Art, Heart and Healing lesson 2 Part 2

Another journal page in my moleskin book.

Thanks for looking!

Art, Heart and Healing Lesson 2 part 1.

While I am still waiting excitedly for Life Book 2013 to begin in a couple of days I am continuing with Tamara's Art, Heart and Healing lessons. In Lesson 2 part 1 she shows you how to do a photo transfer. When I first started art journaling a couple of years ago, I tried this technique with horrible results. Didn't understand why people liked it. Really thought the technique just didn't work. I don't remember what products I used back then but following Tamara's instruction and I just happen to have the same gel medium that she used I had great results! Here is the beginning of the layout with just the transfers in my moleskin journal.

and here is how I finished it.

I now know why people love this technique and I will use it again and again. Thanks Tamara for the Lesson!

Thanks for looking!

Getting Ready for Life Book 2013 - My Paper Choice

Tamara and all the other teachers for the Life Book lessons have you do your work on a 9 x 12 piece of paper. She recommends these to be loose and not in a bound journal. Here is a link to her video on how she bound her 2012 Life Book. I prefer my pages to be loose when I work on them, I've even taken apart my spiral bound journals to work on the pages, it's just a lot easier. I've decided for my paper I am going to use Fabriano Artistico Hot Press 140 lb Watercolor Paper. I am going to get the 22 x 30 sheets. I mainly am getting these large sheets because it is a whole lot cheaper than buying the blocks or pads. I started figuring out how many 9 x 12 pieces of paper I could get out of a 22 x 30 I realized I could get 5. I also realized I could make them 10 x 12 and still get 5.

10 x 12 is probably the size Tamara ends up with after she adds on the decorated paper to the backs of her art work adding an extra inch. This extra inch is for putting the holes in so you can use rings to bind your journal. Since I am already starting out with that extra inch I have the option of not using other papers but to paint the back and that extra inch on the front.

Also by using these big sheets I will not have to add (by gluing or taping) paper extensions if I decided on a double page layout. When I am cutting down the big 22 x 30 sheets for a horizontal double page layout I would cut a 19 x 12 size and fold it in 9 inches from the right. For a vertical double page cut a 10 x 24 piece and fold in half. Open it back up and cut away the first inch on the left side of the only the top half.

Thanks for looking!

Art, Heart and Healing Journal Page

I am so pleased with this journal page. For years and years I have wished I could draw and shade faces. I have watched numerous of videos free and paid lessons in learning all sorts of mixed media techniques. A couple of months ago I signed up for some of Jane Davenport's online classes. I feel in watching these videos and following her tips I have made great strides in my capabilities. I am excited what might be next in my creative art explorations.

I did this page following week one of Tamara Laporte free video lessons Art, Heart & Healing. 

Tamara is another great teacher. I have signed up to take her Life Book 2013 series that starts January 1st. It is going to be another exciting course.

Life Book 2013

Some art work to share.

I am taking a second online class of Jane Davenport's. I have thoroughly enjoyed both of them and hope to eventually take her other ones also. Here are the latest ones I've done.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies catalog

Loved this video on how someone kept their supplies catalog. Inspired me to start working on mine again.

http://www.youtube.com/user/purklepoi?feature=g-hist


I've always kept lists of the different supplies I have to keep me from buying duplicates. After taking a watercolor class I started making tabs of the different paints. The tabs I use to keep in a small box. After seeing this video I have started to put them in a notebook. My supplies notebook has 2 sections.

The second section is the lists of colors of a particular supply I have.

The first section I am adding the tabs by color. The right page is water colors and the left is paints.

I am still working on markers and colored pencils. I'm going to have to get a thicker notebook. It's a lot of work but I enjoy the benefits of it.

Thanks for looking!

Finally took apart my art Journal

For the longest time I kept thinking about taking apart my Strathmore Visual Journals for various reasons. I thought it would just be to hard and mess up the Journal. After seeing a video (wish I could find it again) of someone taking apart her Canon Journal I decided to go for it. I am really glad I did. The pages are so much easier to work on. When I am doing a double page layout the wire binding is not in the way. When I make mandalas I like to use different kinds of papers depending on the art media I use. When I put the mandala journal back, I'll be able to put the different papers together. 

Below is a picture of the covers I've done for one of the journals. I followed this video in doing the different layers of colors.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX7LrJ3_9jY&feature=g-hist

When you do take apart the journal the back cover comes off first then the front cover. That's handy if all you want is to do the covers.

Thanks for looking!

Seed of Life

A couple of weeks ago I did these two mandalas.I used my guides to create the sections for the circles.

This one I used my brand new Twinkling H2O's

This one I was inspired from  here. I used colored pencils on 140 lb watercolor paper.

A couple of days ago I came across a great website: Guada's Circle she offers a free class on creating a mandala. This method of creating a Seed of Life mandala is a lot easier than using the guides that I came up with. Seeing how she colors hers is very inspiring.

