Create

The first theme for Bernice Hopper's The Art of Practising Gratitude challenge is create. Yesterday I did exactly that. I spent the day making background pages for my new altered book binder journal, I painted some paper, and I tried a few new techniques that Bernice introduced.

Bernice introduced us to two new techniques with a video on her challenge blog: adding texture and design to watercolor with salt and plastic wrap. Here is the plastic wrap technique result:

I like the result of the different lines and designs that result when the paint dries under the plastic wrap. I added some torn painted paper and some day this background may grow up to be an art journal page!

The salt technique was another story:

I used the salt technique on the background of the page I made for the challenge. The salt effect doesn't show up too much and the texture it left on the page after I brushed the salt off made it a bit difficult to write on.

Bernice provided us with the verse from Ephesians to spark our creativity and then gave us some questions to journal about: What does creativity mean to me? What am I thankful for in the creative areas of my life? I journaled about these questions on my page. The one I didn't have enough room for was, How do you express your creativity? I express my creativity through photography, decorating, art journaling, mixed media art, making journals, doing anything that involves color, and even through Bible study. Creating is a spiritual practice for me and one of the ways that helps me stay connected to God.

A day spent playing with paint and paper is a day spent being creative and experimenting. A lot of the papers I paint may never make it into my art, but I learn so much when I play, and playing with art energizes me and sparks new creativity. Some of the background pages form my playtime yesterday:

And one more art journal page:

I found this quote online from a book called The Artisan Soul by Erwin McManus. I have read his work before and was inspired by it, so I ordered the book and it should arrive today. Looking forward to being inspired in my faith and my art!

What inspires you to create?

You can visit Bernice's challenge blog by clicking the link to the right.

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.

Contemplation...again

You know how it is; you start to study or read about something and it pops up everywhere. Everything I read now-a-days seems to have a thread about contemplation running through it. But then, I guess that the topics I've been reading about and the authors I've been reading have a bent toward the contemplative ~ solitude and Sabbath-keeping, rhythms of life, prayer, Henri Nouwen, Ruth Haley Barton, practicing being in God's presence, Greg Boyd, Richard Foster, hospitality ~ these all carry similar threads. So they weave together in my mind and in my heart and make their way onto the pages of my art journals.

I lean so much more toward solitude now than when I was younger. Sometimes too much so, and I have to be gently reminded by God that He made me to be in community also. Since learning that the way I have kept my written journals in the past is actually a known practice called "commonplacing", I find I want to put more and more of what I'm reading on the pages of my art journals. (See previous blog post here: Commonplace )

It's been a nice long weekend. I've spent good time in solitude, reading and making art. I've spent time with my husband watching movies. And later today and tomorrow I will enjoy time in community at a birthday party and then an adoption celebration. Overall a very good weekend. And also the perfect calm I need before the storm of crazy busyness over the next three weeks. You can't work in a church and with kids and partner in ministry to a school and not be busy at Christmastime! So, there will be limited art time and limited blog time in the weeks ahead, but I will make bits and pieces of time for solitude and contemplation to keep my heart and soul connected to Him who provides all that we need. :)

From the pages of the books I'm reading:

The books:

Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton

Repenting of Religion by Gregory Boyd

Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen

Experiment

"It is only through failure and through experiment that we learn and grow."

~Isaac Stern

I love to experiment with different art  forms and supplies. Nothing gets my creative juices flowing better than "play time". Over the past week in the bits and pieces of time I've managed to scrape up I have played with spray inks, paint, circle stencils and collage. Sometimes, especially when I am busy, and thus tired and brain-dead, this is all I do ~ play with paint, glue down paper, and make background pages in my journals or painted pages to use in collage.

In addition to playing with paint, ink and paper, I have wanted to learn how to use my camera in manual mode. So, the pictures I am posting of my inky, painty play were done in manual mode at a slow film speed (ISO). 

My observations:

• I love circles!
• The ink/paint play created some great background pages.
• The open circle ~ negative side of the stencil ~ happened when I sprayed the stencil with water and then laid paper over it. I love the effect left by the build up of paint and ink on the stencil.
• As far as my photography in manual mode goes ~ I need to work on better focus so that the photos are crisper. But overall I'm pleased with my first attempt.

"With experimentation comes surprise and discovery."

Kim Lee Kho

Last but not least, a recent art journal page:

Painty, inky fingers make me happy. :) 

May you find time to experiment and play with whatever it is that stirs your creative juices. I find it is another way of finding rest. Peace to you from me.

