this morning and then make the most of every second.

 My quote for today is by Sarah Ban Breathnach who I first discovered on (yes you guessed it) Oprah many many years ago when she first released her book Simple Abundance. Sarah is the one who introduced Oprah to her gratitude journals and whenever I am feeling overwhelmed I return to Sarah's book to refocus.

"Grace is available for each of us every day - our spiritual daily bread - but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow. "

Sarah Ban Breathnach

Have a great week my blogging buddies,

I am truly grateful for your presence.

Namaste

Lee

Silly Me Party Link

Hi Everyone

I am joining in on Sung-Hee's Silly Me Party. You just have to express yourself in a silly way in your art and put a word to each letter of your name. Hop on over to her blog to see what it's all about and add your link.

L - lock up your things if you don't want it to be painted on, doodled on, stenciled and stamped on
E - experimental
E - enlivened

C - creative
L - lover of books
E - Elucidator ( had to look up the dictionary for that one)
M - mysterious
E - Empathetic
N - never without something on my creative to do list
T - thoroughly addicted to creative expression.
S - spirited

Here is my "silly me" art contribution, so silly I didn't even centre my last name. It has a background of coloured pencils and then a black Sharpie, white gel pen and coloured pens over the top. This was a bit of silly fun that I have needed this week, thanks Sung-Hee.

So just a quick post this week and a nice quote about friendship. 

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

Have a great weekend everyone.

Namaste
Lee

Stencil Challenge

Hi Everyone

I hope you have had a great weekend relaxing, creating and soaking in life.

I am posting a journal page as part of a stencil challenge and giveaway being run by Paula, the illustrious Journal Artista. Paula has inspired me since I first became hooked on art journaling with her in depth videos on You Tube and Ustream. This week she has put out a challenge to her followers and watchers of her Ustream channel to use Crafters Workshop stencils in your pages.

Well you all know how much I love these stencils, I don't think there is a page I have done that doesn't use them. So here is are my pages.

I started with a watery wash of Jo Sonja Ultramarine Blue. My first stencil layer was with one of my favourite stencils called Mini Cosmic Bubbles, sponged with Titanium White.

My next layer was a few scrapings with a credit card and Jo Sonja Brilliant Violet

I scrapped it so I would still be able to see the bubbles underneath.

 My next stencil to use was called Swirly Vines, the 12 x12 size and Jo Sonja Aqua. This was also sponged on.

I wanted to add some flowers, just because I love the flower stencils so I used Flower Frenzy (12 x12) with Jo Sonja Pacific Blue and the stencil brush.

So here we are... I'm not totally sold on it so....

I pulled out my trusty white gel pen and outlined the flowers. I liked where they were but I wanted them to stand out.

 Now thats better and heading in the right direction. At this stage I didn't want to make it too busy so decided that a title was needed. I found the appropriate quote and my new alphabet stamps from Image Tree called Brush Letters Lower Case ABC

I used them with Versa Magic Cloud White and then outlined them with my gel pen.

  I clean my stamps with baby wipes and these are the ones I have at the moment. Elmo baby wipes. There were none like these when my boys were young. I can see dry ones of these being used in a page later on.

I added some swipes with a round brush and a light violet colour on each petal of the big flowers and I also added some more spots using the Posie stencil and White.

Here is the finished page. I may journal on it later but I'm not sure it needs it.

Thanks Paula for running the challenge. I intended on having this finished earlier but I was cutting and then laying the carpet in my studio. 

My quote today is again from "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success" regarding giving

"The universe operates through dynamic exchange... giving & receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe.

And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives."

Have a great week everyone, I will be back later in the week with the unveiling of my art space.

Namaste

Lee

Progress report

Hi everyone,

So nice to touch base with you again. It has been a while but I know you'll understand when you see what I have been up to. 

I want to say thankyou to everyone that comes and visits me, I am grateful for this lovely community where we share ideas, encouragement and dreams. 

I hope you are dreaming big today...

Here is a sneak peak at my studio so far. I have been busy sorting, buying containers and storing my things just where I want them. I didn't realise how much "stuff" I had until I went to put it all in one place, suffice to say that the local op shop will be getting a nice big donation from me soon after I have purged what I no longer need.  For now, it is all coming together. This weekend we put down the carpet and put my desk in and a few other bits and pieces.

Last weekend I was busy teaching my first batik watercolour on rice paper class. It was a long but enjoyable day with everyone finishing their paintings.

 We used Atelier Interactive paints because you can reactivate them much like watercolour paints so we had time to lift off colour or blend edges.

I have been playing around with this technique for a while but this is the first time I had taught it, so it was a bit of an experiment and I think it worked really well. We only had a small class which was good to start with and we all had fun waxing and painting and probably the only time I will say that I enjoyed ironing.

 here is what it looks like before we iron the wax off for the big reveal. A few people had heart attacks when i scrunched this up into a ball before laying it out.

