May 9 DLP Challenge: Stitches

This week's DLP challenge is one of my favorites so far: stitching. Well, close behind the Gelli®-printing one, actually. :)

Haven't heard of these DLP challenges? The project is called The Documented Life Project. Every week you get a journal prompt and an art prompt, with monthly themes. It's great for the beginner and the more advanced art journaler. Tons of support on the Academy and on the FB group! It's a wonderful community and place to be! Totally FREE to join!
It's the brainchild of four beautiful artists. Check out their blogs here:

 Sandi Keene,
Lorraine Bell
Roben-Marie Smith
Rae Missigman

Each week they share their take on the challenges.
Check out The Documented Life Project 2015 - The Journal here.

Anyway, back to my page.

I have been busy making little happy mail pockets with my sewing machine, so when I read the May 9th challenge: stitching, I was thrilled!

It all started with this gorgeous Gelli®-print I could not bring myself to use, as I liked all the little details on it so much. I didn't want to cover any of it. Then I started getting ideas on how to use it.

The print was mostly made by removing the paints from the brayer while Gelli®-printing. In addition, I learned how lovely the effect of brayering on top of the stencil on the Gelli® plate. So, lots of that on the background as well. I also added some stamping by covering the plate with paint, then stamping  on to the plate, then the background. Rae Missigman's stamps are so gorgeous, and I was so pleased with how the flowers looked against the other colors and patterns.

For the left side of the page, I attached flowers, and on the right -  an Audrey Hepburn quote.

Audrey Hepburn is brilliant, isn't she?

For BEAUTIFUL eyes, look for the GOOD in others.
For BEAUTIFUL lips, speak only words of KINDNESS, 
and for POISE, walk with the knowledge that you're never alone. 

For the flower: I freehanded the outline of each flower with my trusty black Stabilo All pencil, wet it,  and once it's almost dry, I added more freehand petals with the Bic white-out pen. I say "almost" because I didn't have the patience to wait until completely dry. LOL Then, I added some more color to the petals with Neocolors2 crayons and Gelatos. Next, I stitched around the circle, up the petals and back and forth in the flower middle. For the little dots, neon pink irRESISTable Pico Embellisher. These work so quickly and easily! I want every color! Scroll further down for a link to the product; if you want to know what I'm talking about. :) 

To make those pink circles with the white dots, I simply took a Stabilo All pencil and brought the existing circles forward from the background, adding white with a Bic white-out marker. (Next time I should take a photo of the Gelli®-print before I made changes, like a before and after.) 

The white harlequin texture is modeling paste, smoothed through a stencil. YUMMY! 

For those cute pink stitched circles, I sewed a grid on a piece of pink painted paper, and cut out circles, attaching to the page in a pleasing formation. ;) The purple flower has pink dots, right? They are made with a most darlingest of new art supply in my every-growing supply stash! They're called irRESISTable Pico embellishers.  This product creates sweet 3D texture.

Another close-up of the stitched circles and the modeling paste. Yum.

For the lettering, I used an old Ki Memories alpha stamp set, using a foam brush to apply the white acrylic paint to the letters. The smaller lettering is simply freehanding with a Bic white-out marker. It's my favorite new white "paint pen".

And there you have it. My Stitches challenge. :)

Week 16 DLP Gelli-Printed Paper Quilt

I was so pleased with my first paper quilt project. I made another one in my class with a slightly different spin on it. See my previous post to see the first version.

This time, I placed my squares on a piece of paper where I rollered my brayer off on and cleaned off the excess paint from a stencil. I loved the dots. I glued the squares onto the page, then two days after I had finished it, I read the new challenge for The Documented Life Project, and it was GELLI PRINTING! So, I glued it into my Dylusions journal. 

I love the effect pulling a print from an-almost dry gelli-plate. It looks like old peeling paint. :)

I added doodling with a Pilot Mini 01 fountain pen. I love how well they glide over acrylic paint!

Had bit of an issue on the spine, but whatever...

Thanks for visiting! :)

Anna

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 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. :)