LOOKING TO ANCESTORS FOR DIRECTION - FINDING SO MUCH MORE
art journal page for collage play with crowabout
I loved the images provided and actually used every single one. I DID cut the nose and original "hat" off the princess.

background page
I took that one tiny circle and "pasted" it probably about a hundred times using photoshop. two copies were printed and then I cut around and glued. let me know if you are interested and I can send it to you or post it on flickr


before words and extra pen work


final version
I had been thinking of using some glaze yet BUT decided not this time (time as usual being the operative word)



I added my own words, the word "fly" two times and outlined the two times it already appeared. I added an extra crown, outlined the one I had used for my cousin ;) gave that other ancestor some wings to fly and did some more outlining.
detail right side


detail - left side



please take a moment to check my previous post for three more journal pages I recently completed. I was inspired even more to do journalling after viewing Lia's video. Enjoy.

"I had only to look. She was there - always?"


This art journal page was started in February for valentine's day lol I did the background in the colours that were my faves at the moment. I was once again surprised to see, very clearly, parts of a face within the background which I had done so randomly. I had sketched in the face exactly as I was seeing it. The page was then set aside and forgotten. I had actually been planning to do a video with the page. I was drawn to it a couple of days ago and immediately was struck by a need to just darken the sketching with my black caran d'ache crayon.


"I had only to look. She was there - always?"

blue lady



I just completed this journal page today. I'd done the background a couple of weeks ago. It was done with words, light blue acrylic paint, possibly a mask with words in oil pastels, blue ink over top and then some stamping with a hand carved stamp and metallic paint. I drew the face a few days ago in pencil. Today I used a bit of watercolor pencil and then caran d'ache crayons with water. I drew in some details with a black pen.

I thought it was a good day to finish the "blue lady" as that's pretty much how I'm feeling today. It doesn't help that I've got an appointment tomorrow with a new diabetes specialist and my blood sugars have been bouncing around crazily. I'll have to try to explain to him about all the stress and how it affects my diabetes. I'll have to try to tell him that I'm trying to look after myself but how difficult it's being. I'll have to go through the whole story again. That's difficult. I spent 45 minutes on the phone yesterday morning talking to a new helper for our daughter. Shortly after that my blood sugar was something like 22. The normal high is 7.

Actually I feel like running away someplace right now and just doing art. OH WELL! Maybe next week :D

A touch of sunshine:

Now is the time when I get REALLY tired of the snow. I'm not at all interested in taking outdoor photos. Even the sunrises and sets hold little interest. We finally had a warmer day last Saturday and then later it was pouring rain. That was followed by back to the freezer for a couple of days with wind chills - YUCK! So now even on the days when it is finally warming a bit there are hard drifts of snow AND extremely slippery walking surfaces. :-)))) Thank goodness for ART! I LOVE HER :D

Now that I have my artroom and the basement nearly organized (just a few finishing touches) I can finally get back to being creative every day. And that other project is right now on the front burner. Stay tuned.

I tossed together another video yesterday morning. I'm really having fun making them and using that side of my creativity. I've been doing more journal pages lately. I'm finding them good for practicing techniques and experimenting. this one is called FINDING STRENGTH

permission
to smile
to laugh
to cry
to create
to breathe
to express
to be
me

And most recently I've been giving myself permission to stay away from this technology a bit so I might have fun clearing my art room and creating containers for putting tools in - mainly stamps that I am decorating the boxes for. I'll share as soon as I have an extra moment.

In the mean time I have done this journal page with an old picture, slide actually, that I found when we were at the farm over the holiday season. We found many slides. Greg needs to teach me how to do the scanning. Because they are old slides it is being a bit of a challenge.

I chose this particular image

of myself because I believe it portrays very well what I have felt about my childhood. I would try to smile because I knew people wanted me to feel happy. Instead I probably looked even more sad. Certainly not all the pictures are that way. I'll share more along the way.

