One Week

I'm going to be selling my art and crafts at the Grass Lake Heritage Day on Saturday, September 6, 2014, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It free to go and there are a lot of fun activities going on that day, plus artists and craftspeople. Please come out and see me and stock up on some gifts for the holiday season. You can find out more here: http://www.grasslakechamber.org/heritage-day.html

http://www.handsandharts.com/shop.html

Journal Pages

I has been a while since I shared any of my journal pages from Lifebook.  I have been so busy with my family home from school for the summer that I haven't been doing all of my lessons, but I have done a few.  I love Lifebook and don't like it when life gets in the way of my creative time.  I'll have to work on that and make more time for creative journaling.

This page has a lot of layers of papers and paint.  It is very mixed media. I used symbols of my faith with a reminder for myself. Creating meaning on the page is an important part of art journaling. 

I traced some of my random art onto tracing paper and glued it down to make this layered page.  The background is old papers with a layer of Neocolor crayon.  I finished this page right after Robin Williams passed away which influenced my words.  

I wanted to remind myself to be firmly grounded, but allow myself some freedom of movement too. And I want to fill the forest of my life with love instead of doubt and negativity.

I carved this stamp to add to the page.  I love making my own unique stamps too add to my artwork. 

This is a smash book that I made for a recent lesson by Catt Geller.  I photocopied my art work and combined the images to decorate the cover.  I also glued every two pages together to make them a bit stronger and crumpled them to add texture.  The edges are painted too.  I love turning composition books into journals and smash books.  

I hope that you enjoyed this peak into the meaning behind my journal pages and a bit of my process. Have a great weekend.Janelle

Inspired by Nature

I went on a mini vacation with my family this month. While it only lasted five days, we still saw many beautiful sights and had a wonderful time.  We visited northern Michigan during this trip.
We started out visiting Castle Farms near Charlevoix MI, then went on to St. Ignace, MI and spent our first night there.
The second day we visited Tuqananom Falls, pictured rocks national lake-shore, and ended up for the night in Munising, MI.
The third day we drove to Houghton, MI and spent the day relaxing and visiting with my daughter who is up there for college.
The fourth day we drove up the Keewenaw peninsula visiting waterfalls, lighthouses, and a fort, plus a lot of beautiful scenery.
The fifth and last day we drove home from Houghton, which took all day.
It is nice to be home again rejuvenated and refreshed.

I took a lot of inspiration photos on this trip.  I wanted to have fresh scenes to inspire my textile art and my paintings.  I also took a lot of photos of textures, because I love creating art with a lot of texture.  Taking a close look at the textures in our world whether man made or natural gives me a different view.  I'll share some pictures and I hope that they inspire you too. 

I want to use these photos to inspire me this winter when it is cold and bleak outside.  I hope that you enjoy this glimpse of Michigan.   

Janelle 

My Creative Process

Maddie Millett from Maddie Millett Ceramics invited me to participate in this creativity blog hop. She makes wonderful handmade pots, so please check out her page.  Here is her post on creativity.   Here are two of my recent quilts. 1. How does my creative process work? I often get my inspiration from the view out of my window, something I see on-line, or an article in a magazine.  I don't discount any raw ideas, but the ones that keep popping into my head or that make me giddy with excitement are the ones that I tend to go with.  I take these ideas and start working with them. I sometimes draw a rough sketch, but other times I keep the ideas in my head and let them percolate until I'm ready to start working.  I keep an idea book where I can keep track of potential projects just in case I need a kick start. Sometimes I work more intuitively and start a quilt or a painting and let it lead me to the finished project.  I don't have one particular way of working, but I allow myself to work in the way the feels right at the time. For my art quilt "Stardust" I drew a sketch which I based my quilt on.  Later I went back and colored in my sketch using a different color scheme.  I often write about my process in my blog as I work on a project.     2. WHY do I do what I do? I want to share joy and beauty with the world.  I enjoy creating art and I feel called to create and share my gifts in this way. When I don't take the time to be creative I feel a little off and I get cranky.  I would rather be creative than make the people in my life miserable.  I want to help people to bring beautiful, quirky art into their living space or that they can wear.  Helping people to feel beautiful and happy makes me happy.  I love creating art that can fill this need.      3. How does my work differ from others in it’s genre? My work has a bit of me and my soul embedded in it. No one else can create just like me.  I take inspiration from others, but I always try to add my own twist and make it mine.  As I continue to develop as an artist I will follow my own voice more and more and my art will be more unique.  4. What am I working on at the moment? I have several projects that I'm working on right now.  I have an art quilt, a felted picture, and a textile art piece that are all in various stages of completeness.  I also have a couple of paintings that I have been thinking about and will start soon. I'm getting ready to teach a fabric dyeing and surface design class this fall.  I'm also helping to start an art quilting group within my quilt guild.  I like to keep busy and always have something that I'm working on. My family and my five kids and running a household also keeps me pretty busy all the time.  That's what make my life beautiful though.   This is my felted piece that is still a work in progress.  It is wool, silk, and Angelina Fibers.  I love the sparkly bits.   Thank you for reading and please follow along with the rest of the blog hop too.  Please check out my website too: www.handsandharts.com I'm passing this along to Clare from Stuffed with Aloha now. Janelle