Life Book 2016

Life Book 2016: Flip Through

Art Journal, Mixed Media, video

Yesterday I bound my Life Book for 2016. This is the first time I did it – last year my papers were too large and I gave it up. Even though I promised to do all LB lessons this year, I did not keep my promise, but I think I did really well, because I skipped only a few and did not finish four of them (there is still chance for doing them, as they are in the journal just waiting for me). Anyway, I recorded a short video:

The year is coming to its end and I am slowly closing up open projects (which can be closed), cleaning my craft space, making big plans for 2017, considering which courses to take, thinking about my word for the year…

Today is a beautiful sunny day – it snowed last night just enough to make trees and paths in the park beautiful. We went for a light walk and now it’s back to editing videos and finishing some other art stuff.

Have a wonderful Thursday people!

Life Book Update: 6 October

Art Journal, doodles, Watercolor

As with most other lessons in Life Book, I struggled to make myself start this one. Once I started however, it went great.

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I managed to draw the face of my ‘muse’ with a marker without drawing it with a pencil first! And it looked totally ok! YAY! This lesson was not meant to be focused on learning a new skill or painting something pretty. It was about the self-healing.

On the left hand side the letters say: I am overcoming that I am not doing enough (meaning for my self-improvement and education, but also for the people I love). And this is a negative thought pattern, which I need to overcome. On the right hand side it says: I am doing my best. I am as perfect as I can be. (self-forgiving affirmation which was supposed to break the negative thought pattern on the left hand side. In the middle is my artistic muse who I saw in the meditation and the symbol I saw integrating with her as her eyebrows. It means noting probably. The unreadable part is her letter to myself. It’s ok, I know what she wants to tell me.

 

Life Book Update: 20 September

Art Journal, Mixed Media, Musings About Stuff

I was not excited about the last week’s bonus lesson in Life Book, but it was doable and I hate skipping lessons (until now I skipped only one), so here it is:

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I think it’s very obvious that I did not put much effort, but the point was not so much about drawing and painting. It was about healing and setting boundaries and in that respect the lesson was very good. The house represents myself, the space inside the fence are my closest people (probably family), the space outside are my friends, just across the river my working colleagues and other people I know but do not really ‘click’ with, and up on the moon the people I have to keep away from.

In my case majority of people  I know are on the other side of the river and just a few on the house side. I am glad that there are only two people on the moon though, which tells me that I manage my relationships quite fine. For an extreme introvert that is… May look strange to you, but I feel comfortable like that.

Smile

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media

And here is this week’s lesson from Life Book. It was easy to make and I am happy with her. It’s good that some lessons are quick and easy because you quickly get to catch up. On the other hand those are lessons where you don’t learn much, so hard, slow and painful is also good 🙂 Important is that there is a balance between the two, and there certainly is in Life Book.

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I am back to Hungary. Today is errand day, grown-up day, deal with people day, paperwork day… Ugh! Wish me luck!

Life Book Update

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media

In spite of my resistance, I did finish the last week’s lesson in Life Book 2016. Today I plan to finish this week’s one and then I am all caught-up with Life Book and I am sure it will feel very good.

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I just posted her on IG and commented that she looks weird. Actually, I do like her a lot. It’s funny how she just appeared, I did not paint her particular face, I did not imagine her, she just came. The lesson with Annie Hamman was intimidating for me. It’s acrylics and I am not particularly excited about painting with acrylics and it was uncomfortable to paint the dark colors first and then go over with the light, but it gave her this loose painterly look, which is quite nice I think. The collage in the background was supposed to be visible, but somehow it disappeared 🙂 I used die cuts as well, and they are visible and I think they look good.

Due to a sudden problem that I mentioned on Tuesday, I have to drive back to Hungary this afternoon. I am far from happy about it, but it has to be done, so no use to think about it at all. I do have a weekend to look forward: full two days in one place, which happens only rarely because I always travel on Sundays.

And that’s it for today. I feel much better obviously – I managed to get some rest and to sort out my priorities and everything is ok, at least at this moment. It makes me wonder how my mood is changing depending on how I feel physically and what happens to me and around me, how fragile the inner peace is and how easily it can be lost. Most probably I can do something about it, meditation, whatever. First step though is to become aware of it, right?

Friends?

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media, Watercolor

I managed to finish two Life Book lessons this week. One I already posted here. The other one was a collaboration between Tam and Jane, hence my attempt to paint two different style faces. I do not know if they are supposed to be friends or mother and daughter, or both at the same time, because that’s possible too.

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Collage Flowers

Art Journal, Mixed Media

Yesterday I finished last week’s Life Book lesson. I was lazy to start but I have to say that I really liked the making of it. And I love how it turned out:

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The vase is a cut-out from my painting palette (there is a stencil mark visible too) and it dictated the colors I used for flowers, because the teacher’s were different. I have to say I love mine better :D. I am so excited about this signal magenta – it’s my very favorite color. The background was done with watercolor and I used my sprays which I prepared for Vitamin Sea class. I have to say it’s a brilliant idea to make watercolor sprays: you can make a stunning background in seconds. Of course you cannot see any of it because it got covered by collage and acrylic paint :). The flowers and leaves are cut-outs from an old copy of Kama Sutra (I never read it and never will, and it was printed on such bad paper that it had got this natural vintage look, perfect for collaging, so I could not resist). I haven’t used acrylics in a while, so this was quite a refreshment… Off to catch-up with Vitamin Sea today…

Coursework Update

Art Journal, Faces, Mixed Media, Watercolor

As I said, after the world watercolor month, I have big plans on doing my course work. I am trying to keep up with the Life Book. I have to say that I am doing fine. I skipped one lesson which I definitely did not like, and I started and did not finish three more, but that’s ok. This week I did two lessons that I really liked and that were quick and easy. Perfect! Here they are:

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One new course that I started is the Vitamin Sea with Jane Davenport. I did not plan on taking any more classes, but as this one was all about the watercolors, figure drawing and sea creatures (including seahorses :)))) I decided that it is what I really need at this moment. Up until now we made our journals out of various sorts of watercolor paper and made the ‘tide lines’. This is how it looks:

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Did you spot the seahorse? 🙂 It is going to be exciting, I am sure.

My Ever After course is not going so well. I felt very intimidated by a third lesson which required really elaborate face and hand painting in acrylic and I could not start it at all… The fourth lesson was by Jane Davenport, consisting of three parts. I finished part one:

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I thought I already posted this here, but I am not sure any longer. Anyway, you will forgive me if I did. I started the second part of the lesson this week and will hopefully finish it tomorrow. It is going quite slowly in this course because the lessons are quite difficult and videos are very long. They are downloadable however, so I should take it easy.

So, that’s about it for today. I plan barbecue for dinner and can hardly wait 🙂 Wish you a good day!

 

World Watercolor Month: Days 30 and 31

ATC, Watercolor

I finished the challenge two days ago and today I am sharing my last ATC. I am also adding a lesson from Life Book with Jane Davenport which fits nicely because it’s done in watercolors. Here they are:

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I’ll have to try to catch up with all the course work until end of my holiday. Well, not all, because that will not be possible, but the main things… Ah well… I have to stop buying courses 🙂

Selfie

Faces, Mixed Media

Meet the artist :D. It does look quite like me, except that I wear glasses, but did not dare try to paint them.

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This was done for Life Book 2016 with watercolors and white acrylic. It was real fun once I started, even though I felt a bit reluctant to start in the first place. This time left eye looks bigger or is it maybe just because it’s on the sunny side of the face?! In reality it is not… I think… 🙂 So, nice meeting you all.