Inspiration Wednesday Journal: Jan-March

Thought I'd share my Inspiration Wednesday Journal with ya'll.
Inspiration Wednesday is a "class" I'm taking on-line with Donna Downey. I've done it the last two years so if you want to go back through old blog posts you can see pages from my past journals. You can still sign up for this. Just go to Donna's site and buy it. It's really fun. I am working in one of her handmade journals that she sells in her shop. This journal tends to be mainly acrylic and collage work.

But anywho, here's the journal. I'll be making this pretty brief as I am still 2 weeks behind in this and I don't remember much about the specifics of the pages. But hey...pretty pictures? right?

First Page:  Does this look familiar? Yup. For the first page I decided to go with texture paste through a stencil. I admit I fell in love with this stencil and now I'm using it everywhere. I was going for the vintage seed packet look. Didn't really pull it off here but it was good practice.

Courage in a Cup:   Trying to be more "painterly", as Donna put it. I rather surprised myself and found the "painting" to be rather enjoyable. I was almost certain the finished page would look like a toddler fingerpainting but I'm very pleased with it. I chose my word for the journal: Courage. 

3 Lemons:  A theme was beginning to develop. I admit I'm not a fan of still life. I understand using it for practice but I've never liked it. This was where I began to fall behind as I dreaded doing the page. But after watching the video about 50 times, I sucked it up and gave it a shot. Amazing! I think this spread turned out fabulous. Way better that I had given myself credit for. Do I now like still life? Not a chance but this was a wonderful confidence booster. COURAGE was definately the word to pick!

Mixed Media Lemons:  I could also call this page, "Donna proves a point", but I won't get into that. So far my pages are looking a bit similiar but techniques were different. So back to the lemons. I could have changed up the fruits a bit but I honestly felt good about the lemons. I was focusing my attention on shading. I can do shading but sometimes I don't think I get the real 3-D kind of look I'd like. So I practiced more.

Both lemons were done a bit differently. The one on the top (or left page) has a base of washi tape. I created the lemon out of colored tape then added touches of acrylic over it. It's hard to see in the photo but the shadow of the lemon shows the washi tape (it has gears on it) beneath the paint. The lemon on the bottom (or the right page) was torn from brown paper and glued down. I used gelato over the top of it to color it.


At this point in my journal, things were starting to look the same. I was learning things but the pages had no excitement for me. Lemons, baby, were not my thing. Easy to practice with but seriously, these pages don't hold anything of me in them. But had I not done those pages, and learned those things, I don't think the next pages would have been so good.

Whales:   I'll just say that I love these pages. I honestly did not think this would work. But from pushing through the other pages and knowing it's all practice, I got this magnificence. Maybe you don't see it, but I do. It was scary in a couple different ways. First, the basis was image transfer and I have limited success with it and limited experience with it. Second, it was a minimal page. So every small thing I did would be obvious, so not much room for error. Donna said, "image transfer is always a crapshoot" and mine certainly was. The background text transfered rather well for what I wanted. But the whales...ugh...I couldn't get a nice solid or dark transfer. I think I may have been using too much medium. I set that aside. So the images weren't perfect. They didn't have to be. Onto the color.

Ah...color. That's my jam, my comfort zone. I needed a watercolory look more transparent than not. All I knew was that I couldn't use all blue. Honestly, I had enough blue backgrounds and I needed to add another color. I pulled three fluid acrylics: Cobalt Turquoise, Payne's Gray, and Viridian Green. In other words; watery teal, midnight blue, and Godzilla green. I painted the background first and used lots of water to pull the paint out from around the whales. Then, I added layers of paint to get the deeper shades where I needed them.
Because my image transfer had left behind some paper, I got splotches of color in the whales where the paper soaked up the paint. I was too lazy to try and "fix" the image transfer and peel off the little stray bits of paper. I liked it. Who knew my laziness would pay off? For all the apparent simplicity of this spread, I'm in love with it. It's something you don't really see up close but after you walk away for a bit and come back...yeah, baby.
I may be going to canvas with this one.


I was hesitant to share this journal as it didn't speak to me...until today.
Perhaps my courage will continue to speak in these pages.
Have a great week.
-Wy

A Page in the Large Journal

I decided to use the Snow Day to take some photos of some art journal pages I've finally finished up.

Here's the page I finished in the Large Journal.

Simple Floral:  It may look simple but I learned a lot from this page and that is the big reason I work in the journal so sporadically. This page answered two questions for me. The first question was whether I could convincingly gesso through a stencil. I could and I could do it without a large amount of blobs and run over. The second question was whether the gesso would pick up the color beneath it or stay true white. I have had that happen with texture mediums where they soak up the dye in the paper and become tinted. The gesso didn't seem to have that problem. It stayed white and I didn't even apply a second coat. I was quite pleased as my intention was to paint over the gesso.

