Art journal everyday

Howdy! I art journal. Mostly everyday. For years and years now. And although i am a big fan of Julie fei fan Balzer i never participated in her art journal everyday posts on friday. Mostly because i am a slacker on the net. HA.

But art journaling keeps me sane. I go through the emotions of the day and make something of it. And i think that is an invaluable lesson. No matter what crap comes on your path, deal with it and better: try to take advantage of it. Although i doubt that it would be cheaper to go to a therapist, if you see my stash ;-)))).

I would love to hear what you think!

Taking it to the second floor, 2nd

Julie fei fan Balzer and Nathalie Kalbach always have fun ideas… I also did the first round of taking it to the 2nd floor, but I was a slow boat on taking pictures and publishing it. But hee. What counts is I did it.

 

And for the second one:

TADAAAA!

 

The goal was to use something new. Mmm, i do that all the time. Nothing brings me more joy then experimenting with new art stuf. (okay, i have stuff enough to create way beyond my 112th birthday, *GRIN*).

 

 

So i started with the new art bars. (if you want to know the difference betweeen art bars and neo colors II i recommend watching journal artista on ustream!). I used my fav colors.

 

 

I like it, A LOT and the art bars too, but i have to take it to the 2nd floor…. OK! PLING!

 

Try to come out of your comfort zone and …… use not so fav colors. I did. And i tried stenciling with watercolors (learned that from Julie in 21 secrets, i can totally recommend).

 

 

Building the journal page up. And noticing how easy these art bars blend, almost melt, when using water.

 

I water colored with stencil and also the stamp was used with water color. I am happy i decided to taking it to te second floor.

 

Did you happen to play with new tools and stuff? Or maybe you also played with the art bars from derwent. I would love to hear what you think & make!

What is on my desk

I am currently following several online classes. For me, an online class is great. I do not have to leave the house and can do the classes any time i want. But your English has to be pretty good (i am dutch), so it is not an option for everybody. But for those who understand English well enough, here my favs from this moment. Plus some photo’s where you can see what i made in the particular class (click on the picture if you want to see it bigger).

I am taking Julie fei fan Balzer’s class on carving stamps. And although i already had been carving stamps, i learned a lot of tricks. Check it out here.

Another online class is the lettering class from Joanne Sharpe. It is fun and more then learning calligraphy it is all about using your own handwriting in your art journal. I have been lettering a LOT! You can find her online class here.

And (ok i admit, at the moment i am taking a lot of classes) i do Alisa Burke’s sketching class, part 2. Previously i took the first class. Liked it a lot. She cuts up the sketching process in understandable pieces.  After all these years of crafting i am  water coloring and liking the results (and understand how i achieve certain results). Another plus: she works with cheap materials and for a material snob as me that is an eye opener. You can find this class here.

Lately with the creative jumpstart on Nat Kalbach’s blog  i saw the creative jumpstart of Karen whose blogname is Karenika (her blog is here). She blogs several times per week and i love her daily sketches and her openess and thoughts on making art and life. Go and check her out.

And now i am more then curious to know: what is on your desk??? Whom do you admire in the blog world and can you tell why? See you!

Creative jumpstart, o YES!

I am a huge fan of online workshops and workshops on dvd. You do not have to leave the house (which is convenient if you are a person that is a homester (if this is a wrong google translation: i mean i like to stay comfortable at my home). You can watch again for a very interesting part, or double the speed for less interesting parts.

So i took a plunge and went for the creative jumpstart at Nat Kalbach’s blog  (go to http://nathaliesstudio.com/tutorials/). Not that i am  a regular on have artist’s block’s. But i like to see how others works and think.

I love the creative jumpstart series, and some posts immediatly made me try out the technique. Dina Wakley (see her blog http://dinastamps.typepad.com/) mentioned the painting with paper technique. As a lover of paper, i had to try it out and i will do it more often. It’s relaxing and gives maximum output with minimum effort (well: at least to me).

 

Next journalpage is about Andre Kuipers, a Dutch astronaut who is in space for a couple of months. This picture appealed to me because it seems outdated (his helmet!) and yet intriguing that he really is in space right now.

 

Are you ever in a creative rut? I always try to keep going. Maybe not always on the same level of creativity (making color swatches, making samples of mediums) but going, flowing. Even if feeling not creative, you can try out. That is what i had in mind making this artjournal yesterday evening.

 

[text says: If you do not feel creative (fool yourself &) Try out new supplies, old supplies, how they work out together etc
Knowing your materials wil make you a better artist ANYWAY].

How about you?

 

 

 

 

Art journaling

Here are a few pages i have made in the recent past.

