Born With Bones and Heart Fused in Deep

I have started another art journal project. Like DLP, this one also has an amazing community of like-minded artists. Every week you get new prompts. We'll see if I make more than one page! LOL!

Check it out here: www.getmessyartjournal.com

I have wanted to add more meaning to my art and telling stories on my pages for a long time.  Ummm...might my blog name suggest my intentions too, perhaps?  ;) I enjoy creating pretty pages, but often they don't have a story. That's why I got interested in this project. 

The first prompt really stretched me creatively and mentally. Get Messy works on six week seasons, with this season's theme bring introspection. 

The dictionary defines it like this: 

So that's what I'll be trying to do. Communicate thought via art journal pages. Maybe they'll be pretty, but they might not be. ;)

So back to my page I completed. 

I go ahead and do the art prompt, make ink blots, and then it sits, me staring at it for a day.  

What do I see?

I see layers of hearts.

I see two pink hearts on each side. 

I see a white one in middle. 

I see a teal arrow pointing down. 

What am I thinking when I look at those blots?

Layers of hearts make me think of things I feel deeply, but keep a lot of it inside. 

Layers of hearts also make me think of all the friendships I cherish.

The two hearts make me think of my marriage. 

Two hearts combined into one. 

Which makes me think of our center: God the Creator. Jesus. The Holy Spirit. 

The mystery of all this that I can't fathom most of the time, but keeps me on my knees, and always evaluating life from that worldview. 

So the teal shape in the middle represents Christ in me, in us, in my relationship to everything.

As I play, adding textures and paint and words, more things pop into my head. 

Then I start to play, getting MESSY. Just playing. Play. Get messy. Repeat. :)

I cut out a laser copy of a photo of myself, and glue it to the heart on right. Then I paint it over with the same pink, as I want to keep the pink heart shape for the overall look. I don't want my vision to "stop" on the photo of me, as I don't want this to be the center.

I peruse the first poem in the altered book I am using and find neat phrases that speak of looking back through my life, which is what I also want to do in this project.

The poem is called The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg.

I spy a cool stencil lying around of the earth encircled by the planets, a StencilGirl club stencil: 

July 2015 The Sky's the Limit by Mary Nasser

 and it gives me the idea of Christ as my center in all things, so I stencil with pink paint on the white center heart and the surrounding book page.

Born with bones and heart fused in deep.

 Hugging the little ball of Earth

Mixed from a bowl of sky blue dreams

Shimmering with phantoms

Out of joybells and headaches

mortgages, house rent, groceries

new generations with names

The living flowing breath of the history

Flicker in the mirrors a few moments

Not sure if my newly "found" poem makes any sense, but each phrase speaks to me, as it gives me the feel of my present life as a mom with young kids and of my generally happy past.

The mesh-like texture on the hearts is white paint through a different stencil, symbolizing loosening the grip of my heart on the things that are inside - a cage, so to speak. Does that make sense to you like it does to me? heehee

April 2016 club stencil by Mary Beth Shaw Private Collection 16.2

I see teal-coloured paint on the under paper (deli paper) dried up and it's peeling off the paper, which makes me think of peeling back the layers of my brain and heart. That'll work! I need to add that to my page! So I brush on matte medium in the teal area above and adhere it. This is FUN!!

I add extra layers around each shape with lots of paint. The pink paint is quite transparent, but I want it opaque and heavier, so I add 3D Matte Gel medium by Prima to it, and hand-paint around the hearts, adding white gesso to create more depth of colour.

Lastly I add white dots around each shape with a white paint pen.

As I was blogging this, all the while looking at my page, and after I took the pictures, I decide that the center teal needs to be an arrow, so I go in to add lines in a diagonal fashion with an Imagine Crafts Brushtix chisel tipped sponge. Cool tool!

The arrow symbolizes pointing down, into my heart, and read what is there. See after picture, below.

I'm very pleased with how this all turned out. What a great exercise of INTROSPECTION. :)

And here some shots of my altered book cover in progress. It isn't finished yet!

The coolest product. You blurp it on, then put your heat gun to it, making it puff up. :)

And there you have it. I enjoyed writing this post as much as I did creating the page. :) 

Until next time!

♥♥♥  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