Gelatos

October Course Work

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media

Ok yes. Winter is approaching, darkness is here. I am depressed. My thoughts are heavy. My mood is bad. I am poisonous to the people around me. I am lonely. I don’t want company. I am tired. I have headaches almost every day. In spite of all that I make myself go out to the air (and sun, because days are actually warm and beautiful) every day for at least an hour. I think it helps. I make myself art journal every morning. No excuses. And it goes on like that. Christmas is approaching and I always liked everything around it. The lights, the fairs, the baking, the ornaments. This year I don’t seem to be in the right mood. But let’s not despair. It may still come.

I am documenting today the course work I did during October. It’s not much. I’ve done many journal pages, but not so much of course work. It somehow was more important to do the personal stuff. That will be another post, hopefully soon, because even writing this has been a tremendous effort. But I am doing it.

First there are three spreads done for Book of Days with Effy Wild. I really enjoyed that course and I am really satisfied with all the spreads I did there. They were not fast and easy. They needed lot of work, but it was well worth the effort and time.

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And the next three are from Radiant Art Journals again with Effy Wild.This course however is taught by several teachers, and I must say  that the first two lessons were real suffering and the third which I just started is even more suffering. They are simply not me and I cannot say that I enjoyed making them. Here is the first by guest teacher and then Effy’s version of that same lesson:

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The overlapping faces felt scary and uncomfortable, and the three girls simply look soulless to me. I don’t know… Probably I need to get something of myself into them, to do my version of it. I did a bit with the overlapping faces but the whole concept somehow did not work for me.

The next lesson by guest teacher is below. Effy’s version of that I am still doing (that one is proving to be much more to my liking, so I am doing it with pleasure and will post it in one of next posts).

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And that’s all. I am glad I managed the post, all things concerning 🙂 If you read it, I am grateful… Hope to be a better host next time…

Mornings in My Art Journal

Art Journal, Mixed Media

Since some time ago I developed the habit of art journaling every morning after getting up. I cannot say how happy it makes me and how I look forward to starting every new day.

In my last post I decided to depart from my habit of sharing what happened in the previous week at least from time to time and to devote a whole post to one topic. Today it will be my morning practice of art journaling.

I try to keep my spreads very intuitive, so I never start with a concrete idea on my mind, but rather just grab the color that catches my eye first and start covering the blank page. Then I use  other colors, just as I feel like, some gesso, and then I write with a pencil on the wet paint and gesso, which gives beautiful texture to the page. Then I use stencils, stamps, markers, more pencils. Often I draw a face or two, sometimes just something abstract or a floral motive.

During the writing process usually a theme or main idea comes up, which I then use to either draw or write a message on the finished spread. Here are some recent entries in my journal:

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I used Gelatos, gesso, stencil, chalk markers, pencils and acrylics. The main theme was my thinking about my journaling process and how it is important to listen to your inner voice in order to make the page really yours and not just a copy of someone else’s.

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This one is also with the same general theme and same materials.

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In this one, I used a hand carved stamp for the border and Sakura glaze pen for lettering.

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This one is without the face and I felt quite upset for a reason, which is really visible in the way I journaled. It’s not the one I look at with pleasure, but it’s an important part of the process of working my feelings out and documenting what happens on the way.

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Here I realized I am being too hard on myself, hence the message. I used cut outs of photo paper on which I tried alcohol inks over the stencilled floral motive in gel medium. It’s exciting to see how the ink flows in the paths that stencil makes. I love this one.

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One morning I decided to cut out some new stencil with botanical motives and I used Neocolors activated with iridescent medium as a background and then stencilled over with the acrylic paint. Later on I wrote in the space between the shapes, but I did not take a photo of it.

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And finally, this one was inspired by the quote prompt we got in a group with Effy Wild. Used my new stencil again, and another stencil, Gelatos, black pen, white pen, acrylic paints, and chalk markers.

I use