lettering

She Thinks Positive Journal: 21-23

Art Journal, Faces, She thinks positive journal, Watercolor

As I said yesterday, it is time for a She Thinks Positive Journal update. I haven’t done much, only three pages since my last post, but never mind, there is no deadline only the goal of completing the journal one day. Which feels very good!

I also like the idea of having a dedicated journal for a theme, so there is no pressure and whatever I feel like creating one day, I just reach for that particular journal… Takes a lot of pressure from me… Don’t know if some of you have the same feeling and if you understand my ramblings 🙂

Enough talk, here are the pages I did:

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As you can see, I did two half-turned faces, which is a new thing. I finally learned an easy way to do them from Jane Davenport, that is why they definitely have a touch of her style, especially in the hair. Never mind, I am happy that I can finally do it decently. I need more practice, so more will follow 🙂

I also bought two Ecoline bottles: bluish green and turquoise (used in the hairs of the two half-profile girls). I love them and will definitely have to get more. Unfortunately, they are a pretty rare find in places I visit and these were only two colors that belong to my favorite group. We will see what I can think of in terms of finding a decent source of them…

I am off for a walk (and possible ice cream) because the weather is too nice to stay indoors. Have a happy Sunday!

She Thinks Positive Journal 19-20

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media, She thinks positive journal, Watercolor

It’s been one busy week and I did not do much art. Last two days I’ve been back to my Black Book – discovered an unfinished mandala kind of something there and have been working on it, doodling with white pen and making dots with Perfect Pearls. It was meditative and soothing. As that one is not finished yet, I am not posting it now. Rather here are the two faces and two messages I did in She Thinks Positive Journal.

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Do you see how her eyes are not at the same level?! Imagine that I did not notice it before she was almost done!!! And then it was too late. Ah well… I used color pencils to add definition and detail on top of watercolor. It works well.

Today is a big local holiday. There will be huge fireworks tonight. I hope it will not rain 🙂

She Thinks Positive Journal 14- 18

Art Journal, Faces, She thinks positive journal, Watercolor

For today I have an update in my She Thinks Positive Journal. This week I managed to do a face and an affirmation every day. Next week is my office week and it will probably not happen, but let’s think positive, it might 🙂

Here are the pages from 14 to 18. In one of them I tried to do a profile and of course I had to use an eraser because I cannot get it right really. So that one deviated a bit from my rule in this journal. Obviously, I will have to practice doing profiles and half-profiles, because I never do them and I do not know how, so… Practice, practice I will 🙂 There will be more erasing…

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Out of these five I love the last one best even though her eyes and her nostrils are not on the same level… What I like is her dreamy expression and her hair. Also her message is very applicable in this moment 🙂

Which one resonates with you today?

She Thinks Positive Journal

Art Journal, Faces, She thinks positive journal, Watercolor

The watercolor month is over (I just finished another ATC, LOL! It does not seem to be over for me, but at least I am not counting them any longer.) and I’ve started doing other stuff. Actually, I am continuing with other stuff, which is mostly my coursework… One new thing that I started some weeks ago is a ‘She Thinks Positive Journal’. One day I was in the Art shop and innocently looking around in the paper section and I saw this fabulous spiral bound Fabriano sketchbook… Now, you must know one thing about me: I am a sucker for 90g yellowish drawing paper. I’ve been buying Canson sketching blocks for ages and using them to make my hand-made journals. It does not matter that I always use watercolor on those journals and that 90g paper wrinkles. I love it even more for that. So, even though I have still a lot of Canson 90g paper and I could make several hand-made journals, somehow when I saw this one, I had to have it. Besides, it was only 2.5 EUR! Hey! That’s a lot of happiness almost for free!

