Life Book Lessons 50 and 51

Week 50 –  Celebration and Play with Effy Wild

Sunlight and Roses

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.

I will post that next.

Thanks for stopping by,

Make some art today!

Carmen

 

 

 

Life Book 2015 – Week 48

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!

Thanks for stopping by!

Carmen

 

Life Book Lesson 46

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.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy creating!!

Carmen

 

Life Book Lesson 45

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.

Happy creating everyone,

Carmen

Life Book Weeks 39 – 41

Life Book Week – From Here to There

with Roben Marie

This week’s lesson with  Roben-Marie is all about finding connection with our wholeness again through the pages.  Roben-Marie talks about the therapeutic aspects of journalling and shows us how to create a beautiful journal page from ‘here to there’! 

Using watercolor paper I first made marks all over the page then started layering different media including stamps, stencils, pages from magazines,  sheet music, and old book pages.  I also made some of my own tools and applied them on the page.  It is not as bright as Roben-Marie’s but I like it!

These are the closeups of this page:

This is the bird cage stamp I used and the bird is a paper I punched out with a circle punch

Some of the marks we did were circles with a paper towel tube

I used them to stencil in some flowers

This is part of a magazine I used and left the image inside the circle also

This shows some of the book papers I used to make circles and attached them to the page where I thought needed to be covered

Lastly, we made tags and put them inside a pocket I made using my sewing machine so it wouldn’t obstruct the page.  By the way, Roben-Marie was making the tags along with each layer and I didn’t realize she would be using it for the journalling, but I went back and created three tags and will use them on other projects.  The stamp I used is from Unity Stamps.

Week 40 – was an interview with Chris Zydel she teaches intuitive painting and mark making and her class is sometime in November – looking forward to trying it out!

Week 41 – Kristin Vanvalkenburgh

I found this lesson by Kristin to be very moving. It was  a very therapeutic  exercise.  I got a little teary eyed when I was watching the first video because she shared some memories of when she was younger with us.  So this exercise was about writing a letter to your younger self and be accepting of the future.

I enjoyed working on this lesson too, because I allowed myself to be free and not think too much about the process.  One thing I did was use lighter colors and I really like the look.

This is the page I created using spray inks, acrylic paint, stencils, glitter and lots and lots of texture with gesso.

This is the heart I created with burlap using the circles stencil I made myself.  I attached a piece of card stock to the back of the heart and sewed around the edges with a straight and zig-zag stitches so the burlap would not unravel.  Since it’s a very personal message, I stapled it shut so no one else can read it but me!

Close up of all the texture I created using paper towel tubes, a comb and a plastic tool with a different edge on it.

I had never used glitter on top of spray inks before, but it looks like it adhered well.  I applied mod podge juste to be sure the glitter would not come off everywhere.

Finally, the left hand side showing more glitter and more texture.  This was so much fun, although, it did take me three days to complete.  I am keeping these techniques for future projects of my own for sure!

There you have it, friends, let me know what you think and have a fabulous week!

Hugs, Carmen

Life Book 2015 – Week 35

Bonus Lesson – Create New Possibilities with Andrea Gomol

Are you in a rot?  Andrea showed us some fun and helpful techniques to nurture the inner Creatix (Feminine Archetype – Goddess who produces new creations.)  Also how to overcome creative block with some simple but effective techniques to jump-start and bring our creative mojo in no time.

She said think of a word and work around it.

My word was FAITH

Next, I thought was about what gives me faith is.  Unquestionably, God’s word, the Holy Bible does just that.

Reading the Bible daily gives me hope and joy to know that my prayers are answered.

I used Psalm 105:3-4

Let the hearts of those seeking Jehovah, rejoice.

I used watercolors, stencils, and modeling paste.  On one of the stencils I used glass beads and I love the great texture and shine after I wiped the color off.  I’m definitely using this medium again!

Can’t to start on Donna Downey’s homework!

Until next time, happy crafting!

Carmen

Life Book 2015 – Week 34

This week we continue with the Healing & the Feminine Archetype theme.  This lesson was taught by  

Alena Hennessy who showed us how to paint a muse!

Alena talked about the different goddesses and what they represent.

I chose again to go back to my roots and explore the Aztec goddesses.

I chose the goddess Chicomecoatl. (chico meh, co atl)

Her themes are fire, providence, energy, community, abundance, fertility and strength.

