This was such a lovely project, but I did not want to take the time to draw every flower and draw doodles all over because I’m running out of time. Effy Wild, really took her time to create her project and I loved it.
Instead, I got one of my flower stamps and using distress markers I made a frame for my journaling. I like the soft colors in this one.
This is a close up of the top of the page…
…and a little bit more close up.
I also used Sakura jelly roll metalic pens and outlined the flowers with my Sharpie pen.
Week 51 – Celebration Gratitude and Learning
with Jeanne Oliver – The Big Picture
Jean Oliver shared a video about her gratitude exercises with us and a PDF to remind us about the little things we want to see clearly, especially at this very busy time of the year.
Tam also included a painterly face project and we got to write all the things we were grateful and that made us happy.
She had us take a selfie and then copy it to our paper and see what would come out. Ha, the only things that look like me is my eyebrows and my short hair.
I really like the face, especially the color. The neck is kind of weird and I was wearing a t-shirt, so the bottom is not too fancy. Here’s a close up.
And instead of a lot of embellishments I just wrote the title of the painting on the front of the t-shirt.
I have a lot to be thankful for and I could just keep writing on the back of the page.
I have one more lesson in Life Book 2015, and then I will be binding all the projects I did during the year.
Can you believe the year is almost over? I can’t! But you will be seeing more creations because I’ve enrolled in the Life Book 2016!
We only have three more classes and then we’ll learn to bind all our work in a book. I can hardly wait! I’ve been wanting to learn how to bind pages for a journal since I started my mixed media journey.
I don’t recall if I told you the theme for this month – kind of late because this is the last class for November – any way the theme was Celebration and Play.
Since I just started working with watercolor media, this lesson really interested me.
Danielle Donaldson‘s lesson was all about “My Favorite Things” – It’s a celebrating of what makes me me. We worked with pencil, watercolors and our imagination to create an illustration of our favorite things. I practiced small scale illustrations and then colored them with a tiny brush and watercolors.
I enjoyed writing my name with the brush and watercolor – although she kept saying it would be hard, I found it quite enjoyable.
On this one I tried a little different font, and my names farther apart from each other and my L came out better.
And lastly, I tried different colors of ink and splattered watercolor with my paintbrush.
Then we doodled on a piece of Bristol paper…
…and put it all together!
Here are some close ups…
I hope this inspires you to create some of your favorite things in watercolor!
I hadn’t had a chance to enter the Unity Blog Hop Challenge in a while because the day of the blog hop was changed, but this week it happened on a different day and I decided to enter my cards since I made two cards for a couple of friends.
I’m taking a Craftsy class called “Lovely Layered Cards From Top to Bottom” taught by Sharri Carroll and these are the cards I made for the homework.
One of the segments was called “Layering With Mixed Media.” I used corrugated cardboard for the top of the card then added crackle paste. I also cut out a couple of hearts and the top and bottom of the cardboard of with my dies.
I used Authentique 6×6 double sided designer paper pad for the second layer where hearts were laid, and the bottom layer.
For the embellishments I used a Prima flower and a rolled flower I made myself plus the “Love You” brad.
I finished it off by adding glitter to the crackle paste as well as the flowers.
The ribbon is from my stash.
This second card is a Sympathy Card I created for a dear friend who lost her mom – she was only 58 years old – so young!!
This segment was called “Distressed Collaged Background”
I used the same paper pad for the top of the card, collaged the front with torn designer paper and tissue paper with mat medium to soften some of the dark color of the designer paper. I also used a stencil and Flexible Modeling Paste on the bottom right hand side and colored it with distress inks. I then dded a few butterflies punched out in three different sizes from the same paper. Died my own ribbon with distress inks, and added the black Prima flower. The sentiment I used was from Unity Stamps also.
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Life Book Lesson 47 – Intuitive Painting With Chris Zydel.
I didn’t feel at ease with this lesson because of her philosophy, but I did the homework nevertheless by following her prompts because I want to be open minded, but not so open minded that my brain falls out.
