Becoming Brave

I also completed Erin Knepp's workshop Becoming Brave and came away with a lovely little journal and a lot of encouragement. Erin is not a big talker, but her words speak volumns. I enjoyed this workshop very much, and will be adding more to my journal as I go along.

So here are the pages I created and I became braver with each page. I chose to use a square format, for a change. I used metallic paints on some of the backgrounds and some of the stitching, etc, which, unfortunately, the scanner doesn't pick up very well, but you'll get the idea.

 Front Cover...

 This page shows that I am loved. I am 61 years old, and for my last birthday my mom gave me a card with a kitten on it. I used the face, heart, and glittery flower on the page to represent her. My dad is no longer with us, but he loved tulips, so I added magazine page tulips. We've lived in the Rabbit Hop community since I was two years old, thus a little bunny seemed appropriate. My husband of 41 years brings me much joy (and sometimes frustration) so I added a little joy button. I have been very blessed, because I've always known I was and am loved.

 I used a couple of paper cuttings on this one. The cross was cut from a coffee filter, which didn't show up much when I  used gel medium over it, so I painted it metallic blue. The star was cut from a text page. I'm still using things I learned in the first 21 Secrets. Papercutting was one of my favorites! :)

Back cover-Don't you just love the three kitty stamp? I got it in a stash swap that I participated in a couple of months ago. I can't imagine why the lady parted with it, but I'm glad she did! :)

These look much better in person, because the metallics shine and add a little glitz to them.  Anyway, it was a wonderful class. Thank you, Erin, for the encouragement and the experience! What I learned will become a part of me from now on. :)

Happy Easter & Childs Play Workshop

Wishing you a Happy Easter!
I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted. I've been so wrapped up in the 21 Secrets (see badge on sidebar) workshop projects and life that I lost track of time, I guess. I'm like Alice in Wonderland in the playgroud, jumping around from here to there, exploring everything, then trying it. I've learned some new processes and techniques, and I've found some new to me art supplies that I love and will definitely be using again. Connie has again put together a great collection of teachers and workshops!

I have at least three workshop projects in progress or almost finished right now, but here are some that I've done so far. The first is from Alma Stoller's class Childs Play, where I learned different ways to prep, stamp, and emboss, using magazine pages. I also made a terrific little journal in her class that I can't wait to fill, but I will come back to that later. I made tons of pages, so I'll only share a few with you for now.

 Some of the paper scraps are the negative shapes from where I did paper cutting that I learned in the first 21 Secrets workshops. I love that you can use anything in art journaling, so there is no waste, and you can combine all the things you love, like stitching, painting, pasting, writing, gorgeous papers, your hands...

 So much fun prepping the pages that I had a hard time stopping! LOL

 This page, and the next three, are in my watercolor sketchbook, where I tried out a couple of Alma's suggestions and some different items I found around the house! It was so much fun treasure hunting for stamps!

 I loved the embossing fun! Only problem was that I had liquid gesso and it tended to run under the edges, but it was fun, and I learned what I needed to, so it's all good! :)

 Stamping fun!

I love my little journal, and can't wait to fill it with things I learned from Alma and all sorts of other fun things! It was hard to stop and move on to the next workshop, but I did. I will for sure be doing more of these.

Thank you so much for teaching the workshop, Alma! You did great! I had fun and I learned a lot! :)

21 Secrets-Abstract Adventure

Connie's workshop in 21 Secrets (see sidebar) was just that, an adventure! I watched her fun videos and read the pdf file about using my intuition and trusting the process, and I couldn't wait to get started. I found two 14x21" sheets of student grade watercolor paper, gessoed them, and clipped one to my stand up easel. Then I plugged my mp3 player into my ears with some Michael Grimm blues, did some stretches and shook my booty to get my juices racing through my body.

The soft acrylic colors seemed to jump onto my palette, then onto my brush and all this stuff flowed right out of my heart through my hands and on to the paper. I even caught myself dancing several times while working!