Her symbols are hot spices (especially chili peppers), corn and fire.  In Mexico the goddess presides over maize and all matters of plenty during the time of harvest.  She is also the earth goddess and provides warmth, energy and fertility to those in need.

I chose her because she represents abundance and strength and because I love corn tortillas and chili peppers.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art : “the headdress is known as amacalli(“paper house”); it is the most typical attribute of the corn goddess.”

One aspect of the Aztec gods and goddesses were their insatiable thirst for blood.  I will spare you the details of how she was commemorated every September.

She comes in various appearances: a girl with water flowers.  She is regarded as the female counterpart of the maize god Cinteotl, their symbol being an ear of corn.

I really enjoyed drawing and painting this girl. I used watercolor paper, Pitt markers, india ink, and acrylic paints, and color sprays.  I might have taken too long and not be too intuitive, but I wanted to include all the symbols she represents.

The title – Chicomecoatl goddess of Maize and Strength

Corn,

Chilies,

Strength and Abundance

Her sweet face 🙂

That is it for now, friends, posting this goddess made me hungry for tacos!  LOL

Keep having fun and thanks for coming to visit!

Carmen

It has come to my attention that the image I used to create “Chicomecoatl goddess of Maize,”  was actually posted on a blog  without the original artist’s permission.  I publicly apologize for this omission, but just as I explained to the artist, Oesparza12, (sorry, she didn’t leave her full name on her comment on this post) I used Google’s search engine and it took me to the blog where this art was posted.

Everyday Life , and Life Book 2015 – Lessons 29 – 32

Hello crafty friends!  I’ve been quite busy the last few days.  I went to a Faber-Castell Gelatos class at Michael’s on Monday with my crafty friend Maria.  It was a “free” class, but we had to purchase a $25 kit.  Good thing we had 50% off coupons!

Our instructor, Carol, showed us how to use Gelatos on different substrates.  It was fun taking the class, even though, I had already used Gelatos on other occasions, but I did try different materials included in the kit.

This was plain chipboard which we covered with gel medium to work as a resist.  Then we applied different colors of gelatos rubbing them with our finger.  I then added some paper, used my gellatos as ink and applied onto a foam stamp.  Then using a small stencil that came with the kit, I used the gelatos as watercolors. (There was no texture paste available.)

Next up was the raw canvas and the embossed paper.  I had never used the raw canvas and it was interesting to see the effect of the Gelatos on it – they feel so creamy and have lots of pigment.  On the embossed paper, I tried to create an ombre effect and used water to combine them, but I found the embossing disappeared.

 

I love the corrugated chipboard.  I took some of my Gelatos and found some metallic ones that I used on this piece and they really blended well and made the colors pop!

Lastly, I made a small desert scene using the gelatos like water color.  Good to remember the next time I run out of a watercolor.

These last two are embossed cardstock and velvet.

I’ve used Gelatos on Heidi Swapp’s papers before and I love the effect.  You can’t see the last piece, which is velvet, but I did not like the Gelatos on this at all.

Last night I gave a scrapbooking class to three of my friends and it was an opportunity to work on my photos as well, but didn’t get the chance to take some pictures.  I need permission from my friends to post their scrapbook pages.

This morning  I felt like having bagels and lox, but I didn’t have the smoked salmon 😦

Doesn’t this look scrumptious, just looking at it makes my mouth water!  (I used a google image, yumm!!)

I went to my Alberston’s store and in addition to finding the smoked salmon, I also found two terrific sales on Rib eye steaks and fresh salmon!  Both were $5.00 off per pound!  I saved $18.00!  yay, me!!

When I got home, my husband’s car wasn’t there, so I knew something was up.  I called him up and he said he was at my aunt’ apartment and that she needed to go to the emergency room because she wasn’t feeling well.  My aunt is 91 years old and is having trouble remembering things.  She forgot I had already taken her to see her doctor for the same thing, but I took her anyway.  We spent four hours waiting – which is really good for an emergency room wait, and her diagnosis was the same as before, so I took her home and when I returned I went straight to take a nap!  And that was the end of my day – and still no bagel and lox!

I know tomorrow will be a better day!

Now on to Life Book 2015!

Week 28 with

This week’s lesson was Tiny – Story Telling with Danielle Donaldson who creates beautiful lithe fairy worlds in her artwork.  This was indeed a fun bonus lesson.  We created a little person and then attached her to a clothes pin and on to a bowl filled with strips of words, and sentences.  The object is to pick random strips and put them together to form a story.

