Friday, June 27, 2014

Card diary


Yesterday I had a lovely time at Papertrenz.  In Sue Smyth's workshop we started making this mixed media Card Diary.  This is what I have completed so far in class.  My homework now is to finish decorating the inside pages and adding the embellishments on the cover of the book.  The flowers on the top of the cover are just lying loose there at the moment to show you.  They were originally plain white flowers which we coloured with gesso and spray inks and paint.  We will eventually bind this book with a cinch binding machine when completed. 

Monday, June 23, 2014

Baby


Made this card over the weekend for someone who is expecting. I used papers from the Early Years collection from Kaszazz.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Being Brave

Today I am being brave sharing the following art journal page with you that I created this morning.  I always enjoy trying out new techniques or drawing something that I have not  tried before. Last week I fell  in love with big eye art drawings created by Sherri Baldy.  The first one I drew  last week I used a drawing from Sherri Baldy as a reference.  Today I tried to draw this style of girl out of my own head.  Well I found that rather challenging.  I have been practicing drawing faces for a while now, but still have great trouble with trying to draw a body to go with it.  I first drew in pencil and then traced my drawing with a micron pen.  Because the eyes were so big I needed a bigger black pen tip to fill in the black of the eyes.  I used a memento pen which just happened to catch my eye in my pot of pencils and markers.
But I did not realise that the memento pen would smudge when I started rubbing out all the pencil lines.  Then I wanted to give her a bit of colour.  I started with some water colour pencils, to soon find the journal I was using did not like water.  The paper in an ordinary visual art journal does not tolerate much water at all.  So I finished colouring by putting a little bit of chalks on for colour and then journaled around  the drawing about how I felt about this 'failure'.  Most people would probably only want to share on their blog successful creations.  Today I have decided to purposely share something that did not turn out very well.
I am not happy with the result of the creation, but I am happy with the lessons I have learned on the way.  Journaling around my drawing about how I felt with this creation helped me to accept what I had put on paper so far.  I first wrote about all the stuff that did not work out for me creating this drawing, and then I also tried to put a positive encouragement on the page to help me move on and accept my 'failure'.  This is what art journaling is all about.  A space where we can experiment and try out new things.  They don't have to be master pieces.  As for every success, there are many failures.  It's only through using our products that we can learn how to work with them.  It is not something that can be learned through reading out of a text book or just  looking at and admiring other peoples creations and You Tube videos only.  We have to be brave and have a go ourselves.  Practice something every day.  As it is the habit of this practice that will open new doors and experiences for us.  That is why I have started this blog.  To make myself accountable for creating.  To see my own creative journey with its ups and downs.  A creative diary online.

What have you created or practiced today?  

Please feel free to leave a link to your blog in your comment to show what you have made today. 
Where you happy with your creation today?
What did you learn from what you made today?


Saturday, June 7, 2014

Another background

I started another background for another journal for the Jennibellie workshop.  This time my daughter joined me.  We both used the same scrapbook papers and then both used the same colour paints.  But the results are different.  We had a lot of fun creating these background pages.








Then we started making some embellishments that can be used later in our journals:



I also folded my background I created the other day into a journal.  It is now ready to go for drawing, collaging and adding embelishments.
If you like to find out how to create and fold this journal go and hop over to the ning site of Jennibellie.



Friday, June 6, 2014

Defining the pages

This morning I have folded my pages and defined them with putting gesso on the edges.  Now this is drying.  Can't wait to start the next step.  But I have work to do now.  Normal life must go on, but at least I can go in my art room now and do a little bit each day.  I really like the idea suggested by Jennibellie to create lots of embellishments and tags etc and put these in your inspiration station ready to go for when you want to create in your journal.  Making embellishments can be nice quick projects to do that can be a lot of fun and still give you a lot of creative satisfaction.  As she said in one of her videos: you need to peel the apples first before you can make the apple pie.  I keep thinking about his saying now every time I just like to go in my art room just to do one little thing.  Even if I only have time to stamp one butterfly and colour it.  That is one embellishment that I can add to my stash.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Creating again

Hi Everyone
I am back again.  I have not been creating for a while since the end of last year.  Christmas cards were my last creations.  Then I went overseas for a while and since I have been back I have been too busy with work to give myself time to create.  I find once you have not done any creating for a while it is hard to get back into it again.  Just like exercise.  I love walking and riding my bike, but when there are periods of rain and it is too wet to go outside, exercise seems to suffer.  I love creating when the weather is cooler.  It has gone into winter now, even though you would not think so.  It is rather warm for winter this year.  We still have not had the fire on yet.  It feels like spring outside.  But my urge to create has come back.  I was introduced by a friend to Jennibellie.  She has a free inspiration workshop at the moment on her ning site.  I started to watch the videos and have been very inspired by her to start creating again.  Just making simple backgrounds and art journal pages.  I love drawing but find this very time consuming.  It is not the thing I can just quickly do in between all my other daily chores.  At the moment I am looking for quick projects where I can have a bit of fun with paper and paints and stamps and inks etc.  Just to satisfy my creative urge.  I love to be surrounded by colours and pretty papers.

Here is my background page I did this morning as part of the Inspiration Station class.


What do you do when you have not been creating for a while?  What gets you inspired again to get out those paints and papers and pencils and stamps etc?
Thanks for stopping by, have a great day :-).