Lifebook Update

Just posting all of my catching up for lifebook as a little showcase.  This covers May - July

week 17 and 19 the calendar

week 20 - Doodle Words

 Week 23 Blob Art

 week 23 the butterfly

 week 24 the pocket

 week 25 Whimsical Animals

 Week 28 - ATC Cards

Soulistry Update

I have a small showcase of all the catching up Ive been doing in Soulistry it covers May - July.

Im just sharing the arting here as I share all the answers to the questions on BOD.

 Week 4 - The Well Within

Week 5 - The Holy Uselessness of Play

 Week 6 - Love the Questions

 Week 7 - You are the One that is Watching

Week 8 - Doing Good

Week 9 - Be open to the mystery

 Week 10 - The Miraculous in the Commonplace

 week 11 - She believed in her own Wings

 Week 12 - Happiness List

 Week 13 - Spirituality

Sisterhood

SisterHood Girls Fly.  I did this painting after watching Effy lifestream on Sunday.  She was celebrating our sisterhood group on FaceBook,  and I thought yeah what a wonderful thing to do. I will do it too.
Her hair strands are filled with friendship quotes and the circles on her body represent all the cirlces of friends we are making in the group.  I loved playing with this pulled art idea.

Freedom & Faeries

Ive been working in my moleskine the last couple of days and trying out shading tangles and just playing with a wee whimsical faery idea.
The faeries were made using watercolour pencil, collage and fine liners.  I had great fun with this spread.

Lifebook wk6 - Paint Over Collage

Today I worked on my week 6 - paint over collage for Lifebook at Willowing.  This was a very intersting lesson and I enjoyed it very much.  First of all you had to find collage pieces from a magazine that you liked and some nice collage papers. You also had to find a portrait of a girl you liked too.  Once everything was stuck down, you had to get your substrate done, with stamping, brayering and watercolour crayons. Next you worked on the face of the girl and then added a cirlce to write in all of your achievements in the inside.  You had to find a quote that resonated with you too.  And using cotton buds dipped in white paint you could easily make the cirlce doodles for around the outside. I added little confetti glitter to her hair and a few little flowers to her bodice.  I chose to have a bull as my symbol as Im Taurean but it also symbolises the following; stability, virility, strength, realiability, provision, peacefulness, helpfulness,  & Determination.  

Here is how she turned out.

Lifebook Wk8 - Pulling out a Portrait

Today I worked on Mystele's lesson for week 8 of Lifebook on Willowing. 
We had to work with many different mixed media layers, starting of with scribbling in pen, writing a few words then using caran dache crayons for a thin watercolour layer.  Next I put on some spray inks and some collage papers, acrylic with a credit card. Using my fingers I put on more acrylic and gesso, then pushed back the layers. Then once the painting was dry we had to look at it and pull out an image (portrait in my case) from the depths of the layers, almost like looking for a shape in clouds.  I was able to see the side of a face and the nose and mouth area.  So I just went with it and after I had her sketched in, I painted her with watercolour crayons and acrylic.  The finished emblellishments were flowers, glitter, heart doodles and the flower trim around her neck and the final touch was a little metal key I had to hang around her neck.
I loved this lesson and want to do another on rough paper.  This one was made on Hot Pressed (very smooth) paper.

LifeBook wk5 _ Second Portrait

Today I've been working on the drawing over collage technique that Kyles teaches us in week 5 of Lifebook on Willowing.  This was fun.  My printer was playing up a bit but I managed to get a print out eventually to play with. Arting is always fun to music too.  I was playing Michael Buble on my ipig as I did this project.  I decide to change the page into a tribute to what I am grateful for.  I quite like how this turned out as you are never ever quite sure how its going to turn out.  I also found lots of things to be grateful for.

LifeBook wk5

I worked on this painting yesterday for week 5 of Lifebook.  It was the first time I have ever done the acrylic transfer.  I found this challenging and interesting.  Its the first self-portrait I've done using this method. 

The BartMan

I did this painting for my friend Bart. It was to celebrate his 50th birthday, Hes a technology whizz kid. So I liked the mix of medieval with the modern twist. The green areas are a bit like Miro inspired and represent ciruit boards.  His body is made up of lots of computing elements.  He loves it!

Page One Lifebook

I did this at the weekend and I forgot to post it.  This is the half fold of page one of my Lifebook.  I finally got around to doing something with it.  I chose to put my two borders (Oscar & Eddy) into little balloons and represent myself as a whimsy girl.

Life Book has begun

Woohoo Lifebook at Willowing is up and running.   I am so looking forward to this course and  have just completed my first journal spread.  Tam's teaching is excellent, so well explained.  I stuck closely to the videos as I havent done much journalling before.  I hope I can spread my wings a little more next time.  I was just so excited to get started on my goddess.  We had to connect to all the positive inner qualities we have and see them as our goddess superpowers.  We had to integrate our portrait into our backgrounds with the lettering. It was such fun to play with.  I know Im going to have a great time on LB this coming year.  Here she is....

She was produced on 15 x 11 hot pressed watercolour paper.  We had to add a half page fold to the edge of the paper and use scrapping paper to hold the fold in place.  We had to use stamps and brayering in the background.  Her face and hair is done using watercolour pencils, graphite and acrylic.  The lettering is applied using a blue sharpie pen.

