Daisies Afoot in my DLP Art Journal

June theme for the Documented Life Project is Travel Journaling.

June 20 art prompt is hometown inspiration,

and the journaling prompt is: There is no place like home.

I instantly thought of all the wandering and discovering I and the kids do around home. We have wild nature as our backyard. This year we have lots of daisies growing everywhere and I love taking photos of them! 

My youngest brought me some of the beauties, and they graced my table for a week. I finally got up the nerve to do a little 5 minute sketch. I was quite pleased how it turned out! So next, I got up the courage to color it in with watercolors! I painted it on Japanese Tomoe River paper, which is a strong but very thin, somewhat translucent paper. It has a very similar texture of good quality bible pages. The use of water on the page created an interesting warp, which I think lends itself to the imperfectionist style I am going for. :) Took some manipulating of the paint and water on the page to get it right. Well, I know there's lots of improvements I could make to this, but it's my very FIRST watercoloring piece from a sketch, so I'm happy! A for effort, right? ;)

See this pattern in the center of the daisy? It's a beautiful pattern that is found in many aspects of nature, like in the honeycomb, the pine cone, snail shells, and more. Based on these patterns, the Fabonicci sequence was discovered by classical mathemeticans. I'm not explaining it well at all. I suggest googling it for a clearer idea, if you're interested. They came up with an algorithm for use in many practical ways. It's fascinating to me! Math IS art! I talked about this to my daughter and niece, so that's where the art journal page comes in! I had posted this on my Instagram feed, and chose to copy my words to my page, documenting my "traveling".

I sewed messily around my watercolor painting, and glued it to my page. I added a square of bright yellow paint through a gorgeous stencil above it. Now it sat for a few days, too busy to work on it, or no ideas coming forth of what to do next to make it look cohesive.

A few days later, it all came together. 

A doily at the bottom, cut in half, on a yellow paint and ink background.

I used a fountain pen for the border, which has water-soluable ink in it. I also added Dylusions spray in a water brush, spritzing it several times, and wiping away, repeat, repeat, until I had the look I wanted for the background. The letters are foam stamps, an old set by Magnetic Poetry, from back in the day when I was an avid scrapbooker. It is still one of my very favorite alphabet stamp sets! :)

Before adding anything to the page, I gessoed it first. See the corner? It's thick with gesso and water and paint layers. Once dry, I scratched with an exacto knife, adding more texture to the piece. I spritzed water over Dylusions ink spots by the letters as well, to get a more watercolor-y effect. I also doodled with a white Signo Uniball gel pen over the letters, so that they weren't quite so stark and for added dimension.

And here it is again, the whole page. 

I had a great time doing this! I want to thank the Art 5 ladies for all that they do, inspiring us with great challenges, and it's all free. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings, and ART ON! :)

♥♥ Anna ♥♥

Artful Summer Displays

Hi all! :) Just a little update on my recent wanderings and creative play these gorgeous, warm summer months.

Playing here and there, some mail art, some in my brand new traveler's journal called a Confettidori, other times I add more paint to the cover of my Dylusions journal that is home to the challenges of The Documented Life Project 2015 - The Journal. 

The summer is so full of delicious colors and aroma of flowers. Take the time to savor all these beautiful things! Our peony plant is showing off. This gorgeous display lasts such a short time! Every year I am in awe of its beauty. Maybe I don't get out enough? LOL 

They bloom so happily, not afraid to be real.

And also this. Sweet toesies....they belong to my little nephew, four weeks old. Aren't they the sweetest??? ♥♥♥ I hope to cuddle him today. I haven't called his mommy to warn her yet. ;)

On the weekend, the boys played in muddy water, in a creek off the main river. The oldest son got the mud into his hair, on purpose. He says it works like shampoo. O----KAY. Whatever. Loved their screaming and laughing and splashing, loved the sunshine shining down into the water, casting lovely sprinkles everywhere. I was a bit scared of the great rushing river nearby...but they stayed happily here in the creek.

While the boys were splashing around in the water, I wandered. Here are the lovely steps down to the creek.

Gorgeous large leaves on this flower! We can't find our nature books anywhere! I love identifying the plants by name.

The humble Buffalo Beans always sing such happiness and delight to me. They create this lovely cascade of yellow along the river back, not shouting out their presence, but just content to be who they are. :)

Bought the gorgeous paints by Dyan Reavelry: the Dylusions paints. They are super yummy to work with! Here I added some color through a stencil to my DLP journal.

More yellow paint in my journal. Working on a recent DLP challenge. Next post will be about this finished page.

This lovely field of daisies grace our backyard. So happy and carefree! I have been really inspired by the colors and shapes of these lately!

And here's my beautiful daughter wearing her youngest brother's cape. She is waiting for hers to be sewn ever so patiently. She wants it a certain length and the weight heavy, like they were in the old King Arthur's days, and a deep green. Such velvety velour fabric we cannot find for a decent price, and so she waits.

Well, time to wrap up this blog post. May your summer wanderings find you in magical places. Places that make you dream. Places that lifts the load off your shoulders, you know, all that stress we carry around so often! Hope you have time to create this summer!

Blessings to each of you!

♥ Anna ♥