I took this notebook  & turned it into my Colour Journal – a dollar store find a couple years ago (I bought several),  that has a thick plastic cover to protect the inside cover.  I’ve used this kind of notebook before HERE.  I gessoed that inside cover, then I made a colour wheel with some punched out magazine pages (I have a bunch of them in a plastic box).

I had the scalloped punched circle in my paper scraps – its from a paper I painted last year.   I added some Debbie Travis paint swatch cards to the top & bottom, as they have some colour definitions on them – in this case, “Cheerful Colours is a happy mix of lively colours & bright accents.”

Inside my Colour Journal, I did the Primaries, the Secondaries, then the tints, shades & tones.  I punched out some of those collected paint swatches for these studies.  It was a challenge to find the tonal ones….which is adding grey to colours.

After doing studies on Split Complementary, Tetradic, Analogous, Complementary & a square…..I was wanting something more.

So, I treated myself to Alisa Burke‘s Color Your World class…..she’s having a special this week.  I am enjoying the class….yesterday saw me going around town looking for inspiration for the colour I picked for my Monochromatic challenge.  Below is what I came up with.  Now, I’ll be mixing paints to get the whole palette….from the light to the dark.

If you click on the mosaic, it will take you to the larger photos in my Flickr album.

I painted some of the inside pages of the journal with gesso so the studies I do will show up better.

Once, the paint mixing study is done, then I will make a small project using this colour – I am allowed to add one or two neutrals.

I am thinking of challenging myself like this every other week – pick a colour and find things around me in that colour.  I’ll pick colours I wouldn’t normally go to.

How about you?  Are there colours you wouldn’t think about using?

This card has many layers as I started with one thing & kept adding more to it.  I glued down an old (2004) lottery ticket that was in my stash of ephemera, coloured it with Watercolor Wonder crayons, gesso and then some acrylic paint to seal everything.  Then, I decided to add more ephemera – pattern tissue, tape from an envelope that Wendy sent me, scrap of scrapbook paper, scrap of painted paper, butterfly sticker, punched flower from painted paper, the hand sticker from a scrapping kit and I stamped.  I, also, sprayed the whole card with the pink glimmer spray I made earlier in the week.  The stamp is actually leftovers from what I cut off of these stamps.  I had DH cut a 3 inch square of plexiglass for me, and I used E6000 to glue the bits.  I used brown Staz On to stamp on both sides of the card.  Random stamps for random stamping.  I can’t wait to try these out on fabric…..

How is your Labour Day long weekend going?  Are you giving yourself some Creative time?  I had such FUN yesterday painting fabric, painting in my art journal, painting a page spread in the Sketchbook and also on canvas…..today, I will play some more in my art journal and maybe start on the others.  My notebook is getting so full of ideas to try…..I may just hide that book for awhile!

ENJOY!

One of the things I have been doing for ME, is alot of art journaling……most pages are private and I will not be showing on here.  I pulled out WRECK THIS JOURNAL by Keri Smith this morning, have had it for awhile now and hadn’t done anything in it since getting it.  So, this morning, being that its a GORGEOUS 15 C morning….I will enjoy my coffee on the front porch and play in this book.  Its all about having FUN!!!

Hope everyone is having or will have a GREAT LABOUR DAY long weekend!!!

How Does Art & Creativity Heal?

My reply is:

If I didn’t have ART in my life, I don’t think I would have survived my bout with Cancer in 1998, the death of my sister (10 mths. younger than me) in 1999, the death of my father in 2002 and the near death of my husband in 2007…..oh and my kidney removal surgery last October.
ART is my constant – some place I can go when I need time to think or get away from worries, etc.
ART is my thermometer, my compass – its always there when I need comfort or to be uplifted.
ART is ME!
I am me because of ART!
I make Art because it brings me JOY every day!!!

Spent a couple hours last evening to make all the cards (ours & Mom’s) for the September birthdays.  I also made a card for a friend I’ve been thinking about alot (not photographed as she reads my blog occasionally ).

I’m trying to only use scraps…..even the main part of the card was already cut & in my leftover class bits.  Lots of stickers on this first one from a retired Scrappin’ kit or two actually.

