Take Me to Italy...meanwhile I will dream...

I dream of faraway places. Italy is one of those places for me. I think of overgrown doorways and windows.  I dream of walking along a road where famous artists like Da Vinci has walked. To walk the places he trod while brainstorming ideas for his next painting. Walk where he hurried to get home, so he could quickly fill up another page in his many sketch books. I was at a local book store the other day, and saw a book of his sketches. It would be so inspiring to see the places he saw. I dream of spending a whole week just in one little place, so that I can take in every little detail. I haven't been too far from home all my life. 

One day I will. 

Meanwhile, I will make Pinterest boards called:

-- Artful Windows --

-- Artful Doors --

-- Artful Houses --

and paint little scenes like this. 

It really was an accident, this humble little picture. It's not done perfectly, but I will call it a success, because it is a piece of my heart.

I used my calendar stencil I had made made for last year's Documented Life Project. Part of the art process of this piece involved unwashed, dirty stencils. Happy accidents. I love them.

It started out with a few stencils that I like. Some of it was just unloading color off my brayer while Gelli-printing! The dot one is a Dina Wakley stencil, I believe. 

I have to say, the work of amazingly talented Junelle Jacobson inspired this doodling and coloring. I am happy. Thank you, Junelle! I highly recommend any of her classes!

Have you painted / created a scene of a place you would like to visit? I would love to see it! Send me a link in comments below. That would be super of you.

:)

I am looking forward to teaching a few art classes next month. Maybe they can create a dreamy little scene like this too.
You lovelies that are local to me, go here to find out more infomation about my art classes:

Artful Stories with Anna

or

Scrapbooks Made Simple

Have a great day!

Gelatos and White Sand Art Journal Page

The Documented Life Project 2015 - The Journal 

January Theme

The Blank Page and How to Face It!

January 17

Art Challenge: The Color Wheel

Journal Prompt: 

"I found I could say things in color with shapes that I couldn't say any other way..." - Georgia O'Keeffe

The journaling prompt for week 3 really resonated with me. I have thought about it all week long. :) I speak jibberish often. I speak fast, I stumble over words, I stutter, I mumble. It's hard to explain sometimes how I feel. I am a very passionate, emotional person, and since the people closest to me can only stand so much of me, LOL art journaling is way of letting things flow from my heart. I couldn't even say how it works or why my heart seeks out color and shapes and why I feel such a need to create, but it's very important to me.

This week was really busy, and hadn't really planned on stopping where I did, but I think I am calling this journal page done. Who knows, I might add something another day, but I happy with it for now. :)

My date numbers are looking too cool colored compared to the rest of the colors, but it must be the lighting and my lack of photography skills, as in real life, I didn't notice that they clashed a bit. ;)

 This spread is important to me, as I wasn't concerned about the outcome. I just wanted to play with my supplies. I wanted to create different textures. I used a Finnabair Texture Paste - white sand,  from her Art Extravagance line.

I hadn't used my Gelatos much yet. The colors I used here came in a set. First I gessoed the background. Then I simply colored in circles witht the Gelatos quickly and randomly over the page, not over-thinking it. Then I added modeling paste to the circles in areas with my fingers, and then the texure paste in between where no color had landed yet, making sure each layer was completely dry.

 And that's it! I'm done!

Thanks for stopping by!

Week 2 of DLP 2015 Art Journal

Week 2 of The Documented Life Project 2015 - The Journal

If you're not familiar with this project, go HERE to learn more.

January Theme

The Blank Page and How to Face It!

January 10

Art Challenge:  Gesso

Journal Prompt:  “The beginning is always today.” -Mary Shelley

I chose to go with a path. Each day is the beginning of my daily journey of my life. Instead of fretting about the future, focus on today. If it starts wrong, start over. With reading, memorizing, and meditating on scripture, optimally, to restart the day gone wrong. Sometimes that's the middle of the day for me! 

I think of the scripture Psalm 119:105:

Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light on my path.

Over the years I have come to see how much it helps me if I start my day right with certain rhythms: the word of God lighting my path. There are many aspects to this, so these things I have doodled along my path.

1. See the the white polka dots on the yellow? That's what I put down first on this blank spread: it's gift wrap. Then I applied gesso on the middle areas.

2. Next came the gorgeous, fantabulous rubber stamps that I received as a gift for moderating on the DLP Facebook page! These are designed by Rae, and Roben-Marie sells them in her shop, Paper Bag Studios. I used black Staz-On ink. People, the smell of this ink is fantastic! Maybe a bit strong, but it smells like Christmas to me: almond extract. LOL I sttamped them in a line, from top to bottom. After staring at the page for a few days, totally stuck! I got to the third step:

3. A big blob of black gesso on the stamp was my next trick. I stamped it on the bottom right edge. Oh my. That was a mistake! It looked horrid! So I covered it in gesso a few times, drying between each application. Then I sprayed some Dylusions ink onto that area. There was so much thickness going on with all those layers, that the gesso started to crack, which I LOOOOOVE!! The paper ripped too, so I ripped it further, and added some old watercoloring bubbles I had in my journal stash. I just glued it down directly under the white and yellow polka dot paper, as I hadn't stuck it perfectly down on the page. I like!

