Blog Hop with a Difference!

Today’s post is for the “Blog Hop with a Difference”! Mary Brack / Me, With My Head in the Clouds invited me to join this blog hop. Read her post here . For this blog hop you are given 4 questions to answer and you have to invite 3 people you know to blog the following week and they invite 3 people*. Here are the questions and my answers!

 1. What am I working on?

I always have several journals in progress that I can grab to do some Faith Art Journaling in. I even have a small one that I keep in my purse in a little clear bag with a few supplies.  You never know when you might have a few moments and be inspired! ;) Click here to see my post about it.

In my last post I talked about a Collage Workshop that I took. I really enjoyed it and I want to do more collaging! In fact I am border-line obsessing about it! Ever feel that way?  The first step I have taken toward more collaging is to start building up a supply of hand painted papers. So I decided I needed to prepare my office/studio to make it more conducive to painting papers!  I saw a paper storage rack in this tutorial  and I thought it would be perfect for drying painted papers!  Here is a picture of mine made from a 6 cube storage rack set. It has 19 "shelves" if you count the top! Whoo-hooo!

 

The drying rack will come in handy and keep me from having to spread wet painted papers all over the floor and risk getting paint on the carpet! Watch for a future post with more pictures of my painted papers!

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My Art Journaling pages are varied because I am an experimenter! I love to go on Pinterest and be inspired by someone else’s work and then learn their technique and make it my own. I also love to do “Faith” Art Journaling  (click here for more info) which incorporates scriptures, prayers and meditation into art journaling. I love to focus on God’s word and ruminate on it. The more time I spend “ruminating” the less time I am focusing on the negative and the more time I am focusing on the positive -- Him! And then sometimes I just make something for the shear joy of creating with color!

3. Why do I write / create what I do?

Creating is what God made me to do! I have always had my hands in something creative! Even as a young girl I made small stuffed animals from old socks, and painted little chips of wood to look like tiny little cars! Over the years I have tried many things like cross stitch, quilting, sewing, painting, jewelry making, mixed media and now art journaling and collage! I love Art Journaling because there is no pressure to perform. It’s not as much about the finished piece as it is about the process of spending time with God while I create! I just have to invite him to be there! And I am also trying learn collage as a way to improve my artistic skill level in a medium that inspires me. Taking a workshop really helped too!

4. How does your writing / creating process work?

Well many times I am inspired by someone else’s work so I will give their technique a try. Pinterest is awesome tool for inspiration and ideas! And I love to watch tutorials on YouTube. I am definitely a visual learner! But COLOR is what attracts me first! I once saw a bumper sticker in a bead shop that said “Easily Distracted by Shiny Objects”! I need a bumper sticker that says “Easily Distracted by Pretty Colors”! J

For my Faith Art Journaling I usually create a back ground first. Then I will choose a scripture or song lyric that is speaking to me and write it on my pages trying out different lettering techniques or cutting words from magazines. Sometimes I will print out focal words in pretty fonts on my computer and then cut them out and collage them on the page. Here is a page using 2 Corinthians 4:16 & Psalm 116:1-2 I did last Friday night.

 

A huge source of my artistic and spiritual creative inspiration comes from the blogs I follow.

Me, With My Head in the Clouds (Mary Brack)  I love – love - love her journal pages.  The colors and papers and her lettering are beautiful! She has some really inspiring quotes and scriptures on her pages! And her handmade journals are super awesome! I would love to see her do a tutorial on her lettering! (Hint, hint Mary! J)

 

A Splendid Adventure Studio (Mary Freeman)   I see her style as raw and transparent yet mysterious and inspiring! My favorite quote from Mary is: ” I am deep in the middle of exploring, growing, changing, into what God has created me to be. As I come to experience God's unconditional love for me in greater measure, my heart becomes more his, my desires become more his, my life becomes more his.”

 

Adore HIM Creations (Diane Marra)    Tons of examples of how to do Faith Art Journaling!  Her use of Art Journaling a Bible Study inspired me to use my art journaling every Sunday when taking sermon notes! She also has some excellent videos on YouTube here. .

 

Well this is the end of what is probably my LONGEST blog post ever! Time to go paint some papers!

*Note: The bloggers I invited (besides Mary Brack who has already participated) were unable to participate in the Blog Hop due to super-full schedules! I can relate to that! :)

Expanding Your Artistic Boundaries Can be Scary

Expanding your artistic boundaries can be scary thing. Stretching yourself and learning new things is a little intimidating when others are watching. It's also more than a little exhilarating!

I recently took a wonderful workshop at the Greenville Museum of Art with Judy Verhoeven, a wonderful local collage artist. I saw the class listed on the museum online calendar and so I looked up her work on her website. I really, really liked what I saw. I signed up for the workshop and went to a Gallery talk she did a couple of weeks before the workshop. At the Gallery Talk I saw her work up close and I fell in love with it! The level of detail is amazing! I hope you get to see some of her pieces up close sometime.

The workshop was fantastic and stressful and fun and relaxing and scary and joyful all the same time! Judy was great! I really learned so much and ended up with a piece I am proud of! I finished it last weekend and now I am itching to start another one and try a more realistic rendering.

My piece is whimsical and fun and personal to me. It's called "Home is Where YOU Are". When I was making the clouds I couldn't resist using the hymnal page! The sky background is an old legal pad page I painted at the workshop and the mountains are from a painted old book page.

 If you look really closely at the window of the door of the middle house, you can see my sweet hubby's head! 

The text in the rolling hillside is intentionally obscure. Your eyes go to the little cottages first and then later your eyes are drawn downward and you discover them.

 

 

OK. Time to stop blogging and go to my studio, cut up some paper and start collaging!