Here are a couple of links that I found on You Tube that also use this method.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Su-m19xTpw&feature=g-hist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHvXUNeYGs0&feature=g-hist

Thanks for reading!

Creating Star Shaped Mandalas

For a couple of years I have been making mandalas in my art journals. When I first started I wanted to have stars in them. I used a protractor and compass to get my points evenly spaced out. It was very time consuming using the protractor  and I thought to myself there had to be an easier way. Here is what I came up with. My architect husband using his drafting software, very easily made some different sided shapes for me and I printed them out. Now I use these reusable guides, a compass and straight edge.

I first tape down the guide on to the page using temporary tape.
Then put the pointy end of the compass in the middle of the guide and draw a couple of circles.

Then I create the sections by lining up the straight edge on the lines of the guide and use a pencil and make a mark on each circle. (Draw the whole line if you think you might use it in your finished design.)

Then line up your straight edge from the marks on each circle.

Using the marks I didn't use on the first star, I created a second star behind the first one.

For me using this method takes minutes instead of an hour in starting up of my stars.

If you want to try this method, right click these images then paste into a word document. In a word document you can easily re-size the images to what you want. My guides are about 2 inches.

10 sided

12 sided

14 sided

16 sided

In another post to come soon I will post how I finished this one.

Thanks for reading!

Making your own Washi Tape

There are a lot of videos out there on making your own Washi Tape. This particular one video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5BYnfQxoPQ&feature=g-all-u using Score tape and tissue paper has made me to want to finally make some. I love to discover new ways of using something I already have. I don't have Score Tape but I have some double sided tape that I don't use to often that I got at a rubber stamp convention. I don't remember the name brand.

What is super exciting to me is that I have a great stash of fancy napkins that I keep collecting. This is going to be fun.

Best to take away all the layers except the top one.

Adhere the double sided tape.

In the video she used scissors to cut hers. I first used a exacto blade but it tore the napkin. My rotary blade and a straight edge did a nice job.

Washi tape ready to use!

Thanks for looking!

29 Faces - # 18

#18

29 Faces #13 - #17

These 5 drawings are another round robin that I did with my sister, her daughter and my 2 daughters. (See this link to explain http://pwfblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/29-faces-first-4-faces.html ) I'm not sure when I'll get around to coloring them in and put them on a journal page, I have so many different things I want to do in my journal.

29 Faces #12

Here is face # 12. I signed up to take Jane Davenports' class Draw Happy. I'm enjoying it and learning a lot. I followed one of her videos in making this face. She could use some more work, but I wished I had gessoed the page before I began, so I will start a new one.

Thanks for looking.

29 Faces - #11

This one I started directly in the journal instead of collaging her in. I started out by using colored pencils of different shades of green for her skin tones, then painted her with acrylic paints. The background is done with watersoluble crayons, letting it dry then using a stencil and a baby wipe to lift out some of the color.

, 

29 Faces - 8, 9 and 10

Here are some more faces I've been working on.

Face #8 I didn't care so much for the dark pencil outline on this one, so

For Face # 9 I didn't use any black pencil. I used the Sienna Brown to start sketching her. Really liked the difference it made.

Finally I made it to the Public Library to check out several books on drawing faces, coloring with colored pencils and several others. Here is Face # 10. I like her a lot. I was bound and determined to not post just a face but to put it on journal page. I've put her on a background I had already done following this You Tube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf6pj_pYRoM&feature=related

I still need to work on the layout and I also need to work on my photography skills.

Thanks for looking!

29 Faces #7

Here is face number 7 and the magazine cover I drew it from.

I have been using colored pencils lately and the skin tones have been looking to orange for me. Being a Tennessee Volunteer Fan the color orange is not a bad thing but I just don't want skin tones orange. I have started keeping a reference of colors that I have used to help me.

Thanks for looking!

29 Faces - 5 and 6

These 2 faces I did following a tutorial I found on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF_Ksm3bq_I&list=WLE13FB34DEDC706CF

Face #5 is with colored pencils first, a coat of light gesso, more colored pencil, another coat of light gesso, then use watercolor crayons. I cut her out and collaged her into the page.

Face #6 is only with colored pencils. Eventually she will be collaged into a page.

Thanks for looking!

29 Faces - the first 4 Faces

   The first 4 faces that I am posting for the 29 faces challenge are ones that I have been already working on. The basic sketches were done by my sister, her daughter, my older daughter and me. We had gone out for pizza and while waiting on our food to come we did a round robin type thing with our journals. When a journal came to us we would draw only one face feature and pass it on the next person. There was a lot of laughter and fun doing this. Each of us went home with an original sketch. They were scanned and sent to the others. We each are to incorporate the sketches into a journal page.

Here are the sketches and my corresponding journal page. I will probably go back and add more to the pages but right now I am looking to work on something else.

Face #1

 Face #2

Face #3

Face #4

Thanks for looking!