The journal page was looking quite "weak". I planned to add the texture with polyfilla. The part that was not planned was when I used walnut ink spray and accidentally got some on my photo. I went to wipe as I typically do, forgetting the ink on the vellum would smudge. Ahhh, blurriness - perfect. That's exactly how I often feel about my childhood. Images blurred. I'm not sure how I feel after I put the ink on for my eyes and glasses but I think, through it all, my eyes were seeing, learning, finding myself even as I was losing myself.



Back to more discovering, more creating, more fun with the organizing.



May angels be with you as you give yourself permission.
Wendy XO

Unfortunately our modem died last night and I was unable to submit this for Inspire Me Thursday as I would have liked. That is quite fine. Fitting to my resolutions I laughed and will share it here with you now.

Resolutions: while I am not much for New Year’s Resolutions I have decided to share with you a couple of hopes I hold in my heart for this year. I realize that it is also quite late to be sharing these but Inspire Me Thursday still has “New Year Resolutions” for its theme. I thought I would go ahead.

The art journal page is about laughter. It looks at kisses tickling. I was thinking of any kind of tickling, including tickles of one’s sense of humour. It all works. My hope for this year is to try to remember to laugh more often. Laughter is very good for my body and soul.



The flat canvas is 8 x 10 inches. “Sunshine on my shoulder” brings to me the hope that I might feel sunshine within my heart even on the cloudiest of days.





Angels be with you,
Wendy

being creative everyday:
Participating in art everyday month is a different sort of challenge for me. It's not so much about actually being creative. It's more about trying to share with you what I all DO create in a day. Typically I do much creating. I often can do much writing in my mind. I am fortunate to remember, usually, what I've written in my mind. You can find some of the latest writing I've done at windyangelsandyou. I often write long hand now so I've backgrounds for my artjournal pages.
I was realizing that much of the time I create in larger numbers but don't necessarily complete much in a single day. Then suddenly it seems I've completed lots. It's like with the tags. I often work on them when I'm on a road trip with Greg. These were started one time when I was waiting at the hair stylists.



With sewing it works well because it makes sense when I'm using the machine to do more stitching at the same time as opposed to doing a couple of seams and then needing to sit down again another time. When I'm putting printer images onto fabric I work with more pieces at the same time also.
The flat canvases were kind of accidental. I have the tendency to put out far too much paint at one time. Then I run to get more surfaces on which to apply the paint. Some day I might learn.

Here's a journal page I completed last night. The words are here.



I've also put together another slideshow with the journal pages. They are so much fun to make - the slideshows and the journal pages. If you click on the show it will take you to a larger version. You need to click on "original", top right side. This show is dedicated to Suze.

Autumn collages and another journal page:
I'd completed these autumn collages a while back. They were with a friend of mine who has purchased some of my art. There are six altogether. They measure about 8 1/2 x 11 inches. It is one of my photos printed on decorative paper and then applied to more decorative paper with stitching. A brad was then added.


The journal page is, as often, with words. These words are about the castle which is me. As I'm more into country, informal style, there are splashes of that also LOL. The windows show bright light which is what I am seeking. A number of years ago someone told me of the book "Interior Castle" by Teresa of Avila. So developed the idea of myself as a castle.

Birthdays:
As I approach my 50th birthday on Sunday I am feeling quite blessed.

this road on which I travel

at times

seems so rough

filled with obstacles

which appear, at first, impossible

but as I look back

I pause

and take wonder

at all the beauty

the miracles along the way

Though I've been feeling somewhat muddle-befuddled the past few weeks I really do not believe it has anything to do with the approaching age. I am quite proud to have had diabetes for 46 1/2 years without any complications to this time. That is quite unusual considering the very bouncy ride it has always been. If you click on the above photo you can go to my comment part way down in which I mention the diabetes.
Then today I discovered this fabulously optimistic lady who celebrated her 108th birthday last Sunday. I love Olive and her enthusiasm for life. She has such a beautiful radiance.



