Tag Archives: Gratitude Journal

Gratitude Blooms

23 Friday Feb 2018

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dahlia dalliance

I’m working on a painting/collage that I’m calling Dahlia Dalliance and you get some hints of the process on these pages. I am continuing to play with layers to see how they interact and how they sometimes misbehave. Sometimes I discover errant art techniques when I’m playing with the idea in my art journal and other times I learn it on the painting itself. The beauty of working with layers is that it won’t be done until I’m happy with it. I’m not there yet, but stay tuned in the next week. I have been really busy with a lot of medical stuff in preparation for my surgery for endometriosis. Surgery is scheduled for April 11 so my postings and class offerings are going to be very limited for the next few months. I’m looking forward to more Zentangling to help me through.

I hope you find beauty in your day today.

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.

 

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?