The start of a soul journal journey

Fate sometimes intervenes when we need it most. I have been thinking more and more about art journaling, but had much trepidation about starting. Serendipitously, through an altered paper swap delightful, talented artists, I was introduced to the Soul Journaling group on yahoo. You'll see some samples of their papers in earlier posts. I have finished my first prompt, which was to create a weaving of some of our hopes and dreams for the coming year. I wove mine with strips of vellum for the vertical elements, some paper I painted and some resist stained with Nancy Curry's technique for the horizontals. The thought process really helped me solidify some of the ways I can be most positive and useful. In my case, I placed the weaving on the top of a mailing envelope so I can store little bits I might use in my journaling.

More pages for Fiona's book

Fiona was November's "IT" girl in the Art Venture group. She's probably wondering if I've lost my calendar. Each month, one member of the group is IT and chooses a theme. Other members then create something that incorporates it. Fiona's theme was 'What Inspires You'. I have always been captivated by the idea of flight, both literal and figurative, so have been making a small book with all sorts of winged ideas. Here are the latest ones.

More Inspiration from Altered Papers

I am participating in a Snowflake ATC swap on ATCs for all. And, I received even more inspiration from the altered papers mentioned in the last post. Here are the results!

Chunky Trees

I was fortunate to be able to trade altered papers with an extremely talented group of artists. Their papers provided much needed inspiration for four tree-themed chunky pages I needed to create for an ATCsforAll swap I'm participating in. I'm sure all of the papers will be making appearances in upcoming projects.

You can view the blogs of some of these talented artists at
http://www.clevelandgirlie.blogspot.com and
www.creativeinspirations.blogspot.com and
www.opheliasart.blogspot.com

Another page for Fiona's book

I finished another page in Fiona's 'flight' book. The background for this one was done with gold and turquoise Lumieres.

Brayered and Gessoed Altered Paper

Ophelia (http://opheliasart.blogspot.com/) is moderating a quick altered paper swap and is allowing me to participate.

I created some papers using a Creole Spice rainbow pad, some distress inks, and some gesso, along with a few Paper Artsy and Stampers' Anonymous stamps. I can't take credit for this class, I learned the technique in a class created by Julie at our best local stamp store - Cornerstone.

Step 1 - I brayered with the rainbow pad, going randomly in different directions.

Step 2 - Apply a coat of gesso using either an old credit card, or I use an old room key from one of my work related travels (they're good for something after all). Don't worry about making the layer completely even. Missing some spots makes it more interesting.

Step 3 - Stamp some background stamps with coordinating colors. I used distress inks for this, because I evenrually want the images to be barely visible.

Step 4 - Finish by adding another layer of gesso, and some ink direct to paper to give some depth.

Brayered and Gessoed Altered Paper - Step 2