I also learned that I could extend the design of a stencil by just free-handing it. I've never had much confidence in doing that but this design didn't seem too tough. The bottom half of the florals was my free-handing and the upper part is the stencil...not too shabby, huh?

I was happy to learn that my gel pen worked well over the pink paint...Dylusions paint. I will be remembering that as my gel pens are hit and miss over most acrylics. I added white highlights and black spots and called it a day.

This was my test run for a project that you all won't be seeing anytime soon...sorry. I've already been working on it for almost a year so I doubt it'll be done in the next few months. I'm shooting for the end of summer. Maybe.

Have a great day!
-Wy

Inspiration Journal: Finale 2016

I have finished my Inspiration Journal 2016. I followed along with Donna Downey for some Inspiration Wednesdays this past year and amazingly, didn't fall too far behind in my work.

I don't like all the pages and some are downright ugly but that's really the point to an art journal. I needed to play with things to see what I like and what doesn't really float my boat. Because what excites Donna Downey doesn't always excite me. That shows up big-time in these pages.

So here's the big finale!

UGH! Texture!:  Donna used baby wipes to create these round wells that would hold pouring medium. I don't use baby wipes much and I certainly didn't have pouring medium. So I used a few baby wipes and some paper towels. But I detest the "messy" look the baby wipes create. I tried to clean it up, so to speak, on the other side of the spread (where I have the two wells) but decided I really didn't like either of them. I used a clear gel glue to substitute for pouring medium and I thought it was working well until I let it sit overnight. When I came back to it, there were tiny bubbles throughout the glue that distort the image underneath it. It adds another layer of texture I don't like. So I gave up early on this page and wrote my frustration on the insert. Moving on...

Magic Foil:   This spread diverged from Donna's quite a bit. She put chipboard beneath the foil and then gessoed over the top to sand it all back to bring out touches of the silver. After the fiasco with the spread above (and the discovery that I don't like THAT much texture in my journal), I was hesitant to use chipboard. I thought I might be able to create texture with white glue but it sank into the paper and didn't stay 3-D. So I had these foam stickers and all the letters to spell out MAGIC. I then applied the foil over that trying hard not to get too much glue on the foil.

See, here's my take on using aluminum foil: let it show. Foil has such a wonderful metallic shimmer why would you gesso over that? Paint will stick to foil. And fluid acrylics are mostly transparent (depending on the color) so the shimmer shows through it. The end effect is similar to metallic/mica paints. Aluminum foil is also a "white" surface and allows the true pigment color to show. So with all these things that I liked about foil, why not just paint it right on there and skip sanding it all together.

The foam stickers aren't prominent but you can tell what it spells in person. I added the black stars because they looked magical. The black also really allows those colors to pop.

Sing for Spring:  Donna used pan pastels. Nope, don't own them. The very word "pastel" translates in my brain as "chalk" and yucko for chalk. So I knew I'd be using my gelatos for this spread. I liked Donna's colors but when it came time to do the page, my color choice was determined by the birds. I didn't have a flower stamp large enough and I didn't feel like drawing one or waiting for paint to dry. So these little collage image birds dictated my colors. I realized I had gelatos that matched rather well.

I did seal the gelato with ModPodge so I could stamp over the top of it. The colors seemed very wintry to me so decided to stay on that theme. On the back of the inclusion, I wrote, "Keep Spring in your heart" to tie it all together.

Fin:  My last page was to use up the paper I had cut the heart out of on the above spread. I colored it black and kept it super simple. Done!

I discovered a love for simplicity in these last pages. That wasn't exactly how this journal started out. It's finished, though, and the last pages were fun for me. I may not like them best but they were exactly what I wanted when I wanted it.
In 2017, I will once again be following Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday.
For Good or for Ugly.
-Wy

Inspiration Journal: Part 6

I admit to neglecting the blog for a bit. But honestly, I've had few things to share...at least, things I was willing to photograph.

But I have done a few more layouts in my Inspiration Wednesday Art Journal. Inspiration provided via Donna Downey.

Washi:  This layout is all washi tape. I had fun with it. I really love the teal. The insert is a found "poem" from a torn page from an Edgar Allan Poe story.

"A Predicament. I was not sorry my body made its way into the middle of the street. My feelings were mysterious, perplexing. I imagined the body was the proper identity but, upon getting it, my peculiar deficiency made me astonished at my circumstance. While I ran along the main building, the loss of independence was not only irritating but was also inconvenient. However, I was forced to blink the other eye. In truth, I was very glad to get rid of a little bit of skin. My sensations felt disagreeable."

Flower Can:  I can't decide whether I like this or not. I like the left side better than the right. I'm not sure what happened here. My flowers seem very stiff. I think the yellow might have been too bright or I just don't have enough blending. The black splatter helped me "stop".

