9/23/2011

Celebrating Me • Art Journaling • Week #4 My Hair


Art Journaling • Week #4 My Hair


INSPIRATION:

My Hair

INTROSPECTION:
Questions



Q. What is my hair like?




Q. What styles have I worn and what was my favorite?




Q. What hair routine do I have?
Q. Do I have hair attitudes?
Q. What hair memories do I have of haircuts? Others?


IMAGE-MAKING:
Applications
A. Do a hair timeline
A. Use a hair dye to write or design
A. Cut out mag pics of styles you've warn
A. Cut a lock of hair, frame it, design and write around it
A. Mod Podge page, Cut strands of hair & lay on page, take tissue paper and cover entire page, mod podge over the top to seal, then write


Once again I'm leaving you with ideas from other's art journaling pages.
Image from Amber Gibb Art 
Image from ArtJournaling.ning.com

Image from Balzer Designs

Image from RGRDesign
Record something. Celebrate!

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling My Voice

Here is my art journal entry for My Voice. Truth be told, I almost forgot to do it because I have homework on my mind. But, I'm glad that I have this Celebrating Me • Art Journaling challenge to remind me of important things I want to record. I hope that you got to record your thoughts on you.


My page looks much better in person that in this scan. It took me about 30 minutes. I did silver ink with glitter embossing. Then wrote with a sharpie pen. I love silver. And glitter. I never tire of it.

9/16/2011

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling • Week #3 My Voice




Art Journaling • Week #3 My Voice

INSPIRATION:
My Voice

INTROSPECTION:
Questions
Q. How do I describe my voice? How would I never describe my voice as?
Q. How do others describe my voice? 
Q. Was there ever a time that I couldn't use my voice?
Q. What can or can't my voice do?



Q. What remedies have you used to soothe your voice?

IMAGE MAKING:
Applications
A. Put your lip prints on the page and write words coming out of them.
A. Stamp one word/phrase 3 - 4 times without re-inking, so that it fades like an echo.
A. Record your voice talking on your smart phone, use watercolor to make the background, painting how you feel listening to your own voice
A. Use curved lines, starting in one corner, make wave lengths and add text on each line
A. Make left side background darker & the right side lighter, the image fades off like a soft voice

Here are a few art journal pages of others. 
They aren't about voices, per se, but can be influential in your image making.

 A Paper Bear
 HandmadeByJessica
SomethingTwoCrowAbout
 T'rinaLockary
Victoria LeFeure




On Friday morning, upload a photo of your celebrate me • art journal page on

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling • My Hands

Here's my art journal page for last week's theme - My Hands. I know. I like green. I'll mix it up another day and do other colors. But, for now this is what I wanted to do.



What I did.
• Used a green stamp pad for my handprint.
• Traced my hand with a yellow crayola marker.
• Ink pad the bar at the top.
• Black inked my fingerprints.
• Wrote my text.
• Sprayed green watered down paint.
• Black ink stamped letters at the bottom.

I hope you recorded some of your thoughts this week. I'm pleased that I'm finally doing some record keeping about myself. Celebrate Me is making me think about it. I'm already thinking about what I want to record for our next one.

Are you going to share? Over at  Shannon's Studio on Facebook. Be brave.http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shannons-Studio/163713903699596?sk=wall

9/09/2011

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling • Week #2 Hands

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling • Week #2 Hands

INSPIRATION:
My Hands
INTROSPECTION:
Q. What do my hands look like?
Q. What do my hands do?
Q. What are the most significant things my hands have done?
Q. What is the most difficult things my hands have done?
Q. What would I miss doing if I didn't have my hands?
IMAGES:
• Ink pad my hand and press and print
• Trace my hands
• Draw my hand
• Paste magazine photos of hands
• Glue in a glove and doodle on it


Here are a few art journal pages of others. It might be help get you excited.


