March Madness -well, Mad for Art, not basketball

As the title suggests, I don't enjoy the March basketball tournament. It did give me extra time to do some art, but I found myself being really "stuck" several times, as I tried to complete certain art journal pages. I don't know if I was stuck, because I was preoccupied with "life" events, and maybe I was suffering from some worry, or if it was just a busy month for me, and I couldn't fully wrap my head around the art I was trying to create, or if it was something totally different that I don't fully understand, but all I know, was that I struggled this past month to create.
Here are the next four weeks of pages in my Journal 52 art journal year long project. I hope you enjoy seeing them, and my thoughts behind creating them.

Week 9- Color Swatch

This week I had taken the Abstract class from Claudia Rossi, on Udemy. It was so fun! I loved her technique, and by just tweaking a few things, you can achieve some really different results. Because the prompt for this week was color swatch, I really wanted to stick with the same color family, so I used 3 different purple paints, and then blended with white, and outlined in black. The photos I took of my finished page, don't show all the movement and streaks that are in each segment. I tried rephotographing, and I still could not get a good picture of the details, so you just have to trust me that it is way more fabulous in person!

I apologize for the clips on the upper corners- I was trying to get a good picture and the breeze was blowing my pages shut.

Week 10 - Art For A Cause

Oh, I struggled with this prompt!!!!! I really wanted to create something that people who don't know anyone, or have never experienced mental illness, would be able to "feel" what it is like for someone with these illnesses, who deals with this on a regular basis. 

PLEASE NOTE: I do suffer from these illnesses, but I am doing well right now, so please don't call the authorities and tell them to watch me, because I am OK! 

I started this page with a collage paper background, then I added several kinds of washi tape, and created a bit of a grunge look to the page, then heavily distressed the page with inks. The girl is quickly sketched on a piece of old dictionary text, and I very faintly added a bit of color to her features, but I tried really hard to keep everything translucent, because I wanted her to have the feeling of invisibility. lastly I cut the words from dictionary pages, and pasted the phrase onto the page. I used a charcoal pencil to add shadowing around each word, and then the page was sealed with Mod Podge.

The words read: Please God, It's easier on everybody if I stay invisible. 

My causes: Anxiety, BiPolar, Depression

Again, please know that I am well regulated, and am sharing this as a way to bring awareness to those that may not fully understand.

Week 11 - Stars

I wanted to do this with a bit of a two-meaning page. I wanted to use actual stars in my page, but also wanted to include a "star" or celebrity, who I quoted with a saying that had some meaning to me. When I started my research on quotes, I had no idea who I would be featuring on my page, but found this great quote by Marilyn Monroe- "We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle".

It was a great quote, because we all have worth, and we all deserve to shine in our own way!

I started my page by heat embossing 3 different size star stamps that I have from Art Impressions, I have had them for years, and really enjoy that sketchy look. I used an antique gold glitter embossing powder. I then did a wash with my Bienfang Watercolor Brush Pens, in these colors: primary yellow, new gamboge, orange, vermilion and cadmium red hue. I used a bit of paper towel to take some of the wet and stark colors off, and achieve that blended look from one color to another. The image is an altered photo I found on Google images, and printed out on presentation paper, then I cut her out, outlined in black poster paint- adhered down with gel medium, then when dry, I added the hazy shadow with charcoal pencil, Added the quote with poster paint marker and then sealed with a final layer of gel medium.

Week 12 - A Day in the Life

Can I hate this page any more than I already do? I am letting go- that is the nature of art journaling- sometimes you get good ones and sometimes you don't! I started out with a tissue paper collage background- it was bright and fun and cheerful- so I doodled a bit with a black pen, to give it another layer of interest. I didn't hate it at this point, but then I got the grand idea to add a bunch of paper flowers. I was kind of going with the Donna Downey inspiration Wednesday where she added flowers all over the background, and then painted over them, creating a very chunky "mess". Well, it worked for her, but no- not for me. I didn't want to paint over my fun bright background, but adding all those bright flowers on top, just makes it look a little crazy- psychedelic even, and that is not what I had in mind. I then just took some tags and adhered them between the smaller flowers, and wrote down some of the things I do during the day. 

Here is the page. I don't like it at all anymore, but I am leaving it alone, because it was an experience, and that is OK with me.

