Superbowl 2013: Daily Art Journal Page

Hello everyone! What's going on? Hopefully you've all been doing what you enjoy over the weekend, whether that be art or something else. I personally have been working on a few art journaling pages, and have been watching a few of my favorite shows. I finally got Season 7 of Doctor Who (the first five episodes) from the library, and I watched the first two today. I love it so far. That is one amazing show. 

Anyways. I just got around to making a Superbowl page in my art journal, even though I've been considering doing it for quite some time. I'm not really sure what've been holding me back for this long, but I'm glad that I did. 

Basically, I just went with the colors of the Ravens, as they were the team that won. If the 49ers would have won, then I would have gone with their colors. Eventually I'm going to add some journaling to this page as well. The funny thing is that I didn't even watch the Superbowl game. I was too busy playing basketball and video games with my guy friends. Which made me think that it was comical that  I even decided to make a page for the event. However, as I felt it was a major event, and something that happened in my life, I needed to document it. If I would have been keeping a regular journal, I would have written it down in there. Why not in my art journal as well.

I will also say that I have another page/spread planned for doing on what I ACTUALLY did for the Superbowl. ;)

Here's just a bit more of a close up of the detail in the layers of this page. At first, I was having a lot of difficulty with the colors, as they kept getting muddled. As purple is made up of red and blue, when I added the yellow/gold color, I would get brown, since the 3 primary colors were getting mixed together. However, I eventually managed to pull it off, after much layering and patience. 

It's certainly not my favorite page in the world, but I can definitely cope. 

Thanks for visiting guys, and I'll talk at you later!

ICAD Update: Cards 50 - 51

Hey guys! What's going on? I'm here with a couple of ICAD cards for you guys today, and I hope you enjoy. They're really just some more zentangling ICADs that I was working on as part of a "series" of sorts. I wanted to try out my new papermate pens on something (I got 4 new colors) but I didn't know what. So I decided to do something with my ICAD cards. I had done the zentangling before, but not in color. So I decide to try it. This green one is from a couple of days ago.

This purple one was from just yesterday. I actually really love the way that this turned out. The thing with zentangling, at least for me, is that I will often times run out of patterns to use on the cards themselves. I just can't think of any more. It's a rather difficult dilemma. I know that I could simply go online and search google for some ideas, coming up with literally thousands of patterns in the process. However, when I'm right in the middle of something, I find it rather difficult to do so. To tear away from the work that I am doing right at that moment. So maybe, not that I'm really thinking about it, what I should really do is to look ahead of time, before I start my doodling. Maybe it'll help a little. Maybe it'll generate some more ideas. Maybe.

Anyways. That's all I have for you guys today; I'm considering popping in tomorrow with a tutorial for all of you. We'll see. We will see. See you then!

Color Challenge #3 Reveal!

Hey guys! I'm back with you guys again today, and this time I have a color challenge reveal for you guys! This was the date that Barbara, Mavis and I had decided upon to do for the reveal, and I finally get to share with you guys all of the fun art that I've been working on this past 10 days!! And I'm excited to do so! First, let's reveal the colors. Although you probably already saw the photo that I put above, I'll tell you the colors anyways. And they are pale blue, vermillion and purple. ALSO. As I said when I first revealed that I was going to be doing another challenge with Barbara (and I'm glad I did; she was a pleasure to work with as always) I mentioned that there was going to be a twist for this challenge. And that was the use of word prompts in the work. 

Barbara and I came up with the colors and words; she crowd sourced two colors (vermillion and purple), and then added the word prompt life. I added the pale blue color and the words energy and passion. We decided that we somehow needed to incorporate these words into our work, and I found this a wonderful challenge to try in comparison to some of the things that I've been doing lately. All three of the projects that I did for this challenge were art journal pages of one kind or another, but I'll focus more on what journal they were done in when I get to them.

The first page that I would like to share with you guys today is this art journal page that I decided to do in my 5,000 Question Survey journal. In case you aren't really a follower of my blog, the 5,000 Question Survey is a survey that was put together for people who were looking for journaling prompts to work on in private or in public; it really depended purely on the person. Well, I saw those prompts, and I saw art journals. Art journals all the way. And from there, this journal was born. I've probably done about 20 pages, give or take 2 or 3. The question was kind of a deep one, in comparison to some of the others. It prompted me to answer the question; "What is the truest thing that you know?"

