Stamps Ahead

Have you heard of the 7 Coloured Earth in Mauritius?  Here is my art journal page inspired by this area It so happens that the owner of Hillbilly Shenanigans and her friend are on a world cruise that called into Mauritius recently.  They took photos of their visit to the location.  They are documenting their travels and setting small challenges along the way.  This challenge was to be inspired by one of their photos of this truly amazing area in Mauritius. The earth is mainly different types of red, gold, browns and purples. For my art journal page, I first took a sheet of heavy white card stock and applied several Paper Artsy Paints with a spatula.  I allowed this to dry and then using a now discontinued Kaszazz stamp with black archival ink randomly.  I DID NOT LIKE IT!!! The inner critic was saying throw it away and start again!  Well, I nearly did and then I realised I still had punches on my desk from some recent creating and decided to punch squa...

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 ...

For Christmas I was given some money so I registered for Laly Mille's New Beginnings course on her website , and each year she selects a 'word of the year' and she suggested that we join her in selecting our own word of the year. Mine is DISCOVER. I have never been one who went in for this in past however I have found since doing Laly's on-line classes that I have expanded my horizons and put the inner critic to sleep!!! This is a single art journal page I created. I found the selection of my word did not come easy. I recently ordered several items from Natalie May Scrapbooking including the Scrap FX stencil I have used on my art journal page and this I felt this was the word that was 'calling' me, although I did not buy it for this purpose. Serendipity!  I also purchased Tim Holtz idea-ology Chit Chat stickers and I selected several I thought would help me on my 'discover ' journey this year.  I also used more pastel colours that I usually would use - s...

Laly Mille has a free art journal workshop over on her blog - Poetic Secrets - using images from magazines and words from books and/or magazines.  Here is what I came up with  The quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a favourite and it was on the front of an old card.  I cut out the "W" and "R" and applied over original bright colours.   There is a secret opening - lift this flap and discover more I love the image of the drawers from a magazine - I loved that it fitted in with "compared to what is in us".   A little bit of whimsy with the bird and little insect also from a card front. This is what Laly had to say about her process  "Storytelling might be the most magical part of the creative process, especially in an art journal. So, what if we invited words to weave themselves into our art? What if it sparked inspiration for a page or a painting? Let's invite serendipity and watch the story unfold! In this intuitive activity, I share my favourite pr...

Continuing on from my last post I have made a card for my aunt for her 90th in July. But, something else happened that made me happy. First here is her card As I watercolouring this card I looked at the paper I was working on and loved the marks that my painting made.  Into my art journal it went, after a spray of the green glimmer mist I used on the card.   I had a few flowers left over, and as I was in 'art journal mode' added them to a previous page I had used whilst using my gel plate. Again a spray of green glimmer mist. I also used the negative of the die and using paint added the spray flowers.  Some Kaszazz sticker words added also. Here are the 2 side by side in my art journal.   I love these happy surprises and I hope you do also. Thank you for looking, Margaret Crafting in the time of coronavirus.

This weekend, I am participating in challenges over at Scrappingclearly Virtual Cyber Crop.  Here is an art journal page I created for Challenge 1:  The challenge was to use the Maya Angelou quote, on my page: For my background I: took a page from an old dictionary, tore in half and applied to my page with Ranger Mat Medium. after allowing it to dry (well with the help of heat gun) I then applied Dylusion Paints - polished jade and peony blush with an ink blending tool randomly a baby wipe then applied to soften the colour and also to wipe over a circle stencil to obtain small circles and bring out some of the dictionary text.  Allowed to dry again. using Kaisercraft Designer Template and texture paste applied that to bottom left of my page. I printed out the quote and then coloured up with the paints, cut and then applied to page with a black mount.  The white dots were created using a correction pen. I then added larger circles to my page and then d...

I am having a few days relaxation in Forster, NSW. My sister is here also and she has headed up to Grafton overnight to visit friends.  I have taken this time away to finally get a few pages done in my art journal. Here they are: I came up with limited supplies - Ranger Distress Inks, Dyan Reaveley stamps and stencils, and a box of coloured pencils.  They all got a good use on these pages. I am happy with the results. My sister was intriqued as I created and as a result she started her art journal...a small travel journal....inspired by my first page above and other techniques that I showed her. My advice to anyone thinking of starting an art journal.....just do it!   Colour outside the line, mix colours, don't worry, have fun. Thank you for looking, Margaret. 🤗🤗🤗

Last night Melissa Kennedy of Unmistakable Creations held a class called Perfectly Incomplete.  Now Melissa lives in Victoria and I live in New South Wales - so I decided to work on my own incomplete masterpiece at home.  Here is what I did and further explanation follows this photo, and it is somewhat a long post: Class description - play with mixed media products you may not use. For those doing a page for an art journal we will be focusing on a theme for a bit - Accepting ourselves as we are faults and all and BEING UNMISTAKEABLE CREATIONS as well as hopefully creating some.  Bring along a QUOTE that means something to YOU based on the song Masterpiece by Jessie J.    I chose the words "Got a way to go, but it's worth the wait."  Google the song to see the full lyrics. I decided to go with an art journal - something I have seen quite a lot of on the internet etc, and never had the 'guts' to start one.  Here is what I started with Dyl...