Life Book Week 13 with Rae Missigman

This week’s lesson, given by Rae Missigman, was as usual challenging for me because it was about layers and intuitivity – if there is such a word.  (My spell checker didn’t recognize it, but I’ll add it anyway, ha!)

After I finished the project I had to leave it alone overnight to see it with new eyes.  So, it wasn’t that bad after all this morning!

She does lots of layers in her projects and I like layers, but the intuitive part just doesn’t resonate with me, so I thought about it and and made a plan.  I used a stencil without flowers!  I picked two by Claudine Helmuth with different shapes of bird cages and the Love Birds stencil.  The other one by Heidi Swapp that has the bird on a branch which includes the mask and another stencil.

So after layer and more layers, this is what I came up with.

I used watercolor paper, acrylic paints, a black pencil, splash colors, molding paste, and napkins for collaging.

I guess you can say I made it my own because instead of using flower stencils, I used the ones I mentioned above.

Here are some close-ups.  Since I also stamped different birds, cages, and bold stamps, I was surprised to see these birds come out after the layers.

I like the idea of circling the different parts you want to highlight.

I also added some doodling and more stamps to the empty spaces.  I also used modeling paste for the birds.

I stamped this sentiment on tissue paper I used with a gelli page.  I love how all the cages stand out with different objects inside of them.

The only flowers were these on a napkin I added just for fun.

This picture shows the bird on the right side and more bird cages hidden by the acrylic layers of paint.

Thanks for dropping by to see my project for this week and please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!!

Happy weekend everyone!!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 Weeks 11 and 12

Hello my artsy friends.  Did you survive Daylight Savings Time?  Oh, it took me a week to get over it and I’m still taking my naps to catch up!

Arizona is the only state in the Union that doesn’t follow DSM.  I guess it’s a rebel thing!  LOL.  We lived there for about five years and enjoyed it very much, but we couldn’t stand the heat.  In the summer it was impossible to enjoy the outdoors because of 115 F heat, so we moved to Las Cruces, NM.  Our family was in El Paso, TX, just a short hour away. Unfortunately, my dad, hubby and I all got Cancer and we decided to move back to El Paso to be closer to the family and closer to the hospital where we had our treatments.

Anyhow, we are having a blast here, the weather is pretty much temperate – we have hot summers and cold winters, but loooong Springs and Autumns.  Love it here.

Now on to  Life Book!

Week 11 – Roots & Ground, Wings & Light with Tamara Laporte

This week Tam gave us a lesson on mixing colors for dark skin girls.

I managed to use my Caran D’ Arche and Tombow artist’s markers to come up with a fairly dark skin girl.  I wanted to make her a cool angel so I gave her a rainbow hair do.  i really like how her eyes came out!

Here are some details:

A closeup of her cute sunburned face and green eyes.

For the background I used some napkins with birds and flowers and this birdie wanted to come out, so I outlined it.  I also used some zentagle stamps to fill in all the open spaces.

For these flowers I used a stencil and modeling paste and outlined them with a black pen.  I also added white and black stars and gave her wings the same colors as her hair.

Here are more stenciled/modeling paste flowers and more stamps.  I mostly used the crayons and some acrylics for the background.

I added more zentangle stamping on her dress and a heart to fill in the blank space here too.

Here you can see more zentangle stamps in between her wings.

Now on to:

Week 12 – The Simple Things With Angela Kennedy

If you go to her page, she has some sweet-faced girls done very simply, but beautiful!

This was a bonus lesson to give us a chance to catch up with our projects and time to breathe in between.

All she used on this project was a stabilo pencil and a few pastel colors and a quote that has to do with grounding.

Here is my interpretation:

I didn’t have a good Stabilo pencil so I used the black Inktense watercolor Block, but it came out a little bit purple and brown, but I still like the effect.  I used orange and red for the flowers, and two shades of green pastel pencils for the leaves and branches.

Sorry about the light, I was fixing it up in my loft at night, hence, the sepia color. I found out I misspelled the quote, so I typed it using one of my favorite fonts and glued the paper to cover up the misspelling.  I was thinking about my daughter, a masseuse, and how she really heals through her hands after grounding herself on her feet.

Here’s a closeup of the flower in her hair.  The trouble with pastels is that they come off easily on your hands, so I applied a fixative when I was done.

A closeup of the face.

and a closeup of the left hand side flowers,

Alright friends, thank you for sticking with me through this process of sharing my Life Book projects.

Until next time,

Happy painting!!

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