Thanks for coming along with me on my recap of March journal pages. I am giving myself a pat on the back for sticking with this so long already. I am 12 weeks into this project, and it is only the beginning of April! I feel I have gotten to a milestone, because I have done year long projects before, but only a once a month requirement, and as of this week, I will have done a typical whole year project already and we are just starting on the month of April. Yeah! Hope to see you back here next month with my April offerings.

I welcome comments and suggestions, so if you can think of any great ideas to do something with this week 12 page, I am open to ideas!

Journal 52 - February Wrap Up

Well, we are 8 plus weeks in and I am still going strong on my Journal 52 art journal project. One page a week is working great at this point- it is still winter, and boy a winter it has been here in the Mountains of Wyoming. We have had snow, snow and more SNOW, and several bouts of below zero F temps. I have not been overly ready for Spring til about this week, when I realized it is only 2 weeks til my birthday, and we still have well over a foot of snow on the ground- not just in spots, but EVERYWHERE. That is very uncommon for our area, but I am hoping with the amount of snow pack we have, that maybe our summer wild fire scares will be diminished greatly.
Well- onto the project, and my last 4 weeks of pages:

Week 5 Prompt : Abstract Art

I haven't worked much with abstract art, but I started the page with just some random line squiggles, then zentangled inside the sections of the random doodling. I then added some color with markers, then put down a floral stencil and covered it with black gesso. I used the gesso, because it gives great coverage, and I did not want anything but what was under the stencil to show. When I removed the stencil, you could almost make out the floral shape. I decided it was kind of one dimensional, so I added an outline with a white paint marker. It made it really busy, but gave it lots of motion. 

Week 6 : The Lost Art of Love Letters

I did not want to dig out all the little messages my sweetie has given me over the years, but still wanted to incorporate the fact that we are together 20 years and going strong. He asked me to marry him on Valentine's Day, so this prompt being the week of Valentine's, seemed very fitting. The photos were taken by my mom, in City Park in Cody, Wyoming where we still live. We have moved around a few times, but have come back to Cody. It is home, and where we want to stay. I look forward to the next 20 years with my sweetheart. 

Week 7 : When I Grow Up

I loved the way this page turned out. It was just a random stick of stuff on the paper. I started playing with the new washi tapes I picked up on sale, and then it just kind of evolved into hair, so I added the face shape, and the shirt, and then I thought she needed to have a face that looked as if she were pondering the question: "When I grow up, I want to be..." 

I took a class from Claudia Rossi, which really changed the way I do a face structure. It is so important to get those proportions right, and it is amazing how much better my faces are turning out. I will definitely be able to come into my own style with this newly gained knowledge. Best class I have taken to date! 

This page is mostly washi tape, a little acrylic paint and a few alphabet stickers. 

Week 8 : Found Poetry

This was so hard for me-- I stewed over it all week. I am not great with taking a page of text, and circling a few words in succession, and making it read anything understandable. It just isn't something I can do well, or at all for that matter. I envy those that can, because it really is cool when people do that. So I started flipping through junk magazines, for cool "key words" that caught my attention. The first awesome word I found was "cosmic". I knew I had to use it somehow, because it is such a great word, and to find that in a magazine snip-it is pretty rare. Then a few pages later I saw the word "attract", well, I had to use it too. So the phrase I came up with is: "Your Love sends me into a state of Cosmic attraction." Yeah, I don't know that it means anything, but it was funny, and fun all at the same time, so I made a galactic background using my Inktense pencils that my sweet hubby bought me for Valentine's Day, and then  after I activated them with water, and then let them dry completely, I covered them with a very watery layer of black gesso- it is hard to see in the photos, but you can see the different haze of color shine through the black. Then I sprayed the page with some ink sprays, in both metallic shades and just white and black. That gave it the forward and backward layers of "stars" shining in the night sky. When that was all dry, I then used a wet paint brush and tapped on it with some white paint to make splatters- these are the closest stars you see. I then put the photo of my husband down, and then used water soluble oil pastels to smudge a halo effect around all the words and the photo. I feel like there is still an element missing, but I can't put my finger on it yet, so i am going to leave this page as it is for now, and move forward- I may come back to it at a later date. 

Well I am rambling quite a bit tonight, but there are my 4 pages for the weeks of February. Yay, I have completed two full months of the project, and I even remembered to share them with you here on my blog! Great big high five! Toodles :)