LIfebook 2014- Moving Forward

I've been showing you my work I did in a year long on line workshop called Lifebook. The brain child of Tam Laporte, incorporated a variety of artists sharing their techniques, styles and various lessons. I did not complete all of them simply because of time and my choosing. The three I want to show you in this post are 3 of my favorites. As I look back at my work I can see growth, some bravery in simply doing, being present, showing up. This included making trips to the refrigerator one afternoon, pulling out fresh vegetables and taking them back to the studio to use as mark making tools as suggested by the wonderful Flora Bowley. I am at the very least, smitten with her artwork. This is my work as inspired by Flora Bowley's lesson called Intuitive Painting. Celery stumps and mushrooms make for interesting stamps. The next one was result of the wonderful Jennibellie who I've been following for years. I was once a guest of her "Tell All Tuesday" where she interviews people about their art, how they arrived at that point etc. She still features that on her posts today. You can read it here This was the result of her lesson. And lastly based on Alena Hennessy's lesson is my Moving Forward. I hope you enjoyed looking at my pages. I am noticing a distinct color palette in all three of these pieces. I am linking this to the party tonight. Thanks for visiting. *** Thank you Sheila for pointing out to me that there were only two pieces showing. Now I know how tired I was last night when posting. The third one has been added.

More Playing with Food and Other Stuff

Last week I told you about the Lifebook lesson with Flora Bowley who encouraged us to find different things for mark making or stamping. I showed you this. Although you cannot tell from looking at this, it began with marking making with various pieces of produce. After I went grocery shopping on Saturday, I took a potato and cut it up into various shapes and put it to paper. I forgot to photograph all of them but did get one to show you. Ok. So, it's not that exciting but it was kind of fun. I forgot to buy celery so I could use the bottom of the stalk to make that cool flower print. Saturday morning I was at my local arts and craft store (AC Moore) with two fun women. We had decided to take a break from art journaling and played with making prints on the gelli plate with the deli paper. This was in preparation for decorating Christmas ornaments. I really don't enjoy it when it seems anything having to do with Christmas is pushed upon us earlier and earlier every year, however,I think if you are making things, that's entirely different. Handmade things take more time and thought. Some ornaments were cut out of two pieces of card stock, glued together and decorated. Here's another plastic one that's getting collaged. And here are a few others that I made back in the summer time while watching Netflix in the evening. I haven't yet found the motivation to paint my pumpkins this year but maybe I still will. Are you creating holiday or seasonal things right now? Thanks for visiting here.

Painting with Food

On Monday when I was off from work I sat down with Flora Bowley's Brave Intuitive Painting lesson on Lifebook. I am blown away by this artist and one day would like to take one of her live workshops or one of her online classes. She had me(us) looking in the refrigerator for things to use as stamps. The best I could come up with was some mushrooms, some celery stalks, some cucumber slices and some onion. I wished I'd had some potatoes to cut in to sections or carve some stamps out of and I wished I hadn't thrown the bottom core part of the celery away because it would have made a cool flower image stamp like Flora did. I found it a bit challenging as my vegies were super slippery once I dabbed them in to the paint, but some of these made some pretty cool marks. She suggested we work on two pages at a time, one with only cool colors and one with warm colors. I think I can say I finished one of them. Here it is along with a couple of close ups. No paint brushes were used. Only fingers. I used a credit card and the end of the paint brush for mark making. I'm sorry I did not remember to take photos in the beginning with my veggies, and as it turned out, much of the mark making was blended or covered up. I like the color and I like the layers. I like that you can see through them in some parts.I like it better now after not looking at it for several days. I had no plan or outcome and that was the point. It really was intuitive and it was a lot of fun. Do you create art in this manner? Intuitively? Thanks for stopping in.