And I love the idea of the sing-alongs. I used to do them with my Mom and aunties when I was a teenager and now once in awhile I do them with our daughter Cat. If my Mom happens to be around she'll try to join in too. Maybe you didn't realize I'm one of those kind of people to occasionally burst spontaneously into song. I don't need accompaniment if the song is familiar LOL.

More art in progress and another journal page to share. I'm also working on the banner for my etsy shop so hopefully in the next few months LOL.














I'm realizing now that I would have preferred without the black trim around the words from the book for the journal page. Oh well, better to learn on a journal page than on a canvas.



I remember now the difficulty I had with the face also. Because I used a pastel for the purple I got a bit of smudging where it wasn't supposed to be. Also, the face being smaller I wasn't using the right tools - mouth especially got larger than I'd planned. Like I said, oh well.

The robin started out as this crappy photo from a long time ago. I wouldn't be able to tell you how I ended with this image.



I did use my old photopaint program and I think I did lots with effects. other than that I'm not sure. You'll be seeing more of it as I don't really like using others images, if possible, even the copyright free.

And a couple of pics of the fabric I've been painting for the last few weeks.

"I-I-I love JEESUS!": My soul feels so uplifted each time we go to pick up Cat after she's been at camp. She absolutely loves spending time there. This photo, while not a very clear image in reality, is a very good depiction. This last session was a teen camp with 125 campers ages 15- 17 years. This number fills the friendly camp to near overflow. On the last day there is always chapel at 11:30 a.m. Parents are invited to attend chapel. Seeing these young people standing on the benches and standing at the front of the chapel ALWAYS brings tears of joy to my heart. In those moments when the voices are uplifted in the words "I-I-I love JEESUS!", one can't help but feel surrounded by miracles.

sliding through shades of blue:
I've always loved the colour blue. I was so entranced when we were returning from Regina to the farm a couple of evenings ago. Greg was very kind and made some minute detours so that I might capture photos. The clouds, their many colours, the moon, the sunset - all were intoxicating. This photo shows in some small way the layers of blue.



The summer days often make me feel as though I'm sliding through shades of blue, not necessarily in a good way. I'm thinking more of the moody blues. Cat's frequent need for attention, our holiday time being spent mainly at the farm (not really a holiday if you can imagine) and little time to create, especially in my mind, bring on these blue shades.

Here are a couple of examples of some creative time I've been squeezing in between the other blues. Some of the journal pages mention snow, heaven forbid. Some of the writing is newer. I tend to write while on longer road trips. The inks are kind of a new fave - cat's eye color box fluid chalks. Yummmm. They're nearly as scrumptious as the Reese's miniatures I mention on one of the pages.





I've also been doing a tiny bit of writing at windyangelsandyou - more on shades of blue. Take a look.

More creations: I've done more ATCs but had some difficulty because I was using the wrong kind of ink - kept smudging, seemed every time I breathed on it. I must invest in a new black ink pad. I was overjoyed when I happened across the stamp with the insulin on it. Perfect for the ATC which said joy. If you don't know what I'm talking about check "orange".

The journal page was done for a challenge which can be found here. I was fortunate to have the background prepared so didn't take much to do it up. The words will also be recognizable to some of you.


Angels be with you.

Journal Pages and "Woman" for Artwords:
The second page of the journal pages refers to Pauline. You can find her blog here. I also posted about treasures that I received from her at this post.

"Woman" is the theme for the 50th week of artwords. I have chosen this stamped image photo of Greg's Auntie Dot, a wonderful lady. There is also some old german writing which I turned into a stamped image. I especially like the idea of "soft yet strong" for woman. I think this portrays much in only a few simple words. Some of the words I've chosen are not quite as universal - such as "exotic" but "beautiful" fits the majority - beautiful inside and out. If you think you are not beautiful - I would ask you to think again. I think you are beautiful. And there are probably many others who think so too, even though they neglect to tell you.
Collage on watercolour - acrylic background. Letters for "woman" are from the very creative "Artsyfran"

"Oh beautiful woman -
Love yourself".

Angels be with you.

Think like a frog Part 1: please visit windyangelsandyou for the first art journal page.