Here is the finished piece.

 So no journal pages have been done but I have started a couple so it's not a total barren art wasteland. I tell you though I am over the sorting and moving things around, I just want to get into my studio space and start creating. More to do today so I had better crack the whip and get into it.

I hope you all are having a creative week. I have been trying to get around to visit everyone , there is so much creative inspiration out there at the moment I think I need 6 months off work just to try all the things I've seen.

My quote today is from the book by Deepak Chopra called "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success" in the chapter - The law of Dharma or Purpose in Life. It goes like this

"Everyone has a purpose in life... a unique gift of talent to give to others.

And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals."

How can you help or give to someone today with the unique talents that you have been given?

Have a great weekend

Namaste 

Lee

Another step closer...

Hi everyone from a cold, wet Melbourne. We have just had the coldest day for 12 months and tomorrow we are not expected to go above 11C so I will be rugging up for work tomorrow. Winter is well and truly with us.

I wanted to show you a couple of photos on the progress of my studio so you can see I haven't been curled up inside all the time :)

 First the empty garage at last. A clean slate for my storage cupboards.

And today the cupboard shells went in.
Just waiting on the shelving brackets to arrive on Thursday and shelving to be built in between the two cupboards, and this weekend I should be loading the shelves up with all my things.

A friend is building this all for me after he finishes at this day job so it will be done in bits at a time. I am so excited and happy at this stage alone so I think I will be jumping for joy by the time it is all finished.

Meanwhile I have completed another journal page and begun a birthday present for my eldest niece.

So I started with a background of leftover paint which was a mix of Atelier Interactives Mars Violet and Carbon Black.










I then chose my stencil, another Crafters Workshop stencil,  but decided that I wanted the opposite pattern to show so I picked out a blank page on another journal and with Jo Sonja Lilac and a sponge roller,















I rolled the paint over the top of the stencil,











 Flipped it over on my original journal page and used my brayer to transfer the paint to the page

Here is the page on the left where I sponged over the top and the negative image on the right where i brayered over the top.

 Why waste paint I say and such a good way to get two uses out of the same stencil.

I really like the look of the one on the right; how the paint is not solid, giving a real textured look.

It needed a bit of shimmer so I put some Jo Sonja Rich Gold in a Mini Mister with water and sprayed over sections of the same stencil but with a different placement.












To give this lovely shimmery effect in places on the pages.















Next it was on to choosing a paper to collage and i picked a circle pattern out of this stack of papers I bought ages ago.

 I cut out the parts of the pattern I wanted and adhered it to the pages with Atelier Binder Medium. This is a great fast-drying medium that you can use for collage or to prepare the surface of your canvases so the gesso sticks better.

 

So here we are at this stage. I am liking where this is going but still have no idea of the title of the page. 

I found an adorable little owl stamp from Kaisercraft and used a sponge with Jo Sonja Yellow Green to add him to the pages.

This photo is a bit blurry but I then stamped using the same colour with this border of circles.

I picked the words for the page from a sheet of text from Kaisercraft, cut them out and decided where they would go on the page. I thought they would fade into the background so decided that I needed a bit of colour behind the letters

I used the small sponge brush with Jo Sonja Titanium White and then YellowGreen over the top. I just swiped them on the page without to much concern and then adhered the text with the Binder Medium.

So here is my finished page. I also added a bit of shimmer but drawing around the text with gold pen and adding dots on the circle paper in gold.

Well it is hailing outside now so it is time for a nice hot cuppa. I hope to show you soon,  the finished canvas for my niece; for now here is what I am up to.

I hope you are all having a great week. 

I leave you today with the quote from my pages

"Live today fully and you create a lifetime of meaningful memories"

Sophia Bedford-Pierce

Namaste 

Lee

A productive weekend

Hi everyone, I hope you have enjoyed your weekend. 

It is Sunday night and I am just about to go into my neighbours house for a lovely relaxing dinner after a hard day spent in the garage, shifting, moving and throwing out. I mentioned a few posts ago that I am moving my studio out to our garage which I will share with our campervan. The cupboards have been measured up and ordered so it was up to me to make some space for them. 

 

Here is what I started with, minus the box trailer which used to live in here but has been relegated to the yard now, cold and lonely covered by a tarp. 

Oh well, all in the name of progress of my painting space I say.

So today I needed to clear the bikes and other paraphernalia that we had accumulated over the years. All of my canvases on the high shelf have to come down so the cupboards can go underneath then against the brick wall. The old desk is a lucky pickup when my husbands work was cleaning out their offices and this was going to the rubbish pile. 

So here it is now

All of my canvases are on top of our campervan, 3 bikes are up on the wall behind it and the space is nearly ready for the cupboards to go in. Just have to get rid of a weights bench and 1 more bike and take down the shelving. I have a great big pile of stuff to donate to the charity shop and I also chucked a lot away........ ahhhhh that feels so much better....

