Technique Flashback

I did another face using the technique I learned from Christina Romeo in Courageous Creativity. Fast and fun.

Courageous Creativity with Christine Kidder

I realized I never posted the art that I made from the Christine Kidder demo and interview with Amanda Mauck. Actually it was just the painted heart and hand at first until last week when I did some doodling with a black pen and added the spirals, dots and outlined flames where the heart paint was messily done. Simple but fun.

Throwback Thursday: Game of Life

This was another project I found while cleaning up: an old Eyes Open Now workshop. The original description for the workshop was "Using old game sets, collage and paint, we will explore representing our lives in game form. Will you use your game to represent events in your past or will you use it to map your spiritual journey? Are the playing pieces aspects of yourself or other “players” in your life? Perhaps you’ll want to explore what rules are in your personal game of life. How you want to play is entirely up to you!"

Mine is an altered Monopoly for kids game that I picked up at a garage sale or thrift store. Here's the box cover. It could use more work but I wanted to get to the game itself.

Here's the board. I used hand carved images for different aspects of my life that felt important.

Can you see the little rectangles that are marked off near the images? Those are for the game cards.

I came up with a word or phrase that came up for me for each area. I wrote them on deli paper and then adhered them to the cards. 

Throwback Thursday: Facing the Inner Critic

I've been cleaning up and reorganizing my space (again!) and came across this project.  I slapped gesso on an old kids' puzzle and then drew a rough self portrait on it. Next I mixed up the pieces and divided them into 4 piles. I asked myself four questions:

1. What does my inner critic say? 
2. How is my inner critic trying to help?
3. What would my friends say about me?
4. What can I say to me when my inner critic starts talking?

I also asked what color each of those answer groups would be and then I started collaging the four piles of puzzles in response to those answers.  I actually started writing the comments on each puzzle piece, but ran out of steam for that after a while.

I like that everything is all mixed up just like the voices in my head. :)

I decorated the puzzle box too.

She Tribe Paintings

Two of my closest friends have birthdays in June (one day apart from each other). I wanted to do something special for them so I watched Tracy Verdugo's Stories of a She Tribe video and tried it out. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of the process. 

First I started by writing down a short poem for each person and wrote those poems on the canvas with ink and a bamboo skewer. I didn't have the same ink that Tracy uses so I made due. She smears some of the words which didn't really work with the ink I used. She then used paper napkins for collage elements. I didn't have any of those either, so I used some Tim Holtz collage paper which is basically stamped vellum. This meant that I had to lay down some color too because those papers are see through. Then you turn the canvas around looking for images of people that pop out from the lines and elements that have been put on the canvas. This was really absorbing and fun to do. Here are the results.

Courageous Creativity with Jenny Grant

Once again, I really enjoyed the Courageous Creativity exercise, this time provided by Jenny Grant. In some ways, this was like intuitive painting but with mixed media. And I remembered to take some photos of the process!

First we used a thin piece of cardboard (like from a cereal box) as the substrate and covered it with collage papers. She encouraged us to leave some papers hanging off of the cardboard.

Next we added paint. She had us smear some white paint on with an old credit card to soften some of the color differences and apply paint using a homemade stencil. 

At this point she drew on her page with pens and then cut it up to use for postcards. I decided I wanted to put a larger image on it and used a head that I had drawn from the Lucy Morningstar interview.  Somehow this person morphed into a superhero with wings. She's freaky but I like her. One of my favorite parts is the outlined squares in the background. I plan to do this exercise again using the same stencil and actually cut up the pieces this time.

Throwback Thursday: Word of the Year 2020

Here was my word for this year. I feel like I've been struggling with creating the healthy life that I want and slipping into old habits that don't support that.  So my word is "choose." The white square at the bottom that you can't really see is a dictionary entry for "choose."

Throwback Thursday: Word of the Year 2019

For the past several Januarys, I've done a word/intention for the year. Actually, I started in 2017 and my sister has been instrumental in keeping the tradition going. Here was my canvas for 2019. These are about 2'x2'. My word was "release" spelled out in Scrabble tiles. I love that the word "ease" can be found in "release."

The MRI skull/brain in the upper right corner is a blockprint I made from an MRI of my own brain (done for research purposes, not for medical). 

Spectrum 2016

So I signed up for an online class called Spectrum.  I know you'll find it hard to believe but I'm behind already.  grin.  However, I did complete the first week's set of videos and art challenge which was to decorate the cover of the journal I'll be using.

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.

DLP #32

August Theme: Faces, the Human Form & Characters
August 8
Art Challenge: Characters
Journal Prompt:  "If you're going to be weird, be confident about it!" Author Unknown


For this challenge, I practiced some lettering styles and tried to draw my kids from one of my favorite photos of them, but the drawing turned out so horrible it will not be shown here.  Instead, I traced the photo onto deli paper and pasted it to the page.

What I see Clearly: DLP #31

August Theme: Faces, the Human Form & Characters
August 1
Art Challenge: Expressive Faces
Journal Prompt:  What I see clearly now

At this moment: DLP #30

July Theme: Ephemera
July 25

Art Challenge: Real Life

Journal Prompt:  At this Moment

Who? DLP #29

July Theme

Ephemera
July 18
Art Challenge: Photographs & Memories
Journal Prompt:  "All that I have to remember you"-Jim Croce

The baby photo is one that I got in a stack of stuff being discarded from a printer in Albuquerque many years ago.  No idea who the little person is.  The photo on the bottom right was one inherited from a great uncle, no identifying information on the back.  It's a little sad not knowing the stories behind these photos and a good reminder for me to be better at documenting Who, Where, and When on my photographs.

Time keeps on Ticking: DLP#28

July Theme: Ephemera
July 11
Art Challenge: Focal Point vs. Layering*
Journal Prompt:  Time keeps on ticking

*Your challenge is to create a focal point on your piece this week. Add layering as you choose.

This page I really ended up liking.  Just let go and let things happen on their own.   Used masks and stencils by Tim Holtz, some American Arts stencils,and one handcarved stamp.  Practiced some lettering.  Super fun. 

Fail and accept: DLP #27

July Theme: Ephemera

July 4
Art Challenge: Using Old Maps, Letters, Tickets & More
Journal Prompt:  Life...with a history

Not too happy with this page but putting it out there anyway.  I'm glad to be playing around and seeing what works and what doesn't.  I like some of the the ideas behind this page, but just couldn't get things to gel.  Maybe I'll come back to it another day.

DLP #26

Well, I haven't been posting but I have been busy. I have been continuing with the  Documented Life Project.  My goal is to not be lapped which might be a tight race. 

June Theme: Travel Journaling
June 27
Art Challenge: Photos and Words
Journal Prompt:  A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Completed: 20 Feb 2016

DLP #25

June Theme: Travel Journaling
June 20
Art Challenge: Hometown Inspiration
Journal Prompt:  There is no place like home

I feel like I'm doing more inner traveling with the June prompts than documenting any actual trips.  It's all good.  

I had no idea where I was going with this page and it turned out much different than expected.  This was a good exercise in trusting because I pretty much hated this page until the very last step (putting on the smeary, black dots).

I had all kinds of fun making marks with paint: lids, bubble wrap, stencils, the end of a piece of paper.