Above journal page is what i made after seeing Dina Wakley ‘s contribution to Creative Jumpstart series (for Dina see http://dinastamps.typepad.com/ for Creative Jumpstart go to Nat Kalbach’s blog and request a password if you don’t have it already http://nathaliesstudio.com/tutorials/ ).

I want to add more drawings to my journals; this is a plant that stands in my window. (I will put it on my resulotions for 2012 list 😉 along with blogging more often).

This (not so sharp) picture is of a journal page on my recent studio remodeling. Shows my love for paint, paper and a not-so-tidy crafter hehe.

New studio

Hi outhere, it has been long since i have been blogging. Making art continued and i have been art journaling almost everyday. (if you wish doing that, but have no succes yet, i recommend julie fei fan balzer’s art journaling class; you can find it here  http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/online-classes.html scroll down a little bit).

Last months we have been busy remodeling our house: we have a new kitchen and we have rebuilt our attic. Which means i now have a real studio, in stead of a hobby corner.

Here are some pictures of my old hobbycorner which means a table and very little space to store (click on the picture to see a bigger version).

And… tata…. These are pictures of my new studio. Much more space to store materials, much more room to create!

Ikea has done good bussiness on me. I have their Besta shelf units and Expedit bookcase (eeh….. and many other stuff). And though it is still a small studio, just because it is small everything is on my fingertips. I love, love it!

PS: Pffew, this was my first blog in many, many month, even had to reset my pass word and had some trouble finding the most simple things, but after a while it came back to me… Hope to post more often in the near future!

Lost

If you’ve been to this blog before, you will know i am an admirer of Michelle Ward (and a not-so-faithfull-crusader… i love her crusades, but time keeps running out so i do not participate  frequently). When i was asked to contribute to a book for Michelle because her sister Shannon died a year ago of cystic fybrosis, of course i participated. Like i participated in the Pink Wink, which you can find here.
Begin of july the book arrived at Michelle, this is my entry:

What i could not share fully share on the page, other than a piece of the lyric, is the beautiful song of Anouk. She is a Dutch singer and performer. I like to sing her songs, while Richard my husband plays the guitar (don’t misunderstand: she does a better job!). This song is one of my favorites. When i made the page, i knew i wanted to share the song in a post, so here it comes:

(Michelle: hope you like the song! i know you have a passion for music and LOST and roses are meant to be red seemed so *Winky* that i could not resist working the lyric in the page. Now you know the complete song. By the way, did you see the tattoos on her arm?).

If you want to read the post Michelle wrote after recieving the book, you will find it here. The pics of all the participants are to be found here. Special thanks for this project go to Julie Prichard, Lisa Hoffman and JeriAn Geller. LADIES thanks for taking such great initiative AND collect, gather and work hard to make it the beautifull book it is now!

More portion control

In her latest crusade, Michelle Ward tells us about portion control. I think portion control, together with repetition, and a color regime, makes our eyes wander through a piece of art. If everything is clear right away, there is no reason to ‘wander’ in the piece. Your eye gets attracted, is curious what is to come… I think most of us work with portion control, even subconscious.

These days i am into fabric, and less into painting. But in fabric there are lots of possibilities to make portion control. With lace for example, or with see through fabric.

I stamped with bubble plastic, after years of searching, the big ones arrived with something i bought on the internet. If all the circles would have been crisply stamped, it would have given a nice, but uninteresting picture, is my guess. Now it looks grungy, interesting and i haven’t done a thing yet with it. Take a look.

To me it already looks so great, that i am still thinking how i am going to use it in my journal! If you are interested in more portion controll i suggest you go to Michelle Street Team blog and look what she and the other crusader’s did with this. They did some marvelous things, so of you go!!

Tagged

Janny, an art friend of mine {you can see her beautifull work here } tagged me. And most of the times, i do not cooperate on all kinds of awards. I recieve them with gratitude, but there is something in side me that resists. But this time, i thought it was funny. I was to put the 6th photo from my 6th map of digital photos here. No kidding, this was the picture…

If you read my last post you can see why it fits so well. This is Richard and me on our wedding day, almost 11 years ago. At the pond near our home. Romantic isn’t it? (if you think i look a little bit tired: YES i am tired. Six weeks before the wedding i gave birth to our oldest daughter, and she had lot of stomach cramps and cried a lot, so i was tired. Now she is almost 11….)

okay, here is the beautifull baby girl that escorted us to the ceremony.Don’t you think she looks so adorable in that dress?

Okay, now all you readers, feel TAGGED and go search for the sixth photo in the sixth map. WHAT IS YOURS?????

Valentine’s day

Valentine’s day… a card for my love, he just doesn’t know yet  that he is going to get this one *GRIN*

And something can be put on my TADA list, because this is for Michelle Ward’s 28th crusade Portion Control.

And the month is NOT even half way… I intend to do some shaping up and controlling later this month!