Free Your Mind...Journaling with Julie 12

Today I'm posting the next lesson that my sister, in New Jersey, and I, in Ohio, each worked on from the Create Your Life Book art journaling book by Tamara LaPorte. While life took some twisty turns, we took a break from art journaling together/apart, but we're back, baby!

For this lesson, you were to write something in pencil that was bothering you about your art and then you bury it on the hill and move on. Julie chose the belief that her art wasn't good enough and then buried that thought under decoupage, paint and stamping. She used watercolor on her angel/girl face and a micron pen for the outlining. The collage pieces were acrylic, watercolored and alcohol ink painted papers. After that, Julie added scrapbook papers and a little waxed paper for texture.

After adding Tombow markers for the dress and tights, Julie added the Wonder stamp on the dress. Additionally, Julie added more stamping, stenciled the air swirls for movement and used dabs of acrylic paint with her fingers and a cotton swap. She added white acrylic paint to tie it all together and Micron pen doodles finished it up. I think the stamping and the swirls are the perfect touches. And I like the dark paint on the bottom, it really grounds that part and makes the air look lighter.

My girl took a bit of time too, though I did no stamping or stenciling. I wrote my belief to bury—that creating is essential to my well-being but feels more like selfishness—and collaged and painted the heck out of it.

I used pre-printed papers, music sheets and some text paper for mine and then added some gelato crayons over the papers. 

I used white thinned down acrylic paint over all the colors and papers to unify and then used a Pitt Artist Pen big brush marker in yellow for her dress.

After a ton of doodling with white and black pens, I also added the words I Matter to her dress. At first, I outlined the flowers on the hill but then decided it took too much attention from the angel girl, so I repainted them.

Now I can't decide which is better. But once I put a project away, I don't revisit it, so this is how it stays!

Hope you can bury the negative thoughts that get in the way of you making art...'cuz art is important!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Girls Rule

I absolutely never say "girls rule," as I have a son and a husband and I feel like the rest of that little sentiment (boys drool) is just mean...however! Just two days ago, Vice-President Kamala Harris was sworn in and for the very first time, a woman is in the White House, 2nd-in-command of the country and shattering glass ceilings forever. GIRLS RULE, BABY!

Okay, I think I got that out of my system for now. I am just so proud of this moment in our history that I could burst. But, instead, I'll share some girl art I've done in my Whimsical Girl Art Journal.

On this page, I used Tombow Markers on the flowers and added small amounts of water. The green is all colored pencils, as is the woman. I haven't doodled nearly enough on this page but I expect some quote that I like will end up here.

And for this page, I used Tombow Markers and white Uniball gel pen to doodle the heck out of these ladies. I used light water on these images too, which turns the marker into watercolor paint.

I love this image and even though I didn't have any earth colors or good skin color markers, I have some now, so I can make even more varied skin tones or hair tones. I might go back in and see how it works to layer some of these new colors on here. Very often I forget you can do that with watercolor paints.

Hope you're feeling as hopeful as I am with the new leadership in the White House!

Happy Friday,

Chark

Home Sweet Home—Journaling with Julie 10

My sister, Julie, and I continue to make art from the lessons in this fab book from Tamara LaPorte and today is our tenth lesson to share. This one was about your home and childhood and used words and collage to create a little home of your own. A lot of these lessons call for introspection and help you address some things you wished were different. 

I used some washi tape, some glitter-look papers, some text paper and some paper I had stenciled on to create my house. I added flowers, stars, hearts and a bird as my symbols. I toned down all the chaos with some watered down white acrylic paint and used a silver and black marker at the end.

And I drew me peeking out, with a crown on. Julie and I decided I look a little like D.W. or another character from Arthur. It was unintentional, but what do you think?

I was an insecure kid, full of worry, so I added the phrase "you will thrive and be surrounded by love" because really that's all I wanted. In addition to my sisters and mom, I had a lot of people in my life who loved me. I'm lucky to have found my hubby when we were 16, lucky to have two wonderful kids with him and lucky because he's crazy perfect for me. If my little kid self could've known how well life would turn out, she could've calmed the hell down. 😃

From Julie: "Here’s the outside of my house. I collaged some of my painty papers for the sky, the grass, and the tree trunk and I put a magazine picture of a fall tree for the upper tree part. I used scrapbooking papers for the roof and the front of my house and I used two buttons for like the door knobs and a string for the closure.

