More Psalm 23

Here are the next four pages in my Psalm 23 journal. I'm enjoying working through the psalm. Sometimes I wish I'd set up the journal with double-spread pages, though. The last couple of pages I've written a lot more.

Gelli fun

My floor after a gelli-plate session last night :)

The one above started with a layer of turquoise that had a comb run through it in a wavy pattern. It looked a bit plain, so I cleaned some lime green paint off the brayer towards one side. Then a layer of bright blue paint on to the gelli-plate and some of it lifted with a sponge stamp. Once the print was dry I outlined each shell with a gold pen.

This is another sponge stamp. Again I outlined the flowers, this time with a Sharpie and a black micron pen. This was printed directly into a journal.

The green, gold, and copper piece on the right is a piece of tape I used to clean off the plate when some dried paint from a stencil stuck to it. Yes, shocking - I don't always clean off my stencils :) The gold and copper is Perfect Pearls powder.

I like the effect on the black scrap paper I had lying around. Must explore that a bit more.

Psalm 23 - a beginning

In preparation for a workshop at the end of November on engaging creatively with Psalm 23, I'm doing a journal dedicated solely to that psalm. I'm using some of the simple techniques I'll be teaching, and having fun at the same time.

The psalm is so familiar that I thought I should break it down into short phrases and concentrate on each of them. With that in mind, this is a 16 page journal so that I have a cover, plain inside cover, plain back, and 13 journal spreads, each about A4 in size.

Each page so far has been very simple with only a few layers and not taking very long to complete. This wasn't deliberate, just how things turned out.

Here you can see where my calligraphy practice has come in handy :)

Airing my insecurities

I really like the way this page turned out. To start with there were too many harsh lines where I had randomly collaged on a piece of paper with a bold red background. It really wasn't working for me.

But a few pieces of Russian book page and a slathering of gesso and pale blue acrylic later, and the juices were flowing. Blue ink sprayed through a stencil, some white doodling, and a few dots of pink lumiere paint and it was ready for journalling.

So what was on my mind? I have set up a date for a workshop, but find it cringeworthy when I have to tell people about it. What if no-one wants to come? But of course, if I don't tell people about it, how will they decide? Ah, the insecurities of the artist :)

And here are some lettering practice pages. 

Thankful

For the first time ever - as far as I can remember - my daughter and I found ourselves locked out of the house. We had both wandered into the garden to fetch in the washing when the door blew shut behind us. My daughter was shoeless. My husband was at Synod all day.

Oh dear.

After getting over feeling incredibly dumb, we started to count our blessings and be thankful. The church was open, so we had access to toilets and water. There is plenty of shade in our garden, along with tables and chairs. There were even boxes of books at church, collected ready for a book sale, so we had something to read.

We were locked out for four and a half hours, but God still provided for us.

And we were thankful.

Sharing this over at One Little Word, where the word for the month is 'thankful'

Another video

Having rediscovered the fun of making a video the other day, I thought I'd do another one. I chose to do a face this time and didn't let myself be hurried. Watching the video afterwards, it's interesting to see how it came together. I don't necessarily think about what I'm doing while I'm doing it, so it was fun watching the face emerge.

The eyes were made with a hand-carved stamp and the rest of the lines of the face were made using a brush and water-soluble graphite. I have noticed that I'm getting bolder with faces. I used to always draw them out with pencil first. Now I go straight in there. There's a freedom in letting go of expectations. It will be a face, even if it looks like an abstract Picasso woman by the end.

I chose to make her a red-head because the background was mostly blue. I wanted to bring in some 'pop' to the page.

A little video

I thought it was about time I set up my time-lapse video up and recorded something in my new studio.
The camera takes a photo every 2 seconds and downloads it as a single video. For some reason whenever I make a video I feel compelled to just keep moving. It jerks me out of feeling comfortable as I don't have time to stop and think about what I'm doing. I just lay a few things around the table and go with what I can reach.

So here's a page just thrown together for fun, no thinking, just fingers moving.

Focus

I was having fun building up layers of circles on this page, adding a bit of shadow here, a highlight there. Filling in background colour, doing a bit of stencilling.

Then it felt like the page was done. It just needed some words. But what should I write?

Then I saw this little piece of the first layer peeking through the middle of the crowding circles, and I had the word:

Sometimes we have to look beyond everything that is crowding in on us and focus on what is important. And sometimes that is hard work.

What's crowding in on you at the moment?

Prize!

Last month I was blessed to win one of Mary Brack's repurposed book journals as part of the celebration of a year of her Etsy shop.

The pages are made of lovely thick watercolour paper, so I gelli-printed some of them, and also added extra pages using the handy guide that Mary included to punch holes in the right place. The blue page on the right above was done by brushing on watercolour mixed with washing-up liquid.

This door is the ghost image left on the backing paper after making a transfer with Lesley Riley's Transfer Artist Paper.

On the right above is a bubble print - great fun to do :)

Mary also includes several pages of patterned paper like that on the left.

I'm looking forward to jotting down thoughts, quotes, and lists in this little journal.