Back to Gratitude and Paint

Tags

acrylic paint, art, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, grateful, gratitude, gratitude journal, Zentangles

I have been working on layers in my art journal and have been so busy with Zentangle® classes and art, but here is the page layout of the buildup to the CZT27 and planning our trip to Connecticut and Rhode Island.

I included my first Zentangle® tile from the seminar and my dinner coupon for the first evening. The meals at the Providence Biltmore were fabulous. They were awesome in their skill in accommodating gluten free and special dietary needs. There were quite a few of us at the seminar and I got some good tips on that too! They made some gluten free brownies that everyone loved!

You can also see some random flowers I drew/painted on scraps of paper. They turned out pretty well. I’m still playing with cutting painted paper and using layers in my art. I feel like things are coming together, so to speak.

The background of all of these pages were from my Lenten painting marathon. They have been great fun to work on. I should probably get back to them so I can continue to have art journaling backgrounds ready! I played with more layers and tried out new pens and tangle patterns during and after the seminar on these pages. I’m also working on a mandala that I’m going to submit to a show out here and I’m a little nervous. This is a different market from Wisconsin! I’m learning about combining inks and acrylic paints and pens and gel pens with interesting, and sometimes smeary, results. The daffodils are from a napkin from a pot luck dinner I participated in at MUF (Morristown Unitarian Fellowship).

There is also a quote from The Buddha Walks Into a Bar by Lodro Rinzler.

“One way to think of this dignity is to equate when you are on the path with unraveling a ball of yarn. You have wound your sense of self so tightly that it’s hard to be anything other than you, a big ball of yarn. That’s just who you are, not string, or threads, but a ball of yarn.”

The thing about living with daily migraines is it has helped me see the threads in myself, not just the ball of yarn. Don’t know if that will mean anything to you, but it gets me through a lot of my days.

Oh! And I have Zentangle® classes scheduled to teach! And my professional art website is getting going! Check it all out here!

I hope you have a beautiful day.

 

Arting from Acrylics to Zentangle

Tags

100 Mandalas, acrylic paint, collage, Derwent Inktense, inspiration, Watercolor pencils, Zentangles, ZIA

Got a start on my Mother’s Day Cards.

Added some Derwent Inktense to the Zentangle® Inspired Art. Not sure if its done yet.

After this I was really itching to do some collage. I’m going to do another painting redo. I got too busy to show you how my last one turned out.

The original painting from a class I took was a sunset winter landscape in shades of blue and orange/yellow – not really my style, but nice enough. I did some collage on top and then added a tissue paper mandala and did some embellishing and here it is. It is getting toward what I want. I learned a little about doing detailed drawing on tissue paper and then putting it on a colorful background – it gets totally muddled. In any case I’m counting it as mandala #40.

So here is the first step of my next try. I have a landscape that I started, but it didn’t go quite right.

So now I’m off to collage over this. I hope you have a beautiful day!

I Love Spring

Tags

acrylic paint, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, collage, flower, Mixed Media, Mixed-media art journal, Spring

Gratitude usually abounds for me in the spring. I love spring flowers. I love spring candy (even if I can’t eat it anymore) and I even love spring rain. Here are the pages from my last week or so. I’ve been painting a lot – both the small paintings and the backgrounds of pages in this journal so you will see more cohesive and intentional painting in the next few gratitude journal posts. The 50 small paintings book is due back at the library tomorrow so I’m going to hit the paint while I have it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get it again to do justice to a few of the more complicated pictures I want to paint.

Some of this is progress on the community mandala, some is my 2 (fairly) new yoga classes that I am loving!!!! I’m trying to make to do lists again. I got away from them for a while but I love making and checking them and seeing them in my journal pages. Lots of green writing because I love green and life is so green and fecund these days. Breathe it in!

Simple Paintings 12 & 13

Tags

abstract, acrylic paint, acrylic paintings, painting, Simple Paintings

The simple paintings are getting a little more complicated and require drying time between steps. I frequently get distracted during drying time and sometimes it takes a bit to get back to them. I am also working on a bunch of different things in the meantime. Here is an abstract painting layering circles of different opacity.

Here is a more 3 dimensional painting of a ball of yarn using contour strokes.

I may have forgotten some of the finishing touches on this one. Oops! But I wanted to get my Marsh Mandala in the mail.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Mount Hood Simple Painting

Tags

acrylic paint, acrylic paintings, Altered books, Cee's Photo Challenge, landscape, landscapes, Mount Hood, painted dictionary page, painting

Thanks to Cee for the photo that inspired this painting! Here are links to both of her photography sites. She has provided a lot of inspiration for my art and encouraged my photography as well. Thanks Cee!