I get the part about using the intuitive painting as a vehicle for getting more deeply in touch with our own intuition and our muse, but my muse was out on vacation. LOL
In other words, it was hard for me to grasp the concept of her teaching style by not demonstrating her painting process, so I was truly grateful that Tamara stepped in to demonstrate her take on this lesson.
In the first segment, she said to use five minutes and just throw paint on the paper without thinking, and that’s what I did.
Kind of looks like a couple of a stick figures.
The next segment was to paint something in 30 minutes without thinking and this is it…
I looked closely and sea creatures appeared,
a whale, and a porpoise.
And a seahorse or female figure, and a mermaid that I sketched in pencil.
Life Book 2015 – week 48 – Bonus: Smush-Book – 9 Muses – with Donna Downey and Bonus: Playful Word Fusion with Lynzee Lynx and a combination of the two with Tamara.
Had so much fun working on these three bonuses.
Donna’s video was showing us how to use left over paint in a ‘smush’ page, although this is not the page I used, but I wanted to show you what a smush page would look like; I’m going to use it on my next project and make more silhouettes.
After adding acrylic paints and stencils, I created this page. the silhouettes reminded me of aliens so I added three planets on the right hand side.
I used my 6×6 Urban Landscape stencil by Ronda Palazzari by adding white acrylic paint and outlining it with a black pen.
I added the three circles and which became planets and added the words on the stencil “Wander and Explore” and where the planets are “Travel and Journey.
and Lynx had us work on a word fusion exercise.
The fun part was combining both smushing and fusing and bringing them together in a very fun way!
Tamara’s video I introduced us to the gelli-plate (which I have already tried and love) and then create a painting like Donna’s and used the fused words too!
I hadn’t used my gelli plate in a long time, so I had so much fun creating these prints.
Then I took one of the plates I created and made a smush page that didn’t turn out as beautiful as Tam’s but I’m already thinking about the next one I will create.
This is on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock which held up pretty well even after I added all the acrylic paint, splatters, and black ink.
Mh, butterfly wings, another insect wing, or angel wings like one of my friends said – you decide!
I used the word fusion for this one – Playmily and Funting using my interlocking stamping letters.
Life Book Lesson 46 – Glorious Childhood Tales with Violette Clark.
This was such a fun lesson! Violette showed us how to make a beautiful cartoon/story board of our happy childhood memories. And I had many indeed!!
At home I went by my nickname “Licha” because my mom’s name was Carmen and my aunt’s name was Carmen. Licha is for Alicia.
When I was going through the introduction I was really eager to start because I remember so many fun things I did growing up in Mexico. I was a precocious child; always asking questions and wanting to know the why, where, and whens of everything. You would find me reading in the car, on the floor, in bed, while visiting my parents friends, at the bull ring, you name it, I had a book in my hand. (Yes, you read that right. The men in our family were bullfighting enthusiasts, but I hated watching!)
I had very curly hair and mom would comb it in ringlets or “bouclettes” for the French influence in Mexico. Sometimes, she would get tired of my hair being so messy and she would wet it with lime juice and pull it so tight to make tiny pony tails or braids, my eyes looked Asian, LOL!
Life now a days is so different than when I was growing up 50+ years ago. We would stay out late playing with the neighborhood kids until it got too dark to see the ball or whatever we were playing with. And we really entertained ourselves without television. Since there were very few girls in the neighborhood, I often played by myself. My fondest memories are when I would play “grocery store.” I would grind up the red bricks for red chile, the dirt for cocoa, and the sand as flour. I made my own scales and weighed everything out and put it in paper cones for the “customers” to take home.
With the boys I learned to play tops, marbles, and ride bikes, much of which mom hated! I went to a private school where we were made to act very proper, so most of the time during recess I would play Jacks. And in my quiet time and at school my favorite pastime was to draw and color.
I loved paper dolls and spent many hours playing with my sister. Mom was very crafty and made more dolls, clothes and the furniture out of match boxes. The clothes were traditional clothing from different regions in Mexico. The big boxes were the beds and then she would make chairs, and dressers with the small match boxes. I never got bored!
