First post back in 2 years! Mixed Media Monday!

For the last two years I've found it difficult to get creative and be inspired. I packed my craft stuff away and got on with life, mainly focusing on photography and self improvement. I always felt something missing though.

I guess you could say I had quite a depressive slump. In January I had enough of myself (and had a few health scares) so I decided to join a gym, to get healthy and lose weight. So far I have lost 20 Kilograms (44 Pounds). It has done wonders for my health, but also my confidence and self-esteem, as well as my motivation. It also helped me feel ready to craft again.

So I've set up an interim craft desk in my bedroom until I can get a better system sorted out.

I did my first mixed media art journal page last night:

 I'm a little Rusty, but I hope it's not terrible! My Inspiration for this piece was from a Mood Board over at Our Mixed Media Moods and their group on facebook, it had a great beachy theme which really spoke to me, since I live near the ocean!

Here's a couple of close ups of my page:

I hope you liked my page after a long absence, here's to more Mixed Media Monday's coming out more regularly!

Mixed Media Monday - Umbrella.

Hi Friends! It's a bright new week, which means it's time to see another page from my Art Journal. It's Mixed Media Monday time!

For this page I put down some of that meshy wall tape you can get from the hardware store. I thought it would give neat texture. I then went over it with Gesso and dried it. I sprayed some Dylusions spray inks onto my page, and blotted it off, to give it a more faded effect. I didn't blot the drips for the pink rain.

I sprayed some white ink through a raindrop stencil, but it didn't come out that well. So I used some blue and purple inks with a dot stamp for added texture and interest.



For my figure in a rainbow, rainboots and umbrella I used some papers I made on my Gelli Plate. Which is a new purchase I made. Wow it's so fun! A great way to make neat papers with lots of textures for my Mixed Media work. I simply drew the shapes on the papers and cut them out and inked around the edges, and added some detail with big brush markers.

For the flower I used texture paste through a stencil that I heat zapped, and them went over with Faber-Castell Big Brush markers. I liked the idea of the raincoat figure sharing the umbrella with the flower.

Which brings me to my quote:

Isn't that so true?

So Thank You for being my umbrella dear friends, and I hope you liked seeing my page today. Thanks so much for stopping by and all your lovely comments!

Late Mixed Media Monday

Hi Friends, sorry for break in blogging again. I've been a bit ill for the past week and a half, but thankfully I'm feeling better now.

So I have a page from my Art Journal to share:

Just a painted background with some stamping, and the figures are a dylusions stencil sponged with some paint. I like the bubbly texture effect the sponge I used made.  All the leaves were fussy cut. 

I'll just keep it short and sweet. Any questions let me know. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

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

Birch Tree Trunk Painting

Hello friends, a LONG time since I have blogged, or crafted. I have been keeping busy here on the home-front but this past weekend I decided to try a project I had seen on Youtube. A painting of some tree trunks on canvas, I used this tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pxEhveAktA

http://angelaandersonart.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/easy-birch-trees-kids-art-class.html

Here is my completed piece:

It was super easy to too, and looks effective on my wall in my craft room. I added some stamping to my background as you can see. A fun project that is great for anyone to try of any age, I highly recommend giving it a go yourself, I would love to see your versions!

Thanks for stopping by!
Annmaree xoxo.

Valentines Day - Journal52: Abstract

Happy Friday the 14th! Which means it's Valentines Day!

Just want to wish you all a special day, with your loved ones! 

Thank you to all of you blog friends who have shown me true friendship and support, as well as heaps of inspiration with your amazing crafts!

Today I just wanted to quickly share two pages I made for Journal52's Art Journal challenge, Week 5 Prompt. Which was "Abstract Art". In the example on the blog, they had some pre-made abstract backgrounds painted, and then just went doodling around the shapes they could find. I decided to give this a go!

In my first one, I found some city buildings, and doodled some details in with gold paint, and then white pen. Added some further paint for clouds.

My second page, I found a few bird shapes, so decided to embrace the birds, and doodled a few more in, and also some feathers. I cut out a quote from a book, which I think is also appropriate for today;

So there you go, some abstract doodles. I have some more Art Journal pages to share on Monday, so I hope you'll pop by again soon! Thanks for stopping by today!

Journal52 - Mixed Media Monday

Hello again friends, I hope this week had been a good one for you all. 

