At Sea—Journaling with Julie 4

If you scroll through the recent posts, you'll see my sister, Julie, and I are art journaling together, in a social distancing way. We both have this book and are doing the lessons at the same time in our respective states and then sharing them.

I've enjoyed the lessons so far and this lesson was all about a journey...you're supposed to spend some time reflecting in nature or in meditation about things and then paint a picture to illustrate. The included illustration was a boat so I took a cue from that and did four mini-paintings of a boat. I'm on a health journey right now so of course that's on my mind. So my pages are about that.

I used an ink-sprayed background in my art journal to mount watercolor panels with mod-podge.

The first picture is of a storm brewing.

This one is of the storm itself, with lashing rains and high waves and a tilting sailboat. I used watercolors, collaged text paper, and black ink and white gel pen.

This is as the storm has passed and things are still a little rough and dark.

And the final panel is of calmer seas and a glowing sun and silver linings (Moltow Silver Chrome marker) on the clouds and boat. It represents how I imagine this journey of mine will go. I might be back in the storm a couple of times, but I really feel the boat will right itself and we'll see a better tomorrow.

This is Julie's interpretation of the assignment. She made a sunrise with inks for the sky and water, acrylics for different definitions in the waves and sun and then colored pencils for the little island, tree and clouds. I especially like the look of the clouds, because they aren't always cartoony puffs in the sky, sometimes they're just like this, reflecting the sky colors. The birds are in black marker and I probably should've asked why there are so many...either it's an artistic choice, they are a metaphor for something or she just got carried away...lol, Jules. I don't know the emotional journey behind the art, but I like that it's a sunrise and not sunset.

Hope you get to do something crafty and maybe even meaningful with your art supplies this weekend!

Happy Friday!

Chark