Well. That one took a lot of thought, let me tell you. At first, it didn't make sense at all, since my brain, which so yearns for accuracy kept telling me that one thing cannot be any more true than another. Of course, I believe now that I was over thinking the whole question, but, after some time, I realized that one of the word prompts; life; actually went very well with this question. Though I still don't believe that life is the "truest" thing that I know, it is true, never the less.

Life is one thing in this world that cannot be denied, no matter how hard one might try. It is something that is always here, but people very rarely take the time to appreciate it. I know that I don't. Not as often as I should. But maybe, after working through these thoughts on this journal page, I will now.

The next page that I want to share with you is actually the facing page to the previous one that I shared with you. I love the way that this page turned out. It seems that every time I do a girl in one of my journals, in this way, I always like it. Always. I haven't done one yet that I didn't like. And, as I've said before, this is so much more my style than a lot of other ones that I've done in the past. As soon as I knew that I was going to be doing another color challenge, I knew that I wanted to do another girl. I've been doing so many of these lately, that it's starting to get ridiculous. But I love them so much that I find it difficult to resist. Honestly. Soon, my journals are going to be filled with these girls, and there's not going to be a thing that I can do about it. 

I love everything about this girl though. She's just too cool for words. In my opinion at least. I love her hair; the brightness of it is amazing. I think I'm going to have to do this color of hair again sometime. 

And her eyes. Purple eyes aren't something that I would have originally done; this challenge was destined to push me beyond my limits. Maybe sometime I'll try making one of these girls with her hands at her side; not hiding them behind her back, since I don't know how to make them. ;)

And then, just before I move on, I would like to share with you a picture of the two pages side by side in my journal. I love how they match/coordinate without being too matchy. That's the main thing I was worrying about when I made these two pages side by side. But I like the way that it turned out.

Now, the last page that I have to share with you guys today is actually the first page in the envelope journal that I shared with you guys the other day. I had been working in this in little bits for a while now; it seems to me that this little journal has sort of been soaking up the excess bits of my journal making endeavors for the past week or so. I always have a bunch of paint left over when working on art journal pages, and always want to do stuff with them. So far, these pages have all been created with these created leftovers. There are more, but that's for another day. Plus, this is the only one that's honestly finished so far.

Here's a bit of a close up of the title. I've been thinking about carving some letter stamps as of late, but I've been putting it off. These stamps were foam stamps that I've had for a while now, and I love to use them on my pages. So that's that.

My color challenge reveal.

Thanks so much for visiting me today, and make sure to visit Barbara and Mavis to check out their color challenge reveals as well! Also, Beth participated with us. Check her post out as well!

Color Challenge #2 Reveal: Barbara

Hey everybody! I'm here with my first post of the day. I may have another one for you guys coming up later tonight, with the rest of my art (My ICAD, 30-30-30 Challenge, and In The Sun post). But for right now, what I have for you guys is my color challenge REVEAL!! I've been working on this challenge pretty much every day since I announced it here, and have really enjoyed it. The colors were lime, light purple, red, pale yellow, and white. Barbara and I decided to do this in a bit of a larger scale than I did last time with Dede. With that challenge, we gave ourselves a week to create one art journal page. And that was cool. But for this challenge, we gave ourselves two weeks to complete five projects. It was a little more time consuming, but I love the results! So let's get on with it!

The first project is a page in my art journal. This is my big, fat art journal with the black cover and green spine. I don't know if I've ever put a picture on here of just the journal, not the pages inside of it. Maybe I should think about doing that. And perhaps a flip would be in order. That way you guys can see about how much I have left to do before the journal itself is done.

Anyways, focusing more in on the journal page itself, let's look at a close up of the page. You can probably see that in the very back of the page is a background that was composed solely up of dictionary paper that I tore up and then collaged down to the background in all different directions using Elmer's School Glue. It actually works just as well as Mod Podge from what I've done so far. Which I think is impressive. Though it could just be me. Anyways, with this page, I actually decided to blend the concept of this page with another challenge. A Year In the Life of An Art Journal. I really wanted to do all of the prompts for this part of the challenge, but I simply ran out of time in the month. That's okay though. There's always next month. :)

And here you can probably see the stamping a bit better. I used my circle stencil, along with 3 found stamps to create these circles. Something that I find popping up again and again in my work is circles. Whether it be deep inside of the layers of a page, the main focus of a page or accents ON a page, it seems that everything that I make these days has at least one circle on it. And if I don't want to use circles, it takes quite a bit to pull myself away from them. It's crazy. However, I have learned to accept it for what it is. Part of my art. And I'm not going to try and change that.