Her photo of Mount Hood reminded me of the simple landscapes I have been painting in my Simple Paintings series. The others are all from this book.

I am so happy to be able to apply what I have learned from this book into my painting so easily!

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Mom Turns 80: So Much Gratitude

Tags

acrylic paint, art, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, gel pens, mandalas, Naomi Novik, quote

We made the trip to Wisconsin and back to New Jersey this last week and there was so much to be grateful for! I’m really pleased with the impact my daily painting has had on the backgrounds of my art journal. I didn’t paint on the trip or yesterday, but I’m getting back to it today.

My Mom turned 80 and my oldest sister did a great job organizing a party. It was great to see family and friends. Our boys hadn’t seen each other in more than a year and the night before Mom’s party the four of us went out for dinner and a movie. Beauty and the Beast was beautiful and the boys loved the music. We also got to see quite a few friends we hadn’t seen in so long. The “happy birthday” on the journal page is from one of the napkins at the party. I drew little mandalas on the page while my mom and I talked and caught up in the days before the party.

The quote is from the Naomi Novik book “Uprooted” that Mike and I listened to on our drive out to WI.

“I was a glaring blot on the perfection. But I didn’t care: I didn’t feel I owed him beauty.”

I hope you have a beautiful day on this rainy, Spring day.

Simple Paintings 8 & 9

Tags

abstract, acrylic paint, acrylic paintings, art, dictionary page, dictionary page art, painted dictionary page, Simple Paintings, trees

This painting was to work with increasingly opaque layers of paint. I struggled with it and am not thrilled with how it turned out. Maybe a mandala on top will help. In any case I will use it for mandala experimentation.

This painting uses more or less the reverse color order of my first abstract and I used modeling paste through a mandala stencil. It was a good learning experience. Again, I may use it for experimenting with layering a mandala on top.

It is seriously snowing here! I hope you have a safe and beautiful day.

Simple Paintings: 5, 6 & 7

Tags

abstract, acrylic paint, acrylic paintings, barn, painted book page, painted dictionary page, poppy, Simple Paintings

This painting was practice using tints and shades of Cadmium Red Med. I really love this color. I’m not hugely satisfied with this painting and I think I will do it again. It is finished with a glaze and that is a technique I really like.

I really love this kind of abstract painting and will definitely do some more along these lines. The lesson for this painting was textured layering. I think today I may do one using some modeling paste in a layer.

I’m so happy with how this turned out even though for years I have not liked paintings of barns. This painting started with a warm toned underpainting that is covered with cool colors. I really enjoyed some of the old and new color mixes. The trees in the background use the green made by combining Mars Black and Yellow Cadmium again. The grey of the roof is made by mixing unbleached Titanium and Mars Black – I really like both of these colors.

I’m also having fun making connections to the text on the dictionary pages. This last one is epiphany, which comes from a root word meaning to make an appearance. The flower is on the page for distress. I should have known it wouldn’t come out quite right. 😉

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Simple Paintings 3 & 4

Tags

acrylic paint, acrylic paintings, acrylic paints, mountains, Simple Paintings, tonal study, waves

Here are my paintings from yesterday and today.

This painting was practice in creating a simple gradient.

This painting is a simple tonal study. I think these paintings will make fabulous backgrounds for mandalas! I’m enjoying using acrylics in large shapes of color. That is one of the things I really wanted to work on and it is starting to have an impact on my art journal, too. Stay tuned!

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Lenten Offering: Simple Paintings

Tags

acrylic paint, acrylic paints, dictionary page, dictionary page art, Etsy, learning to paint, mandalas, painting

Yesterday in church our pastor was talking about the practice of giving up something for lent. She also talked about increasing an activity or behavior instead. I’m going to focus on using what I already have for art supplies and really focusing on painting. Well, I have been playing around with this book about learning how to paint with acrylics through the creation of 50 small paintings. I have done one and they make lovely backgrounds for mandalas.

So my plan is to make a painting a day as much as possible and work on the mandalas on the days I can’t paint. We are going to be heading back to WI in a few weeks and I wanted something more portable for while we are traveling.

Here is the book and the 2 paintings I did yesterday.

As you can see I learned that using masking tape on the dictionary pages doesn’t work very well so I’m just trying to keep tidy edges. One thing that is interesting about the picture of fields and trees is that the darker field is on the word “field” on the dictionary page. That was totally coincidence, but once I noticed it I tried to keep that part translucent. Something I learned in the making of the painting is that you can combine Mars Black with Cadmium Yellow Light to make the darkest green of the trees. The Moonlight Delight painting is for sale in my Etsy store. More paintings will be available by the end of Lent.