When I was seven years old my dad finally bought an RCA television. And, that’s because he caught me watching the neighbor’s TV through their window after paying them .25 cents to watch. He felt so bad, the very next day he went and bought us a black and white set.
That’s when I came in contact with the English language because dad would watch American television programs.
In Mexico, we didn’t have a lunch period. Dad would pick us up and take us home to eat a warm meal mom had prepared for us. After lunch, he would relax by watching The Secret Storm, The Edge of Night, Days of Our Lives and other nightly program.
There you have a story board of my childhood memories. By the way, that’s my little sister hurrying me to go play paper dolls with her.
Here’s my tag and spinner!
My favorite snacks in the summer were the “raspas” or cherry flavored snow cones.
Well, here I am again bringing you some exciting projects – ha!
As I said in my last post, one of my favorite lessons with Tam was the gorgeous swan girl.
Second time I’ve worked on two pages so it did take a while and I spent way too much time playing with my background. But I am very pleased to bring you my rendition.
This is the right side of the page before I changed the doodling.
This is the finished piece. I attached the two pages so I could take pictures of the whole project by using painters tape on the back and on the sides.
I played around with the left side and the deer appeared looking surprised. I also used a stencil for the various images and a Unity Stamp for the arrows.
I made the bottom of this page with a stencil using green molding paste as well as the body of the swan. The bottom doodle is a combination of my imagination and a Pinterest idea.
After googling for some Native American symbols I found out the Thunderbird I had stenciled represented the “Bearer of Happiness.” How appropriate!
I also added more stencils on the borders.
The heart is colored with watercolors paints and I also added more symbols and stenciled with molding paste.
I’m very pleased with the way this girl’s face came out. I also added some feathers on her head-dress and a necklace on her neck.
And, finally the swan’s head.
My daughter really like this and asked me not to give it away, but since is part of Life Book 2015, I’ll have to make her a canvas. Hopefully it will look like this page as well.
Thanks you dear friends for stopping by. I’m almost caught up posting all my projects for this year.
The lesson for Week 43 was by Patti Ballard. It’s a full length class on drawing and painting a girl in “Every Day is A Good Day to Celebrate”
I really took a different route on this one. Same concept, different girl. Patty made the cutest girl with a cake. I prefer cupcakes, so that’s what she’s celebrating with! I used acrylic, Caran D’Arche, colors, stamps, and stencils. I also used up some of the paper I created in one of my other lessons for the dress.
When I was drawing her dress I remember the dresses worn in Mexico called China Poblana. I Found this picture on Pinterest.
The legend of the China Poblana goes something like this, according to my google search.
“In the early 17th century, a girl from China, Mongolia, the Philippines, or India was brought to Puebla, Mexico by the Spaniards as a slave. The unfortunate girl, whose name was Mirrha, was apparently bought by a man named Miguel de Sosa. Sosa had Mirrha baptized and given the Christian, Spanish name Catarina de San Juan. Upon the death of Sosa and his wife, Mirrha married Domingo Suárez. Oddly, Suárez was the Chinese servant of a local priest, and this fact seems to have added to the legend that Mirrha was Chinese.”
Not quite the same thing, but you get the idea.
The cupcakes were actually an ephemera picture not drawn.
I added a banner and stamped the word celebrate and added starts from my stash.
Finally, a close up of the girl with flowers in her hair.
Life Book 2015 – week 44 – Bonus: Reach for the Stars with Jenny Wentworth & An Artist Interview with Mati Rose McDonough
Jenny Wentworth‘s lesson was a bonus. “The concept of this lesson was to start with a ‘seed’ in which you write all the things you want to have more of in your life. And then out of that seed, the things you want more of will grow and flourish into a beautiful tree symbolising your hopes and wishes growing and coming to fruition.” Tam’s quote.
I used Brushos crystal watercolors for the tree, but it turned out to be a big blur. I went with it, adding a few stars in the back and coloring in some hills and a sunset in the background. Since the outline of the girl wasn’t very visible, I used a white pen and outlined her.
