Mixed Media Monday - 3 Girls with Layers

Hey-Hey Kids! lol! Can you believe this is the last Monday for January 2014!? I can hardly believe this year is already whizzing by so fast! But I have been keeping busy, and creating!. I have 3 pages in my Art Journal that I did this week to share with you for today's Mixed Media Monday!

Let us get on with it, shall we? All pages today seem to have feminine silhouettes or imagery, as well as layers of colour and pattern.

 

I'm not going to go into much detail of how I made each page.  Because I don't want to bore you, But if you have any questions about specifics just leave me a comment and I will respond there.  I just used a Palette knife, paint, Flossie Dylusions silhouette stencil, make-up sponge. Some Dylusions sprays, and other Dylusions stencils. Printed quote, and some foam stamps, and a gel pen for doodling. 

 

Imperfection is under-rated.

This second page I wasn't happy with at first, but I kept adding layers, pattern, and more colour. Then toning down the colours with some walnut distress stain. Which eventually made me mostly happy with the result. 

 I found this quote after the page was done, but felt it matched well with the shadowy tones and and because I felt it needed something more.

 "Never feat shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby."

 I used paints, sponges, distress stain in walnut, Balzer Designs Silhouette script head stencil, hexagon and zig-zag stencils and white Mr Huey spray.

This third one was done on a smaller Art Journal I have - all are usually A4-Letter Size, this one is half of that.

 I used more paints, love the thickness and texture these give, I just got them from a cheap shop, but they are really thick, great for going through stencils, which is what I did here.  Lattice Stencil, Zig-Zag Stencil, White Mr Huey spray, chipboard, crackle glaze for the heart, and some walnut stain to define the crackles. Tissue paper and staz on with the PaperBag Studios stamp girl called Sunshine Girl.

She {HEART} Art

She loves Art!

So there you go, my 3 pages for this week! I am really enjoying my Art Journaling, each morning I sit and spend an hour or so just playing, adding to a page or two, eventually having something pop out. It is great therapy and helps me express myself and have a positive outlet, as well as keeping creative and busy, and calm each day. 

I hope you liked seeing them, I will hop around your blogs this afternoon. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Photo Friday - Outdoors

Hi Friends! Time to share some pics I've taken over the last few weeks with a Photo Friday post! Since I haven't done one in a while. Funnily enough, all of these pics are Outdoor ones! Who said I was agoraphobic and didn't get out much!? lol!

First some beach pics from my area: These were all taken on dull cloud covered days, where the only signs of life on the beach were some hungry seagulls.

Through the last few weeks we also have done some gardening work, and here is a caterpillar critter I came across, and had to get a pic of. Caught it in our Gardenia bush;

Google says this is a black gardenia bee hawk moth caterpillar, so will turn into a Moth. 

Here is a fly I was trying to get a close-up of - it's always fun to test the camera settings out, as long as your subject keeps still!

 

Here are some flowers from our Garden as well; Firstly Frangipani (Plumeria) flowers:

 

And some other flowers that come from 1 potted plant, which sprouts up with multiple colour flowers all from the one specimen. We believe it is called a purslane.

 Summer is fully underway here in Oz, with lots of hot humid weather, bright glaring sunshine, thunderstorms, and extreme heat and humdity across the country. We always keep our outdoor bird bath in our garden filled up, to help the wild birds beat the heat!

Here are just two visitors I've seen about lately, making use of the fresh water in the heat of the day; These are Magpie Larks, otherwise known as PeeWees. 

and last but not least -

 a pic that isn't very clear because I had to zoom it up even after I took it - but hopefully it gives you an idea! 

A blue-faced honey eater, which is a bird I hadn't ever seen before! It was very beautiful! A bright Blue face as the name suggests, and an almost golden olive green coated backm with black head, and white underbelly! Really impressive and the pic doesn't do it justice.

Here it was contorting his body about on a Bird of Paradise plant;

 So that's it for this Photo Friday, I hope you liked seeing my pics from around my home and town, Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Mixed Media Monday - Journal52

Merry Monday, Friends!

I have started taking part in a new Art Journaling challenge happening at Journal52, Where for each week of the year, there will be a journal "prompt" that we are to use to create a page from.

I know it can often be a struggle to stare at a blank page and not know what to do with it, so having an idea in mind, like these prompts, to be inspired by can really assist the creative process. There is also a lot of inspiration in the Journal52 Facebook Group.

Here are the two pages I have completed so far, for these challenges. 

Week #1's Prompt was: "Up Up and Away"

 

As soon as I heard this, I thought of super heroes, and the whole "It's a bird! It's a Plane!" bit.  But I wanted to use female super heroes instead of Superman, for a bit of female empowerment. So I found these two cute chibi/manga-esque super girl and wonder woman online, at a colouring page site, and printed them out and coloured them in, and fussy cut them out for my page.

My background is pretty basic, using two different blue Dylusion sprays, to make it sky-like, and I then popped down a Dylusions stencil I had in my stash as well, its a sort of warped checkered pattern, and I just spritz it with water and went over with a paper towel to make a ghosted impression of the stencil, to act as the super gals flight trails. Just added some starry stamps for the border and  added a bit of glitter glue, stuck my girlies down, and journalled in the prompt with the White Tim Holtz Distress Marker, which bleaches out where you write. 

