52 Lists - Week One

So here is the cover of my new journal...so much for my black cover, oh well. It makes me happy just to look at it. Especially the back!!

This is the front, I liked it better before putting the title on...

The back...Happy Happy Place!

I made this stamp...I bought one of those alphabet sets at Walmart for $1 and used masking tape to tape the 30 small stamps all together. It's my new favorite stamp!! Love it so much I had to make two, one for home and one for my Artist On The Go bag!

Collage happiness!! I can not even begin to tell you everything that is here...

This is a new stencil by Heidi Swapp!! I was so excited when I saw it at Michael's! I don't follow her product line much so I wasn't aware she was putting out a line of stencils. This one is 6x6.

Now for the first list...it's the list of the other 51 lists to be in included in my journal. A table of contents if you will...the things you'll get to learn about me over the next 51 weeks. I have made a disclaimer that I reserve the right to change this list. I might just decide it would be one of my biggest regrets to put my biggest regrets on paper and out into the world...we'll see :)

Note: Sakura Moonlight pens are NOT waterproof. My pretty doodle smeared when I put Collage Pauge over my Smash tape. The paper border was made by applying Basics acrylic paint with a palette knife.

Here is the list in case you can't read my handwriting:
* Times I've had an audience
* Websites I visit often
* Favorite TV shows of all time
* Pets I've had
* Places I'd like to visit
* Guilty pleasures
* Hobbies - past and present
* Favorite teachers
* Bad habits
* Favorite books
* People I've lived with
* Favorite songs
* Art supplies I haven't used yet
* My happy places
* Favorite ice cream flavors
* What's good right now
* Favorite flowers
* Things I want to make
* Things I want to be known for
* Favorite quotes
* Things I am grateful for
* Things I say every day
* Things that make me feel healthy: mind, body and soul
* Favorite words
* Things I am proud of
* Goals and dreams
* Things that feel like home
* People I admire
* My essentials
* Favorite cartoons
* Best days of my life
* Bad things I did as a kid
* Favorite restaurants
* Games I like to play
* Favorite actors
* Pet peeves
* Favorite movies
* Best things about being me
* My NEVER list
* Favorite magazines
* Hangouts from my past
* Bucket List
* My closest friends
* Things I do on a day off
* Biggest regrets
* Encounters with famous people
* Professions I'd like to try
* Cities I've visited
* Things most people don't know about me
* Live performances I've seen
* Favorite Halloween costumes

Whew!! Don't count them, I might have missed typing a couple but I assure you there are 51 in my book...I don't necessarily plan to do them in order which is why they are not numbered. Whichever list hits me that week is the one I'll enter...

Thanks for stopping by and as always please leave a comment if you have the chance. I'd love to hear from you!! Have a great day!!
Dawn

My First Handmade Journal

I found this link on Pinterest a loooooong time ago. I cut the paper and arranged the pages and then it sat, and sat and sat...



This week I finally got around to finishing the journal! Here is the link I used to learn how to do the Coptic Stitch. 

I"ll warn you that I had to watch the video three or four times while stitching my book and even had to start over twice. I think some still photos along with the video would have helped me. I also should have paid closer attention to his placement of the holes before I punched mine. The top and bottom ones should have been closer to the edges instead of an inch away. My book would be a bit sturdier but it will be fine for my intended purpose. My stitching is a little loose too but really not bad for my first try! It's 6x6 and I'm happy with the black covers and the colorful pages!

I'm going to use if for a new feature on my blog: 52 Weeks of Lists. One day each week (It will probably be the same day each week but I'm not committing to a day right now.) I'll post a new page in this art journal with a list. I have a list of lists that I found somewhere on the net a while ago. Good thing I printed it out because I can not find it again now. I did however find that Moorea Seal started the same project in January. You can find her lists HERE. I will probably mix in some of her lists with and delete some of the ones I have...

Linking back to Art Journal Every Day and Artists In Blogland.

Thanks for stopping by! Please leave a comment if you have a chance, I'd love to hear from you!!
Enjoy your weekend!
Dawn

Who Knew?

Golden Extra Coarse Pumice Gel...I kinda like it! What a surprise!

It was one of the mediums I got to play with at Donna Downey's Inspired weekend. I really thought I'd hate it so I just sorta coated one small folder with it (both the left and right sides). A coat of gesso probably would have helped it adhere better but I just wanted to get it on the page and let it dry. I also thought I would probably sand it off or throw the folder away all together so I wasn't very concerned.

This is actually the right side of the page, I painted the left side green.

 Donna showed us a page where she put it through the Brick Wall stencil and it did look like bricks and then I overheard her telling someone else if you paint it green it looks like moss. So I went for green.

I used my finger with gesso, Golden Sap Green and Green Gold. You can see on the left side there is an line between the pumice gel and the page where my finger wouldn't fit so I went in with a  brush to fill that in. Next I used Donna's Hollyhock foam stamp by Prima with Golden Quin Magenta, Quin Red and Pyrole Red.