I just happened to have this bowl that had a heart on the bottom – perfect!!

This is the tiny person on a large clothes pin and the strips of words and sentences.

And this is the story I came up with after picking up strips randomly!

“Here’s the thing about her.  Every once in a while, the girl craves happy rainbows of periwinkle unicorns floating above her hair.”  (Really random!)

Week 30

Letting Go and Letting In with Flora Bowley was about intuitive painting.  I’m beginning to like these lessons, but I still have the tendency to apply too much paint.  The process was to start off by practicing on paper and black acrylic color.  She had us do “marks” and “patterns” on the paper first then use them on our watercolor paper or canvas.

The idea of letting go was interesting to me because when I paint something I like, I want to highlight it, but not this time.  We had to let go of that image and just do marks and patterns all over the canvas.  I did two at the same time trying not to use the same colors.  Although I did cover up a lot of the marks, you can still see they appear as texture – I liked it!!

I kind of used what I learned in other lessons – like color blocking and doodling.

Be bold –  I used some bold colors here!

Can you see the texture?  I really like that!!

For the second painting I chose bright colors against a silver background.

Here again is the texture.

Week 31

Traced Hand Hamsa Protection with  Rachael Rice.  This was a short bonus lesson.  She shared with us her ‘protection’ methods as a highly sensitive person.  As Rachael says: as artists, many of us often seem to be more sensitive than the ‘average’ person out there, so I think it’s a good idea to consider how one can make sure not to take on too much energy or suffering from others.

First of all, I am not a superstitious person, so this lesson made me a bit uncomfortable.  I don’t rely on symbols or fetishes to protect myself for other’s energy, but I did follow her lesson while leaving out all the superstitious stuff out.

Instead, I was thinking about the beautiful Henna tattoos I’ve seen on other people.

I used watercolors for the background…

I added some gold acrylics and a stencil to make the frame and the swirls on the background also,

and doodles and zentangles for the patterns on the hand.

Week 32

You Are Wise With Tamara Laporte

This lesson, given by Tamara, was focusing on transforming limiting beliefs into liberating beliefs, which was August’s theme.

The limiting beliefs that Tam talked about was about our progress and growth in life.  The “I’m not good enough,”  Tam writes:  “We look at how we can ‘be present’ to these thoughts, really become more aware of them and possibly change them somewhat. I think even just becoming aware of them and sitting with them, seeing them for what they are is a great start in this area.”

Here are some examples of limiting beliefs:

I’m not worthy • I’m not good enough • I don’t deserve to be happy • It’s hard to making a living off a creative career • My paintings are not good enough • I can’t paint • I should not shine/ be seen/ be noticed • Dreams are silly • Working must be a chore • Life is hard • I will never be able to … •

I’ve had those limiting beliefs myself.  When I was younger I had a low self-esteem, but as I grew older I learned to honor and love myself through self examination and through my art.

This is the image I have of someone who “can do it.”  I used a stencil on the right and bottom of the girl using sparkle texture effect and blue acrylic paint.  I love the texture!

I really like her sweet face 🙂

I wrote down some things that make me feel powerful.  I gave her a butterfly wing and stat bracelet…

and lift me up!

A closeup of the earth all shiny and blue.

Well, there you have it, folks.  I hope you’ve enjoy looking through my art and laughing with me about the everyday things that happen in my life.

Until next time, keep on crafting!!

Carmen

Road Trip to Mount Rushmore – June 2015

One of my husband’s life long dreams was to see Mount Rushmore!

My daughter and my grandson joined us and it turned out to be one of the best vacations ever!!

We started out going to Santa Fe and spending a couple of days.  We’ve been to Santa Fe, but didn’t have the time to look around.  This time, we spent the whole day enjoying the city.  Here are a few pictures:

My husband has heard so much about the Loretto Chapel where the mysterious spiral staircase is located that we made our first stop here:

We also  did the tourist thing of shopping for bargains:

haa haa, I don’t know what I was demonstrating,

We couldn’t leave Santa Fe without going to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum.  So inspiring!

We checked this place out because it had smoothies,

I ended up having a virgin red chile bloody mary, yumm!

Having a great dinner!

Now on to Colorado to stay at our time share near Vail.  This is the scenery on our way there.

The closer we got, the more snow we started seeing on the road.

We finally arrived at our destination and were glad we left the snow behind!

We had nice weather all around and got to enjoy long walks to the lake,

and the creek,

The water was perfect for white water rafting!