This second one is all about scraps for sure.  I don’t throw away strips, so have many of each colour…..even the sentiment label was sitting in the bottom of the pizza box of scraps waiting to used.  I found some leftover satin ribbon perfect for this card.

.

.

.

This 3rd card (actually a 4th as well – exactly the same) was made using some paper I received a couple years ago, I forget the company as I ripped off the cover of the 8 X 8 pad & there is nothing on the back.  The scraps just happen to work…..LOL!

.

.

.

When I was sorting some scraps, I found this embossed scrap.  I will have to look through my blog archives to see what method was used as this was from one of my monthly classes back 3 or 4 years ago.  Below is a close up.

The sentiment was stamped onto the BACK – YES, the back as the metal on front wasn’t allowing both words.

The organza ribbon was just long enough to do the wrap around 3 times, and I used a strong to tie on the tag.  The dark cardstock around the embossed piece is really a dark purple – in the photo looks black.

.

.

.

.

Again, lots of leftovers…..the green cardstock card base, was the first picked, then the scraps.  I found the black ribbon in the bottom of my ribbon scrap bag…..was about to iron when the power went out last night for 1/2 hour….pitch dark, I have a small flashlight in my studio, but to find it by feeling around would take a while….I knew I had another one in the bedroom down the hall – I thought it was on the night stand, but NOT, felt around on the dresser…..not there.  I then thought I’d go back to my studio & check the place where I thought the studio one was…THEN, the power came back on.

So, I made sure the one in the studio is on my work table, and the one in the bedroom is back to the night stand (it was on the dresser, just hadn’t gone far enough when I was feeling around).

This is a journal page spread I did – I added my personal words of success all around the head of the woman after taking this photo.

I cut a woman picture from a magazine cover, and used the cut page as a stencil.  I painted it with black acrylic paint, then used a pastel to colour in the dress.  So, if you don’t have stencils – make your own from magazines.  YES, they won’t last too long unless you transfer them onto stencil plastic, but you make do!

I also added a bird on a flower branch to the area over the dots….as I was writing my words of success, I felt it needed something more over in that corner.

Enjoying the cooler temperatures – I’m not a heat lover.  Anything over 24 is TOO HOT!  So, today the sunshine and 15C is perfect…..sun is shining in my studio window!  PRICELESS!!!

For this week’s card I sanded then added a layer of Gesso.  Then, I had some acrylic paint leftover from the project below (it was the bottom layer), so I painted it over the Gesso then quickly smooched some plastic food wrap onto it.  I was told that you can’t do it with acrylic paints, that it had to be watercolour….well I did it!!  It is coming into my favourite season of the year……so I painted some Lutradur with copper, gold & green Lumiere paints, even the back.  When it was dry, I cut the leaves freehand and then sewed them onto the card.  The tag was an oldie, I sprayed it with Olive green glimmer mist I made.  Once dry, I first printed in pencil, then used a black Zig Millenium over top.  I wasn’t sure if the zig marker would work straight onto the sprayed surface, so that is why I used pencil first.

This art journal page spread is before I wrote on it……I started with gesso, then painted acrylic paint before doing a rough image transfer method like Leslie Herger has in her video HERE. I used some old National Geographic magazines, then added Watercolor Wonder crayons( Stampin’ Up!), & Portfolio oil pastels, gessoed (one side not all over & the other side all over…..I like the left side better).  I then rubbed some more Watercolor Wonder crayons and the last touch was my homemade glimmer mists.  The final step once its all dry is to sand it so you can write on it.

YES, homemade glimmer mist…….I finally found some little misters at the dollar store this past week when we did the monthly shopping.

I filled the bottles with equal parts of water and rubbing alcohol, then I added some colour with SU dye re-inkers that I have on hand.  Before add the pearl ex powders, spray the coloured solution, to see if its dark enough for you.  Then, I added about 1/8 teaspoon of Pearl Ex powders in each bottle. Shake lightly making sure to mix all the Pearl Ex powders in.

I tried to photograph the shimmer but it didn’t show up in any of the pictures .

Now you have something to make with all those pearl ex powders you have had in your stash for years.

.

.