Creative Blessings of "J O Y": The "come-back kid" !

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Well, time has been moving swiftly since I last blogged. I truly miss it. Life, as it can do, dealt a few blows here and there and it took some focus to muddle through. Without going into long and boring details, I will sum it up by saying I had a string of deeply felt losses and overwhelming responsibilities. I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and want to get back to my art and my blogging. I have been using art when I can as emotional therapy to get me through these trying times as well as my spiritual foundation in a most merciful and gracious God. My emotions are in the driver's seat at present - I hope my work will touch you in a positive way - art is such a wonderful release and expression of who we are and what we are feeling. Good to be back and what better time than Easter - a time of new beginnings - resurrected life. I hope you are having a wonderful and blessed Easter day celebrating the resurrection of Christ and His triumph over death and sin for us.

It will take a few blogs to actually show you some of the work I have been doing. I have a major problem in that I want to do it all! There are so many wonderful resources and mediums to work in and I enjoy stretching myself. Sketching and mixed media/art journaling have moved to the forefront while I have been working on my "internal self" and healing. I started a wonderful class in January called "Lifebook" on Willowing. Through the use of different guided art techniques and art teachers, it is a way to look into yourself, quiet the inner critic and see the goodness inside as you create fun and inspired art. This course will actually continue for a full year and has wonderful videos, tips and techniques and loads of support and encouragement.

Here are some snaps of the first few lessons:

1. We were to draw a portrait expressing ourselves and celebrate our positive attributes and qualities. It has a small fold out page on the right and our "real" picture is placed there. The videos guided us through how to draw a face and different supplies to draw from. I used pencil, water color crayons, decorative papers, stamps, faber castell pitt pen, white acrylic paint, and rub-ons. The colors are not very true here in the pics - they were peaches, pinks and yellows mostly.

2. A "dream board". This lesson has us gather things that inspire us, are perhaps goals we may have, possibilities, etc. I did mine as a collage. First we write down on the page some of our dreams and goals for the year before we cover it up. The idea being that writing them down speaks them out to the universe. We will look back at it and reflect on them at the end of the year. I used matte medium, collage elements from magazines and printouts from my computer (actually some pics of some of my work included), stamps, white acrylic paint, Faber Castell Pitt pen, and rub-ons.

3. This lesson was one in what I call, Ying/Yang. We used pen and ink to do some drawing and hatch shading as we created opposites that reflected ourselves. I used a shaving cream created background (shaving cream and inks), water colors, and a regular black ball point pen.

4. This was a fun exercise in a kind of self-portrait. Taking a printed out picture of our face, we then added color to practice our shading, etc. And then, we became whoever we wanted to be! We made ourselves into queens, fairies, butterflies, whatever! Then, we were to add positive descriptive words to the background. What a wonderful way to step into the world of dreams! I used acrylic paints, watercolor crayons, Faber Castell Pitt pens, decorative paper, colored pencils, and a print of my face.

5. This next exercise was really intriguing to me. It is called "pulled art". You freely add paint, scribbling, stamping, paper, whatever strikes your fancy to create a background page. Then you are to look at what you have created from every angle - right side up, upside down, left, right, etc. As you look at it, you begin to see images emerge and the page actually tells you what to draw. Isn't that something! This actually blew my socks off when I saw what emerged - it had so much personal meaning for me. I used acrylic paints (dry and wet), stamps, watercolor crayons, pieces of decorative paper (although you can see them now), and pencils. I actually consider this piece not quite finished - I think it needs some words and I am waiting on the inspiration as to what to add. I put a picture of the background before I began the image - can you see what I saw? The image I saw was actually upside down on the original background piece. I began to outline with pencil the image as it appeared to me. You should really give this a try - it is so much fun to see what comes up!

Next time I will share some of my art journaling pages with you and some of the stitching I have been doing here and there. I am still working on the Crazy Quilt, Block of the Month, designed by my dear friend, Barbara, and have reached the month of May. Each block has so many embellishments and design elements, it takes a while! We are definitely stretching and growing our skills on this one! She has begun to post her BOM on CQMagOnline.com.

Oh, although it is April, I thought I would show you the new year's card I sent out. With my life in a bit of a spin, I didn't get Christmas cards sent out so I made these shabby cards to send out in January. I coffee stained (flavored coffee so they smelled yummy) some stationary in an unusually long size (thought that was interesting) - stitched on a digitally altered image, some some vintage lace and button, a message to my friends and voila!