The Documented Life Project Weeks 6 & 7

This week starts week 9 of The Documented Life Project. I am finished through week 7. Not too bad for someone who has a tendency toward multitasking with numerous projects! I feel no pressure when I fall behind on art projects as this is about enjoyment and relaxation and restoring energy. For me that all takes place in the process.

Week 6:

Week 7:

And then I played with more finger painted circles:

Playing with art is not only restorative, it's a good way to escape from crazy days. This endless winter of record breaking snow and cold is reeking havoc on everything. The streets around town are so marked by potholes it looks like a war zone, Between freezing, heavy snow, thawing and then heavy rain we have had frozen pipes, furnace problems, and a flooded building at work and a flooded basement and a roof leak at home. I need to escape a bit into art even if only for a few minutes at a time. 

Enjoy your week and find a few minutes to do whatever it is that brings you joy.

More Inspiration

The Internet and social media are wonderful venues for creative inspiration. Through blogs, Pinterest and art groups on Facebook the creative juices are sparked. One source of inspiration that I have found quite enjoyable has been online classes offered by artists who enjoy sharing their talents and creativity with others.

Inspired by Valerie Sjodin's classes: http://visualblessings.blogspot.com/

2014 Art Journal

The Documented Life Project offers inspiration in the form of a weekly challenge with examples from each of the five host artists. My most recent pages:

Collage 3

Week 4 pg 1

Week 4 pg 2

Week 5

Spending time in Scripture and immersing myself in Bible study is always a good source of creative inspiration for me.

We are in for another deep freeze this week and are just inches from breaking the record for snowiest season on record. I think right now I would really be inspired by spring. :)

One Little Word ~ January

A recap of my journey with my One Little Word (OLW 2014) for 2014 {BE} for the month of January. Focusing on this word is already having an impact on my perspective. This past month I've tried to just be still and know God and simply rest in that knowledge. Not always an easy task for one who is independent and leans toward doing things "her way". I selected a bird as my symbol for my word this year. The idea of the bird comes from a passage in Matthew (6:25-34) where Jesus speaks of how the birds do worry about their needs and the Father takes care of them. He says, "Are you not much more valuable than they?" (vs. 26) In The Message version it says that the birds are "careless in the care of God" and that is how I see this word "BE". So the birds help me remember to just "be" in His presence and care.

As I wrote earlier in the month, I am including my OLW 2014 art journaling in my Documented Life journal and I am also working on a collage a week for the year. My first collage of the year introduced my word.

Collage week 1: My OLW {BE}

My word' defined, why I chose it and intentions for the year.

My symbol for my word ~ a bird.

Collage week 2

Collage week 3

I'm only slightly behind as I have not finished my collage for week 4. I have enjoyed the insight that has come as I have prayed and journaled this month ~ so much more than I have shared here. I'm sure it will surface in time as I continue to use Ali Edwards' OLW prompts and challenges as a guide to help me stay focused on my word throughout the year.

Inspiration and Painting Circles Tutorial

Here it is, my first tutorial!

In my last post I wrote about the creative inspiration I get from seeing through creative eyes. Another way I get inspiration is through other artists ~ through their blogs and through taking classes.

Last week I followed a link on Pinterest to the blog of Connie at http://artfulplay.blogspot.com/. Connie's post was about the circles she painted that were inspired by the art of Roben-Marie Smith at www.robenmarie.com. I've taken some of Roben-Marie's classes and I love her use of circles on her art journal pages. Other artists I follow who use circles a lot are Julie Fei-Fan Balzer http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/ and Ronda Palazzari  http://rondapalazzari.typepad.com/helpmeronda/.

I love circles! I Stencil them, I use punched out ones, and I paint them. A sampling of a few of my past pages with circles:

So, after reading Connie's post I got in the mood to paint circles. I have found over time that I enjoy the results best when I paint circles with my fingers. Below are pages I made from last weeks "playing".
These circles were painted directly in my art journal.

Then I painted more and used them for my Documented Life Project challenge and pages.

After posting my pages in the Document Life Project Facebook group there was some interest in how I made my painted circles. So, giving credit where credit is due, inspired by Roben-Marie Smith and Connie at Artful Play and the many other artists I follow who love to use circles, I made a tutorial on my process for painting circles. Due to the length of it I made the tutorial on a separate page. You will find it in the links at the top of the blog.

I would love to see what you do with painted circles so I've attached a link-up below. Please share a link to your blog, Flickr page or Pinterest page and share what you have made using painted circles.