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!

Be the Color in Someone's Grey Day: Week 26 of DLP

The Documented Life Project

Week 26 

I used my handy dandy Sakura watercolor brush loaded with full strength Dylusions ink for this week's spread. I have the Zesty Lemon (see the yellow day strips?) and the Calypso Teal (the week header) in these great brushes, but will add six more once they get here from www.dickblick.com. Can't wait. Use them everywhere! I just love the Dylusions colors, so having them available as a brush is great. (I don't use sprays as much as brushes and pencils, as they're not as versatile.)

The right hand side is the tip-in, as shown in my previous post. See the LIFT tab there? I added that just now, so that when you page through my art journal, you can see there's something to see underneath this rose. :)

I chose to go all yellow with the day strips this time, instead of alternating different colors like I have in the previous weeks. I like how versatile my design is. I can vary it enough that I don't get bored. :)

This is how it looks with the tip-in open. Three pages. I chose to add a bit of teal and pink to my journaling so that everything matches.

Those pink doodles on the right hand side are so awfully crooked. LOL It's driving me a little bit bonkers, looking at it. I better just not look, huh? Not changing it now!

Be the color in someone's grey day. 

I'm off to supper with my family, so will have to finish post later. See ya!

Four and a half hours later...

Hi, I'm back. :)

I doodled these flowers on watercolor paper, watercolored them in, cut out and glued onto this previously gelli-printed music sheet. (It's the other side of the rose page.) Added more details with Sharpie, Twinkling H2O's. couple more yellows with varying kinds of watercolor pencils, added white details with Uniball Signo gel pen.
Doodled stems and circly things, and added more watercolor in different areas. It was really a project I kept on going back to, adding this and that. :)

I love how the music notes on the bottom right are peaking out from the background paint. :) I chose to go with a layout with lots of white space. White space gives your eyes room to rest, and also makes the flowers really be the center of the scene.

This week's header is filled with a tangle called using my Dylusions ink filled Sakura watercolor brush in Calypso Teal.

I don't the name of the tangle, but it's a cross between
FLUTTER TILE
FIFE
FLOURISH
NETTING
PUF
and
BALES
:)
I just used a simple label sticker for the title. Handy and quick. :)

Some of the pink paint bled through to the page on the left. Oh well. Adds character, right?

The title in hot pink was written with a Montana acrylic paint pen Gleaming Pink.

The background is a Gelli-print on vintage music paper. I think I was just cleaning off the plate, or from multiple printings. Only a bit of the paint was left over. I figure that makes for a nice subtle background. :)
Well, that's it Lovelies!
I'm looking forward to creating next week's pages. How about you?

Have a great evening.
Anna

Week 23 of DLP Summary

Hi everyone! Thanks for stopping by. :)

The right side of this two page layout is the tip-in, as described on the Art to the 5th blog and DLP project. :) A tip-in is a flap you attach to the edge and opens to reveal more pages. 

Underneath will reveal the facing page of my weekly pages (the 4th of June to the 7th). I printed three of my Instagram photos using Prinkl.  I didn't get a photo showing the whole page. Below is some of it as well as the Week 23 challenge on the opposite side of this page. 

So, when you open the flap, this is what is underneath. :) I am really explaining it in a confusing way, but I guess that's how my brain works. Teehee! Basically, when you open the flap, you have a three-page spread. :) In photo above, the right side is the third page. Week 23 Challenge was to write down one thing you are grateful for each day. Fun and important challenge. 

Photo below is a close-up of the middle page.

My sister and I finally planted my garden yesterday. Made a little chart of what is where. Very very pleased that I have a garden! Also planted Hops yesterday. So excited about those. Hoping they will creep to the top of the garage. Our house faces the east wall of our very white garage. {fingers crossed} 

On the opposite side of the little flap you LIFT, is the ICAD 2014 prompts. If you want to see my first three ICADs, go here. Still need to do four of them. I like to do them in batches, though it is meant to decorate one index card per day...:)

A close-up of my Week 23, (First week of June) header. Some fun zentangling of exploding hearts and bright neon pink to make it all crazy looking. :) 

Well, week 23 is done, on to the next week! Next week's challenge is to use book text. That's an easy one, as I do that all the time.  

