Training The Eyes to See

Art Journal

Mixed Media

On the left is the inspiration photo

On the right is my interpretation

I love this photo.  There was a series of photos in the magazine I took this from.  Some had several young women in the hats...they were all wonderful so it was hard to choose which one was going to be my inspiration.  More than the face on this one....I was intrigued as to how the dress would come out in the end.  And I decided to just leave the background with the texture from the papers I had glued and gessoed and not add any color or even the item she's leaning against to the page.  I debated adding some shadows...but again, decided that I was done.  I like her the way she is. I guess that's when you know your painting is finished!

I added some papers to the page

Added white paint that I spread all over the paper

A close up of her skirt

and, alas, her face

JOURNAL COVER

RE-IMAGINE

ART JOURNAL

Front Cover

Ink Sprays, Stencils, Pen

My Recycled Art for the Letters

I decided it was time to do something with my art journal cover.  The "grocery store brown bag" color was boring.  So I got out my ink sprays, sequin waste, pens, and even a prrint of some of my previous art.  I decided that art would make very colorful letters for the name of this journal, RE-IMAGINE.  

When i started this journal earlier this year, the very first page in the book...has the word re-imagine in my art.  What is art if it isn't something re-imagined???

It's what the artist feels and sees.  Below is that first page in the journal which I posted earlier this year....

You can see the word re-imagine more than once on this page.  Is re-imagine all about the "woulda, coulda, shoulda's" in life?  Does  re-imagining give you that do-over opportunity?  Or is re-imagining taking something that's already great and ....turning it into something even more wonderful?  I love the word re-imagine.  It conjures up all kinds of thoughts.  I keep revisiting it as I go through the completed pages of this journal and think about that word...re-imagine....I have lots of pages yet to fill.  Letting my imagination...or re-imagination take flight.

Documented Life Project

A Face Altered from a Magazine

Acrylics

My art today in my journal is a face I chose from a magazine to alter.  You can sort of see the outline of the magazine page.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the original picture.  She had blue eyes and looked straight at you.  I gave her some rather voluptuous lips, extended  her clothing and collaged a little bird and flowers to her hair.  I would have fixed the distance between her nose and the top of her lips, but I didn't.   Using a magazine photo is a great way to practice a face...  a closer shot...

Challenged by Flowers

Geraniums

Acrylics

3.5 x 5

At my sister's prodding, I've started a small journal to practice drawing flowers.

She's doing the same with faces.  I have a love/hate relationship with flowers.  I've seen so many wonderful paintings of flowers where....you might not even be able to identify what flower it is...but nevertheless, you know it's a flower.  I don't really want to paint realistic flowers....just impressions.  It's not that simple.  Sometimes, they look like blobs.  I bought this little book to practice  different mediums, different flowers.  I need to loosen up!

Here are two more....the one on the left is done with watercolor pencils and the one  on the right....I just drizzled ink straight from the dropper.  I actually like it better than the stylized flower on the left.

These are coneflowers, painted with acrylics.  There was a photo of these on the  cover of the Home section of our weekly newspaper this week so I tried to copy them.

And with these two pages, I made a copy of one of my journal pages and cut it up to create these two pages....which I kind of like.  Is this cheating?

I'm going to continue this exercise of trying to paint a flower(s) almost everyday.  It's a nice little exercise and being that's it's on 3.5 x 5 in. pages, it's do-able.  I want to do paintings with flowers...I have to get over my fear of them!

WHEN THE SPIRIT MOVES YOU....

BOOK COVER

for a prayer book

Rosin paper, oil pastels, acrylic gold paint

Lots of elbow grease

Several years ago, my sister and I attended an art workshop hosted by Lynn Perrella. She taught us this interesting technique where you take rosin paper (it's the paper that roofers use) and you spread a thick coat of gesso on it.  While it is still wet, you take your texture tools--bubble wrap, combs, stencils, sponge, paper towel, ...anything that will make an imprint in the gesso. Once you've added the imprints, you let it dry.  This could take awhile due to the thick coat of gesso.  We used Portfolio oil pastels to add the color.  Lynn swore by this product because it is inexpensive and they work well.  You take the crayons and cover all of the gesso...overlapping colors and such.  Use lots!  Then comes the workout...take a clean rag and start blending the colors.  Go over it and over it and over it until you get a look that you like. You can rub it to the point where you see white ridges from your imprints and that looks really nice.  I even sprayed ink with a stencil.  I wasn't sure that would work on top of the oil pastel, but it did.  (Chemistry was not my best subject in school and when you start mixing different mediums...it's kind of like a chemistry experiment)!

Then you can add rubber stamps, collage materials...anything you want to it. The back of this book cover is a little different from the front. 

 The front I kept fairly simple.  I used a tree-of-life stencil which is barely noticeable in the background.  And I added gold paint to make a cross embedded in the tree.

This book cover I made for a pamphlet-sized prayer book we use in the summer at our church.  For whatever reason ( I don't know) these booklets don't have covers so I made one to give to our Rector for her copy.  Here's the inside....

I used a sheet of scrapbook paper inside.  After you rub the oil pastels into the rosin paper, it no longer feels like paper....it almost feels like leather.  It's an amazing product.  The one thing I did do...to make sure our Rector doesn't end up with any blue fingers...is I sealed it with some matte decoupage.  I loved making this book cover...and I have a huge roll of this paper.  Fun to play with...I highly recommend it.

IMAGERY

ART JOURNAL

Ink, paint, collage

Working in my art journal is like having a tangible "Pinterest" board...it's a place where I can practice and store ideas, just whatever is whirling in my head at the moment.  I love that photograph that I got from a magazine on the left-hand page, but I decided I didn't want to really paint it.  I like looking at it.  And then the lyrics to this song came into my head..."The Windmills of Your Mind".  Such poetry and imagery.  It's a beautiful song....how would the words translate into a painting?  "Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning as an ever spinning reel".....and that's only the beginning of the imagery in the words of this song.  So I sat down yesterday and wrote the words down, going around in a circle.  The song was written by Dusty Springfield...if you're old enough to remember her...and it's a song I don't want to forget...."As the images unwind, like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind..."