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.

 

Circles of Compassion and Mandala 35

Tags

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.

Mandala 33 and Valentine’s Day

Tags

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.

 

Still We Rise

Tags

100 Mandalas, acrylic paint, art, art journal, flowers, gratitude, gratitude journal, I Rise, mandalas, Maya Angelou, Poems, quotes

My new gratitude art journal is my first mixed media sketchbook!

I can journal for quite a few days and really play with things with this book. This page layout was from the past week and culminated in the Women’s March. I didn’t make it to Washington, DC, but I did go to Trenton NJ. It was a really uplifting day. Yesterday I taught part 1 of a mandala drawing class at my Unitarian Universalist Church. I donated the class for their annual service auction. The people who made it were really happy with part 1 and I’m looking forward to part 2 next Sunday. You will see some of my samples in this journal.

Here is my sample free-hand mandala and some very free for all art journal play. I’m going backwards chronologically so here is the beginning of the gratitude journal.

I got some new art supplies that are used in these pages and am playing with lots of flower images. I’m kind of doing a 100 flowers challenge as well as the 100 mandala challenge. I have really enjoyed doing a lot of mandalas as samples for the class. It gets me working in different ways. Another focus for the new year is to get a new blog for just my art and beef up my Etsy site.

The right hand page of the top image has much of the Maya Angelou poem, “Still I Rise” written out. It really captures the spirit of the march and was part of our minister’s sermon yesterday. I’m so grateful for the legacy of Maya Angelou. Here is the poem in its entireity.

Still I rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

I hope you encountered beauty today.

2016 Retrospective

Tags

acrylic paint, Altered books, art exchange, art journal, gratitude journal, hand painted cards, Journal, Peace, Retrospective

Here are some of my favorite pieces/photos from the past year. Each is going to be linked to the blog post that describes it, but I’m having technical difficulties for now.

January

I sold this piece at an exhibit at Hatch Art House in Madison, WI

February

This little landscape was donated for an auction at the Beaver Dam Area Art Center

March

Gratitude journal page entry

April

Three years of gratitude journals!

May

Flower farm near our house in WI.

June

Leaf Mandala with Flowers

July

Summer Waves Mandala for a Community Art Project

August

Illuminated box #1 completed

September

October

This photo was taken on our trip to Maine. We totally fell in love with Maine and look forward to many return trips! We went for the fall color and found so much beauty.

November

Process Painting #3: Love

December

 

https://wpcomwidgets.com/render/

These hand painted cards are from 3 separate posts, but I wanted to include a representational sample and send you into the new year with plenty of peace.

Happy New Year!

 

Variety of Art Completed (mostly)

Tags

acrylic paint, acrylic paints, art, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, collage, gratitude, gratitude journal, layers, mail art

I have been working on a complicated gratitude journal page layout and I just finished it. These pages have been quite a process, like a lot of the art I have been making lately. I will post pictures of the pages in process and some mail art that I’m working on and haven’t yet completed.

completed page layout

This has a few layers of paint and paper. The left hand page represents a lot of love and sadness the week following the election. The right hand page has a lot of mail related ephemera. Some of it is my gratitude for our ability to pay our bills. Some of it is my love for getting and sending snail mail. Some of the stamps and postmarks are important in my life. In any case there is a lot of gratitude, but I wanted it to look prettier.

So I added some more paint. The left hand portrait is of my younger son who had a difficult week. The white on the right side was following up with the “whitewashing” idea from my process painting and some ideas I have for art with a complex yet subtle background. I am practicing some more with the mail art project that you will see momentarily. I did some journaling on the white with colored pencils, but it isn’t very visible. Even less so when I put the mandala on it.

mail art step 1

Mail art step 2 – I let the under-painting dry completely for this one.

I put a mandala on it. I plan to cut this into pieces to make a mail art series.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Mandala 18 of 100 and Some Gratitude

Tags

100 Mandalas, acrylic paint, altered art, art journal, collage, gratitude, gratitude journal, Inktense

This mandala was used to teach a friend how to draw mandalas and how to use Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils. I have been kind of obsessed with little circles in my mandalas as you will see when I finish 19 of 100. I hope you have a beautiful day.

Coloring and Painting with Friends

Tags

acrylic paint, art, art journal, color mixing, gratitude, gratitude journal, Mixed Media, painting

I’m taking a Process Painting class that inspired the background of this gratitude journal background. The circles on the left are from a coloring page I worked on with a young friend and his parents. The birds are one of my favorite stamps. It has a lot of fine lines and rarely turns out very clearly. I tried it with white and black ink to see which would work better. Neither was very clear so I went over them both with gel pens. I’m working in my head on a Draw a Bird Day bird in the style of this stamp.

Here is what I painted at my first Process Painting class. I really enjoyed the layers of paint and interplay of colors.

Trees, Parties, and Grids and mail art update

Tags

art, art journal, collage, gratitude, gratitude journal, painting, trees

Here is my gratitude journal entry for the last few days/week. I finished the grid on Illuminated Box #2 and submitted the whole thing for an art contest. I will post photos of the completed box when I get it back. I played around with some of the paints and ideas in my gratitude journal. I was going to add trees and/or flowers on top of the grid, but based on how this one turned out I decided not to do it at this point.

You may have noticed that this photo is cropped and rotated correctly! I have Photoshop Editor finally installed on my new computer.

My significant other generally inspires feelings of gratitude in me, but he really has this last week. I’m having a hard time with all the changes and challenges of the move and I’m feeling pretty isolated without driving anymore. I really enjoy spending time with him. Who knew that >25 years later we would still be having fun?! Plus sometimes he does thoughtful things like buying me flowers to cheer me up. That is why it seemed so appropriate that the “significant other” text was so much larger than the rest of the text.

We do have some wonderful friends here, too. We spent the day with them last Saturday. She got an extra subscription to a magazine and is giving them to me. I am using them to represent their family in my gratitude journal.

What or who are you grateful for today?

I did add some more details to the mail art that I sent out yesterday.

Painting Fun

Tags

acrylic paint, art, art journal, collage, Golden Acrylic Paint, gratitude, gratitude journal

This picture is a little wonky because I’m still working on getting a photo editor on my new computer, but I wanted to share my gratitude journal. I have been playing with the Golden Acrylics A-Z paint and media set for the last week or so and here is one of the results! This set was recommended by Laura at CreateArtEveryDay. I’m working on my illuminated box #2 as well and it is coming along nicely. There is a really nice mix of translucent and opaque paints in this set. The Golden Fluid Acrylics are my favorite at this point. The teal and the Iridescent Bright Gold Fine are on this page layout and on my illuminated box. The Iridescent Bright Gold really gives it an illuminated feeling. The teal is nice and opaque and so smooth! It mixes really nicely with other colors. I particularly like it with the open acrylic Phthalo Blue and Heavy Body Acrylic Titanium White for lots of shades of blue. These are featured on a grid on the box.

I hope you are having a beautiful day. What brought you joy today?