A Mixed Bag of LifeBook Art

 Hello All. 

The thing that I love about the LifeBook course is the different types of art that is on offer. Here are 3 totally different styles, with different mediums.

Tiare Smith - Colourful Posca paint pen flowers on a black background. Tiare used blackboard paint, but I only had black gesso, which worked perfectly.

The quote reads...'May you always be the one who notices the little things that make this life pour through, and may they always remind you there is more to life, and there is more to you.'

Jenny Manno - We masked off the circles and some strips at the bottom, then used water soluble crayons and white gesso to activate them. Then we took the masks off and used watercolour paint, then added white gel pen writing and soft black pencil outlines and marks. Interesting techniques.

Rachel Kentish - Mindful Watercolours. The little packs of cards are colour coded prompts for colour, shape, and line & pattern. I picked out monochromatic colour, but I used the circles and line patterns that Rachel used. We added small circles of metallic watercolour (I used gold), smudged soft black pencil outlines, and white paint pen dots.

Thanks so much for coming to see my art. There'll be some more tomorrow, as I catch up with the many lessons.

Alison

Creative JumpStart Day 7

 Hello Folks! Mystele Kirkeeng was our tutor on day 7 of CJS, and she showed us her art process. This involved using a piece of her painted paper that she'd used up paint on I think, then finding an image on it to develop. Her painting was a portrait, but mine turned out to be a crow.

After painting in the crow, I used a pointed tool to scratch into the paint to add texture. I love doing this! I covered up most of the under paper, but you can still see bits of it if you look very closely. I used artistic licence with the crow's eyes by the way, they're not usually yellow. 

Watching birds is one of my favourite things to do, and we occasionally get the odd crow or two in our garden, so I'm linking up to Erika's Favourite Things theme at Art Journal Journey.

Have a happy and creative day,

Alison xox

Creative JumpStart Day 6

 Hi Everyone! I was thinking about my favourite people when I created this page, which was based on CJS Day 6 with Birgit Koopsen, 'The Distance Is Only Physical'. There's also lots of colour and splatters, which makes it my favourite type of art.

I'm linking up to Erika's Favourite Things theme at Art Journal Journey.

Keep safe everyone, and thanks for dropping by today.

Alison xox

Gratitude Junk Journal Day 16

It's Day 20 of Leah's Art Every Day Month challenge, and I have another Gratitude Junk Journal page to share. Actually I created two pages for Birgit Koopsen's Gratitude For Colour class. It was such a fun technique!

The very brightly coloured backgrounds were created using Distress Ink Re-Inkers. It had been a long while since I used those!

I added some birds to this next page, so I'm linking it to Wendy's Birds theme at Art Journal Journey.

If you're wondering where my wording came from, it's from a fabulous free downloadable sheet from the lovely Autumn of SewPaperPaint, that you can find HERE. Why not leave her a comment and let her know that I sent you over.

Wishing you all a wonderful and safe weekend,

Alison xox

Gratitude Junk Journal - Day 5

Hi Everyone!

Day 5's Gratitude Junk Journal prompt was Daydreams. I created this self-explanatory spread. Our son lives in Manchester, which has high levels of Covid 19, which makes it very risky for us to visit him, or vice versa, because of my health. We last saw him in February.

I'm linking up to Leah's Art Every Day Month Challenge Day 6.

Thanks so much for visiting,

Alison xox

Art Journal Calendar - October 2020

 Hi Everyone! 

Today I have my October calendar to share with you. But first let me show you my September calendar all filled out with my daily activities. Lots of daily walks and art, as always!

And now here is my calendar for October.

I started with a layer of sewing pattern tissue, then applied some paint and used the reductive stencilling technique to reveal the tissue beneath.

Next, I used some of my lovely friend Florence's fabulous mark-making stamps from Crafty Individuals, to create some interest on the background. Flo kindly gifted the stamps to me, she's such a generous friend!

I used Flo's larger circle ring image with pink paint to create my journalling circles, then stamped the centre solid circle with yellow paint. 

I wrote the title with a black Posca paint pen, and added some white pen dots to the journalling circles and wording. 

Finally, I used a HB pencil to scribble around the circles, and a black Stabilo All pencil and water to create a dark watercolour frame around my pages.

I'm linking my calendar to Chris' Hold The Line theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thank you so much for visiting, I hope you all have a happy and peaceful weekend.

Alison xx

30 Days of Mixed Media with Ana - Days 24-30

Hi Everyone. I'm back today with my final week of entries for Ana Bondu's challenge on Instagram.

I missed out day 23, which was Transfers, as my effort didn't work at all, and I didn't think it was worth the stress to attempt again.

Day 24 - Metal. I covered a piece of card with sticky back foil, then embossed it and used Stazon inks to colour it.

Day 25 - Misti (Stamping Platform). This was quite complicated. I started with a piece of card coloured with Distress inks, then placed it in position on my stamping platform. I had to do the flowers individually, stamping, bleaching out colour with bleach, colouring with Posca paint pens, then re-stamping. Then I stamped the smaller flower in the centre of the large one, painted with white pen, re-coloured with red and orange, then re-stamped the small flower. After doing all the flowers, I flicked some water onto the card to create the bleached splatters. Told you it was complicated, but well worth the effort I think. I'm so pleased I eventually bought the stamping platform, as I've used it quite a lot to get well-stamped images.

