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 Quietly and More Deeply

When I got up this morning I discovered my 4 legged canine had peed on the kitchen floor. I must have turned over when my first alarm went off. We headed to the door into about 5 inches of snow. By the time it stopped today there was about 9-10 inches. I was going to take a picture but my camera was not charged. I am taking a break from showing you more Lifebook pictures today simply because........... I found a photo in my files from two years ago on this date that pretty much sums up how I am feeling these days. I'm not sure if it ever made it in to my many posts about my Smash Book Overhaul project, which was basically one of those once popular kind of scrapbooking/memory style books that I completely overhauled and made it my own. It only took me two years to complete. Anyway, I like this page and it felt good seeing it again this evening as I sat down to write a post. I am living more quietly and more deeply. I hope you had a peaceful day and are safe and warm. Thanks for stopping in. P.S. I found another snowfall photo I took in 2009 though we had more today.

Lifebook - Part 3

I am continuing on in my sharing of my Lifebook project with you. You can find parts 1 and 2 here and here I must confess I did not write down the names of all the teachers who presented lessons. In some cases I felt good about just being able to stay awake some evenings for the many videos that went with all of the lessons. I have no doubt a great deal of planning and hard work went in to all the recordings to present them to us. The next piece I am sharing had to do with people or positive enhancing connections. This was not one of my favorite pieces in terms of the outcome. I don't really like the colors I chose and the piece feels a bit unfinished, but I enjoyed the thought process behind it. My interpretation was to show some of the things or people that were/are positive reinforcements in my life............ one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, my best friend of more than 30 yrs, Patty, making art and my love of drawing houses. If I remember correctly, this was also a lesson on how you could alter a face from a magazine, because this face is not really my style. The next piece is not from Lifebook but I am including it in my book as it was done at the end of 2013. It's sort of a journal page and then I used my own collaged pieces of paper and again, showing my love of houses. The next one also, was not part of Lifebook but again, I included it as it was also done at the end of 2013. I think my intent here was to play with texture and stenciling. I did not have any molding paste or heavy gesso, and somewhere I got the idea of using joint compound which was much less expensive than heavy gesso or molding paste. And you know what? It worked. The circular pinkish/purplish circles are my stencil filled with joint compound paste. At the moment, I can't find the photo of that stencil but I will try to locate it at some point to show you. So, this piece is weighted... and a bit crackly, but so far it has not left a trail on the floor. I like the colors, layering and the texture. The last piece I am showing you today comes from artist Danielle Daniel (say that 10 times really fast) called Honoring Your Inner World. I kind of like this piece in that it was another drawing lesson. I finally did relax after I erased over and over again and put my hands together thanking the creative forces around me, that I was able to half way draw this character. Again, some layering and some of my own collage papers. I hope you are enjoying my pages. There's more to come. Thanks for visiting here.

Lifebook 2014 Continued

Yesterday I began to show you my final Lifebook project, which was a year long on line workshop full of a variety of artists, techniques and themes. I am showing you the work that I did. One of the earliest lessons was for us to decide what we wanted more of in the new year. I wanted more peace...........in my life and also the world. One of my favorite lessons was Tam's quirky Animals on a Totem Pole. This was also a drawing lesson, drawing animals in a quirky, whimsical style that represented the feelings/emotions we felt at that moment. So, at that moment, this is how the animals spoke to me or represented how I was feeling at that time. The elephant is the largest, strongest carrying all the weight and we all know that responsibility is a heavy load. The donkey, ass, burro is often a work animal. Hmm.. Guess that says it all. The cat is the relaxed, peaceful one, with not a care in the world. The ox is yet another work animal. And lastly, the bird on the very top is the lightest and can fly away and leave it all behind. This lesson was fun, playful and I got to experiment with expression and color with the neocolor caran d'ache water color crayons. You can see this page is an odd size. I think it was half of sheet of water color paper. Moving on...........Traci Bautista's lesson was also fun. I am drawn to her style of messy, grungy, graffiti style. She always uses an amazing color palette and encourages using found objects for making mark making. This was my response to her In the Moment lesson. So, there you have a few more. There's more to follow. Thanks for stopping in.

Lifebook 2014

Last year I gave myself a present by taking a year long on line workshop called Lifebook. Created by Tam Laporte, Lifebook was rich in a variety of teachers presenting a variety of styles, techniques, and themes. I did not do every single project as some quite simply did not resonate with me. But there were some that I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from. Last year I shared a few of those pieces as I was doing them, but I wanted to show you what it looked like in book form, or should I say my attempt at putting it in to a book. I am not a book binder, I haven't had the patience at times to attempt it, even though I know there are many ways to do it. I found my challenge was in having so many different sized papers made it hard to bind. I knew that I would not have the patience to coptic stitch this book together so thought binding it with binder rings would be ok but I was not happy with the end result. Perhaps down the road I can figure out how to better attach these pages together but for now, here are some of them. I had to find/make covers that were large enough for the largest papers. I ended up using the box that I had originally been storing my projects in as I completed them. You can see the hole I originally punched on the left side above the red ribbon and you can also see the holes in the upper side as I had changed my mind in the direction of how to open this book. Moving on. This was sort of a warm up exercise. We were to choose a word for the year. Originally my word was forgive, but I found it did not feel right to me, so I changed it to forward. Forgiveness or to forgive allows one to move forward. So this sort of guardian angel was there to remind me of that as I journeyed through the year. The next one was again, an exercise. The last one I'll show you today is from the wonderful Carla Sonheim's lesson where we made an envelope in which to put the imaginary creatures that sprung from paint blobs. More to show you tomorrow. Thanks for visiting.

Inktense Morning Pages

Those of you who have followed me for awhile know that I get up early in the morning- like 4:30am. This came about because this sweet boy has to pee at that time. I start the coffee brewing, run him out, feed him and give him his insulin, feed the cats, fix me a rice cake with peanut butter and my coffee and settle in on the couch for my writing of my Morning Pages. (Julia Cameron. The Artist Way etc.)Over the years of Morning Pages I have also learned I can create art on top of the pages. I have previously mentioned that I bought myself some of these for Christmas. I have to tell you these are my favorite art supply right now. The color IS intense. My Morning Pages writing is done on a cheapo composition notebook and the pages are pretty thin. I can easily throw down some gesso on top which not only covers up my writing but gives some strength to the pages. From there I lay some color down and can spread it quickly with a dry brush or slightly dampened. No. I did not do these all in one sitting. But I did lay down all of the background in one sitting, coming back on other mornings or evenings to add stuff. I think the fact that the color is so intense, I can use gesso as a paint to change the color, and that it dries so quickly is a plus when I am wanting something immediate- in a 30-45 minute segment, before I get myself started to start my work day. Yes, my fingers are messy with color before I head to the shower but it's such a nice way to start my day. For several weeks I have missed the partying going on over here where you can find a lot of pretty nice folks and some very cool art. I am also linking here where you will also have a good time. Thanks for visiting.