Peek-a-boo!

4. I applied some gesso over some of the stamped flowers to tone it down.

4. Next, I went crazy with Gelli-printing. I didn't actually include any of the prints on here, but I removed the access paint from the brayer onto the page. See it there, in the path?

 5. I randomly smudged Viva Inka Gold to the pages, concentrating on the edges. Some areas I left gesso peeking through. You gotta have white space. My style, anyway.

6. Out came my ogee patterned stencil I made a while ago, which I use REGULARLY! See photo below. I applied white modeling paste. Once dry, I applied more of that luscious pink Viva Inka Gold. Forgot to mention I wrote in the wet white gesso on Step 2 with my General's Sketch and Wash pencil. See it below? :)

7. Splattered green in the white and other areas with Necolors2.

8. Rubbed OLD graphic almost-vintage office letter rub-ons randomly in places. They don't work well, so I just grabbed the whole page full of letters and rubbed away. Fun fun!

9. Doodled on the path. Kinda private, so I wrote illegibly. 

10. Next came the girl dancing along the path. Life's a great big dance, in love with life, in love with my Savior, and FREE! And, gloriously, at the end, I will spend an eternity with my God, the creator of heaven and earth. I glued her down with matte medium, and added some dimension with some watercolor pencil on the edges.

11. Almost lastly, I ripped up some fun pink polka dot washi tape, and applied it to the edges and a bit over the stamped flowers.

12. Lastly, I wrote the Shelley quote (who, by the way, wrote the famous classic, Frankenstein) directly on the girl.

Whew! I did it! That was long! On to the next prompt please! :) 

Week 1 of my DLP Art Journal

First Challenge and Prompt for DLP 2015

January Theme
The Blank Page and How to Face It!
January 1
Art Challenge: Book Paper
Journal Prompt: Be Your Own Goal Keeper

I have noticed many art journalers choose a word for the year, so that's what I did here. GROWTH

My planner part is on the right, as you can see. Not much room to add a whole lot of information, so I kept my journaling details brief. I miss the big spaces from last year already! But this is what I have commited to, and I'll stick with it. :)

So the idea was to use book paper as a starting point. Last year at our women's bible study we did a Beth Moore study. With it came a beautiful workbook, full of words and notes. I tore out a page of the book, ripped it into smaller pieces, and glued down with matte medium. I like to doodle to help me concentrate, so the doodles you see here through the paint are mine that I added to the book during the study.

The textures were created with my Necolors2, coloring the whole page with different colors of green crayons, then wetting the entire thing. 

Next, I applied Tulip fabric spray paint rather randomly, and a few other sprays. Occasionally I would wipe excess paint off with a paper towel. 

The letters were stamped with paint, using a foam alphabet stamp set by Magnetic Poetry. I added more watercolor, and doodles to the letters to give it more depth. 

The butterfly is a stencil, which I scraped modeling paste on. Then I sprayed with Prima Bloom spray in yellow. The dark dimension on the sides of the 3D areas of the butterfly are there because the stencil was dirty. LOL

Using a white Signo Uniball gel pen, I added a tangle pattern to the sides of the circle dates. The circle dates are the same I used last year, except this time I colored in the negative part of the numbers. :) 

And there you have it: Week One.

Thanks for visiting!

New Art Journal for 2015 - DLP

And on to this year's Documented Life Project! I'm a little behind on blogging, as the third prompt will be revealed tomorrow. I'm actually ready for it! :)

To join this project, go to Art to the 5th Academy. 

You MUST register there first, and then join DLP 2015 in order to see the weekly prompts. PLEASE read the information, the FAQs, and watch the videos posted. It will help you greatly with any questions you may have, and how to navigate the site. 

And if you are not too shy, please share at the Academy. The Art5 ladies will love you for it! :)

So for this year, I decided to go with the recommended Dylusions Journal. It takes some getting used to. The size doesn't bother me, as it is very similar to what I worked in all of last year. It's the paper! I now know I will work with acrylics more than watercolors, as it takes a lot of applications to get bold color to stay on this bristol-like paper.Or maybe it's me not knowing how to work it!

I jot down birthdays and appointments in this portion of my calendar. Maybe I'll add some doodles as well in the empty spots, like I did last year. We'll see.

I started the page off with awful brown acrylic paint. It was UGLY! So I covered the whole thing in a few layers of white gesso to cover the ugly brown.

Next, I punched circles out of cardstock and adhered them to the page. Then I started coloring around with my go-to supply: Neocolors II watersoluable wax crayons. I layered and layered and layered color to get it right. Really loving that you can see the textures underneath.

Next, I drew lines with a ruler to frame the calendar, and to mark where to write in the days of the week. I just used a fine-line black Sharpie.

Lastly, the title: I created the month names in my FotoFusion software, with the California Rad font from Dafont.com, printed them out, and cut out the letters. Added some black edges with the General's Sketch and Wash pencil to give it some dimension.

Ahem, after I filled up the first two-page spread in my journal, I decided to plan out my pages. So here it is: 

Well, that's it so far. See you next time where I will share the first prompt, Week One.

Thanks for stopping by! I welcome any comments, even just a "hello", I was here. :)