I stamped some shapes on the outside of my house and along the edges and outlined some of those with a black sharpie. I use a little bit of white acrylic paint to finger paint all over the picture to kind of unify it but it doesn’t show up very well. On the inside of my house I put pictures that I love now and as a child. Two elephants, googly eyes, ice cream, colorful balloons, Sesame Street characters, a lighted candle, a girl sitting on a bunch of books she’s reading, and finally a cross intertwined with a heart. So the things that I loved as a child and as an adult are represented here: favorite animal, treats, my love of reading, and finally love and faith. On the inside of the doors I used ton of different markers and just scribbled all these colors because it’s one of my favorite designs really."

I love that she went large with her project, I cut corners a little and went smaller, while she went for it. I felt like I should redo mine, because I didn't even read all the directions (by accident, I swear) but she assures me it's dandy and no need to redo. As I'm essentially lazy, this worked for me.

Hope you find some time to be crafty this weekend, and think about picking up this book, it's really fun. And nope, there are no affiliate links, just sharing.

Happy Friday,

Chark

Good Morning, Angels—Journaling with Julie 9

If you ever watched Charlie's Angels in the 1970s or the movie reboots, you got to hear Charlie say "Good morning, Angels." I'm old school, so I hear this in John Forsythe's voice. Though I imagine if I watched the original series now, I'd probably not enjoy it. But in the 70s, we had to watch network tv so even Love Boat and Fantasy Island were good tv. Of course, I was a child then, so maybe it wasn't good tv even then. Who knows?

But I digress. Today I'm sharing the angel projects that my sister, Julie, and I created with Lesson 9 in the Create Your Life Book that we each have. Julie's working in her home in New Jersey and I'm working in mine in Ohio. Then we share the results. For this lesson, you create yourself as an angel. Luckily, this was super easy for me because of my angelic personality but much harder for my sister. HA! (You gotta get in those zingers where you can when you have an older sister.)

First comes the collage part and the coloring. I used Arteza metallic gouache to color, along with some Tombow markers.

Then I added details with black brush marker.

Finally, I used a gold gel pen, white paint and white uniball pen to add details. I also used a damp paper towel to remove some of the gelato so you can see the collaged paper underneath (like my dress).

Julie used painted paper that was purple and white for her collaged papers. And though you can’t see it, she put images of me and our older sister, Teresa, looking over her shoulder. How sweet is that?  Then she used glitter tissue paper for her clothes and scrapbook paper that was feathery-looking for the wings. She finger painted some white acrylic paint on the wings and clothes and added some gold acrylic paint.

Finally, she used a gold Sharpie to outline parts of it and she says she's much happier with this version than the original version. Since we don't get to see the first one, we'll have to take Julie's word for it :) 

I like how they both turned out and that we both went with purples. This was a fun project and it's even more fun to do with my seester. And, hey, who doesn't want to see themselves as an angel?

Happy Weekend!

Chark

Seek and Find—Journaling with Julie 8

In this eighth lesson from this fun art journaling book that my sister and I are working on, you are supposed to create a page with collage, paint and water-soluble crayon and then find a picture within those shapes.

I'm sharing Julie's project first, because she actually followed the lesson. Julie had a piece of parchment paper she had brayered paint onto (not a verb really, but it is now) and glued it onto watercolor paper. Within the shapes and colors of her collaged paper, she found a bird and parent. Julie says it's a cross between an owl and penguin...which is a pretty good description imo. She used acrylic paint and sharpie for the outlines and added grayish paint around the birds. She also added the word family.

I love how he turned out—so cute! And definitely great colors from the papers. Now, here's my project.

This is actually my second attempt...with the first attempt, I collaged papers and then added acrylic paints, but I ended up basically using way too much paint and it ended up just a painted background with some square shapes under it from the paper. You couldn't see the papers and there was no variation to the paint. Fail!

