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.

Vacation Mandala

Tags

100 Mandalas, flowers, gel pens, Mandala

I had planned to draw mandalas on my small paintings on the trip, but I started this in the car and time got totally away from me when we were there. We had a great 80th birthday party for my mom and I got to see a lot of friends and family from Wisconsin. I hope you enjoy mandala #36.

Festive Mandala

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100 Mandalas, colored paper, Festive, gel pens, Holiday, how to make a mandala

Here is a mandala I made using differently colored paper circles that I embellished. I have included a few photos of the process as well. It is quite simple and very rewarding.

I have an old paper cutting system from Creative Memories that is very helpful in cutting the circles in graduated sizes. In the photo on the right you can see how I line up the circles with the grid on the cutting mat to help make the marks symmetrical. I also trace each circle on the one below as a guide.

Happy Holidays and I hope you have a beautiful day.

Playing With Art Supplies

Tags

altered art, art journal, coloring, gel pens, gratitude, gratitude journal, watercolor

Can you see my “pallet” for my compass rose mandala? I play with combinations of marker colors and which gel pens go well over the top. I really didn’t do much to these book pages except some journaling and attaching the various papers. The ticket is from my visit to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The watercolor landscape is from playing with the Dr. Ph. Martin’s Watercolors that my husband got me for my birthday. I have lots of scraps of watercolor paper from cutting it to make my coloring page sets (I plan to have these for sale in my Etsy store by the end of October.) and I use them to create “journaling boxes” by playing with different watercolor combinations and effects. I have been looking for a watercolor class, but I have not found one in my area. If you know of an online one you recommend I would love for you to share that information!

Here is the cover page for the Coloring Page Sets. There are 5 designs in this Mandalas set and you get 3 copies of each design. Two of the copies are on plain paper and one is on 140 lb cold press watercolor paper. I started making these because I love to color, but I really love to use watercolor pencils and the paper for most coloring books was not making me happy. I kind of think of my mission statement as contributing toward peace and beauty in the world and I think these are moving in the right direction. I hope you 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

While listening to the Orchardist

Tags

100 Mandalas, altered art, art journal, gel pens, gratitude, Mandala

The challenge for Journal52 this week was television. I don’t watch a lot of television, but I like to knit or embroider while I do. So this first mandala was made while watching Castle, Idiot Abroad, and the movie The Fault In Our Stars – although that made me cry so much I didn’t get much done.

Usually I listen to audiobooks while I make art and I have been listening to the Orchardist by Amanda Coplin. There is something satisfying about working on an altered book while listening to an audiobook. Anyway, we learned this week that my younger son was accepted in the college he really wants to attend. So some of the text and symbolism is about that. The images are from last weeks’ theme at Journal 52 of  silhouettes – I really love them. Here is another image of my yoga teacher that I used as a mask. I am working on an altered journal as a gift for a young person I know and this page has the mandala where I was auditioning different patterns in the design.

And finally, here is a page that I started off the week with. I traced my hand and decided to fill it in with gesso. I really liked the way that looked on the page and I debated how and if I wanted to incorporate mandalas on this page. I used a variety of papers on the cover of the altered journal that I’m working on and cut out shaps from the leftovers and arranged them into this mandala that is being held in place by my hand. Then I started an experimental gel pen mandala. I’m having a lot of problems iwth smeary gel pens and layering with them. I tried laying down a solid layer of color with a gel pen and using it as a base if it would totally dry. The results were not great, but I am learning more about this fun media. They take longer to dry than I think.

Flower Study

Tags

cut paper flowers, embroidered paper, flowers, gel pens, gratitude, gratitude journal, Pelikan watercolors, Sakura glaze pens, watercolor, zentangle

I am working on a meditation collage that will include different colors of flowers to represent different attributes. This week I have spent a lot of time and thought on this collage. I have been using it during my acupuncture sessions to help pass the time more comfortably. Flowers are a favorite subject of my art (you may have noticed) and I have another collage in mind as well. I will post photos of them when they are completed. One of the ideas of the collage is to find the healing thoughts that you need at the present moment. In this first layout I explored different markers, colored pencils, watercolors, cut paper and embroidered paper to see how they support different ideas.

The colored paper circles turned out very interesting. My plan at this point it to have a layer of drawn and painted flowers and layers of cut paper and photographs, too. I’m playing with the idea of photo transfers and I don’t want to use any layers of acetate in this collage. I want it to be a different kind of reflective material.  I got a gorgeous 12×12 flower stencil from http://www.thecraftersworkshop.com/The_Crafters_Workshop/Home.html

Playing with the new stencil and with the Sakura Gel Pens and Pelikan watercolors I just got. Whenever I sell some art or teach a class I invest the money into new art supplies. So new art supplies represent layers of gratitude.

I’m really not happy with how the right hand page came out, but that lets me know that I’m trying new things. The right hand page on the layout below exceeded my expectations. On days that I have acupuncture I generally sew something into my journal as my metaphor for that healing process. Here I have sewn in a flower. I was going to use flowers from fabrics in my collage, but I have too many other ideas and I think I would rather just embroider the paper. Here is also my original color mixing sketch, too!