A Little Mixed Media Lesson

I learned a few tips for making mixed media art background pages from the wonderfully talented Roben-Marie Smith. (She can be found here: http://www.robenmarie.com) I have long admired her art journal pages and had an opportunity to take an online workshop from her as a part of a larger course called 21 Secrets.
My background pages from the workshop cut down to 7x9 for my current art journal:

Roben-Marie's next tip was to scan the full pages on your printer in order to cut up and

use for elements on future projects. Such a simple tip, but it was so cool! My scanned pages below:

We'll see what I create with the background pages and the scanned pages in the weeks ahead! On a side note, my lenses on my DSLR camera is broken so I am taking pictures of my art on my phone and then processing them in Photoshop Elements. Their not quite as good as the pictures from my camera, but it is amazing how well the Smartphone cameras take pictures. Amazing technology!

Your True Self

I like true self/false self language. It is the language of spiritual transformation. It is the language of Jesus and of the apostle Paul:

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self (the false self), which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self (the true self), created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:22--24 emphasis mine.

"...since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." Colossians 3:9b-10

"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may  live a new life.....For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin" Romans 6:4, 6

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.' Luke 9:23-24

The more we embrace who we are in Christ and live out of that, the more we become our true the self. The person we were created to be. The person God breathed into existence and formed in Christ. There is such a freedom in becoming this person, though the road is rough, we must go through death ~ death of our false self. Yet that false self feels so much like who we really are that it is often confused with "the real me". Each time I get a new pair of glasses with a new prescription I realize that I have not really been seeing clearly. I thought I was, but then that new set of lenses which makes what I see much clearer, reminds me that I had not been seeing as clear after-all. So it is with our false self. We think this is who we are, but then as we grow in Christ-likeness we begin to become the person we were really created by God to be. And the true self emerges and grows and we begin to see clearly that what we thought was real, was actually false. Our false self is made up of the lies we we believed about ourselves; it is made up of the person we thought we were supposed to be in order to be loved, to be liked, to be valued, to cope. It is made up of the coping mechanisms and defenses we created in order to survive. But all those things do not make up who we are in Christ. They do not make up who we are as a child of God, fully loved and valued for who we are ~ His beloved child. We are called in Scripture to live more and more out of our true self. Spiritual transformation comes as we yield to God and position ourselves in His presence to be changed. Positioning is experimenting with and finding those spiritual disciplines or practices which help us draw close to God and allow our hearts to be examined and reformed by Him. Art journaling as become one of those practices for me, along with Bible study, writing in my journal, reading, solitude, and connecting with kids and nature.

Well, this is not the post I had intended to write today, but it is the one that was revealed as I sat down and typed. It is the message that God drew out of me today.

A little more art:

A Little Art

Just posting some art journal pages today. I'm very ready for a long weekend. We're cooking out tomorrow and hanging out with kids. Saturday we're off to an Indians game in Cleveland.

Enjoy your holiday weekend! May you fill it with the people and things you enjoy.

Making Books

I like making books. Altered books and three ring binder books and mini travel books. I like making books A LOT! In fact, so much so that I don't necessarily finish the books that I begin ...hmmmm, finishing what I begin ...that's a topic for another post! Anyway, back to making books ...
I have multiple art journal books that I work in at the same time. I think, for me, there are two main reasons that I work in multiple journals: 

1.) I usually have so many things  running around in my head and for some reason I feel the need to categorize them into themes or topics. Thus, multiple journals. I have one for making art and recording thoughts about my "One Word" for the year ~ my Gratitude Journal.  

I have another where I am making art for prompts from The Art Journaler community that I belong to, as well as some random journaling about my journey of self-discovery. I found a book appropriately named "The Examined Life"

2.) I find that I enjoy working in different sizes of journals. My Gratitude journal is 6x9 landscape. The Examined Life altered book is 5x8. When I made my Reverb 2012 album I had found a perfect little book that was 4x7 and I loved the smaller pages.

So I found another small book and started another art journal in it for this year. This one is 4.5x7. So far it just contains random art journal pages.

But probably my favorite size; the one I keep returning to is 7x9. I have done quite a few of this size:

2011 Advent Art Journal

SLJ Class Art Journal

Montana Road Trip from 2011

Because it's my favorite size to work in I have a new 7x9 art journal book in progress.

The beginning of the cover. The watercolor paper I buy has wonderfully heavy cardboard/chipboard back pages. I cut one down for the cover of my new 7x9 art journal binder, then sprayed on some inks and splattered on paint on a piece of patterned card stock. I glued it on the chipboard cover and will decorate it as I am inspired.

Like I said, I like making books and I love spending time filling them with the musings of my heart, one art journal page at a time. It keeps me sane!