DLP, Week 4

January Theme: The Blank Page & How to Face It
Art Challenge: Writing
Journal Prompt: Words with Friends

This week's challenge was difficult for me. At first I couldn't decide what to do, then a few things happened that I needed to work through. This is the first time I've used art and journaling (instead of just journaling) to process through something difficult & I really liked it. Adding the art aspect really helped. Especially in this case, since I ended up making something pretty out of some feelings that are kind of ugly.

I began by writing a letter to someone whom I have known forever, and whom I love, but who does not seem to understand how to care for another person. I needed to get some feelings out that I wouldn't actually share with the person, so I wrote & wrote. Then I looked at what I had written and used Glossy Accents to highlight the positive words I found. I looked for words that describe what friendship truly means, words like, "care," "love," "best," "hopes," etc.

After that dried, I covered the whole thing with a couple coats of gesso and some pink acrylic paint. When that was dry, I used a baby wipe (& quite a bit of elbow grease) to clear the gesso & paint from the highlighted words. Now all the bad stuff was covered up & only the good stuff was left.

I tinted some joint compound with light green paint & used a leafy stencil to add some vines. Add to that some hearts, outlining, bird sticker, and my quote. 

 I love this quote by Thomas Aquinas.

 I didn't really pick a focal point for this spread. I really wanted to just highlight the quote and the words that were left after the paint.

A little texture from joint compound. (This momma is on a budget & the stuff from the hardware store is a lot less expensive than modelling or texture paste from the art store.)

I'm glad this challenge is done. It was difficult, and I do really feel better about something that had been weighing heavily on my heart for a long time. After this I was able to pretty well let all that bad stuff (and the person it was attached to) go.

DLP, Week 3

January Theme: The Blank Page and How to Face It

Art Challenge: The Color Wheel

Journal Prompt: 

"I found I could say things with color 

and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way . . . “    - Georgia O’Keeffe

I found it ironic that after lamenting my [over]use of color the last two weeks, this week's challenge was... color. I did not love the quote, though, so I found a different one that was still related to the topic but was more "up my alley." As usual, my explanation is below all the photos.

I wanted to tame my use of color this week, which was a challenge, given the theme. So I decided to concentrate wild & crazy color in just one element that would pop off my page. I used two different fonts to print the quote, then did a graphite transfer to get it onto the page. After that, I just traced the letters with a black fine tip Sharpie and sprayed the whole thing with two coats of gray (homemade) alcohol spray.

I loved this picture of a girl that I found in a magazine. I think she came from an ad for diabetes or asthma meds. She looks thoughtful and spunky, as if she's wondering how to shake things up. I used watercolor paper to make a new dress for her, then used about 11 layers of wet media to colorize it. I used (homemade) alcohol sprays, watercolor paint, gel sticks, ink, markers, and possibly some acrylic paint. I used some of the scrap paper left over from blotting & dripping to make a matching scarf. After I glued her into her dress, I stuck her onto a piece of textured "linen" cardstock that I had already covered & smeared with charcoal (and then sprayed with hairspray so I could pick it up without getting black smudges everywhere).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this page. This was my first attempt at creating a new garment for a magazine picture, and my first time using so many different types of wet media together. I pretty well achieved the look I was going for, so I'm going to call this one a win!

DLP, Week 2

January Theme: The Blank Page and How to Face It!

Art Challenge: Gesso

Journal Prompt: “The beginning is always today.” -Mary Shelley

Again this week my DLP page spread is a lot more colorful than I planned, and far more colorful than my usual stuff. I'm not sure how this happened two weeks in a row. My explanation is below all the photos, if you're interested in how I achieved this... um... interesting spread.
 

I started with a gernerous layer of gesso, which I applied using an old gift card for texture. After that dried I smeared on some purple acrylic paint. When that dried, I used my Inktense pencils to add the orange & yellow. Then I had to think about the quote for a while. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

After a while I decided to go a bit literal & collage on some tissue paper transfers from calendar pages in random places. The more I thought about the quote, the more I started to think that today could be the beginning of anything. So I found this picture of the lady looking through a glass, then printed some pictures of things she might see through it. Of course, they are all whimsical, scifi, oddities that I love. I finished it out with some outlining & shading.

DLP Week 1

January Theme: The Blank Page & How to Face It!

Art Challenge: Book Paper

Journal Prompt: Be Your Own Goal Keeper

As far as the art challenge, this was a pretty easy one for me. I used extra pages of sheet music I had recently printed out (and then didn't need for actual music). Overall, this page is a LOT more colorful than the pages I usually do. I've been itching to really play with my new Gelatos, and this seemed a great time to try them out. My goal for this year is to creatively step outside of the box smash and blow the box to smithereens, so I'm guessing a lot of these pages will not look like my usual stuff.

 I decided to go with a verse from 2 Chronicles because I'm really good at setting goals... but less good at following through on them. Like most people, I tend to not work continuously over time to reach my goals. I made a mini book for my 2015 goals. The cover of the book says, "more," because inside I wrote one word on each page. I want 2015 to be my year of more. More patience, more peace, more gentleness, more work... Not surprisingly most of the words I wrote can be found here, listed with the Fruits of the Spirit.

This year promises to be hugely busy, so I have condensed several books into one. This is my planner, journal, smashbook, and art journal. I'm a wife and mom of (soon to be) four kids. I work part time, homeschool our two oldest full time, and also attempt to make time for knitting, crafting, and art. The planner I already have really works for me right now, so I didn't want to ditch it for the one that everyone else seems to be using for the DLP. So I'm using tip-ins to add my DLP pages to my weekly planner pages. I just tape them in along the outside edge of my weekly schedule & weekly to-do list. Then I'm using the back of one DLP art page to journal my family's highlights from the week and the back of the other as a smash page for the detritus that I collect throughout the week. So far it's been working for me. At the end of the month, I will take out that month's pages and transfer them to another binder to keep my planner from growing too fat.

My Planner Cover

I've been using the same planner for about a year & a half. And by "same" planner, I mean the cover. It's a half-size three ring binder, so I'm constantly changing & updating its "guts." In all this time, the cover has been white. Plain white. With some dirt on it. And some random pen marks.

Yeah... pretty.

I've been meaning to do something fun with it for... 16 months or so. And FINALLY, I made time to address the problem last week.

This year I'm using it as more than a planner, though. I've decided to participate in The Original Documented Life Project.

And I'm also using it as a journal and a smashbook.

So the cover needed to be pretty. Or at least not dirty stained white. Right? Right.

Here is the final cover:

One of my main goals for the Documented Life Project pages this year is to really force myself to step outside of my box. I want to use new techniques, materials, colors, etc. that I wouldn't normally use. So far it's going pretty ok. I'm definitely using a LOT more color than usual. And layers. This bad boy has more layers than an Alaskan out for a walk in February.

How are you stepping outside of your box this year?

Art/Planner Page - Embrace...

I like to put inspirational little art pages into my altered planner. This one sits in the very front, so it is the first thing I see when I open it up. I opening t up about a thousand times each day, which is a good thing. Because I need this reminder about a thousand times each day!

 

This was my first foray into photocopy transfers, and oh-my-goodness-it's-amazingly-fun!!! I've done about a thousand more since this page.