The first completed page in my Number 1 Grimoire (as I have three of these journals) Dina Wakley media journal.
All sorts of acrylic paints for the background. I sketched her face in, filled it in with a thin layer of white paint, then watercolor. I finished her with colored pencils.
This image is what I need. It helps me stay focused and upbeat. This picture is my computer background.
The other day I was wandering around YouTube…seriously…just wandering…
I found this video:
which leads to this video:
Basically, it’s an art swap. You make one of these journals filled with all sorts of ephemera and send it out, trade it with a partner…and then you both make art from what you find in your new journal. It’s a challenge…and a partnership.
I am slowly getting back into working in my journals, doing my own art, slowly but surely again (yay!)…and this sounds like an incredible idea.
Would you like to play along with me and swap flow journals, set ourselves up with an art challenge?
If so–my email is listed on the sidebar…or respond to this post.
Having someone else on board would help keep me accountable and moving forward
Absolutely NO affiliate links in this post. Thank you. J
I forgot that this was April. I forgot it was National Poetry month.
Honestly, I just flipped the calendar over to the new month yesterday and didn’t notice a thing.
However, I still get emails. Today, on the 5th, is the first day I received anything that said anything about Poetry month.
On top of that, I know that the 100 Day Project began two days ago. I have had plans for this year’s 100 days project for a while. And it fits in beautifully with Tara Leaver’s free 7-day challenge that started today.
Last week, due to the 100 Day Project, I was cognizant enough to pick up paint specifically for my project. I bought three colors of postcard-sized cardstock, I think back in December (brown, white, black). I’m not worried about starting late, because with our days, I never thought I would make one thing a day for one hundred days—but I did want to make 100 things within the time allotted. So I had planned to set up space one day during the week and paint out as many cards as I felt up to…and then work on the individual cards throughout the coming week as I felt able.
Plus, I got an extra push this morning when I received an email from the Kindness Rocks Project suggesting that we leave Random Art of Kindness cards as an art abandonment project. My original idea was to make up 100 art cards, write or doodle or something (that part hasn’t gelled up quite yet) and then … leave them for people to find…
So—what am I babbling on about here?
The fact that I have four days of poetry to catch up on…and it’s time for me to start my 100 pieces project…as well as making sure I take more than enough time to rest rest rest, recuperate and heal. Luckily, I can smoosh and splash paint while sitting on the couch…because I am so worn out at the moment…if I had only a few spoons a day before surgery, right now I have one spoon per day…and an energetic five-year-old on top of that…
I will be posting my work as I go along…
Thanks for listening.
My second bear from Tam’s lesson.
I love that I was able to doodle…even if I didn’t paint everything out the way I wanted to (I am talking to you wing on top the middle wing on the left side there….) She’s cute. She’s sweet. She’s the background on my phone now…
I’m happy.
A bonus lesson with Tam.
Here’s my first version:
She’s cute–but she’s a little tilty…and a bit big. I was actually disappointed to not be able to add all the doodles and whatever in the background.
Inspired by the fantastic Andrea Gomoll.
Here are my pieces:
I’ve talked about this one before, when she was just a sketch…
There ‘should’ be all sorts of doodles all over the place…and before I started to add paint and color, there were…it was quite chaotic. By the time I started to work on finishing the background, I decided I would feel better if it were all just painted over and left to lie beneath the paint.
My symbols here:
The Rabbit, which has been forcing its way into my life for about two years now…technically the love affair with bunnies started even longer ago…with Br’er Rabbit when I was a little kid…and moved into a pet bunny when I was a slightly older kid…and then a few years ago my angoras that I developed the allergy to their hay so I had to let them go (I placed them with a rabbit shelter–I didn’t just turn the poor boys out or anything).
The Peacock (that shape at the throat), this is another that has been here a long time and always seems to push itself forward in more recent years.
The Raven (that feather in the hair), half of my Totem animal team…where would I be without the Raven?
Mushrooms…do you see the name of my blog here? Alice in all things, even if it is my Alyce…but mushrooms are a big thing for me in and of themselves and really, other than Alice’s tale, because they aren’t really plants–they aren’t really animals–they are something else entirely (fungus)…the whole concept of mushroom…it grows on and consumes the dead–a necessary thing to keep the world revolving…they cross-over, between the worlds, they bridge the gaps between things…and that is why they call to me.
Her word is ‘homecoming’…which fits in with my own word of the year, ‘settle in’. With a bit of flowery flourish at the end.
This is the first one I drew, following Tam’s style and lead. The original plan was to draw things in Tam’s style and then do it again in my own style–but things have been so convoluted…it isn’t working out that way. All I can say though is…it is helping. The exercises, not the art, are really helping. The art solidifies the healing aspects (although, to be clear, you don’t have to do any of the healing bits if you are a part of any of Tam’s classes–it can be all about the art for you.)