Happy documenting but do not forget to make meaningful memories with your loved ones.

♥♥♥ Anna ♥♥♥

Week 22 of my DLP

♥ The Documented Life Project -  Week 22 ♥

 A flap this time. See more details of it further down this post. :)

Week 22's header is decorated with my daughter's favorite tangle: Rain by Linda Farmer. I am signed up to a daily tangle subscription on her site, www.tanglepatterns.com. It is wonderful!

May is planting time, and everywhere I look, I see beautiful flowers. I added some photos this time. I plan to do more of that in the future. I printed them using Prnkl. What you do is upload them to the website, create a poster, download as a PDF, and print them off your computer. Easy peasy. And it's free! They do also print photos for a cost. 

For the front part of the flap, I wrote a dialog of my boys' conversation. My boys play Minecraft when I do art. I love to write down what they say sometimes. It will be so cool to read this ten years from now!

This is the other side of the flap. Included some photos. I used to scrapbook a lot more than I do now. Put in a little bit of it here. :) The pink pattern was made using acrylic paint and a stencil.

Well, that's another week of details here on my blog. Hope you enjoyed. See you next time?

♥Anna♥

Spirograph and Silhouettes

 ♥  The Documented Life Project  ♥

May 11-17, 2014

Mixed colors for each day of the week...
Black zentangling for the header...
Some flippy flaps this time...
Turquoise watercoloring for the circle dates...
Dylusions Ink used as paint for the days of the week strips...

Silhouette flap with sewing complements of my daughter. I stole it from her art stash. She said later it was okay...teehee...
Dotted black and white washi-tape for the flap. I really do need to come up with a different method of creating a flap, really I do...

Another flappy thing...
An index card sized watercolor paper...
One specific thing that spells God's love to me lately...it's the little things I am so grateful for. I like to document them...
Circle watercolor spots, dotted and doodled with my go-to black Sharpie marker and a new white Signo Uni-ball UM 153 pen. Got 12 of them in the mail recently from Amazon for under 15 bucks!...

May 18-24, 2014 

More Dylusions Ink used as paint for the weekly strips...
Spirograph art using my old school set I still have from my childhood...
More turquoise colored circle dates...

Went with black Sharpie marker for the journaling this time...

Well, just a quick update on my ongoing Documented Life Project. I am going strong right now! I would like to change it up a bit more, but we'll see, we'll see. :)

Happy Day to you!
Anna ♥♥♥

Doodles, Watercolors and a Butterfly

My first pic is a little blurry, sorry. Daylight hours are gone, or I would retake this picture. This one will have to do.  Had lots of room to play with the first week of March, as the first landed on a Saturday. (Why did I set it up like this?! Grrrr... )

I just love cabbage roses. My take is somewhat juvenile, but this is a work in progress. After all, it's an ART JOURNAL. Come with me on a little rabbit trail here...

The definition of an ART JOURNAL:

1. It's an artist's journal.
2. It's an illustrated diary.
3. Debbie Hodge says, "Simply put, an art journal is a journal in which you combine art and words to express yourself".
4. It's a playground.
5. It's a place where you can put down your thoughts and questions.
6. It's a place where you can experiment with new techniques and new mediums. 
7. A place where you can learn something new.

So, even if I can't make roses like I'd like to, I can sure practice. That is part of the purpose of my art journal. :) No demand for perfection allowed!

Oh, and the "March" title is driving me crazy, because it's crookedly cut and crookedly mounted on the page. 

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

Oh, sorry! Got distracted...

