Wanderlust: February book prompts

Just in the nick of time, I can squeeze in one last post in February - lucky we've got a leap year! Today I'm sharing two pages from my Wanderlust book for the February prompts.

The first page prompt was "write a lot, write fast, write everything".  I'm not a prolific journaller, preferring to express myself visually, rather than verbally on my pages. I think it has to do with the fact that I don't like my handwriting. This prompt encouraged me to give up my inhibitions and use my own handwriting.

My handwriting is pretty much illegible, but it was a very cathartic experience for me to let my feelings spill on the page. I wrote about the importance of letting go of resentments and real or perceived grievances. We can not move forward unless we forgive, and that includes forgiving ourselves as well as other people. Here's my page expressing these feelings:

The second book prompt was "the bravest moment in my life". Instead of recalling one brave moment, I wrote a reminder of what bravery means to me. Bravery is doing the right thing (or what you think is the right thing at the time) even if you stand alone in your conviction and you have to go against the authority of other people or the entire system. I've done this many times in my life and I know it did not always serve me, but I've always remained true to myself and my principles.

I used a colourful background for this page that I created earlier on deli paper. You can find out more about it in this post.  I was more than a little attached to this background, so I wasn't willing to cover it up much. I only added some white ink doodling, drippage and splatters.

Please note that there's currently a Google/Blogger glitch preventing some comments being posted. I still get notifications of all comments, but they don't always appear on my blog. This is happening to everyone who has Google comments enabled on their blog. There's nothing I can do about this - I'm just hoping it will get sorted soon and all comments will eventually appear.

Thanks for visiting and Happy Leap Year!

LifeBook Week09: 5-minute watercolour flowers

This week on LifeBook we had a bonus lesson by Martha Lever, who showed how to paint quick and easy watercolour flowers in a pot. It was much easier than I anticipated! Part of the charm is that we let the watercolours do their thing and later when they are dry roughly outline the shapes for more definition. You can't really do this wrong!

These are my first tries, and although I wanted to do a few more cards, I got distracted by other projects, so these will have to do for now. I'm not sure how I will include them in my LifeBook, but I'll find a way. Instead of a stitched border, I just quickly outlined the edges. It takes too long to set up my sewing machine and these days I seem to have the patience of a two-year-old. It's only because I'm so excited by other projects! I still feel like a kid in a candy store who wants to try all the sweets and I keep running from one jar to the other! So much about my words for this year: balance, focus, direction, LOL!

Here are my three cards. They are about 4" X 5" in size. Happy Friday!

NOTE:  thank you all who have left comments on this blogpost. Due to a Google error, they were not published, but I did get the notifications. Hopefully, this glitch will sort itself out soon!

WOYWW #351: Playing with Golden Open Medium

Even at this time yesterday, I wasn't sure what to post for WOYWW today as I had nothing on my desk to show. Then the post arrived with my order of Golden's Open Medium, which I wanted to try on the Gelli Plate and my problem was instantly solved! Not only that, but they sent me a bigger bottle (237ml instead of 119ml) so I'm happy! I'm assuming they did that on purpose, right? I don't need to tell them, right? Right! OK, then! Shhhhh!

So this is what my desk looked like 45 minutes after getting the post:

And here it is from a distance with my prints scattered on the floor:

I wanted to try a technique to paint directly on the gelli plate, but it didn't quite work as I expected. Then I started fooling around stamping with the mini gelli plates on top of a larger one, and although my prints were not amazing, I really loved the look I got on my pallet paper, that I used for mixing the acrylics with the slow-drying medium. Here are some of my results. I don't think I could have achieved the same effect without the medium, because the paint would have dried on me a lot sooner.

Here are some of my prints as well:

 

Oreo news: it was such a nice spring day yesterday, I decided to let Oreo explore the garden under supervision. He's 5 months old now and never been outside! He's not neutered or microchipped, so we can't let him roam outdoors just yet. We'll have him "done" within the next few weeks, so he can go out more. He was so timid at first but I could tell he was also very excited. I shot a video of him smelling fresh air for the first time from the doorway (you can just about see my gelli prints in the background!) - then my son shot a video of him watching the same footage on the PC monitor this morning! I don't think Oreo realized it was him on the screen! He did go out into the garden a bit later, but ran back in before I had a chance to film him.

Thanks for visiting! If you would like to see what's going on in other people's art spaces, hop over to the Stamping Ground for a sneaky look around!

LifeBook Catch-Up: Happy Traveller & Doodle Bug

As soos as LifeBook 2016 started back in January, Tam overwhelmed us with lessons and inspiration. So far I've been able to keep up with the weekly assignments, but early on I missed two of Tam's lessons. The all-important Happy Traveller and a bonus lesson titled 'This year I'm letting go of...". Finally, I've had some time to make up for the omissions and today I'm sharing both of these projects.

I admit that I took some shortcuts with the Happy Traveller lesson. I didn't watch the videos (I just wanted to get going!) and I used a sketch of a face I made last year for another LB lesson that I never completed. I decided to adapt it to this project, partly because I didn't want to waste the paper and also because it's symbolic of my continued journey. What I couldn't do in 2015, I can do in 2016!

My companions on my journey this year are an elephant (copied from Tam because I like it so much!) and a little bird (symbolising creative freedom). I also managed to smuggle in my symbol for my words this year (Balance, Focus, Direction).

The second project I want to share today was an exercise in letting go of negative emotions while attracting positive energies. It was supposed to be a zentangle butterfly on an inked background, which turned into a doodle bug for me! I'm not a great zentangler - I just don't have the patience for it - but I like doodling, so I ended up with a stripy butterfly/dragonfly crossover type of doodle bug.

The trail the bug is leaving behind contains all the negative feelings I want to let go of this year . They are almost illegible words as I didn't want to spend precious energy "dwelling" on them, but I'll tell you what they are: anxiety, resentment, envy, judgement, self-doubt. They are all extremely toxic and I will make a conscious effort to leave them far behind!

At he same time, I'm flying towards: self confidence, creativity, self-worth, acceptance, trust, happiness, solitude, serenity as well as my three words for the year, balance, focus, direction. The word solitude might be misinterpreted by some as a negative thing, but far from it! Some of us need solitude to feel whole and at peace with the world. I need regular doses of solitude just to stay sane! If you're an introvert like me, you will totally understand this!

Here's my visual interpretation:

Thanks for visiting! Hope I didn't bore the pants off you :)