I must say that it has taken over 10 years for me to get my own space so I am really excited about it. I know it will be tiny but it will be all mine. I have some carpet coming, a new heater for my cold feet and a new light to go in overhead. I intend to have a big declutter when I finally move in here so that everything has its own place without needing a miners hat on to find something.

Needless to say there hasn't been much art journalling going on at the moment but I did get a chance to do a doodle while I was watching the last Oprah show. I am a huge Oprah fan, and credit her for changing the way I look at the world, at people and at myself for which I am forever grateful.

 

It is on a background of yellow paint then I drew with coloured pencils, then with Staedtler fineliners and again with coloured pencils.

So now it's time to rest this sore body of mine and enjoy some good company. I leave you with a quote from Oprah's last show.

"you.. have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world"

Oprah

For me, one thing that sparks the light in me is creativity

Namaste

Lee

A fight between intuition and too much thinking!

Hi everyone, I hope you are having a great weekend.

This latest page I want to share was a labour of love and learning. It felt like a tug of war between my intuition and my thinking brain. At times there was just too much thinking about what colours and techniques to use without letting the page form naturally. Whenever I stopped flowing and tried to apply too many rules and reasons for doing things, the layer just didn't look right. Many times I did another layer and walked away cause it just didn't look how I thought it would. Whenever I just relaxed, breathed and let my intuition guide me the page came together. 

Sometimes we struggle against the tide trying to put the "right" colours together, trying to balance the page from the beginning, ignoring the evolving process that is so much a characteristic of art journaling.

So here is the process

For the background I gessoed the page thickly and then pressed the two pages together. opened them up and let them dry naturally to create the texture underneath. Over the top I brushed on Jo Sonja Sapphire and wiped off the excess.

then was a wash of jo Sonja Harbour Blue

and a layer of randomly stamped flowers.

I then used Jo Sonja Yellow Orange with a makeup sponge and a Crafters Workshop Stencil called Flower Frenzy as well as a Gerbera stencil

At this stage I wasn't really happy with the colours so I doodled some flower outlines with a white paint pen

I still wasn't wrapped in the results so used the Crafters Workshop stencil called Mini Daisy cluster and sponged white all over the page

Still not happy because it was too harsh, so I mixed white with Harbour Blue and scrapped over the pages.

 

 I really wanted to get a nice contrasting colour so pulled out a cutout with a floral pattern and sponged white all over the pages then sponged Jo Sonja Tiger Lily randomly

OK so I am feeling better about where this is headed now because I got out of my own way and picked colours without thinking too much.

So I have left this page now and gone to work. I'm sitting at my desk at lunchtime with my favourite scarf on and realise that it is my favourite scarf because of the colour combination. My first thought is wow, these are the colours I can add to the page of my journal. Hence the next steps. Here is the scarf, gorgeous bright colours that just make me feel better on a cold Melbourne day.

 I needed a border so used the Tim Holtz On the Edge Die called Scrollwork cut from a piece of chipboard to use as a stencil

 Jo Sonja Cadmium Yellow Mid was the colour I used with a bigger, softer, more open sponge

 I sponged again with the same stencil but just in from the edge of the yellow layer using Jo Sonja Yellow Green. I also scrapped it down the page in random places

 Next colour was Jo Sonja Brilliant Magenta. I dry brushed this on the page so I could retain the texure underneath. I just love dry brushing or smooching.

  

  Next layer was  stamping with a floral stamp with words in the petals and impress Tangerine and Versa Magic Cloud White

  So this is where I am at and I am really happy with where it is now. So onto the words

 I am a big Sonia Choquette fan and one of her early books called Your Heart's Desire. It is in a workbook format to help you remove obstacles, focus on your dreams and to empower you to manifest your Heart's Desires. I have had it for a while now and have done some chapters sporadically but now the book calls to me to be read from start to finish. Funny how you can have books for ages and not ready them till you are ready to hear what they have to say.

So I found a small pad of Adhesive patterned papers in my stash and a sheet of striped paper in the colours I have used. I cut and tore strips, worked out where I wanted them and wrote a quote from Sonia's book on them and a bit of personal journaling in a Blue Sharpie. 

After I stuck them down I rubbed Jo Sonja Titanium White around the main title, dipped the credit card in the white and underlined the words. I re-stamped a couple of white flowers and there you have it.

So what obstacles or excuses have you put in your way consciously or sub-consciously? Do you tell yourself that you could not possible do something. Surprise yourself, give yourself permission to try something and you will find that what you thought was  a huge immovable mountain was really a smoke screen hiding your potential creative self, ready and waiting to be invited into your life.

“The chief enemy of creativity is  

"good" sense.”

 Pablo Picasso

Namaste

Lee