Magic...Ugh:  I had great aspirations with this layout but it just came out ugly. I laid down alphabet stickers then gessoed over them. Then, added paint. The paint seemed a bit bright so I thought maybe another light coat of gesso. I think thats where it went wrong. By this time, the texture of the letters was kinda lost and when I glazed with raw umber, it didn't have much to catch on to. I decided to just leave it and learn from the mistake. I should have went with my gut...raw umber wasn't the color.

#236:  This layout came out the way I wanted it, despite my reservations. My numbers got a little lost in the background but I don't even mind. For me, the circuit board pattern was where this spread was at. I truly like that pattern at the bottom. I'm going to remember that for future projects.

Thanks for taking a look-see. Inspiration Wednesdays continue on in 2017 and I'm all signed up. I hope to be a bit more diligent about it next year!
-Wy
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."  --Leonard Cohen (RIP)

Inspiration Wednesday: Part 5

Back to the Inspiration Wednesday Journal with Donna Downey. You can find the "class" HERE.
I'm using Donna's custom made journal with an extra signature added.

Here's some new pages:

Create (with Dots): I couldn't find this "supply" anywhere near me. The background is a kind of drywall tape. The only ones I could find lacked the "dotted" texture and seemed more square. I could have used it, I suppose, but the dots were what I really liked about the tape. So I waited to do this spread until I could order it. After I got that on there, and the paint and leaves, I didn't quite know what else to do. I didn't want to add too much to cover it up so I just added words. 

I just loved the color palette with the copper metallic popping off the page. I didn't want a focal image on the page; I just wanted to stare at the colors. My quote is from Harry Potter. "Of course, it's all in your head. That doesn't mean it isn't real."
I liked this color palette so much that I used up the extra paint on some watercolor paper to make some cool backgrounds for cards.

Then, there's this spread that seemed pretty similar.

Bubbles of Toil and Trouble:   I decided to go with the Bubble theme and I loved the idea of jars. The colors for the background was a little playing around with my new Teal color. It's more opaque than the other colors which threw me a bit of a curve ball. But I decided to make the best of it's coverage and write my quote in the space. I was very happy with how my Dylusions paint pen wrote over the acrylic...very smooth. (I had a problem with the first set of these pens I purchased and decided to give them another go. I bought a new set and was more patient with the "priming" process. The black one is working quite well and the white one is better than the first. I may decide to do a post about pens in general as I seemed to have amassed a bit of a collection!)

On trying to decide what my jars should hold, the quote wandered into my head so I went with it. Certainly the way my life has been going the last month, it has seemed like much Toil and Trouble. But such is the way when money rules the world, or at least, my corner of it.

Hopefully, more posts and artwork to come for September!
-Wy
"If butter were brains, you wouldn't grease a very big skillet."

Art Journal Adventure: Part 6

At the Joggles Blog, you can find weekly prompts and a little inspiration about an art journal page. You can follow along or make it your own.

Here's a few more of my pages:

Week 30: Tribute to Donna:  This week's theme was to persevere. When I think of that, I immediately think of artist, Donna Downey. I like her collage work, her florals, and just the way she likes to throw paint on a page or canvas. Being from a non-art school background, she was the first person I saw that used her fingers to just blend paints on a page...no fancy brushes or tools. I liked it. Poppies, teal, and collage are all here along with something I tell myself every time I get "stuck" on a project: "Forward motion". This is one of my favorite journal pages ever.

Week 32: Pretend:  This weeks prompt was to "divide and conquer...the background". I was getting behind in this journal and just wanted to play without thinking too much. I didn't want to re-invent the wheel. So I stuck with a layout I've used plenty before and stayed in the comfort zone of my underwater scenes. I was trying to combine another week's prompt here: "the rule of thirds" but not so sure I was successful. I do love the page, though.

Week 33: Jump for Joy:  This was supposed to be the Rule of Thirds page. I don't like it. Every time I try to think about the rule, I over think it. This page would have been much better if I DIDN'T lay out a grid, DIDN'T try to place my focals on a line, and just gone with my gut. The Rule of Thirds come pretty naturally to me. I don't think I have problems with where to place things. I like what I like and if I think too much on it, I screw it up. So this page isn't a fave...but I just really wanted to use those cute little frogs!

Week 34: Add Purple:  This week's theme was to use what's in front of you. I always have leftover "stuff" sitting on the fringe of my work area. Since I already had the green background going, I decided to stick to more purple like on the opposite page. I just wanted to collage some stuff but I admit I'm not entirely happy with it. I like the colors and most of the elements but that empty space kinda bothers me. This page may not be done.

With that, I'm only two weeks behind now. August was a bugger for me so here's hoping September is a bit more art-worthy!
-Wy