De-stressing and Distressing!

I've come to a conclusion this week....and my feelings were re-affirmed by a friend I took a workshop with quite a few years ago now...taking classes stresses me out!  She was feeling the same way.  Perhaps having a weekly challenge is too much.  And then there's the steady stream of seeing the photos of the art others in the challenge have done...now that's intimidating.

I thought if I got on board from the get-go with the new Documented Life Project for 2015, that I would be excited and create some great art.  What I've discovered is that the stress starts to build waiting for the weekly "prompt" on Saturday morning...and then trying to get the art done between other activities on my weekend...like grocery shopping, shoveling snow and ....well you know how the weekends go if you're a working person.  That being said....I spent a snowy day today working on some samples of prayer flags as I will be showing others how to make them and I've never actually made one myself!  I did have fun.  The flags will be created by everyone from children to seniors and not everyone feels they are "artsy"....but I hope to get lots of people on board.  I had fun doing this today and I made mistakes in the process, so it's good to figure some of those things out before you show others.  Here are my two samples:

Prayer Flag

Acrylics, Beads, Buttons, Felt

This is the 1st one I made.  I started with just a pencil sketch.

I know it's hard to see the lines, but I had to figure out my layout.  I think this would be easy for anyone to do and adapt to their own design.  

I started to lay in some color. I painted over the trees because I knew it would be easier to add them later with a black Sharpie. Same with the word PROTECT at the bottom.  And I like the word Family in the rooftop window. I did "Family" different in the sketch than in the finished piece.  I added beads to the trees and a button doorknob just to illustrate some of the things everyone could do and add to their work.

Here is the other flag:

Stencil, Inks, Acrylics, Paint Pens

on Muslin, backed with Batik print

Painting on muslin is not difficult as long as you iron it to freezer paper first.  That way it stays firm and smooth.  I used a stencil for the tree with an ink spray.  I used an ink dropper in different colors for the circles. The green at the bottom I painted with acrylics.  The piece in the middle of the bottom is a separate piece of muslin I stitched on.  I drizzled inks on this piece as well.

On one of the branches, very small, you can see I wrote the word "joy".  This was so much fun!  In a way, I guess I did the DLP challenge...which was using words on your journal pages...I just didn't do this art in my journal.