Day 26 - Alcohol Ink. Sticky back foil on card again, embossed, then drips of alcohol ink added. Yummy!

Day 27 - Foliage. I love using leaves on my Gelli Plate!

Don't waste the paint on the leaves...

I also used black ink to draw some foliage on a gel-printed tag.

Day 28 - Pigment Ink. Distress oxide inks, Carabelle Studio stamps. I clear embossed the leafy sprig, in order to use the green oxide ink to watercolour.

Day 29 - Fabric. I used ribbons.

Day 30 - Mica. I sponged white tacky glue through a stencil on the black card, then brushed with perfect pearls mica powder. The stamped butterfly and quote were coloured by mixing mica powder into some water to create a watery paint.

That's it for now. I hope to find another challenge once my wrist is fully healed. I'll still be doing my little daily collages though.

Have a happy weekend,

Alison xox

Art Journal Calendar - May 2020

Happy new month to you all! 

We are officially one third of the way through 2020, and we have been confined to our house for 6 weeks today, apart from two hospital visits. 

Here is my May calendar spread. I got quite carried away with polkadots, and my wrist isn't too sore, so hoping it's on the mend.

I started with a base of teabags, then scraped on a bit of crackle paste to pick up the texture. The journalling circles were cut from a gel print, I outlined them with orange acrylic paint, and painted the title. I finished with doodled lines and dots.

Thanks for visiting, keep safe and well,

Alison xox

Hope

Hi Everyone! It doesn't feel like there's a lot of hope at the moment, but we mustn't give up. We will come out of the other side of this!

Eileen's Green theme at Art Journal Journey will be ending tomorrow, so I thought I'd create a final page in my journal. I used a hessian page, and cut some scallops on the edge, then gathered some collage materials.

Who knew that Bombay India Ink would crackle on top of Mod Podge?! I hope you can see this in the photo below.

And here's a final close up of my doodling and message.

Thanks for visiting and keep safe,

Alison xox

Soothe Me Art Journaling - Bonus Prompt

Happy new week everyone!

On this beautiful and sunny Spring day, I have my final page for Kasia's Soothe Me Art Journaling to share with you. This is the Day 8 bonus prompt, using a technique with black ink. I first painted a background with red, pink, orange and yellow Fresco acrylic paint, scraping the paint on with a store card.

You add a blob of black ink, place a piece of paper or cloth on top to spread the blob out. Let it dry a little, then add some water and blot up ink with a clean cloth or kitchen towel. I found this quite addictive, although it takes a bit of practise. The first time I let the ink dry too much.

I finished my page with some white Posca paint pen dots and some journaling.

I'm linking my page to Mia and Ana's Craftlandia Challenge.

Keep smiling and washing your hands!

Love & blessings,

Alison xox

March 2020 Art Journal Calendar

Hi Everyone! It's a new month, so I have my March art journal calendar to share with you today. 

I tried out a mono-printing technique by Dan Tirels for my background. Here's Dan's YouTube channel. He has some great video tutorials.

Art Journal Journey has a new challenge theme of 'Green' from Eileen The Artful Crafter, so I used a few different green PaperArtsy acrylic paints for my mono-printed background. I hand-cut a stencil for my journaling flowers, although they look more like clouds! I used Honeydew acrylic, which is a very pale green. After stencilling my title and adding the numbers, I decided to add some contrasting orange splatters with a Posca paint pen.

And finally, here's my filled in February calendar...

Wishing you all a creative week,

Alison xox

366 Somethings - Week Seven

Hello lovely followers! I'm here today with my week seven collaged index cards for the 366 Somethings challenge. 

I must say I'm finding it such a joy to create these little collages every day, and I think my collages are getting more free and easy as the days go on :-)

On today's collage above, I used some of the lovely scraps from my cut out hearts on yesterday's art journal page. So fun! I'm STILL using the original book page for my found text too ;-)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Alison xox

Be Still My Beating Heart

Morning my lovelies! I have another art journal page to share today, for Elizabeth & Bleubeard's Heart theme at Art Journal Journey.

I used a canvas page in my Dina Wakley art journal. I scraped on some white acrylic, then added the green colour with Faber-Castell markers, blending them with a wet paintbrush. 

Then I added some marks with Posca paint pens. I handcut some different sized hearts from gel prints, outlined with scribbly black lines, and journaled in the centre with a black Posca pen then a white gel pen. 

The shadow around the large heart was made using a black Posca paint pen, then blended out with a wet paintbrush. I finished with some splatters and multiple date stamping.

Wishing you all a happy and creative week,

Alison xox

366 Somethings - Week Six

Here are my index card collages for Week Six of 366 Somethings. I'm getting through those scraps and the odd teabag, and still using the original book page for my found text. Might have to find another soon though.

I decided today to start adding the date as well as the number of my collage, so I know where I'm at more easily. You might spot that today's collage features scraps from yesterday's art journal page. I keep everything! Lol!

Happy Tuesday,

Alison xox