 

Today I have two more Art Journal pages to share with you, as part of the year long challenge I am participating in, over at Journal52. Where we get a "prompt" each week to create with. I've already showed you my first two pages from the first two prompts. Today, here are my Third and Fourth pages;

Week #3's prompt was "You make me Smile"
I was a bit perplexed at this one, because many things make me smile - and it seemed I just didn't know where to begin! I thought and thought, breaking down the prompt to the main word of "smile" and all I could think of was the bright yellow happy smiley face from the Hippie era. Then I thought of tie-dye, and colour... and, well, I just ran with that:

 

I love Hippie era things, and things from pop-culture.  I also love colour. This page - although simple - actually makes me smile. For the background I used Faber-Castell Gelatos, only slightly blended, to keep with the tie-dye effect. And just yellow cardstock circles, with drawn basic smiley faces.

*****

Week #4's Prompt was - "Building Character"
Encouraging us to draw a character, or theme a page around character traits and symbols.

 

For this I decided to draw a character with the help of my Jane Davenport face Stencils. I used gelatos and big brush markers to make my face. I also decided I wanted to pop headphones on her head and have a music themed character page. I'm a big believer that Music really helps build character and identity, and affect your emotions and such. What you listen to effects how you feel, and what you think, how you act etc. Listen to all angsty bitter music, you will soon feel and act with angst and bitterness. Listen to happy pop tunes, you will feel as such. And so on and so forth.

 The blue background has tone-on-tone stamping of a sheet music stamp, but it didn't come up on the pics!  I also decided to add a streak of purple highlight to her fringe-hair, to add to the "character" of the face. I'm quite happy with how this girlie came out.

So there are my two pages for Journal52 and my Mixed Media Monday.
Thanks so much for stopping by!

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!

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

Through the Window - Art Journal Page

Happy Friday friends! I hope you have all had a fabulous week, and will enjoy the weekend ahead!

I have been playing in my Art Journal again, and became inspired by Nathalie Kalbachs video tutorial here on her blog, and decided to try it for myself: To make the page appear as a window - peering out to a city nightscape.

I started by adhering down some ripped up bits of text tissue paper with Gel Medium, and collaging it on there. Then basically sketched the scene with a pencil. The idea was for it to look reasonably crude since it is supposed to be freehand drawing and painting, and in a somewhat expressionist theme.

 

I used my Faber-Castell Gelatos to colour each area, spritz with a bit of water so it was watercolour and free flowing. I used my fingers to spread it around... It was messy fun! 

 

I put highlights and shadows in with other gelatos, and also some Big Brush Markers. 

I outlined everything with a big black sharpie - and used a ruler for my window panes. 

Then, went in with some gold glitter glue for the moon and stars.

 

Here you can see the sparkle on the  moon and stars.

I am quite happy with how this page came out, very different to what I am used of doing, but I enjoyed it a lot! I love trying new things and was glad to have found that tutorial by Nathalie Kalbach.

 I have joined up for her Creative Jumpstart online workshop for next year, I enjoyed last years Creative Jumpstart tutorials and videos very much and learned a lot! So this years should be even better! If you're into mixed media and art journalling, or even just starting with it - you should checkout her blog and sign up, its just $20 US for 23 videos and 21 artists. So worth it!

Anyway, enough rabbiting on from me. Enjoy your Weekend and Thanks for stopping by!

Unique Face - Mixed Media Monday

Hello Friends!! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! I got a bit of craft on in my Art Journal;

Here is my mixed media page using the Jane Davenport face stencils;

My background was done by first sticking down the negative leftovers from a page of cardstock letter stickers, and going over them with gesso, and then some Dylusions sprays. 

The letter sticker diecut/negative gave a fun texture, I also then went over it with a writing lines stamp. Here is a closeup view so you can hopefully see the texture and stamping in the background;

 The face was sketched with the Jane Davenport face stencil, and then painted. I went in with Faber-Castell Big Brush markers for highlights, shadows and details, etc.

I chose this great quote for my page, printed out from my computer, and went around each section again with Big Brush markers.

I figured the face and girl I made was pretty unique, so went with the quote well.

 

The last step was to put some splatters around, with India Ink.  

 

and that is my page in my Art Journal, for this Mixed Media Monday!

I hope you like it, Thanks so much for dropping by!

Hugs xoxo