Life Documented 2017 Week 4

Hi, lovelies! 

I'm back with another project started. It's a spin-off of the last 3 years of The Documented Life Project.

Come join us on the

Life Documented 2017 FB Page! 

The first year I did this, I made my own journal, second year I used a Dylusions, third year 4 kraft binders, and this year it is the Moleskine, as demonstrated by the Art5 ladies in 2014. I have decided to try this method. We'll see how it goes. I could not make up my mind if I wanted to do it, but seeing the lovely community on the Facebook group, I wanted to join in the fun, so here I am!

A little late, as I didn't get my Moleskine shipped until the 27th (Which also happens to be on my birthday!), so I jumped right in to the present week, and then go back to fill in the first part of the year if I have the time.

So Week 4:

For the numbers: I used foam stamps, paint, paint markers, and some shadowing with the black Stabilo All pencil.

I used fine tipped paint pens by Sharpie for the journaling.

I made a tip-in, using a piece of gorgeous underpaper, and gold washi-tape for the binding.

Here it is with the flap open. 

I added memorabilia from the week. Some items were cut out from birthday cards I received.

The far right and the Moleskine page on left is a stenciled background.

Fun stencils from StencilGirl.

January 2017 Club stencils by Mary Beth Shaw for the images on the right.

March 2013 Club on left.

The pink circle art on the right is a fun art piece I had torn and cut up. It came out of an old art junque journal I work in occasionally.

My daughter made the beautiful party invite and put on a big hubaloo at my twin's house. IT WAS PERFECT IN EVERY WAY. In love. In a state of euphoria of the absolute perfection my daughter and niece organized to treat us on our 40th. Many friends and family came. I will never forget. :)

Loving the gold patterned washi tape by Recollections!

The little metallic cabbage rose is cut out from a birthday card.

Swirls of the finger to create the rose, paint dots in places, a little bit of brush-work for the leaves, and it's done!

Many layers went into this piece, and it started as my underpaper! Here is a pic of how it originally looked:

I didn't do the challenge this week, but we'll see what I can come up with next week.

And there's a quick summary of my week 4. Looking forward to documenting Week 5. :)

Thanks for stopping by. :)

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥ 

Pastel Christmas unPlanner Pages

A new year HELLO to all of you!

A new year means the end of a year-long project. It is hard to say goodbye to DLP. I have now participated for three years, and it'll take some adjustment in my brain space to not have these art prompts. I am not quite sure what I'll be creating in 2017 yet.

Meanwhile, here is probably the last post for my unPlanner! 

To know more about how you could make an unPlanner, see the project challenge and artists HERE.

I chose a pastel Christmas theme, with pinks, purples and blues, using PaperArtsy fresco chalk acrylic paints. They are like icing on a cake!

For my divider, I painted a Bethlehem scene with NeoColor2 crayons and the fresco chalk paints. In the circle, I wrote out the Christmas story from Luke 2. The scene was inspired by a children's book illustration. The "stars" were made using stencils:

April 2016 - Private Collection 16.2

and one of Mary Beth Shaw's new planner stencils, 

 Planner Winter Stencils4

My watercoloured doodled calendar got a colour treatment too, with some stamping and simple journaling. Whew! Only 3 days in all December was spent by ourselves! But it was good, very good. :)

I have the monthly view calendar available as a printable if you're interested in using it in your own planners. See HERE. 

I played for hours on my December, and I just want it finished now, so I left some parts simpler. 

I made a scalloped pocket to house the PACs by using a scallop punch and stenciling with the same circular stencil as used for the "stars" on my divider. The background is similar to the page on the right in my Dec 4-10 weekly view photo above.  The ''be strong and courageous'' phrase echoes my 2016 OLW: Strength. See my January post to see how I documented it in the beginning: 

I procrastinated with the art challenges this month, but sure had fun when the ideas finally flowed.

The one above is actually the prompt for November, but decided to include it in my December: use something from the bottom of your purse. I had wrapping from a Hershey Kisses candy, so I made little "beads" from the foil wrapper to attach to the ribbon, and used the little paper slip that comes with each candy. I like it!

For this one above, the prompt was to use crayon, so like many of you in the fb group, I used Inktense pencils, sopping up the pooling colour with a silk ribbon before it dried, dying it and making the colours look pastel instead of the vivid look you get by using water sparingly.

 I used the paper from the reinforcement stickers as a stencil on top of the watercolour wash background.

The phrase is one line from the Holy Sonnet XV by Donne. I was so struck by the words from the poem when it was beautifully recited during our church's Christmas Eve services, that I knew I needed to include it in my unPlanner somehow! The rest of the poem is printed on the back of the previous PAC. 

This PAC is for the very last prompt of the year: to use GOLD. Well, I was so pleased, as I was already using gold throughout December! I kept it simple using this beautiful stencil by Gwen LaFleur, called Decorative Curvy Ornamental Stencil. 