It is pretty simply, but I like how it came out.

Week #2's Prompt was: "Somewhere, a simple place"

 

Being an avid Wizard of Oz fan, I was reminded of the Land of Oz for this prompt and in particular the song from the film "Somewhere over the rainbow". So I decided to just do a simple sky and rainbow in freehand, which I coloured with Faber Castell Gelatos. Outlined with black pitt big brush marker pen. Added a little bit of glitter here and there, as well. 

I'm not 100% happy with how this came out, but it's good to just be able to make something in my art journal and know it doesn't have to be perfect, as long as it means something to me, that's all that matters.

So I will hop on over to all of your fabulous blogs tonight, and I hope you all have had a terrific weekend and will continue to have a terrific new week ahead!

Love and Hugs

Mixed Media Monday - Vase of Flowers!

Hi Friends! Sorry I have been away from the blog for so long! I have been busy all over so far in this New Year, but hopefully everything has steadied now! I have also been doing lots of clean up and reorganization... The whole family did a lot of yard work over the weekend.

 Before that I revamped my craft and bird room, so I can get a lot easier access to my craft desk and craft items, so I can hopefully craft more often now! Before it was just so cluttered with bird cages and bird stuff and tables and other random stuff! But thankfully It's all much better now!  I'm sure the birds appreciate it, too!

So this morning I crafted in my new space and enjoyed it! It was so easy to get to everything I needed. Wish I had have done it earlier! 

So here is my Mixed Media page for today done in my Art Journal:

 

To start I popped down square torn scraps of patterned paper with gel medium, and basically collaged the background, then popped down some texture paste through various size hole stencils. So the holes would be raised as bumps and give neat texture on the page. I Allowed that all to dry and painted over the whole thing with a dark red paint, and used a baby wipe in places to make it lighter.

Hopefully you can see the circle/dots/spots texture. I also sprayed a bit of white Mr Huey misting spray through a polka-dot stencil.

I just folded a piece of 6x6 paper in half and drew a half of a vase shape and cut it out, so that when I opened the piece I had a full vase shape that was symmetrical. Stuck that down with gel medium, and shaded it in with some Faber-Castell gelatos and big brush pens. Also some charcoal pencil helped with shading as well. I Also added some stamping as you can see of some more dots, and also some flourishes.

 

I outlined the vase with a black big brush marker pen. I then free hand drew some star shaped flowers on blue patterned paper. Cut them out and arrange them, I drew around each other them as well as adding some more dots. I felt they needed more layers to look a bit more realistic. So just got out a flower punch and punch some cream and blue flowers out to layer them up some more. And finished each flower center off with a red enamel dot. 

 

Last but not least was the quote, I found one online and shortened it, and stamped in Distress Ink first for a shadow on the letters, then in black Staz-On ink.  

I hope you liked my vase flower page, I hope to share more often now! 

I am going to hop about your awesome blogs this afternoon, in the meantime Thanks for stopping by and have a terrific new week!!! 

Hugs xoxo

Happy New Year! 2014!

Hello Friends!! I hope this newly hatched year brings you great things for the entire year ahead!

I can hardly believe it is two-thousand and FOURTEEN! I'm sure I am not alone when I say that when I was young we figured by the 2000+ years that we would have hover cars and jet packs and teleportation! haha! Maybe by the year 3000!

I want to Thank You all for your support and friendship throughout the years, to friends old and new! I really appreciate it. I've found myself in a funk lately where I cannot be inspired, and any attempts to work in my art journal turn into messy, yucky disasters! So I'm not sure when I will be able to share some artwork or creations. The old Mojo needs rekindling.

But in the meantime, I thought I would share the amazing Christmas cards I received off my amazingly talented blog friends, who handmade their cards!  So you can check out their amazing work!

The first card I received for the season, was from the lovely Lorraine in England. 

You can find her blog at Coldwaters2:

 I love the embossing and white on white! And great decoupaged snowy image! 

We don't get snow where I am in Oz, and definitely not at Christmas! So I always love the magical snowy Christmas images. 

Which brings me to my second card. From Shirley-Anne of South Australia.

Her blog is at: Stamping For Joy:

A great easel card with the cutest cartoon character penguin and polar bear I ever did see!  

From Dawn L in the USA at Dawns Craft Place:

 

A gorgeous Tilda card, I do so love these Magnolia images!

 From the Brilliant Brenda in England at Floral Fantasies:

A masked, brayered and stamped masterpiece of ink! 

From Jules in England at Always with a Heart:

 

A penny black Hedgie Card! Great traditional colours. 

From Wendy in Queensland at MerryMade:

Loving the Kraft cardstock and red, lovely reindeer. 

From Mags in England at Madcap Manor:

Beautiful diecuts!! 

 Lastly, from Sandy in South Australia at Sandy's Creations:

 

A beautiful Victorian vintage image, which I just love! 

So they are all the cards I received from people with blogs, who handmade their cards.

Thanks so much for all the time and effort put into to making and sending these great cards, I appreciate them so much!

Christmas is over for another year, and I noticed that hot cross buns are already in the supermarkets, and many craft blogs are advertising Valentines Day cards and items. So it already feels like 2014 is going way too fast! hehehe! 

But I hope it's a great one for you all!

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxo