Stamps Ahead

We were treated to a bonus day to Laly Mille free online retreat.  Laly Mille shared one of her favourite ways to quickly create a page by combing an intuitive background with a meaningful photo.  Here is my art journal page inspired by Laly. I did not have a photo that I wanted to use so I went with a window print from a magazine. I find myself more and more drawn to 'windows' they let in light, you can imagine what is outside or inside! I used colours, which is not usually my "go to" colour choice.  I used Dylusion Sprays, acrylic paints, gesso, watercolour pencils, fabric and paper.  These pages are definitely a work in progress and I may add or remove other elements in the future. Thank you for looking, I had a blast. A big shout out to Laly Mille, follow her and be inspired. Margaret

Day 3 on Laly Mille's online retreat was finishing touches.  In the words of Laly "Finishing touches are such a magical part of the process! Get playful and try new things, infuse more light, color and contrast into your page, and find that special touch that makes your art unique!".  Here is my finished art  Up early this morning to complete this outdoors, as I started on Day 1. We are expecting record high temperatures today 40c and we are in Autumn/Fall!  If I have a problem area it was the trees added - lesson learned for future pages I think.  What this photo does not show that there is a lot of sparkle and glittery aspects to this page. I hope the following bits from the page show that.  Laly in her video for Day 3 said we would be looking at the magic of the page and that art journalling is the experience of creating. A British informal definition of 'magic' I found online was 'Wonderful and Exciting" and that is how I feel after completing this wo...

Day 2 of Laly Mille's on-line retreat saw us working on our Day 1 layouts.  I drew and coloured some naive flowers along the top of the green gills (might need more of these).  I found the tree images in a magazine, tore them out much smaller (the one on the left might need a bit more added, but I will worry about that later) than original and placed in the centre.  The Tim Holtz wildflowers I had in my stash from card classes taught previously and just could not throw away!  What else have I done today - painted the sky area more and generally dulled the paint I added at the top and between the trees to give the appearance of walking through the trees.  The stars/fairy lights light up the sky (I hope)! I have always had an interest in the vanishing point in paintings so let's see what tomorrow brings as we finish up our art journal page.  Thank you for looking, Margaret

For the next 3 days I am participating in Laly Mille online retreat - Art Journal Dream. At the end will be a completed double art journal page. Here is my Day 1 layers - more to be added in the coming days. Here is my process - I hope you get a sense of what the retreat is all from this starting point. I first selected the first 2 pages in my art journal - I usually move all around the place. I chose it because it had marks from previous entries down the centre line.  Laly's usually encourages writing for first layer - she uses marker pen I was not so brave I used pencil.  I am seriously thinking about travel to USA next year and so I wrote down some of my thoughts about this.  Don't worry they are covered up eventually.  In past workshops I have been reluctant to write and did move to putting a few words down but today more words than I have incorporated. The next layer was to take colouring medium of choice and create deeper colour at bottom of pages. I went with ...