Keep moving forward

Keep moving forward…

...even if some steps are slightly sideways.

Tacking across the wind is sometimes the only way to make headway.

Discover your wings

This page started out with a gelli-print on to greaseproof paper applied on top of a bit of book paper collage. I liked the white space, so continued with white with a feather stencil. It felt like it needed a bit more definition, so I used the stencil to outline some feathers off-set a bit from the white ones.

Feathers made me think about wings, and the INXS lyrics came into my head 'For we all have wings, but some of us don't know why.' Hence the journalling: Discover what your wings are for, and soar!

Letting in the light

I read an interesting blog post last week about thankfulness. It talked about how thankfulness puts windows into windowless places and lets the light in. When we can find the good things in bad situations we can see that they're not so dark. This quick journal page just reminds me to be thankful always.

Set your face

There is something wonderful about a door closing. Though it can feel like you have wasted time on something that is now closed to you, it is also a positive in that you know that that direction is not the right one. Something definite has come from it. Once you know the direction to travel, you can set your face towards it and stop going down the rabbit trails.

In some ways this year has been like that for me. I have been exploring various avenues, trying out different things, and working out which is the direction to go in. I have learned that, if I want to flourish no matter what, I need to see the positive in all situations and learn from everything. There is always a crop to be had, I just need to recognise it.

Realisation

Journalling helps me to work things through. Some things that seemed to be at a roadblock have been resolved and the light seems to have gone on. Knowing now what crop I want to grow has enlightened me as to what seeds to plant. And so two pages are born.

Working things through

A couple more pages in my junk journal from this week. As you can see, the second one is inspired by Dina Wakley. My page wasn't going anywhere, so I pulled down Art Journal Freedom for some ideas.

I like to use my pages to work through my thoughts and feelings. Already I've worked out a solution for the feeling of being hemmed in by circumstances beyond my control expressed in these pages. Sometimes just putting the thoughts out there to be looked at stops them from going round and round in my head. That can be enough to see a way through.

WOYWW

So, I haven't joined in WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday) for ages, and I felt it was about time. So here is my desk as of this morning. So what's on it?

This is the latest journal page. The skeleton is a transfer made with sticky-backed plastic. The background is mainly gelli-printed adhesive labels applied randomly. Then I added some blue acrylic paint in the gaps. Some of the labels had a herringbone brick pattern on them, so I extended it with the same blue acrylic at the top and bottom of the page. And here's a close-up:

These are the canvasses I'm working on as a small series. You can see that I've added a few layers since the last post. They need some words, but I'm not sure what they'll be yet.

And these are some bottles I'm experimenting with on the gelli-plate. I think they need a few more layers before they're finished. 

Also tucked in there you can maybe see a couple of tags on the go, and another journal that I'm working in.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's on your desk today :)

Having fun

This is the first page I've done (although not the first in the book) in an old cookery book picked up for $2 at the library. I like it because it doesn't have glossy pages, although the pages are nice and thick. I find the ones with glossy pages end up sticking together once they're painted. Not good!

The words I picked out and boxed read 'Imagine. Grow. Keep tender. Thrive. You can improve.' Of course, they were the first things I picked out on the page, and as they were printed in white, the other things I did to the page obscured them a little and I had to give them a hand with a white pen. 

The heart is a transfer done using sticky-backed plastic - the sort you use to cover books. I found it worked fantastically well, leaving just the illustration and no fluffy bits of paper persisting. It worked so well that I did a few more as well, so watch out for those on forthcoming pages :)

And I'm having a spring clean around the place, too. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm cleaning, per se, but definitely throwing things out and rearranging the furniture. I found these canvases so decided to work a series. The system I'm using is to do the 'same but different' to each canvas. i.e. each one was painted black to start. Then I pasted on some book paper, gelli-printed, and used the same stencil with white paint for each etc. They aren't finished yet.

And because I took out the gelli-plate, of course more prints were made. I particularly like using spray paints on it at the moment. A small dot of acrylic and a complementary spray ink brayered together. I like the way it beads up and makes a great texture.

Soaring and resting

This page was just pootling along, not particularly going anywhere, until I outlined some shapes that were left when I cleaned off a stencil. They immediately suggested birds to me.

These birds were all sitting, and it set me thinking. Birds are able to soar, but just because they are able, doesn't mean that they do that all the time. They take times of rest so that they are able to soar when they need to.

This year, when I have the word 'flourish' as my word of the year, is turning into a time of rest. How do you flourish when you are resting? It depends on how you interpret the word. Flourishing in winter looks very different from flourishing in summer.

I am learning to flourish when things are quiet; when I am looking for direction; when I am called to take only tiny steps.

Taking stock

I'm starting to enjoy drawing faces with my left hand. For some reason they seem to have more character than ones I draw with my right hand. I think it's because there's no pressure. I don't expect myself to produce anything perfect. I've even started to like using a marker pen where there is no turning back from the lines. It makes me be bold, and I like what that can produce.

How do you push yourself to be bold in your art?

Flowers among the thorns

The stamp at the bottom of this page reminded me of thorns. The circles that I had already placed on the page were easily turned into flowers among the thorns and then I knew where the page was going.

Sometimes you go through something that is a little disappointing. But there are always flowers among the thorns. One of the things we can do to flourish is to make sure to look for the positive rather than focus on the negative.

Building up layers

I always find it fascinating how different papers react to paints. This photo paper is glossy. Spray paints worked surprisingly well on it. Sometimes they wipe off if you use wet media on top of them, but not in this case.

I sprayed through a stencil in a couple of colours for the base layer. Once they were dry, I squirted a blob of acrylic paint on to the page and smeared it all over with a baby-wipe. Then I used the stencil again, but this time removing paint through it using the wipe.

This process was repeated several times, first with yellow, then green, then blue acrylic paint. At the end I removed the paint from on top of the red spray paint in the bottom right corner to bring back the colour which had been dulled. I like the interplay between the different colours where the spray ink stays put and the acrylic is removed.

Bring light

Once I had added the yellow to this page, I just couldn't get past it. It just seemed to spill light on to the page. Then I thought about how some people come into a room and seem to suck all the light out of it. You know who they are - your stomach drops, your energy disappears, and you just need a nap after you've spent time with them.

I don't want to be like that.

I want to be a person who brings light to the room. Who leaves people energised and encouraged.

Whose life can you bring a little light to today?