Here is the second project that I did for this challenge. I decided upon a spread for this portion of the challenge, and tried to do a portrait. I don't like it as much as some of the other portraits that I have done in the past, but I believe that to have something to do with my limited color pallet. I couldn't deviate too much from the colors Barbara and I had picked together, so I just went with what I knew would most likely work. However, this did inspire me to work more on my portraits, as this is certainly not my favorite. So I guess it was kind of a win-win situation anyways.

Also, just a question. Does this background look familiar to you guys at all? :) I slipped you guys a sneak peek a few days ago, I just didn't tell you. If you are still wondering where it is, you can click here to see. :)

One of the other projects that I decided upon was a series of ATC's. I decided to count this as a single project, instead of three. I suppose I could have done it either way, but I had some other ideas that I had floating around in my head, so I decided to go with those as well. So I created these three ATCs, simultaneously, as part of a series. They are not identical, but they go together. I would LOVE to trade these! One of my goals for my DayZero Project is to trade 101 ATCS. I am currently at 0. Even though this is only three, it'd be cool to have a few at least.

Here's a bit of a close up of the first ATC. It is titled "TAKE ME TO THE LAND OF JAZZ." As you can see.

Here is the second ATC.

And here is the third. They are composed of many layers of media on top of one another.

Here is the fourth project I came up with for this challenge. I decided to do a mini collage; it measures 6" on each side. I made most of the papers that this collage was composed of as well. The only one that I didn't make was the red grid with the lime circles showing through it. I painted the papers specifically for this challenge, and I still have a whole bunch left over. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with them, but it could be one of many things. Something that I love about this collage though, is all of the little details.

For example, this layered circle that was composed up of multiple layers of paper and paint on top of one another. I love the way it turned out, and is was so much fun to work on. Plus, I love the way the stamped title looks when it was layered with the circle.

Here's another part that I love. I laid down a stripe of lime green paint down onto the page, then punched circles out of the red graph paper. Then I glued it on top of the green. Then, of course, I added the red to the green, and the layer of red stamping along the side. And the lettering. Can't forget that.

Finally, we have the red circles that I added to very bottom to accent the pale yellow and purple background. I tried to go without putting something in every spot, but I just didn't like the way that it looked. So I filled it up. And I quite like the way that it turned out.

And then, for my fifth and final project for this challenge, I have a little mini "canvas". If you follow me on twitter, you might have seen this picture. I was giving you TWO sneak peeks. ;) I wanted to see if anyone would notice, and then put two and two together. Anyways. I was greatly inspired to create this "canvas" by this post. And, the reason that canvas is in quotes, is because it's not actually a canvas. It's a box. A little cardboard box.

You can see that a little bit better here. It has a bit more depth to it than normal canvas. But I really like the way that this one turned out for me. I used pink words on this, instead of one of the colors, but only because I couldn't find any that matched. And this just looked good.

And THAT my friends; that was my color challenge reveal! I hope that you guys enjoyed it! Make sure to check back later for another post. :)

"Memories" and ICAD #3": Collage

Hey guys! I'm back with yet another page in my journal today. Today's prompt asked me if my life generally got better, worse, or stayed the same. As I was thinking over this very important prompt, I realized something. I think that even though I have had some bad events in my lifetime, I think that my life generally gets better and better. And I realized that was because I tend to look on the bright side of things. When I have a good moment in a day, I add that memory to my brain. And sometimes I'll look back at the day and laugh. At all of the extremely funny things that occur during the day. Funny things that happen, funny things that people say; just adding a new story to tell.

I have decided to allow these small moments in my day to build. I still think about things that happened MONTHS ago. Even years. Because I realize that these things are important. That they are the things that make me happy. At least a part of it.

So that was the thought process behind the page. So now let's go into another part of it; the actual page itself. I decided to go with a purple for this page today, and it actually decided that it wanted to work in my favor. It seems that every time I decide that I want to make my page in a certain color, it evolves into something COMPLETELY different. And I mean completely. I don't even remember what I was trying to do half the time. But this one did work out.

I worked with some more Traci Bautista inspired doodles in the background; you can kind of see them a little bit in this picture here. There's a type of border piece along the left side, and a flower in the upper right. I really like the way these pieces look when they are incorporated into my layers; that's what I love about art journaling. You can literally take tiny pieces from somebody's style and make it your own. Use it with your own style. Make your own little collection of styles. And use it in a new and creative way.

