Consideration and Faces

Tags

Altered book, art journal, collage, Consideration, drawing, faces, flowers, gratitude, Virtues

Yesterday I went to a painting party/fundraiser and painted my own interpretation of the painting. Here is a bad photo of it. The sample painting was of heart shaped balloons, but mine quickly became flowers. I’m going to collage in a vase and some leaves I think. I’ll let you see when I’m done.

My friend’s daughter is very artistic but she was providing child care during the event and did not get to participate. I told her she could come over and paint with me today as her reward for being so kind about her service rather than playing during the event. She told me that she wanted help with drawing faces. I told her I would be happy to. I used to draw faces all the time, but it has been a loooong time since I drew one so it was a nice challenge. I included the face I drew in my gratitude journal for today. It was really nice to see her progress in just a few hours of 1:1 instruction. I was pretty happy with my sketch, too. I don’t really do realistic sketches/drawing anymore and it was nice to know that I still can.

For my morning pages writing (which I’m having fun playing with fonts and writing styles) I drew a Virtue Card from the Virtues Project website. I discovered this in the online retreat that I have been participating in with Kathryn Costa. I got “consideration” today. Great way to frame my morning pages and focus my gratitude journal entry. So much consideration in my life – I am so fortunate.

Have a beautiful day!

Invention of Wings and Color Studies

Tags

100 Mandalas, Altered book, analagous, art journal, color theory, drawing, gel pens, gratitude, watercolor

I am having a lot of technical difficulties with my old laptop so my posting and response to comments may be a little sporadic. I would like to apologize for that in advance. And also for any oddities in the post itself. I’m having problems with viewing the entire post which makes typing and editing tricky. Anyway, these mandalas were completed while I listened to the absolutely fabulous book The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. I noticed that the figure of the woman on the left hand page was posed so well for the addition of wings. Synchronicity. I love it. One of my favorite parts of altered book journaling.

As you can see I have continued my morning mandala practice many days. I have also been working on a series of color theory studies using 2 large mandalas that I drew for coloring. Below is a scanned version of my analogous, blue, green, yellow mandala. And I have also included a photograph of my completed purple, blue, green mandala. I have been using gel pens on them and they don’t scan very well so I’m playing with photographing them and scanning them.

Here is a close up of the little black and white mandala from the left page.

And here are the color studies

Playing with Friends and Family, Paper Mandalas, a Ukulele, and Board Games

Tags

100 Mandalas, Altered book, art journal, drawing, gratitude, hummingbirds, Mandala, paper art, Ukulele

Well, here is my 2 page spread upside down for some reason I cannot fathom. Here are the individual mandalas right side up.

I saw a birthday card that had a cut paper flower that I loved and it inspired  this mandala I made of our time and the Kalahari Indoor Water park in Wisconsin Dells. We went there for my younger son’s birthday celebration and met up with friends and relatives. The decor of the hotel and water park has an African theme, but what I really loved was the light fixtures. I made a stencil from a photo of them that is featured in the center of this colorful mandala.  I spent most of my time in the hotel room drawing and talking and kicking back with some great people.

This mandala I’m calling my ukulele mandala. It wasn’t anything conscious, but I’m learning how to play the ukulele and I mentioned that I’m grateful for that in the tiny print on this mandala and then I noticed that the outside part kind of looks like a string instrument. Well, anyway I have plenty of imagination and it made me think of my ukulele. 😉

The hummingbird mandala represents some nice time I spent over the weekend with my mother. I got this hummingbird stamp to use as a metaphor for her in my gratitude journal and it works in a mandala as well! In the center are hearts cut from money used in the game of LIFE! My husband and I like to play games together and we tried a new version of Monopoly over the weekend. I have a few games that I bought at a second hand store for collage so I’m not tempted to use game pieces that we will still need!

How do you play? What do you like to do for fun? Do you like big adventures like the water slides at a theme park or do you prefer a board game with someone you love? Do you like to play with art supplies? That may be what I am most grateful for! I enjoy time with family and friends, but I can get so lost in cutting and arranging paper, drawing a mandala, or painting in a stamped image. I am so fortunate that I don’t have to choose, but I get to enjoy so many different fun activities. I hope you have a beautiful and fun-filled week!

I am now on Pinterest for the 100 Mandalas Challenge.

I didn’t share this week’s journal entry in the current week’s blog post for Journal 52 because this week’s theme there was silhouettes. I submitted last week’s post as that contained a variety of silhouettes.

Diva Challenge 173 & misc.

Tags

art journal, Diva's Challenge, drawing, gratitude, gratitude journal, Kente cloth, zentangle

Today I needed a portable active meditation and the Diva Challenge for this week was just the thing. Then I went out to lunch with the most wonderful husband in the world (mine). Yesterday was day 2 of art camp and the kiddos and I had a blast making our kufis and reading stories about Anansi.

The challenge for Kelly’s 30 day challenge today was to be inspired by a book. I made a journal of transparencies based on a project in the book The Elemental Journal by Tammy Kushnir. It has a transparency of a phrase I tangled and a photo of my husband. I put some linen paper in the back so the photo would show up better. The cover for the journal is the plastic that a new die that I bought came in! I love upcycling!