Tag Archives: Art Journal

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?

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?

Gratitude Journal: Zentangle Explorations

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

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library zentangle class

This page layout is a little bit of a mess, but that is because I’ve been doing so much work. I made a batch of Artist Trading Cards and included some leftover bits from that on the left hand page. These include my new business card stickers from MOO that I put on the reverse side. People love these as my business cards. It is like they get there own little piece of art. I love the stickers and I hope you do too!

The right page has a prototype of one of the pieces of my Draw the Circle Wide mandala that is under construction. I made a photocopy and painted it with gouache to test how it would interact with acrylic matte medium. No smearing or bleeding of colors and the colors turned out nice and clear. I think this is how I’m going to paint these sections. Part of the development for that mandala was finding just the right purple. I also used this layout to document all my new Prismacolor colored pencils.

finding purple

It turned out that I needed to use magenta to get any purples that I liked. What was interesting was experimenting with Payne’s Gray as a blue. It also demonstrated that I have a lot of shades of blue and not as many reds. I may explore that further. Or maybe there just isn’t the same variety of hues. Do any of you know about that? In any case I used Ultramarine blue and magenta to make the purple for my iris.

Another feature of the right page of the gratitude journal entry was my playing with reticula in a mandala. What is a reticula?

Reticula play

It is a pattern that you put in a grid. Changing the orientation creates different  meta-patterns. This was one of the really wonderful things we explored at the Certified Zentangle Teacher seminar I went to in April. There is a lot of gratitude for my husband in these pages, too. I haven’t used one of my stencils for him in a while. Maybe this week. What are you grateful for? What is new in your art practice?

I hope you have a beautiful day.

NYBC: Gratitude Journal

09 Friday Jun 2017

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NYBG and Chihuly

Here is my gratitude journal for the past week or so. I have been doing a lot of journaling on the large mandala (with the iris) that I have been working on, so I haven’t been doing quite so much work in my journal. The printed iris photograph on these pages was the inspiration and all of my iris were a gift from my father-in-law. It was such a happy coincidence that this week we also went to one of his favorite  places in the world, the New York Botanical Garden. It was magical. There is an exhibit of Dale Chihuly’s glass work and I will be doing a post featuring that later today on my other blog.

Blooming Pink and Orange

24 Wednesday May 2017

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blooming pink organge and red

I have been keeping a gratitude journal for years. About 4 years ago I started doing it in art journal format using altered books. My first blog started as a record of that journal and has blossomed into so much more. I will continue to maintain both blogs for as long as possible.

This is my first time using a mixed media sketchbook as my gratitude journal and I’m really enjoying it. I have been exploring acrylic paints and that exploration is reflected in my journal. I also us it to experiment with different media. For example, the flowers in the upper left page were experiments for my Mandala 41 with Rhododendron painting. I didn’t like how they looked with the mandala but I really enjoy them in my art journal and I’m going to use my “plaid” paper in a large mandala I’m currently working on, I think. Stay tuned…

I’m continuing to explore the Zentangle® Method. The tangled squares use a pattern called Paradox that I’m really enjoying. The text and images document what has happened with whom in the last few days and weeks. I had a really long conversation with a dear friend who is fighting cancer. I used a new to me pen to start her drawing and it didn’t work quite how I wanted, but I’m so grateful to include her in my journal.

This week I have been making lots of cards for various people. One of my sons has a birthday coming up and I have a few other friends who are also fighting cancer. All of my cards have had something that uses Zentangle® tiles or inspired art.

Peace.