Paper Friendship Quilt

The collaborative art journal is back! The challenge to me was to create a paper friendship quilt. I found a paper piecing design that I liked online and sorted through my paper stash for colors. I cut out all the pieces by hand and glued them down. I started drawing little stitches on with a paint pen. The paint pen is a little faulty, so I get it primed on another piece of paper and it often lets out a little puddle of paint. Unfortunately, my cat stepped in the paint and onto the journal while I wasn't looking. This led to recovering one paw print with a new piece of paper and stamping images onto the quilt squares to hide the other paw print. I tried to do images that reminded me of my friend, so it all turned out in the end.

Now to figure out what my challenge to her will be!

Things I'm grateful for

This was done in the collaborative journal I'm doing with my friend.  The prompt was "What am I thankful for."  I used cow markers or livestock markers which are like a huge oil-based crayon for the red, yellow, and black.  I did a watercolor wash over top and added the wording with Sharpie.

How will I be remembered?

Another page in the collaborative art journal.  This idea kept running through my head on how to live my life in a way that I'd want to be remembered.  Sometimes it feels in direct contrast to my self-preservation instincts that just want to run and hide

After I finished the page and sent it off, I realized that I'd change the wording a bit.  Specifically, I'd use the word "and" instead of "anyway."  She was afraid and she took risks.  She was imperfect and she loved herself.   That seems more powerful and true.

Art Journal Quote Page #2

I found that I couldn't stop with just the one quote.  So I did another set of pages with a quote from Marianne Williamson.

Here's a close up of each page so you can read the quote.

Art Journal Quote Page

 A page in the collaborative art journal I'm doing with my friend. The prompt was to illustrate a favorite quote.

Facing the fear

Last week, the amazing women in my women's group helped me realize how much making art means to me.  My thinking has shifted from viewing it as a hobby to viewing it as part of me.  So I decided to start taking this art thing more seriously.  The trouble is that my mind is screaming out criticisms and unhelpful comments.  So I acknowledged that in this journal piece.

Collaborative Art Journal

My friend and I are doing a collaborative art journal which I think is going to be lots of fun and great bonding as well.  She picked the first prompt "What am I good at?"  I found this to be very difficult to answer.  As soon as I came up with something, my mind would tell me how I wasn't really good at that thing.  Finally I decided to add self-criticism as something I'm good at.  Part of my practice right now is accepting all of my traits-- those I label as good and those I label as bad.  This was fun to make after I got to that point.

I wrote what I was good at around the edges of the petals.