This are the roots where I wrote some of the things I want more in my life, and then covered with watercolors.
The close up of the girl with her arms stretched out wanting more of what makes her happy!
Finally, my hubby and I spent six days in Las Vegas by ourselves! No one to hurry us anywhere, no one to tell us where to go, what not to eat and what to do! It was heavenly!
But, I guess I should start with our journey to get there. It is always such a hassle to get to the airport, check-in, go through security, get in line to get your seat on the airplane, deplane, find your luggage, run to the terminal, get a rental.
And speaking of rentals, I must admit we thought renting a car in Las Vegas was a real rip-off. You make the reservations for the car, they quote you a great price, but when you get there, they surprise with the obligatory insurance which cost an additional $240 – more than the rental! No, it’s not optional!
We stayed at the Grandview Resort in Las Vegas; six miles away from the Strip. Not to worry, there was a new casino adjacent to it where we could enjoy a meal in one of the different restaurants if we wanted to eat out, or create an epicurean delight in our own private kitchen. Are you kidding me? Who cooks on vacation?!
We were able to get in at the last minute by exchanging one of our time shares through RCI. My hubby warned me not to say yes to any invitation to see presentations since we already own two time shares that we’re trying to get rid of, but I misunderstood what the clerk said and I said yes, oops!!
The clerk gave us a choice of a breakfast or lunch buffet, so I wasn’t about to get up early and we chose the lunch buffet.
After we left, my husband reminded me that I shouldn’t have said yes and after he explained what had happened I told him when they call to remind us, I’ll tell them we changed our minds and do not want to go to any presentations.
Sure enough, the night before the free lunch buffet, the reminder call came and I said to the person, “We changed our minds, we don’t want to go to the presentation or the buffet because we already have two time shares.” He responds, “Oh, you don’t have to sit through a presentation, all we want is for you to see the model and give us an opinion – that’s all.”
We met the sales person who had a very nice personality, we talked about our family, where we’ve been on vacation – fishing, of course!
Then the time came to go see the model – it was exactly the same as the one we were staying in – lovely!
Then she said, “I know you don’t want to buy, but I’m just going to explain the point system that RCI is now using.” Oh, yeah? Three hours later and after pushing the sales papers back and forth, we were set free. They didn’t even thank us, just said, “You can go get your gift card downstairs in Corporate.” So we get there with our voucher and the lady gives it one more shot! She asked what was the lowest offer we received and she added, “I offer you half of that!” NO!! for Pete’s sake! “OK, here’s your gift card.”
And with our $100 gift card in hand, we went shopping at the Outlet stores, yay!! Yay, for me, but my hubby was still fuming.
OK, OK, never again, I promise!!
After that unpleasant experience, we spent the next few days at different casions where my husband played and won some money. A couple of days we just stayed in and did nothing but snack and relax.
I couldn’t get WiFi in our room, so I was not able to post any updates of our stay, and hubby didn’t want to stop for me to take pictures on my phone, so I managed to take a few drive-bys.
Back home we had talked about going to see some shows while we were making our reservations, but didn’t get a chance to do it. But, while we were at the Mandalay Bay, we checked on Cirque Du Soleil – Michael Jackson ONE and there were sits available.
As we expected, it was fabulous! All the acrobatics and the dancing was so great I have to share the trailer!
Two days later, we bought tickets to see Celine Dion at Caesar’s Palace. We were so excited to get tickets because we had tried before and couldn’t get them or she was on vacation.
It was her first night back, so she was full of energy. She sang all her hits and in between the back up singers sang some other songs to keep us entertained while she changed beautiful gowns. It was very touching to see and hear her Paris tribute in French. I didn’t take my phone because they said no recordings or photos, but no one listened. My hubby and I couldn’t believe how brazen people were in recording the concert – we looked down and there were many, many smart phones shining in the darkness!
The Colosseum was packed and the energy high! Here’s someone’s recording of the opening song on YouTube. Enjoy!
Visionary Art by Carmen Alicia 