Mixed Media Monday - Girl/Woman/Lady

Good Morning all, time for a new Mixed Media page from my Art Journal.

 This is a page I wasn't entirely happy with, mainly because it was done in a cheap journal with thin paper and everything just reacted differently on it. But I figured it was worth sharing anyway. 

I really loved this quote I came across for this piece: 

It was done with various paints and stamping for the background, the lady's head is a wood stamp from my stash, and I drew in a body and coloured and painted it with big brush markers.

I had a brilliant weekend, where I went to the local 'seaworld' type place and saw gorgeous seals, dolphins, penguins, turtles and fish. I will have photos to share soon.

In the meantime I hope you all had a brilliant weekend, too and have a brilliant new week, also! 

Hugs

Photo Friday - Aquarium

Hello friends, Happy Friday to you. I hope you have had a great week! I hope you might checkout my previous post for my Mixed Media Monday art journal page!

Today I have some photos to share from a trip I took to the local aquarium. The Solitary Islands Aquarium. It's not huge, but not small either. Probably a dozen tanks, but there's still so much to see and lots of helpful knowledgeable staff that gave us lots of information, and even an hands on experience!

We got to touch a starfish, a sea urchin and a sea cucumber:

Sorry this one's a little blurry - The starfish was harder and more 'rocky' feeling than I thought it would be, while the sea urchin was as expected, spikey! The sea cucumber was soft and velvety!

One of my favourite things that we saw was a small snowflake eel;

I don't know what it is another these guys, but I just find them so cool. Maybe it's because they look like they just told a funny joke and are awaiting the response?


Another awesome thing we saw was a Marine Hermit Crab, different from the semi-land dwelling hermit crabs you might be used to, these type stay in the ocean, and amongst anemones.

This guy was enamoured with its reflection on the side of the tank, and one of the guides was telling us about how he places his favourite piece of round anemone on his shell, as part of its camouflage! When it changes shells, it will take off the anemone from this shell, and stick it onto it's new shell! Just like us moving home I guess.


 Yet another amazing creature was this beautiful Octopus:

He put on quite a show for us a few times - so I got video of him:



In one of the tanks there was a particularly beautiful starfish:

I just love the purple/blue with the deep red!

A funny thing was, each time we went to that particular tank this starfish would be in a different spot -  but we never actually saw it move! I kept waiting trying to witness it 'move' around! But it never did while I was watching! lol!

Here's a pic I got of it's underside when it moved to the front of the tank:

I love the detail on this shot.


Of course there were clownfish and anemones:

and some other fish, starfish and urchins - this urchin was called a lamington urchin, like the coconut covered choc-dipped cake!

You see the resemblance, right?

Kinda.

We saw so much, but I don't want to bombard you, these are just the highlights for me, so I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Here's one last pic of some of the coral and pretty anemones in one of the tanks:

Thanks for stopping by!

Elephant - Mixed Media Monday

 

Good Morning friends! I have some Art Journaling / Mixed Media work to show you, that I created.

I recently got a new Dylusions journal, the pages are thick and stand upto lots of paint, spray, ink and water, and don't warp like my old journal did! So I'm really happy with it.

Here's my first double page from it:

 For this page I started with multiple colours of Dylusions spray inks, and just covered my page with them, and sandwhiched the pages together, to get even covering on both sides. I inked through a numbers stencil with black dylusions spray on a sponge. Then added washi tape, and lots of stamping, in white and other colours to form interest in my background.

My main focal image was this elephant I cutout from a magazine! 

 I found a couple of quotes I liked online and printed them out from Word, and clipped them to pop them onto my pages. Beforehand, though, I went in with some texture paste and paint mixed together and went over some stencil images as more focal points for my page. Such as the key, the hearts, and the large heart bottom left.

 Here's a close-up of the heart done in texture paste:

 and the quotes:

 "Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole." 

 "Have the heart of a poet, and the skin of an elephant."

I hope you liked seeing my pages from my Art Journal today, I will be back next week with another page or two! Stay tuned Friday for some more photos, as well! Thanks for stopping by!!!