The stems are Sap Green and the Centers are Diarylide Yellow. Then came some shading to hopefully add some dimension...

There is Quin Crimson on the right side of the flowers and Quin Crimson mixed with Carbon Black on the left side. I also added some Yellow Ochre and Hansa Yellow Light to the centers...

 Finally some butterflies and daisies punched from gessoed book text. Happy. Happy. Happy! You can also see a peek of the right side of the page here. I thought if it looked like moss when painted green it might look like coral if I painted it pink and orange and added some seaweed...more on that page later ;)

Thanks for stopping by and as always please leave a comment if you have a chance. I'd love to hear from you! Have a great day!!

So it was Cinco de Mayo...

It was also a day of 3 soccer games, lunch with my parents and a birthday party for the 7 year old to attend. I was also a single mom because my husband left for a business trip to Arizona on Saturday afternoon. Anyhow...once the kids had gotten to bed a very strange and rare second wind came over me. I decided I'd celebrate with a margarita while I watched the news and contemplated Monday's schedule.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

My close friends know that a Margarita is among my top three favorite beverages and I thought since I was going to be a single mom three more days one more drink before bed couldn't hurt...

Then a thought occurred to me...maybe it was a good night for an experiment. Lately I have been feeling very critical, inhibited, indecisive and "inside my head" about my art. I wondered what would happen if I truly were "not in my right mind" and I took to my studio...

I don't usually work start to finish...I work...it marinates...I work some more...let things sink in...and so on. In contrast, my plan was to create one finished piece that I was happy with before I went to sleep.

Well, I failed in my quest to actually finish a piece. I had to go to bed around 1:30. I do not hold up like I used to when tipping the bottle...

What I ended up was three more backgrounds...

At least there isn't anything embarrassing that I can not share but I do not think that my inebriated state gave me anything different, new or exciting to work with. Maybe I'll have to repeat the experiment and pick up where I left off...

Thanks for stopping by and as always please leave a comment if you have the chance...I'd love to hear from you!!

My Inspired! Weekend at Donna Downey Studios!!

Inspiring does not even begin to describe my weekend!! I will try to be brief but I am still on a bit of a high from spending 4 days in the presence of the amazingly talented Donna Downey. Her studio is the happiest place on earth!! (Yeah I know...screw Disney :) Donna wins hands down!)  Not only is she talented she is humble and funny and her enthusiasm is contagious!! She also knows how to pamper and cater to her students.

We were showered with gifts (clearly these are not mine since my name is not Katie but I was so excited I forgot to take a pic before I dove in and made a mess of mine)! The canvas roll is filled with brushes, pens, pencils, graphite paper and a palette knife and under the white note is a Moleskine journal. There is also a Faber Castell tool kit. The large flat canvas is the cover of the journal we worked in and bound over the weekend. Both the canvas roll and journal cover were hand made and embroidered by Donna!

This was our ride to dinner on Saturday night...and yes, that gentleman is waiting to open the door just for me! Really, everyone else was inside already.

Here Donna is explaining that the red cabinets on the wall, the white drawers under them and all the shelves in the corner house supplies that we are welcome to use whenever we please! Just about every art supply you can imagine just on the other side of the room...like I said...Happiest place on earth!!

I got to play with lots of grounds and surface preps I had never used...black, grey and clear gesso, glass bead gel, fiber paste, molding paste, pumice gel, pouring medium, absorbent ground, acrylic ground for pastels, tar gel and opaque white flakes.

We learned how to layer, blend and shade with acrylic paint, do image transfers and carve our own rubber stamps.  I got to play with lots of new mediums: water soluble oil pastels, gouache paints, water soluble graphite pencils and Montana paint pens...these are the kinds of paint pens graffiti artists use.

With all of that truly the best part of the weekend was being surrounded by other talented, charming and encouraging artists! I learned as much from the women around me as I did from Donna. There were only 18 of us in class so we really got to share bits of ourselves as well as our art and become friends.  I've connected with many of them on Facebook and traded emails or phone numbers with others. The personal connections are priceless to me!

Here is the one page I actually completed over the weekend...

Acrylic paint, India ink, Pitt Big Brush Pen, Uniball Signo Pen

Here are a few of my favorites that are still in progress...

PanPastels

Acrylic paint applied with a palette knife.

Acrylic paint...finger painting!

I traced the main details of the image on the right for a starting point. I wish I had left her fingers out! Mediums: acrylic paint and water soluble oil pastel.

Acrylic paint applied from palette pad in a circular motion, finished with finger painting.

Glass Bead Gel applied through Potholes stencil (Donna Downey) color is gouache paint.

Image transfer on the inside cover of my journal coated with tar gel.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm grateful for all comments and I'd love to hear from you if you have the chance! Have a great day!

Common Miracles (1)

This is supposed to be centered...arrrr.

“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. 
It actually takes guts. 

Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, 

we enter the warrior’s world.”
-Pema Chodron

I have recently connected with a fellow blogger Chel Micheline. She is a fantastic and inspiring artist who not only shares her art but bits and pieces of herself and her family. Her writing is eloquent and thought provoking. Once a week she posts Common Miracles (her own study and perceptions of gratitude) and has inspired me to do the same. Here is the link to her very first post and here is her most recent, the 100th!

Our background with gratitude is quite a bit different but her current views resonate with me on a daily basis which why I have opted to join her in the Common Miracles Project. (I hope I can keep up weekly as she does!)

I have always been a "glass half full"..."find the silver lining"..."it could be worse" kind of girl but after the birth of our first son, Sam I suffered from post-partum depression. I did not seek help because I did not realize I had it until 3 years later when I was pregnant with our second son, Andrew. Thankfully those happy pregnancy hormones cured my depression. Somehow, I managed to literally fight tooth and nail from the moment Andrew was born and avoid a second bout. Unfortunately, after the birth of our third son, Bennett I was not so lucky. I was depressed and it was more than just post-partum. I knew it but I could not muster any energy to fight it or seek help.  I was ashamed and I hid it. From everyone, not even my husband realized how bad it was which of course just made it worse. I was plummeting and fast. I can even say I know where rock bottom is. I don't know what the turning point was, if it was something I read or heard but I was able to consciously make the decision that my children and my husband deserved better. They deserved a healthy mom and wife who took care of herself so that she could take care of them. I made an appointment with my doctor who prescribed medication and therapy. 

Fast forward to today...I am under the care of a wonderful doctor with a diagnosis of chemical imbalance and anxiety disorder. They aren't going away but most of the time I am my old self. I still experience the ups and downs and range of emotions that everyone else experiences but because of the anxiety I am susceptible to sinking lower than the average person when something "negative" arises or a bad day comes along. The most common tool I use to avoid sinking to low or to rise back up is focusing on the good in my life even the smallest things. 

So what's good right now?

It is finally Spring here in Illinois...at least I think it is. I do live in a suburb of Chicago and we have a saying here "If you don't like the weather wait a bit, it'll change." So I'm not holding my breath that there isn't another snow storm out there for us but for right now it is raining any my grass is turning green! We are actually having a thunderstorm which I actually prefer to just rain!

I'm getting my hair colored and a pedicure next week for my trip to North Carolina!

Speaking of my trip... is only 8 days away. I am going to spend 4 days at Donna Downey's studio for her Inspired event. I have been waiting since last July for this...

I began my practice of yoga again this morning...I have missed it!

I have all of the boys registered for their summer camps and activities which will keep them occupied and reduce the amount of refereeing I have to do when school is out in 6 1/2 weeks!

I have recommitted to my physical health and started today with a chocolate banana protein shake. Yum!

Coffee is always good but I need to cut back...I like it sweet and creamy which is contradictory to my healthy eating plan but everything in moderation.  

I got my fancy tea pot out yesterday and made some white ginger pear which was delicious!

I sorted 3 months of photos for my Project Life album yesterday and am looking forward to working on it tonight. (If this thunder and lightning keep up soccer practices will be canceled and I'll have an extra 4 hours!)

Finally...music, color and spring ( I know I already mentioned spring, it's worth repeating!)

Thanks for stopping by! There's a quote out there that goes something like "Enjoy the little things for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things." I'm honestly too lazy right now to look up the exact words or give credit where credit is due. Sorry :) Have a great day!!

Bouncing Around

I have a number of art journals in progress and I bounce around between them quite a bit. These are a few pages that are in progress and waiting for whatever comes next.

 This one is from a book I am altering. I used Dylusions Spray Ink and the images are stamped with black Staz On.

 This is from the same book. It is going to be a monochromatic page, I can tell you that much. Again, Dylusions Spray Ink. Acrylic craft paint in lavender and white. Purple acrylic paint through The Crafter's Workshop Screen stencil. Cat's Eye Fluid Chalk in Wisteria around the edge.

This is in my wire bound Cranson Mixed Media journal. The same one "I Am Brave" is in. This is Distress Stain in Victorian Velvet, Bundled Sage and Tumbled Glass.

This is my Moleskine Watercolor Journal. Gosh, I don't think I can tell you what's on here. There was a burgundy wash that I put on so as not to waste the paint. Then I actually did some writing on that page. Then I covered the writing with some lavender paint just to cover the writing and then took some of it off wih a baby wipe before it dried. Finally I had some teal paint left over from something else and smeared it in each corner with my finger. Hun, guess I could tell you what was on there...

This is also the Moleskine Watercolor Journal. I used a script background stamp with Staz On ink and turned it sideways so the lines of writing go up and down the page instead of across. Then I used Color Wonder Watercolor Crayons from Stampin' Up to add the color.

I have no idea what is next for any of these pages or when inspiration might strike but I do know this:

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." - Pablo Picasso