22 Friday Dec 2017
Posted in Gratitude Journal
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.
13 Wednesday Dec 2017
Posted in Zentangle Method Class
Tags
100 Mandalas, 100 Zendala Challenge, Art, DC345, Diva Challenge, holiday cards, holiday mandala, holiday Zendala, Mandala, Zendala, Zentangle
This is the Diva’s 7th anniversary of hosting the Zentangle challenge. Congratulations Laura! The Diva’s challenge was to create a holiday tile or Zendala. A Zendala is a Zentangled mandala. Join me this Saturday, December 16th from 2-5 to make your own holiday Zendala. Lets share a little holiday spirit while taking some time to meditate and create a small work of art. I will be at the Morris County Art Association Studio 10 Catherine Lane, Morristown, NJ 07960. There is a $5 materials fee that will include all that you need to create 5 works of Zentangled art. The class costs $40/$35 members per session. Please use the contact form on my website or call the Morristown Studio at 973-267-1722. I hope to see you there!
This is mandala 54 of 100 and Zendala 6 of 100.
08 Friday Dec 2017
Posted in Gratitude Journal
Tags
Art, Art Journal, Dewd, Gratitude, Gratitude Journal, Journal, mixed-media, Zentangle, ZIA
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.
18 Saturday Nov 2017
Posted in Gratitude Journal
Tags
Art, Art Journal, Art Journal Every Day, Art therapy, collage, Gratitude, Gratitude Journal, Journal, oil pastels
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.
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.
01 Sunday Oct 2017
Posted in Art, Art on Exhibit
Tags
100 Mandalas, Art, Civil rights, collage, Dunya, justice, Mandala, Torus Mandala
Mandala 52 of 100. This mandala is for the Dunya exhibit at Alhamra Art Center in Bernardsville, NJ, October 14, 2017- November 15, 2017.
20 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in Art, Art on Exhibit, Zentangle Inspired Art
Tags
100 Mandalas, Art, collage, green, Mandala, purple, Torus Mandala, Zentangle, ZIA
This may look familiar. It is part of a diptych I made for my living room. I’m greatly enjoying having them both up until the show at Alhamra Art Center in Bernardsville, NJ in October and November. Here they are together. They are mandalas 47 and 49 of 100!
Here are some process pictures of the second one.
I hope you have a beautiful day!
14 Thursday Sep 2017
Posted in Gratitude Journal, Zentangle Method Class
Tags
Art, Art Journal, Art Journal Every Day, collage, flowers, Gratitude, Journal, napkins, paper
I’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?
04 Monday Sep 2017
Posted in Art on Exhibit, Gratitude Journal, Zentangle Inspired Art
Tags
Art, Art Journal, Art Journal Every Day, Gratitude, Journal, Patterns, sun, Zentangle, Zentangle Inspired Art, ZIA
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!
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.
25 Friday Aug 2017
Posted in Art, Art on Exhibit, Zentangle Inspired Art
Tags
100 Mandalas, acrylic paint, Art, Certified Zentangle Teacher, collage, Mandala, Zentangle, Zentangle Inspired Art, ZIA
This is the large (for me 30″x30″) mandala that I have been working on all summer. There are a lot of layers and I took some pictures of the process. I really became fascinated with layers of acrylic glazes and am making a partner piece to this one that is more focused on that technique.
I started with collaged dictionary and other book pages onto the gessoboard. I also included some stamps. Then I did about a week’s worth of journaling on the board and stenciled a quote from a song that we sang at the Unitarian Fellowship I attend. This song has really resonated with me and really captures some of what I feel about my mandalas.
I already shared this layer with you earlier in the summer.
At this point what I was envisioning for the mandala started to change. There were a number of intermediate layers that didn’t really work for me. So I got started on the mandala pieces. I’m still learning about layers in collage and what kinds of paint play well together. I used some gouache paint and that left wrinkles in some of the pieces, but I decided to incorporate some Wabi Sabi into the finished piece. I may add some more gold accents, but I think it is done.
I played with a lot of different papers including navigation maps, dictionary pages, pages from a Chinese Poetry textbook and tissue. I continue to love how tissue paper works in collage. I used an old Vogue pattern for one of the pieces and decorated it with a Zentangle® pattern. Each of the pieces had some Zentangle® patterns.
I really toyed with leaving the layers show through in this point in the mandala but it was too much of a contrast from the other parts.
Here is the fully assembled piece, but it needed some more Wabi Sabi so I added gold paint in a few of the joints. You can see it in these close up pictures of the details.
The finished piece will be on exhibit at the Alhamra Art Center in September and October and is available for purchase through the Center. This is mandala 47 of 100. To join the 100 Mandala challenge check out Kathryn Costa’s website.
Jeanette Clawson Art 