Tag Archives: acrylic glazes

Gratitude: Home and Away

18 Friday Aug 2017

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layers and blooms

This is the home gratitude page layout. I have started buying one stencil each time I go to Michael’s or to an art supply store. I’m so happy with this flower stencil I recently purchased. This page layout is strongly influenced by the large mandalas that I’m working on. The first one is almost done. I’m trying to decide if I want to add gold to it using gold leaf or gold paint. You can see my experiment in the places where the mandala shapes come together. The gold leaf is kind of messy and I’m not very good at it yet, but the color and texture is so much more rich. I may keep practicing. I just talked to the gallery manager where it is going to be shown and they have extended the deadline to the end of August. I’m happy to have more time to figure it out. I also started another big mandala to go along with this one. If they don’t sell they will go in my living room. I’m really happy with them so far.

nashville gratitude

This gratitude journal entry is from my recent trip to Nashville to spend time with one of my favorite people. We had so much fun playing with art supplies and talking about art and doing show and tell. I used modeling paste with one of the new stencils of gears and that was a new technique for her. She introduced me to a few new kinds of gold paint that was super helpful for my current mandala project. I had brought a stencil for her that I knew she would love and it was just what she needed to finish one of her projects. Sharing art and friendship is one of the greatest joys in life for me. What are you grateful for this week? How did beauty touch your life today?

Big Mandala Update

01 Tuesday Aug 2017

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This summer I have been working on a large (30″ x 30″) mandala collage. You have already seen the background layers of the gessoboard. Here is a sample of the Zentangle patterned mandala pieces that I have been working on all summer. By the end of this week I hope to unveil the whole thing in a blog post of my process and the product. This is mandala 47 of 100.

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Let it Be a Dance

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

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All of July so far has been captured in 2 art journal page layouts. There are a lot of layers in many ways in these pages. I hope you find some beauty or inspiration. I use my journal to practice affirmations and recognize what went well and what I’m grateful for from the day or week.

rehoebeth beach flowers

The background of this page layout came from my 50 small paintings endeavor that I worked on during Lent. I’m happy with how abstract the flowers in the vase turned out and I think they make a nice background for my gratitude journaling. I have been doing morning pages off and on for a while and I have gotten back into it recently. I have had a rough patch of depression and keeping track of gratitude is very helpful for me. I also have a quote from the Barbara Kingsolver book “Flight Behavior”

Her every possession was either unbreakable or broken.

The rectangle of wood on the right hand page is from a restaurant in Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. Turns out I’m really not a beach in summer kind of person. But the rectangle of wood is from a restaurant that is so popular that we were never able to get to eat there. I loved these business cards that are printed on a very thin slice of wood and so that is the memento that made it into the journal! We really did have a nice time camping with some friends, even when it rained.

let it be a dance

These pages have a few layers of journaling and lots of glazes. I’m really becoming obsessed with acrylic glazes. The left hand page has 2 pieces of the large mandala I’m working on and trying to decide if I want to do a glaze or 2 over the top. Maybe I will assemble it without the glaze and post it to see how it works. The white writing on the right hand page is some of the lyrics from the song “Let It Be a Dance We Do” by Ric Masten. I go to a Unitarian church here and we sang this last Sunday and it resonated with me. Most Sundays we sing something that really touches me. “Without the dark there would be no light… Share the laughter, bear the pain.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3s1XkTZEos

flowers sketch

This sketch is of some flowers my husband brought me while I was in the hospital. This is the inside cover of one of the journals I use for my morning pages. I plan to collage these pages when I finish the journal.

What are you grateful for this week?