I was feeling nostalgic of this whole project, so I tried to use as many as the unPlanner kit downloads I could. See the days of the weeks at bottom of page? Those are from the weekly view ones. :) 

I sewed a page protector to the backside of the List 10 to house my double-sided tag.

Loving the Geometric Sky stencil by Mary C. Nasser!

The "crown" trim is made using an old EK Success punch. 

More candy wrapper "beads".

The ribbon, I sent through my sewing machine and made it ruffly and messy. :)

Flower stencil fun with the November 2016 StencilGirl club stencils by Mary Beth Shaw. LOVE LOVE it.

"This stuff" is from the unPlanner kit download kit. 

And there it is. The end of 2016. It's been so fun and rewarding. Loved connecting with like-minded creatives on the Facebook Group and on Instagram.

 What next? I did sign up for Inspiration Wednesday 2017, so you should see posts about that in the future.

Thanks so much everyone for your encouraging words the whole year long! I will miss this!

♥♥♥  Anna  ♥♥♥

DLP Week 35: Self-Portrait

I record all the DLP challenges in a Traveler's Notebook insert. As soon as the new challenge is on the Art 5 blog, I grab my Confettidori that houses this notebook, and I quickly jot down the challenge and prompt. Easy peasy.

Squirrel!!! ::  I purchased the sweet insert shown above ^^^^^ from Natalie at her Etsy shop, ArtichokesElephants! It's a collection of one of three notebooks called Summer Sips. Do check out the goodies in her shop. All items are lovingly made by a beautiful and sweet woman! Her store hasn't been open for a very long time yet, so she deserves a SHOUT OUT!! :) 

Anyway, back to this project at hand. Week 35, August 29th art Challenge was to do a self-portrait. EGADDD!! I like to doodle, but to do a self-portrait?!?! Not on my list of comforts, that's for sure. When I first read all the Art5 ladies' ideas and the guest artist's ideas, I thought, I can do this! I can paint like Pam! (Check out her tutorial for this prompt, it's wonderful! I felt emboldened to try it myself...then a few days passed, then a week...and I wasn't any closer to trying it. Then the next week's DLP prompt came, and it was TRANSFERRING photos! Ooh, I have wanted to try that for a long time, so I quickly started! See below.

The page I put this in was full of painty goodness from playing with my Dylusions paints, just like Ms. Reaveley suggests. It was fun. And busy.

I printed off a photo of me in black and white, then I used a Stabilo All black watercolor pencil to color in the black areas of the photocopy. I couldn't find my Acrylic glazing medium at the time, so I used Decou-Page by DecoArt, and covered my Dylusions page with it, over all the painty stuff, then placed the photocopy face down in the wet medium. I added water and more Decou-Page, let it sit, then slowly pulled it off the page. It had dried a little by this time, so some of the paper stayed behind. That sounds like a failure, but I liked the extra texture and messiness it gave me. BUUUUUUT.....the eyes did not transfer. NOOOOOOO!!! The hardest part!!! The most important part for a portrait to have, right? My brain thought that anyway. LOL! Seriously, I totally winged this thing. I ignored all I had learned about transferring images, and just did my own thing. I'm a rebel, I know. 

Firstly, let me say, I should have stopped at this point. Just like a previous DLP challenge had us do...

Soooo, I needed eyes and more of the glasses. So, I printed off another copy of the photo, and colored in with the Stabilo All to try it again. By this time, I found my acrylic glaze, so I did the same method as the first time, and I achieved a bit more success. Still, the eyes weren't very bold in my piece, but it'll have to be okay. Next came painting. I don't want to describe to you how I painted it, as I have no method, and it didn't work out. I look like I just came off the circus circuit. I guess my life is similar to a circus, so I'll go with it.  I can't work on it anymore, I am too mad at my results, so I'll just leave as is. Maybe in a few years, after I have learned how to actually paint faces, I can come back to it, right? Right? :)

e

And a few days later...

I'm calling it done. It kind of looks half done, but I did want some of the painty background showing in the end. LOL It really doesn't look like me, but it's an attempt. My daughter says I should have added my hair, but I like this funky look. The eyelashes and eye lines look too black and the nose wonky, but it'll have to do. :)

Back to more art journaling with a friend of mine! You should see my art "studio"! That gives you me an idea. I'll take a photo of the artsy chaos that is supposed to be our dining room/kitchen...

here it is...

Have a great day! 

Anna

DLP Week 23 Illustrative Art Journaling

Hello fellow art journalers! This post features my latest project for The Documented Life Project 2015 - The Journal. It's hosted by the lovely ladies HERE! 