The lake was peaceful, though.

 enjoying nature,

Tulips

A bee searching for honey in a lavender bush.

 

and pretending we were kids again!

 We sat at this cozy garden and watched people go by.

We also visited Eagle, down the road and admired the bronze art on the sidewalk.

Midweek we went to Denver to pick up our grandson and went through the one mile long Eisenhower tunnel.

After picking up Sage from the airport, we went to visit our old neighborhood in Aurora, Colorado.  We hadn’t been there since 1983 so we couldn’t find our previous homes. After some searching and googling, we found our house on Olathe St. in the Mission Viejo neighborhood and the Berry home in Smokey Hill.

We couldn’t leave Denver without visiting Casa Bonita.

This restaurant used to be a Safeway store and was remodeled and converted into an old Mexican villa, complete with caves, waterfall, and a gorilla.

My daughter was reminiscing how she and her brother would love to go there not for the food, but for the entertainment.  The menu hasn’t changed a bit; it’s still not very good, but eatable.

When you get to your table, they present you with a flag you can raise when it’s time for a refill or some of their famous sopaipillas.

We headed back to Avon Colorado and began the fun part for Zonia and Sage.  They went hiking, biking, and water rafting!

Biking near Vail Valley

At the end of the week they went white water rafting on the Eagle River, but I haven’t been able to find their pictures online.

When we lived in Colorado, we used to visit the towns in the rockies – our favorite town was Estess Park.

This is a picture of the famous Stanley Hotel.

We drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming and went to an Hispanic event.  It was their first so it was held at a small park.  Adjacent to the park is a railroad museum and this is where we took this picture.  I’m too short for this!!

The next day we started on our trip to North Dakota.  There was so much rain and flooding we had to be rerouted and it took two more hours to get to Keystone.  This is where both Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial are.

Since it was still early enough in the afternoon, we decided to go to the Crazy Horse memorial because it was on the way to Keystone.

Can you believe this is as far as they’ve gotten on the monument?   Everyone’s question is “When will it be finished” the answer from the guide is always “When we get enough funding.”

This is a replica of how it will look when it’s completely done!

You can pick a rock from the left over rocks to take home.  No, Sage, you can’t take that on the plane!!

Are you kidding me?  You want to take that big rock home, honey?

Finally made it to Mount Rushmore.  The monument is a lot smaller than the Crazy Horse Monument.  It fits in the head of the warrior.

The family in front of the monument..

.

…and this is a closeup after walking up 252 steps!!

We were all so happy to be there finally!

We just had to stop at Sturgis where they hold the biggest motorcycle rally in the world!!

But the biggest highlight of my summer was when my sister and I attended the Imitate Jesus Regional Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Best convention to date!!

Next post, I’ll be downloading the projects I’ve completed for Life Book 2015.  Until next time, happy crafting!!

Life Book 2015 Week 20 with Jenny Doh

This week’s lesson was by Jenny Doh is – Unraveling Through Mark Making.

First of all, this lesson was way beyond my comfort zone.  Some people are able to make awesome intuitive creations, but I had a hard time with this.

I created two today because the first one was done totally without thinking, spent too much time on it, and I feel it was a total mess.  I used fluid acrylics, high flow acrylics, fine line applicator, Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils, and palette knives.

I started out by dropping two colors of ink and using my spatula to make marks on the paper, then I switched to the fine line applicator and some black India ink.  I didn’t like what was going on so I started on the left side of the paper just using the red and violet.  I could see what looked like a red hat, so I went with it; then added the face.  I call her The Red Hat Lady.  She’s looking pretty sad because she just saw what was behind the curtain on the right side.  That’s my story and I’m sticking with it!  LOL

This is a closeup (she’s so sad!)

I also dripped some of the paint and added red lines – doesn’t it look like a shower curtain?  LOL

The next piece is my sort of non intuitive painting – I didn’t know what I was going to make, but after laying the paint and making some circles, I decided very soon into the process that I was going to make a face – yeah the face of punk girl!

The word for this one is Just Be – whatever you want to be – Just Be!

Close up of the face (purple mole, or is it just a stain?)

I used a pink neon high flow acrylic paint for the title and made other marks with the violet, red, and black inks.

Well, I’m just glad I did it and got it over with.  Maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for doing this type of art, but I gave it a try and hopefully next time I will like it a bit more!

Thanks for stopping by and…

Keep on crafting!

Carmen