Year in Review

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art, art journal, art therapy, blogging, endometriosis, graphic text, inspiration, Journal, Mixed Media, pain management, text

See the rest of my 2018 art journal on my other blog.

Paper Blossoms

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art journal, Art Journal Every Day, flowers, gratitude, paper collage, paper flowers, pink, Zentangles

I have been keeping a gratitude journal for years. About 4 years ago I started doing it in art journal format using altered books. Not long after that I started this blog as a record of that journal and has blossomed into so much more. Recently I started a professional art blog. I will continue to maintain both blogs for as long as possible.

This is my first time using a mixed media sketchbook as my gratitude journal and I’m really enjoying it. I have been exploring acrylic paints and that exploration is reflected in my journal. I also us it to experiment with different media. For example, the flowers in the upper left page were experiments for my Mandala 41 with Rhododendron painting. I didn’t like how they looked with the mandala but I really enjoy them in my art journal and I’m going to use my “plaid” paper in a large mandala I’m currently working on, I think. Stay tuned…

I’m continuing to explore the Zentangle® Method. The tangled squares use a pattern called Paradox that I’m really enjoying. The text and images document what has happened with whom in the last few days and weeks. I had a really long conversation with a dear friend who is fighting cancer. I used a new to me pen to start her drawing and it didn’t work quite how I wanted, but I’m so grateful to include her in my journal. The new pens are from a spiritual doodling class that I’m taking at my Unitarian church.

This week I have been making lots of cards for various people. One of my sons has a birthday coming up and I have a few other friends who are also fighting cancer. All of my cards have had something that uses Zentangle® tiles or inspired art.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Back to Gratitude and Paint

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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.

 

In Time of Silver Rain

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art journal, Art Journal Every Day, cherry blossom, cherry trees, found word poetry, In time of silver rain, Langston Hughes, Mixed-media art journal, poetry, Spring

Dots and text seem to be the theme of this weeks gratitude journal. The left page has my sketch of a weeping cherry tree and text from magazines of things I’m grateful for. I like having Swim and Feline adjacent, if only in my journal. I was introduced to the Langston Hughes poem on the right page by a new friend and it is perfect for this week.

In time of silver rain

The earth puts forth new life again,

Green grasses grow

And flowers lift their heads,

And over all the plain

The wonder spreads

 

Of Life,

Of Life,

Of life!

 

In time of silver rain

The butterflies lift silken wings

To catch a rainbow cry,

And trees put forth new leaves to sing

In joy beneath the sky

As down the roadway

Passing boys and girls

Go singing, too,

 

In time of silver rain When spring

And life

Are new.

 

Langston Hughes

I Love Spring

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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!

Mom Turns 80: So Much Gratitude

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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.

Circles of Compassion and Mandala 35

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acrylic paintings, Albert Einstein, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, compassion, gratitude, gratitude journal, quote, Theology, Unitarian

Here is my gratitude journal entry for the recent past. It includes my new dahlia stencil and circles cut from paintings my boys did in preschool. My husband has a hard time parting with memorabilia and this is one compromise that helps. Plus I really love how the colors and textures of their uninhibited painting come together. I had attached the circles from their art before I found the quote that is written on this page.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
― Albert Einstein

I’m taking a class at my Unitarian Universalist Church called Building Your Own Theology and it is an exploration of what I believe. Part of our homework this week was to find a quote about human nature that resonated for us.This one really works for me.

I finished a new coloring page this week also. It is available for purchase in my Etsy shop.

Celebrating 23 Years

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acrylic paints, art, art journal, collage, paper collage

Last Sunday was our 23rd anniversary! We went out to a play on Saturday and to dinner with friends on Sunday. Also on Sunday people started bringing their pieces of the community mandala back. We got less than half of them back and I’m hoping we get a lot more this week. They used my Celestial Mandala as the cover for the order of worship. That cover is covering up a mandala that I started that was not coming together. I have too much going on this week to wrestle with it, so I added a more relevant layer.

I used some modeling paste on the left hand page and played around with different ways of coloring it. I used part of this Vogue pattern in the background of the community mandala and added it here. It interacted interestingly with the modeling paste. I think in the future I would layer tissue first and then modeling paste, but I do like them together. You may also notice I got a new White Sharpie! I’m working on using black and white for contrast in my pages.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Mandala 34 and Jung on Mandalas

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100 Mandalas, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, Jung, Jung quote, Mandala, pink, quotes

The quote from the 18th isn’t super legible but it says,

“I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point – namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation…” C.G. Jung

I have lots of pink on these pages because I’m knitting 2 chemo caps for good friends who are currently fighting breast cancer. Neither one of them is into pink at all, but I have it here for them where it won’t bother them.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Mandala 33 and Valentine’s Day

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100 Mandalas, art journal, gratitude, gratitude journal, Mandala

The still life was started as a project from The Creative Edge by Mary Todd Beam. However, I had to turn the book to the library after drawing an imagined still life and covering it with a gel medium. It was interesting to see how the paint worked on top of the medium, but I don’t remember what was really supposed to happen. Still lifes aren’t really my thing, but I wanted to try this process and it made an interesting journal page. I’m not doing a great job of journaling these days. You can see this 2 page layout covers February 5-14! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Mine was nice. My husband and I both prefer discount Valentine’s candy for our anniversary on February 26th! The red and white paper hearts came from the envelope of the card that my mother in law sent for Valentine’s Day. She is so good about sending thoughtful things for holidays. I texted both of my boys to wish them a happy day!

Mandala 33 was an experiment with colors. I used my Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Artists’ Crayons, Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils and Ranger Distress Markers to color in the various layers of the color wheel. It was a good activity to compare the variety of colors and how they blend. I wasn’t super patient about letting things dry so some unplanned mixing happened, too. I’m enjoying this new gratitude journal. The paper is fun to play on and it can get really wet and still hold up nicely.

I hope you have a beautiful day.