Drawing practice

Today I did a charcoal sketch.  This is practice for a Lifebook lesson that I am behind on.  I'm just learning how to draw with charcoal.  I hope that I get better as I continue to practice.

Have a great weekend.
Janelle

Book of Days

I finished my first volume in my book of days.  This is the first art journal I have done, and I even finished it.  I'm am happy that I accomplished it.  I have started prepping my next book, which is a little larger.  I will have to see how it goes with working in a bigger space.

This is a background made with sprays and washi tape that I made using double stick tape and napkins.  

This was practice for one of my Lifebook lessons.

The Dr. Who page is for fun and the Sisters page is about supporting other women through all their stuff, good and bad.

My farewell page. 

I also made a fabric/ wire bead today.  I used Lutedor on the outside layer.  It was painted with purple Lumiere paint and after I had the bead wrapped with wire I melted the Lutedor with a heat gun.  It gives it a very lacy/bubbly look as it melt away.

Shibori inspired dye piece

I am finally getting around to posting about a piece that I did last week.  I used Japanese Shibori techniques as my inspiration.  Shibori techniques are different ways of folding, stitching, or compressing a length of fabric to create a resist for the dye.  There are many ways that this can be done.   I used pole wrapping as my inspiration.  I wound a length of fabric around a pvc pipe in a diagonal direction.  Then I wrapped the whole thing with string and compressed it by pushing the fabric into itself from both ends as tight as I could get it.  After that I dyed it using fiber reactive dye in sky blue.  I waited for a day and washed it out.  Here are the results.

 I didn't get a perfect pattern, but I'm still pretty happy with my results.
Have a happy week,
Janelle

Journaling

I have completed a few more pages in my journal to share.  I am still just experimenting with techniques and having fun without worrying about perfection. Here they are:

The girl was painted with pearlescent watercolors.

This page has a lot of glitter that didn't show very well in the scan.   I used paper towels that were used in dyeing  Easter eggs, so my stamps didn't get a good impression on the rough background. 

This page is a pep talk for me with some goals to work on.

I wrote things for my kids that I wanted them to know in the future. 

 Thanks for looking,
Janelle

Lifebook lessons

I have finally finished one full Lifebook lesson and I played around with one of the smaller lessons.  Here are my results:

This tree is an envelope that is filled with letter, poems, and comments that I have received over many years. It is nice to have a special place to put all the lovely things that people have said to me. This class was taught by Wyanne who is a fun teacher.  

 This lesson was about putting down some matte craft paint, then drawing with Prismacolor pencils, and then blending with a solvent.  I used alcohol because I didn't have one of the other solvents, but I want to try it with one of them.  This was taught by the lovely Jane Davenport.

Have a great creative weekend.
Janelle

Prayer Flags

I have recently finished making some more prayer flags and a banner for Easter.

Have a Happy Easter!

Weekend art

This weekend I had an art date with a friend.  It was fun to share all my supplies and to create with someone else.  I don't get a chance to have art play dates very often.  Most of the time I have to convince my sister and niece that they want to come over and play with me.  I love having a day of fellowship with other women.  It feeds my soul and reminds me that I am not alone in this world.  We spent the day creating one painting a piece.  Here is what I came up with:

 This piece was inspired by Effy Wild from the Book of Days Project bookofdays.org.  I used techniques that I have learned in a variety of places.  

Yesterday I watched a live stream by Effy Wild, http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wild-soul-art-stream who was doing a lesson on drawing faces and different styles of girls.  I drew a whimsy girl during the stream.  I colored her in with Prisma colored pencils and then painted her with pearlescent watercolors.  I also added a bit of stamping.  Here is my little whimsy girl:

 I hope that you have fun seeing my art and keep creating.
Janelle