So, I got home and started with painting. Actually I was pretty much in a state over something and very emotional and all and that’s how the idea was born to make a kind of let it out but don’t let it show (my specialty) journal. Here’s how it works: I start writing my heart out in pencil on those beautiful yellowish pages. I pour my negativity and sadness and bitterness and all the unanswered questions and unfulfilled expectations and all the stuff that may reside in me and may or may not want to come out (I am an introvert, remember, I do not bother people with my stuff), so I squeeze it all out and then I cover it with a layer of white gesso. That way I empty my negativity on there and get a beautiful white page for painting (gesso also helps to firm the pages a bit so they do not wrinkle so much). Then I write an affirmative thought, which must be something positive because no matter how negative I may feel, there is always something positive I can find. If I cannot think of anything, which is rare, then I pull an oracle card and take it from there. Oracle cards are great way to get a positive thought for the day! I write down the thought and then I draw a face. No erasing, so they are far from perfect, but that’s the whole point.

Enough words, I think, let me show you how it looks. There are 60 pages in the book, so there will be 120 faces and affirmations. Quite a lot, but it goes nicely for the time being. Here are two of them for today:

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Be gentle to yourself

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media

Okay… it’s the right card that I pulled today… rough weekend behind with too many thoughts and too much looking for explanations and too many things not happening the way I imagine they should. But that’s life. And relationships are supposed to be challenging and to provide stimulation for my own growth. Sometimes there’s too much stimulation though. Too much to handle at once… but then, that’s exclusively my choice. So, no blame no complaints. Just, it’s time to take it easy…

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Open your heart

Art Journal, Mixed Media

Bad night behind… it seems that all people around me were somehow affected with bad mood virus. Including myself… so I was worried and restless and of course didn’t sleep well. The weather is strange, rainy, cloudy, windy, warm…

But the oracle said ‘open your heart’. And I did. I do. Everything is different when you allow yourself to feel love…

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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

Week 3-9 August 2015

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media

Yet another artful week :). I was mostly involved with the AJSS. This is a lesson about flower doodles. I had a background that was already started and I did not know how to continue, so I thought this was just the right thing. But then I started adding colors to flowers and the color scheme was all wrong, so I had to repaint them several times, until I got finally to the point where colors looked at peace with each other. People in the group quite liked it, I must say. People like lots of color 🙂

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This next piece is another lesson, which was, of course, about lettering and choosing a summer message. I was not very inventive with the message, but I though Summer stay forever would do :). I made it over pages where I tested some hand-made stamps, which contributed to texture. I quite enjoyed this.

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And finally the last page I did for the school, which was all about doodling again, but this time the challenge was to do some field journaling. I collected lots of leaves on my morning walks and sketched them in a journal (which was promoted to “my field journal”) and then I copied this particular leaf on this page and voila! The writing is supposed to describe what I am grateful for at that moment. I made it more general (because I did not feel so grateful at the moment to fill the whole page), so I wrote things that I am grateful for in the summer 🙂 I really loved this exercise, and I think I will do more, in my field journal, of course.

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And then I missed doing a face painting 🙂 and I thought why not pull out my watercolour box and play a bit. This is the result:

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And then on Friday I went to the art store and found these beauties:

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So, I said, what the hell, I am having them… All I can say now is that they are AMAZING. More details next time 🙂

Week 27 July – 2 August 2015

Art Journal, Faces, Mandala, Mixed Media

This week I decided that it’s time to finish two mandalas which I started some time ago. Here they are:

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Then, it was quite a stressful week and I had to do some things that I really did not want to do, which left me quite exhausted and disturbed. I finished them and all is fine again and I am happy that I dealt with them. 🙂 So, i had to do some journaling to help me deal with those. Actually, I do not know if it helps really, but at least I do discharge some of the anxiety caused by thinking about things I do not want to do… In any case, no matter what is the underlying principle, it makes me feel better. Here is the journal page done in distress last week:

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Finally, there was a bonus lesson in Lifebook 2015 this week, which means a short video and easy task. This time it was making your hamsa hand. I guess it just kind of rounded up this stressful week for me, as it is supposed to be a protection symbol. Here it is:

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