Tag Archives: Art Journal

Geographic Gratitude

02 Friday Feb 2018

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geography gratitude

A few big ideas are included in this gratitude journal page spread. First, my husband picked up a 2018 calendar for our kitchen wall because our opportunities to get one at an art museum kept being thwarted. I had shopped on-line at the MoMA and Metropolitan Museum of Art’s shopping websites and the calendars were on sale, but the shipping seemed ridiculous. I had almost purchased a Mondrian calendar. When he called to say he was stopping at a store and asked if I wanted anything else, I told him a wall calendar. Guess what calendar he bought! If you have followed my blog for a while you may know that I am fascinated with grids and with Mondrian and he knows that, too. But isn’t it nice to feel known?

I have filled the grid with the ABCs of gratitude for beautiful places I have been. I may do one for places I still want to go. When I have insomnia I sometimes do an ABCs of gratitude in my mind. It can be for the day just past or anything I can come up with at 3 am. I know there are places I have left off of this grid, but I have really been to a lot of beautiful places! How blessed am I?

The right hand page is mandala 55 of 100. It is some variations on the Zentangle® pattern copada by Margaret Bremmer. She is such a talented artist and she has made some wonderful contributions to the world of Zentangle. I think I’m going to do some variations on this variation. I really enjoyed it. I’m so grateful for Zentangle® Inspired Art and all the good things that the world of Zentangle® has brought into my life.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Imagine, Explore, Play

19 Friday Jan 2018

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2018 beginning

Lots of gratitude has come with the beginning of this year. As a consequence, I’m a little behind in posting what I have been up to. This first page layout of the year started with a comparison of 2 different brands/hues of purple. They each have their good points. Also, the one on the left was heavy body paint and the right was soft body. It was interesting to see how they cover the page differently. If you want a very uniform coverage the soft body seems to work better. Then I played with gold paint and pens. I was inspired by some gold on purple that I saw over the holidays and really wanted to play with this color combination. I think I will do this again!

imagine create explore play

I started the year off teaching an altered book art journaling class that I already posted work from the students. Here was my demonstration page that I continued to embellish over the last weeks. I am having a lot of Zentangle private student classes and I hope to catch up on blogging about photos that I have been taking, too.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Altered Book Art Journal Class

07 Sunday Jan 2018

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Today I taught a class that I offered as part of the Service Auction fundraiser at the Unitarian Fellowship I attend. I had 2 students in my home studio and we had a great time. They were both interested in a monthly art journaling class so I’m thinking about doing that again. I had forgotten how much fun this is to teach.

alphabet book katherina

good poems book sandra

They chose very different books and had very different styles, but I’m hoping they got started on a practice of art journaling. We also played with deli paper and making collage on the paper. One of the students created layers of collaged paper and paint that was really innovative.

altered book class 1 6 2018

I hope you had a beautiful day.

Solstice: Return of the Light

22 Friday Dec 2017

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Solstice

There is a lot of gratitude captured on this page layout. I had a fun trip to a new art supply store with a friend. I sat on our new couch and watched Saturday morning public television. My husband and I participated in a lot of activities with the Unitarian Fellowship and holiday preparations. And I’m doing a lot of art experimentation. Mostly it hasn’t gone how I envisioned, but yesterday I decided to take a different route. Now I’m excited again to get back to work on it.

Gratitude: Checking it Twice

08 Friday Dec 2017

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making my lists

I’m grateful to be getting back to my art journal more regularly. I created a lot of art this year, but in the last few months I haven’t done as much in my journal and I missed it. I have had a lot to do during this holiday season. I have also had a lot to do with my continuing & increasing health challenges. But not only did I make a To Do list, I got to check a whole lot off of it. It reminded me of Santa checking his list twice. Checking a list as completed and then going back to review my accomplishments and checking them again was very satisfying.

I hope you have a beautiful day and wishing you light in this time of darkness.

Cumulative Gratitude

18 Saturday Nov 2017

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november 2017 election hopes

These gratitude journal pages cover most of November. In creating all the art for my current exhibit I fell behind in my gratitude journal. The recent election results give me hope for the future. I just hope that immigrants, people with health problems, those who face economic challenges and all of us who hope to believe in democracy can hold on until the 2018 election. The layers of red text on the left hand page were created with inspiration from Claudia McGill’s handwriting explorations. The right hand page is lots of influence from the collage class I have been taking.

I want to come back to the red text. It was made from an image I created with my therapist. She is an art therapist and I make very different things in there than I do at home. Here is a recent one. This is how I feel about doctors in general and being diagnosed with endometriosis at the age of 50. I don’t generally enjoy working with oil pastels, but in this context they are perfect.

DSC_1883

They also work as an interesting transfer. I then flipped this over and wrote in 2 directions on the back to do some journaling about my recent health exploits in my gratitude journal. That is what appears so subtly on the left hand page. I think I’m going to have to explore this combination of techniques some more. This was very therapeutic.

 

New Art Class Fun & WIP Update

14 Thursday Sep 2017

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RE introductionI’m taking a wonderful collage class about painting with paper and I’m loving it! I have already discovered some new toys and new interpretations of old ones. One of my old favorites is using parts of napkins to capture gratitude. Sometimes they are from specific events – such as these 2 funny ones from my Religious Education teacher training last weekend. I’m really looking forward to getting to know the 5th & 6th grade children and families from my Unitarian Fellowship.

I’m going to be doing more in my gratitude journal to experiment with ideas from this class. Yesterday I went to Michael’s to get my Eclipse Mandala framed for my October show and I bought a few fun things inspired by the class. None of them are in this art journal page layout because this is from the last week. Mandala 49 is almost done and this layout includes some experiments for that.

I’m also working on some art and a brochure for a class I will be offering in October. It is designed to get you started on a Zentangle® journal practice and will include the Pre-Strung Zentangle® journal. I should have an update in the next few days on this.

What is beautiful in your life today?

So Much Gratitude

04 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in Art on Exhibit, Gratitude Journal, Zentangle Inspired Art

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eclipse mandala in progress

fibonacci

You may see signs of some of my big art pieces in progress over the last few weeks of gratitude journaling, especially the Eclipse Mandala. I’m still learning Zentangle patterns in white on black. They behave and get shaded/highlighted differently. It took quite a bit of practice and auditioning to get to the finished mandala collage. I think I will include it here again because I’m enjoying looking at it and I hope you are, too!

eclipse mandala

I think I am going to do some drawing on top of the gold, but I’m not quite sure what the plan is yet.