Inspired by Willowing

After reading all the pdf''s and watching the videos for the FF course.  I was inspired to paint a girl with her teddy bear using mixed media.  I used a torn map in the background and texture paste for the mountain and gems in the sky to simulate sparkling stars.  The rest of the painting was done using watercolour crayons mixed with acrylic paints and graphite pencils to enhance shading. It was the first time I had used a watercolour board and the first time I had produced a full coloured 3/4 portrait.  I had so much fun with this, that I knew I was going to have such a great time on the Fabulous Faces coursework.

Week 6 of Fabulous Faces

Last week of the Fabulous Faces Course.  Its been a blast.  Ive still tons to learn but I've really enjoyed the journey on this course.  This final piece was done on hot pressed watercolour paper. Its the first time Ive use this surface, I did enjoy the smooth quality of it for the portrait tones.  I used torn book pages in the background, lots of stamps and brayering to add to the texture.  In the dark strands of her hair, I added more texture with tissue paper.  We had to integrate our portraits with other elements and some lettering/quote. We also had to try something different with her hair, hence the tissue paper.  I used die cuts for the word magical.  I used stadelier felt pens to draw in the flowers and leaves and other lettering.

Week 3 of Mythical Magical Creatures

This is such a fabulous inspiring class.  Im learning so much about me and my art.  We had to do a journal promt about Mucha, his style and what kind of angel you connect to.  I connected to an angel of Compassion as we all need lots of that. I had such fun exploring Mucha's decorative style and playing with some colour ideas and with my angel.

Week 4 of Fabulous Faces

Studied the profile portrait for this weeks lesson for fabulous faces on Willowing.  It was fun.  I need to do more of these.

Week 3 of Fabulous Faces

I enjoyed doing this 3/4 portrait.  I played with a new hairstyle and had my first shot at doing braids.  I'm loving this course at Willowing

Week 2 of Fabulous Faces

I was having a hard time with this portrait as the sketchbook page didnt appreciate all the watercolour I was putting on it.  The page deteriorated so badly around the eye area as I shaded some more and ripped through, so I had to reinforce it with a piece of card on the back.  The eyes looked so awful, so I decided to go with what was happening and see if I could salvage something from the piece. I added the mask to hide all the mistakes and played with some gel pens till I was happier with the result.

 I kept thinking of what Tam teaches us.....its not the destination thats important but rather the journey itself.
That seemed to shut up my inner critic LOL

Time Theme

We are all starting to think about the summer exhibition for the LAA and what we are going to produce for it.  The theme is Time this year.
I gave it a lot of thought and came up with and idea to do the four seasons using my mixed media girls.  I did a sketch in my journal to play with the idea I had in my head and try out a few mixed media techniques.


This would be my winter girl with snow falling infront of her.  She is made out of torn book pages and there is a map in the background all torn up to give texture to the snow.  Her coat is book pages, with gel pens simulating a checked pattern on her coat.  Using brayer love again, it picks up all the snow textures for the background.

I will post more of my themed sketches for the exhibition as I produce them.

The Magic of Klimt

Ive worked on this painting for the last 3 days, following on from the journal promt studying Klimt's decorative style. Based on Klimts' gold period and Tams wonderful lessons on Magical Mythical Creatures at Willowing.

This is the largest canvas Ive ever worked on.  I can tell you it was a scary process.  The white fright got me as I sketched out the outlines LOL
Once I settled into it I had a great time, but each stage needed a coffee break and a chance to psych myself up for the next part. I found collaging on this scale amazing fun.  Doodling the way Klimt does was such fun too. She is my Venus.  I connected to her because she symbolises love and peace and is one of my ruling planets as Im taurean.  I so enjoyed the journey with this painting.  Working with the texture paste and metallic paints was exciting too.

Finished Paintings Over the last Fortnight

I worked on a whimsy painting, after watching all of the videos and reading the pdf for the Whimsy course on Willowing. My friend is due her new baby soon, actually it was due on the 30th of November, but still she hasnt had her.  Anyway I decided it would be nice to celebrate their new addition by doing a whimsy family portrait. The painting is on canvas.  The background is made up using torn strips from a map, adding a watercolour wash, and then brayering over the background in white.  I used collage on some of the clothing, mums dress and dads t-shirt.  There is book pages in the sky, and gems on the flowers. There is even a sticker heart on the wee girls t-shirt.  

Next I worked on Catherines Painting of her and the polar bear, completed this one on Tuesday this week.  I gave it to her on Wednesday and she was so delighted with it.  This girl is painted on a plywood board. The background is made up of torn book pages, watercolour washed, stamps of music and a cat, since Catherine loves her music and cats. Then it was brayered with a light blue to pick up all the cracks of the torn pages.  I just love that brayered textured look.  Her jersey is collaged and painted.  The choice of collage makes it look like a wollen pullover when you see it close up. The curtains are blue tissue paper, and the polka dots are put on using a cotton bud dipped into white acrylic   The rest of the painting was done using acrylics and watercolours and my favourite pitt pens for her hair details.  The stars are star gems in the sky. Catherine particuarly loved them. It was great to see this painting go from the sketch to the final piece, it really transformed as it went. It was so exciting as I didnt even know how it would work out.