This is my 14th challenge completed, out of 29 prompts already LIVE. I am not stressing that I haven't completed all the challenges. I want to keep this fun and stress-free, and for me, that means not worrying about staying caught up. :)

I have loved nature and travel illustrative journaling for a very long time! It all started when I read Charlotte Mason's books of a home educating philosophy, particularly of studying nature through nature study and art journaling. (See links towards the end of this post where I share my favorite books about nature journaling. )I've been smitten ever since! So when I read the June 6th DLP Art Journaling prompt, Illustrative Journaling, I was excited! I thought about it week after week, but never actually took the time and courage to work on it. Illustrative journaling is not something that comes easily to me. I struggle with "seeing" in order to draw something. Definitely a wanna-be! One of these years when I have the creative energy, I will really dig in and learn and practice this type of art more.

But, I did do a little bit this past weekend. It's nothing spectacular, but I made an effort, and that counts!! 

The first step for me was to pick two types of leaves near my art table, I mean picnic table, since I'm camping and everything...I traced the shape, then roughly drew in some details, not worrying too much about trying to make it look realistic. Next, I used Inktense pencils and a waterbrush filled with water and Dylusions inks to color my rough sketches. While I was painting, the boys came back from fishing, and lo, my oldest son's first cast into the water brought up a fish! I documented it there in the bottom right corner while he was telling us his tale. That poor fish doesn't really look at all like the Northern Pike, but I think it does resemble a fish, right? Please say yes? LOL

Not long after, my youngest boy came to me with a beautiful feather, so I drew that too. :) I also added in little details about the food we ate, and also some conversation around me. We camped with friends. It was a very simple, slow, relaxing weekend! Our favourite way to vacation.

I finished my whole project up by tearing my painting out of the mixed media sketch book and glueing it into my Dylusions journal. I had prepped the two pages weeks ago, when I was playing with my new Dylusions paints and various stencils.

DONE!!

During our camping weekend, I wandered the beautiful campground and river banks while my hubby and boys swam or fished in the river. My senses soar in nature like this! Lovely trails to the river, bordered by the sweet buffalo bean wild flowers and sweet clover.

Little discoveries here and there.

Levi, Liam and I watched a video earlier in the week about an adventurer building a wattle and daub house in the bush, using absolutely no ready-made tools, and one of the things he did was make a fire by rubbing a stick a certain way. Levi tried it, but did not meet with success. It's harder than it looks!

We camped really close to home, and we had promised to do our neighbor's chores while they were away, so I drove home every morning and evening to tend to their animals. On the way back one evening, I saw this beautiful rainbow. God's glory all around us!!

My fave books about illustrative and nature journaling:

Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Claire Walker Leslie
Handbook Of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

Another great resource I haven't pursued very much, but I know will be a gold mine:
 Danny Gregory.

I have one of his books that I've started to read. Need to finish it! Art Before Breakfast

I get lots of inspiration from the pins on my Nature Study board on Pinterest HERE.

Thanks for visiting my blog! Have a great creative week!

Anna

♥♥♥

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!

Final Page Spread in my DLP 2014 Journal

Hello everyone! I'm back with my photos and details of the last challenge of DLP 2014! If you do not know what DLP is, check it out here! :) 

DLP 2014

DLP 2015

The Academy where you will find the great art community!

The lovely Art5 ladies added a last challenge for this year. Week 53: Draw or collage something that begins with the first letter of your first name.

I'm not sure if this would be considered a collage or not. It's a group of four tangles that start with the letter A, as my name is Anna (in case you didn't know ;). I added some other artsy goodness as well. 

Did you know official tangles have names? I love that they have names. Is that the nerdy part of me that finds comfort in that? lol 

I have always doodled. Then I discovered tangles. I have not been the same since. My favorite website for patterns are tangles are www.tanglepatterns.com. Check them out here. Love the site! They are all listed alphabetically.

The tangle names from left to right pictured are: Arc Flower, Arukas, Allium and After-glo. I used library cards that I picked up new for really cheap at a local book shop. I drew in each design, then covered it with clear gesso by Liquitex, and lastly, added color with my go-to supply: Neocolor2 wax water-soluable crayons.

left page

right side

Chevron stencil for texture using modeling paste (It's my favorite technique right now.), added lots of color with Neocolors2 crayons, splatting color all over the place. 

I did the background of each page first by layering color with Inktense pencils and the Neos.

This photo above ^^ was taken from above, pointing down. Loving all the texures happening. I took a white Gelato to finish off the edges. I glued the library cards down with gel medium and matte medium.

The hearts were made with modeling paste and a stencil. The stencil is from punching out hearts from cardstock. The punch is a single punch of a heart trio from Stampin' Up. 

I added greyish-blackish details to the edges of the library cards with a grey Neo crayon and a Sketch and Wash pencil by General's.

I found the Arc-Flower tangle difficult to get even. But that's part of my style, I guess. I can't copy anything perfectly. It is usually wonky, off-center, etc. :)

Added lots of white gelato and neocolors for coloring. This time I told myself I could not use Dylusions sprays, as I want to try different things. 

The 2014 I started with Sketch and Wash by General's, then a Prismacolor marker on top.

I always gravitate towards the Allium tangle shown above. ^^ It's an easy one for me to draw.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm almost ready for DLP 2015! Can't wait to start!