21 Secrets 2013 inspired art

This is inspired by 21 Secrets 2013 workshop by Cathy Bluteau called Doodling Our Way.

Beautiful Spirit

Detail. I added a fabric flower and petals.

Detail. The paper was an envie that I got from Mary Ann Moss in her class, Ticket to Venice.
 I love the color it adds - painting with paper.

Detail. The flowers are mostly scrapbook papers.

Detail. Small flowers and butterfly collage were from a Mary Englebreit calendar.
I used dimensional paint in  some circles.

What I enjoyed most about this process was breaking the page down into sections and treating each section as a small piece of art. This made it easier to pull the collage together. I enjoyed doing this so much I've completed two more; one on paper to be framed, the other on a small 5x7 canvas.

Happy Spring

 

Final pages of Marvel: Your Precious Life

Final pages of Marvel: Your Precious Life

I am feeling a great sense of accomplishment. This is the first visual journal that I've actually completed. Other pages can be found here, and here, and here. I'll post the picture of the bound book in my next post.

I spend a lot of time trying to find the "right" image to match my "topic." And I become discouraged when I don't find it. The muse has typically moved on by the time I go through piles of images. Then, when I make a selection, the image shapes a message, perhaps very different from the original thought. What I originally planned doesn't emerge. I suppose that is all part of the "mystery" of this form of journaling. 

I had the same frustration in another class. At the beginning of the session, we were to pick an image that represented our week and write a few words about it. My problem is that I am too analytical ... I look for images that "literally" represent my feelings. That is not conceptual ... nor artistic ... nor using imagery in the way it is intended.

During that class I just had to go with it ... and usually the image ended up being just the right one. No matter which image I picked ... it somehow was able to portray my feelings. Very intuitive. Very mysterious.

I feel pages in this book are contrived. They are meant to be decorative, interesting, arty. They are meant to not only deal with images, but composition and design. Mixed media art with images as a focal point. The creation of the pages are meant to push me to create/design a well balanced page using color and texture and images and text.

So ... what if ...

What if I create pages using good design and composition - background, focal points, color ...

Create several pages ... create a signature of pages ... and then ...

Use the pre-decorated pages to journal. Either sequentially, or hop around to find the "right" page, a page that has a feel for what I want to express. It would be like journaling in a book created by someone else.

The advantage would be to continue to practice design and composition. Another advantage wold be to use my papers and images. It would be interesting to see if journaling on a "pre-decorated" page would be helpful to this self expression ... or not.

Hmmm ... I'll have to think about this.

playing around

with Picasa and Photoshop.

031013 Multiple exposure

I have a goal to learn digital collage using PS. But first I need to learn the basics (like how to layer!)

love this!

what's the deal here?

What's growing in San Juan Capistrano?

digital collage from photos taken in San Juan Capistrano

No Photography! 030613

playing with Picasa -  

Saturation and 1960s

warmify and museum matte

digital fun

What's growing in my yard

the final batch of meyer lemon's

early buds of orange blossoms

wild nasturtium (just two flowers and lots of leaves and vines)

Vessel

Playing with pattern.

Ticket Home

This didn't start out as a double page spread but it seems to have turned into one. 

Every once in a while I review Jane Davies book Collage Journeys. This piece is directly inspired by one of the exercises. The background is watercolor paint and bleeding from the previous page's markers. I used gesso and acrylic glazing liquid to tone it down. The vessel is acrylic paint on collage with a cover of glaze. Outlined  with charcoal pencil. Oil pastels added to background. It's very textured.

Staying on track with my collage-a-day challenge.

Decisions and a challenge

I think this piece is done ... however ...

Happy 1

I can't decide if I like it this way ...

or this way ... 

and my husband likes it this way ... but I don't.

Abstract/expressionism art creates such heavy decisions.

By the way, I decided to challenge myself in March to "A Collage A Day." For no particular reason other than I need to be pushed into creating each day. I recognize that on some days there will be no art time so I'll bend the rules a bit and create more than one piece on other days. Here is my progress so far:

0301. Vision 2013 (1 page of 2)

0302. Peace

0303 "Happy 1" from above.

Today is a "work" day and doctor's appointment ... so my collage just may be gluing something down on an index card ... and that's OK. The point is to do something each day.

col·lage

1.       Picture with pieces stuck on surface: a picture made by sticking cloth, pieces of paper, photographs, and other objects onto a surface

2.       Art of making collages: the art of making pictures by sticking cloth, pieces of paper, photographs, and other objects onto a surface

3.       Combination of different things

More Marvel Your Precious Life Pages

I decided to keep on with another signature for this unbound book. Keeping with the theme with some new prompts, I continue exploring the use of background papers, focal imagery and embellishments to express myself. It is easier than the beginning. And definitely more fun. I still feel I'm "copying/channeling Kelly Kilmer" but each page does bring me closer to my own voice.