Tried again and used a page that already had some textured stenciling, added some more paints and then just drew in a face like the sample page. I didn't find anything in my painted piece that suggested a face or shape. I think I just had too heavy a hand with the paint. I did have fun with some finger painting and color blocking but this is not my finest interpretation of a lesson.

That's if for this one...the next lesson is to make yourself an angel and since I already am one (just ask my sister...wait, don't ask her), it should be a piece of cake. Lolol

Happy Friday!

Chark

Meditate On This—Journaling with Julie 6

Can't believe we're up to the 6th project in this cool Art Journal book that my sister, Julie, and I are completing in our own homes and then sharing with each other.

For this project, we decided to Facetime while we created, which ended up being way more fun. We chatted about this and that while we each worked on the project. We got to share progress and say hi to family members who wandered in and out and we offered advice and encouragement. I highly recommend doing this with a buddy...it's the next best thing to being there (some commercial stay with us forever, thanks, Bell Long Distance).

For this project, you were supposed to meditate and get in touch with your feelings, physical and emotional and then draw a girl meditating that represented you. My girl did not look like me much, but Julie did make her girl have blue hair—which she has currently. I used a pink and red situation because I didn't want to make gray hair, lololol.

You start with water soluble crayons or watercolors and then add acrylics and markers and collage the background. It was pretty enjoyable even though during the process we both were like, you know what—this is a hot mess. I felt like it came together more after adding the dark outline and kind of pulled the whole thing together. 

Here's Julie's version. She was afraid to add in the black outlines and totally mess it up...but I'm going to try to encourage her to keep going next time...because it's a process and kind of cool to go where you've never gone just to see what it's like. Shhh! Don't tell her I plan to push her out of her comfort zone.

Did you notice we both decided on rainbow clothes? In the original project, you're supposed to add chakra symbols but they're kind of complicated, so we both ditched that idea. Julie added her chakra beads, though, so that counts.

Hope you're able to do some crafting or watch cool crafting videos like I do (Vicky Papaioannou is one of my faves, she's got this great accent, is crazy talented and does the voice over instead of talking while crafting...plus she's a cardmaker and art journaler, so there's something for everyone) during this holed-up-in-my-house virus time.

Happy Friday,

Chark

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

Baby Love—Journaling with Julie 2

My sister, Julie, and I are art journaling each week long-distance. We each have the same project book and each week we work on a lesson on our own and then share the pics. She lives about 9 hours from me so this is the closest we've come to actually doing a class together. It's been fun and I'm having a blast. You can see our first lesson below if you scroll down one post. 

This lesson was to do an image transfer of your picture and then add art media and some words or phrases to it. I suggested we use our baby photos (you'll notice I look ornery and she looks sweet and innocent—don't buy that).

I felt like this lesson wasn't detailed enough in general, because I wasn't clear on the photo transfer process...but it was probably my error. My first attempt was on a page I pre-gessoed and that didn't take. So I did it again and it helped to use a plain page with more tooth.

Here's the start of the process. First, just the photo.

 Then the photo transfer.

Then the first layer of gelatos and black pen.

                                

                                                 

Then the finale after layers of gelato, Pitt brush pen, white acrylics, collage and added words and phrases.

I ended up coloring over some of my face as I worked, so it doesn't really look like the original, but it's not really supposed to be a self-portrait. 

Julie did one of her baby self and I love that it still looks like her. It's adorable. I wonder if that little dress was really pink. 

So far, I'm enjoying this book and the lessons. You can dig a little deeper than we are and do the self-reflection and explore your past and your relationship to art and more. It also has different teachers for some lessons so you get a variety of instruction.

That's it for today...hope you're out there finding some solace and joy in crafting or baking or writing or whatever makes you feel happy. I'm doing all these things and just trying to find the little things to be grateful for—my family safe and sound, the sun shining, the daffodils peeking out, the noisy birds, the texts from my daughter and from friends, the 80s trivia contest my hubby and I had, the fact that my adult son baked muffins with me, my mom in good hands with her caregivers, love. It's all good. Wishing you peace.

Happy Friday!

Chark