I added some doodles and stuff to see if I could make it look like it was on purpose. I think I was half successful. Tee hee! Oh, and the letter H I managed to not draw as tall as the other letters, had to improvise. so another imperfection. ;)

About the butterfly. I love it. It's a Tattered Angels stencil that I've had for ages. I simply placed it down on the page, masked off the other areas where I didn't want color, and proceeded to spray with three different colors of Dylusions Ink. They kinda blended together, and I really really like it. I might add colorful ombre sequins to the body of the butterfly yet. We'll see.

Next, I dropped droplets of water onto the color in random areas, creating this pooled watercolor look, which makes the colors brighter. 

I really like the washi tape there on the left edge...Each page of this art journal has a washi tape edge, in the spirit of The Documented Life Project.

This page spread is really FULL. I like to doodle while I listen to sermons at church. In this case, we did church at home this last Sunday. Made some notes while listening to a QandA session with Tim Keller. Those notes probably don't make a lot of sense to anyone but those that actually listened to it, but that's okay. It's my journal, my diary. :) Later, I added more doodles to fill out the page. The white paper is the top side of a flap.

I added many flaps to this side of the spread, as you will see in the next few photos. One of the challenges in the DLP was to make a flap on a flap. Not sure which number of challenge that was, but here it is. I am not following the challenges chronologically with this project, I'm all over the map. But that's okay. That's how I roll. My main goal is to document my every day, not necessarily the artsy part. It's a side benefit. Whoo hoo!

See the bright pink dots paper, with the words "about me"? That is another flap, but accordion-folded.

I created those circles using my Copic markers. Did that a long time ago, when I first had the markers. Saved the page in one of my sketch books, and finally gave it a real home in this art journal. Some of my own handwriting paired with some Basic Grey letter stickers, and we're good to go. Week 10 of the DLP was to creat a list of what makes me, ME. It was funny. I had just completed this list on a Friday, and the next day I read the challenge, and it fit exactly. It's not really a list of EXACTLY what makes me, ME, but it's a li'l list of little details about me. Figured that was close enough. :)

Saturday, the first of March was a crazy day of hubby helping me clean. Not my favoritist memory, 'cause he was a tad disgusted at my lack of deep cleaning...I can laugh about it now, but I was really mad at him for about a day. #maritalbliss But now, I have no dust on my fridge, no dust on my microwave, etc, etc. Was it worth it really? Not sure. Tee hee!

The map revealed under the first flap is one I tore out of a vintage atlas. Yummy. Love me some maps.

Let me tell you all about The Book Thief. If you loooove books, you gotta read this one and watch the movie. It's so sweet! (And sad.) I watched the movie first, then went out and bought the book. Not sure which to do first. Maybe...watch the movie first. The book is written in a really unique format, but it might be quite confusing if you hadn't watched the movie. It leaps from place to place. It reads just like the way I think: in a spaghetti-like fashion. LOL!

ANYWAYS...the quote above is one of the many juicy ways the author used to explain physical settings. Very very cool. Never thought of clouds "making room for each other" before! It's a literary genius! Couldn't stop thinking of this description. Hubby wasn't very interested, my twin wasn't really either, but the pages of my gesso-ed up art journal sure were all ears! Like I said earlier, an art journal can be so many things. I love writing down quotes. It's a perfect place for them.

I joined a postcard swap, and this is a lovely, lovely one I got blessed with.  My very first art postcard swap. Definitely want to do more of them! I think the squares are from a Gelli-print. It's darling! Thank you Melissa Schroeder! I attached it to another flap. So, flap on a flap - I did it! *The challenge, that is.)

I am learning so much about drawing since I started Zentangling! Love me some doodles.

 I got a little carried away with my ten things, and ended up with eleven. What can I say. So, every flap I make, I use washi tape. Simple simple. Nothing fancy. Simple.

Well, that's enough of my jabbing at you. 

adieu

goodbye

auf wiedersehen

au revoir