I painted both exercises back to back. The warm-up just seemed to flow right over on to the line painting. I kept my brush moving and my booty shaking until I felt like I had said enough. I'm not sure I'd want to know what it means, but I like it! :)

The colors are actually a little darker in reality, and  the lines are dark blue, not light, but you get the idea of my abstractness, don't you? :)

This intuition is something else if you listen to it! I love this process, not worrying about every little thing and just letting your brush dance along to its own drummer. Thank you so much for teaching me to paint big and fearless, Connie! :)

I'm also working on adding fragrance to my journals in Lisa Dieken's workshop. So far I've spilled Pomegranite essential oil all over my writing journal (not intentionally, it was supposed to be a few drops on the center threads), spilled talcum powder all over the floor, and tried to corral a dryer sheet cut-out heart into another journal. Who knew adding smell good to a journal could be so challenging? :o  No pictures yet, but I'm working on it! This is also an adventure! :)

Zentangle Mooka Challenge 16

This week's challenge at http://www.iamthedivaczt.com/ is to use the new Mooka pattern created by the founders of zentangle art. It's a fun pattern to do. I don't usually use a string to guide me, but this time I did. Of course, I didn't stay within the string. I love learning and the doing of the tangles. :)

 These were both done on 3x3" squares in my Moleskine pocket journal with a medium Pitt pen.

I tend to forget that I have more than one size pen, and whichever pen or marker I pick up is what I use. Trying to make them perfect is stressful to me and sort of defeats the purpose of meditation, so I just have fun with them.

I sure do enjoy seeing everybody else's gorgeous tangles though!

21 Secrets 2 is in Session! Drawing Happy!

The second set of mixed media journaling workshops in the 21 Secrets playground opened yesterday. They are hosted by Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints Studio (see the badge on the left sidebar). I had so much fun in the fall session, and learned so much, that I've been on pins and needles to start this one. I looked over the classes and worked on my profile page yesterday. I also tried to decide which of the 21 workshops to take first. Not an easy decision!

This morning I decided to go with the "Draw Happy" workshop with Jane Davenport. It's a class about, well, drawing happy. :) She showed us how she draws and doodles, and the different tools and surfaces she draws on in several very upbeat informative videos, which also starred her cute-as-a-button dogs and happy music.

The first exercise was to show her some of the things that we automatically doodle when we're on hold on the phone, in line, etc. I shared the doodle below.

I call these heart people my little Hearties, and I love them. The lower left corner is a series of connected dashes, and I tend to do them when I'm very nervous. I used a Pitt marker pen in my Moleskine pocket journal.

One thing I love about these workshops is that we're encouraged to feel free to explore and experiment; that it doesn't have to be perfect, and if we don't like what we've done we can always cover it up with something else. I love it! :)

The second exercise was to do a test page with some of our drawing tools over different textures and to share what we liked and didn't like about them. Below is my chart, and I know it's wonky. That's because I'm wonky. :/

I used white cardstock with  strips of Quincidrone violet fluid acrylic, white gesso, and clear gesso to test on. The acrylic proved to be too slick for most of the pens/pencils to write on. I am loving my new Pitt pens though. I'd never tried them before until I did a zentangle atc last night.

The third exercise was to do a finished journal page using our doodles and tools and to upload it to share. Here is what I wound up with.

This is a page in my Moleskine large sketchbook, and I used fluid acrylics, my Pitt marker pen, and gellyroll metallic pens. I wish the metallic and white pens showed up better in the scan, particularly the gold in her hair. I'm happy with it. :)

Well, I've completed my first workshop and I've spent a beautiful Saturday inside doing it, but I've loved drawing happy. Jane is a delightful person, a good teacher, and I appreciate her teaching the workshop and sharing her knowledge with me. I will continue to draw happy. Thank you so much, Jane! :)

Zentangle Challenge #15-Curves

This weeks challenge at http://www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/ curves only, no straight lines. I just bought a set of Pitt pens and decided to try them out in my pocket Moleskine sketchbook on an atc (2 1/2 x 3 1/2"). Love the pens and had fun doing the tangle. Here is the result!