A part of MY personal style that I really seemed to have grown attached to (I think tomorrow I'll try something different) is the cut out letter titles. I LOVE these things. With a lot of my being. It's really strange. But I find myself attracted to the randomness of them; the unique quality, and the knowing that no one can really ever copy it piece for piece. It's just cool. And that's something that I think everybody needs to do. Find a few things that they really think represent THEM as an artist, and find other things that they think do the same. Create their own style, rather than copy others. Even though I realize that I am guilty of that on occasions.

And now, last, but certainly not least, I have your daily ICAD. Love this one today. It seems so simple, but I just love the unequal quality of it all. Nothing really quite lines up the way it "should". And I like that. The prompt that I used today was "collage". This one was super easy, and I think my other two cards could also qualify under this category. But that's okay. That's the prompt I was INSPIRED by today. :) 

I'm going to go now, but I'll speak to all of you tomorrow! Goodbye! 

Graphic Art Journal Page

Today I've got another unfinished page for you guys. This happens all the time, I know, but I'm just hoping that you guys are liking it too. :) I just like sharing. This page is a very graphic type of page, which is very different than most other pages that I have done in the past. Normally, I do a bunch of layers, which will eventually end up looking pretty cool. But this was inspired by a class on 21 Secrets, which I enjoyed while it was still alive. Now that one is dead and I'm being forced to work from the PDFs. :) Actually, I don't care as much as I'm trying to make it sound. I think that it's fun, and forces me to use my imagination more than it would otherwise. Also, the colors of this page are a bit different than what I am used to working with. I enjoy using pinks and purples on occasion, but it seems like I'm using them more and more lately because that's what I have left. Yeah. That's the way I roll. Anyways, because it's getting kind of late, I think I'm gonna go. I know that I don't have that much for you today, but I'm hoping to come back tomorrow with a tutorial. We'll see. We will see.

Art Journal Prompt Page

Hey guys! I'm back here with you guys today with a page that I was working on today. I started another journal (I know, again. I need to stop that. But I'm out of blank journals now, so that should help) a few days ago, and I'm filling it using the questions from the 5,000 question survey as prompts. I think that it's really cool, and I'm really enjoying the process. This is something I just started today, and I love the way it looks. I'm not sure if it's done yet or not. I think I'll add a title and some journaling yet. This is the fourth page in the journal. I worked on this for about an hour today, and already I'm this far. :) I think it's pretty cool.

I kind of like the color combination, even though I didn't have any type of idea for the page when I started it. It just sort of evolved on it's own. It's cool. I don't really have all that much to tell you today, but I just wanted to share this one page with you. And I'll see you tomorrow. :)

Stenciling and Experimentation

Hey guys! I'm back here with all of you once again, and this time with yet another journal page that I worked on today. I did quite a bit of journaling today, even though I spent about four hours sorting through all of my stuff and tidying up my space. I spent a lot of time cleaning my stuff and messing around with techniques as I went along. That's normally how I clean. I'll be sorting through a lot of stuff, and all of a sudden I'll come across some random thing that I really like. And then I'll be forced by myself to play with it. I'll mess around with that for about 5 minutes, then get back to cleaning. Above is pretty much the only page I was working on today. Adding on layers. I started with a layer of journaling in Sharpie, which I seem to be doing a lot of lately, and then I put on a thin coat of gesso.

I followed that layer with some Portfolio watercolor crayons; I drew a bunch of swirls over the whole page, and then I wet it down with a brush and spread it over the whole page. I really was liking the way it was turning out, and so I decided to keep a few of swirls only partially saturated. So in some places you can see a bit of a swirl here and there. :) Over top of that I ended up taking some dark blue dye ink and stamping a whole layer of a handmade triangle stamp I made with an exacto knife and a cheap eraser.

Finally, I finished off the page with a bunch of cute little stenciled flowers in white. I made the stencil myself with my cricut. It's pretty small, but I just randomly stenciled them in, not really caring much about where they fell. Underneath the first layer that I described in this post, there were a bunch of other layers too. A base layer of paint, some washi tape, a couple layers of stamp and painting, a layer or two of tissue paper; all below the journaling. :) So you can see how many layers I use in a single page. It's defiantly not just a couple. That's my style. I've been developing my style more and more lately; trying out different techniques by different artists, and incorporating them into my PERSONAL style. As you have probably seen from the last couple of posts, I've been experimenting with stencils in my journal. I love using them and they're so fun! So the only way to learn is to experiment. :) See you guys tomorrow!!