Kelly King
Familycraft.about.com
NickieBlog
Donna Dugone-Anami
Craftside.typepad.com
Amy Grennell



On Friday morning, everyone can upload a photo of their
celebrate me • art journal page on Shannon's Studio Facebook page.

Celebrate Me! Art Journaling • My Name

Well, I hope no one was expecting a masterpiece. It's not. But, it is exactly what I hoped for - to record insights and image making. Mine. To celebrate me and my life. I don't think I've recorded some of those thoughts ever. It was so simple. Having this blog helped me do it. Thank you.


Here's how I did it.
  1. Took a green stamp pad and rubbed all over the page.
  2. Took a dirty paint brush (it had sparkles in it) and rubbed water all over it.
  3. Sprayed a different color green dye in places.
  4. Let that dry. The page curled a bit but I could straighten it out.
  5. Printed my font.
  6. Used a light table to trace the lettering. See here.
  7. Freehand drew the ribbons as I went.
  8. Wrote text.
  9. Colored in ribbons with crayola markers.
  10. Added the date.
Are you going to share? Over here at Shannon's Studio on Facebook. Post your journal page.

Oh!! I'm not going to wait until Monday to post the new inspiration word, introspection, and image making ideas. I'll post it at 5:00 tonight. I figured it would be nicer to have the weekend to work on it. We'll post again next Friday.

9/06/2011

Art Journaling Tip- 5 Step Lettering

Since our art journaling inspiration is our names, we will be putting names to pages this week and I know that can be a little intimidating.

Some of us are perfectionists. And when it comes to penmanship it's no different, maybe even intensified. I've worked with women who refuse, yes refuse, to attempt hand lettering. They hate their writing and they can't get past it. I don't always agree with them but that frustration hinders the creative spirit.

When it comes to lettering, I'm in both camps, but it depends on the day. If you're one who's stopped by the idea of your own writing not being enough then I have a tip for you.
















This will help with letter loathing. It's a light box done a couple of different ways.

1) Design what you want to say, in the font you want to say it, in the size you want.
2) Print it off on a thin (lower number pound) paper. It will let more light through.
3) Place the journal page that you are going to draw on over the top of your printed page.
4) Hold it up to a window (left photo) or over a light box (right photo).
5) Trace.

All of a sudden lettering isn't so labored.
Good luck on the image-making and introspection into what your hands mean to you.
See you Friday.

9/04/2011

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling • Week #1 My Name • Begin Now!

Celebrate Me! Art Journaling • Week #1 My Name

This weekend was about getting your BOOK • BOX • BELONGINGS. (If not, read this post.)
Since this is the first day, I'll let you know how we'll proceed. You won't have to go this alone.

Every Monday will be Q & A, as in QUESTIONS & APPLICATIONS Monday. Questions for introspection and application ideas to help with image making. There will also be a word, phrase, or quote meant to inspire the whole thought process. Use any or all of the ideas.

INSPIRATION:
a single focus word (or maybe a phrase)

INTROSPECTION:
questions to explore your thoughts and life

IMAGE MAKING:
applications to experiment with

There's a few ways to go about this.

1) Do the images first and think about the inspiration word. Then record your most important thoughts around or on top of the images.
2) Or, write your thoughts and let images come to your mind and recreate you mental images after you've recorded your ideas.
3) Or, a combination of back and forth with words and images. Images and words.

Anyway works.

One last thought. Don't stress yourself over the image making. This might be the most uncomfortable process. If at first you're nervous, look at other's art journals for inspiration. Mimic their layout. Use their color palette. Incorporate their use of text. It will get easier and you'll become more uniquely expressive as time goes on. Don't worry. Start somewhere. Just begin.


OUR FIRST ENTRY

INSPIRATION:
MY NAME

INTROSPECTION:
Q. Who inspired my name most?
Q. What other name were my parents considering?
Q. Have I always liked my name?
Q. Does my name have any significant meaning?
Q. Do I have any memories related to my name?

IMAGE MAKING:
A. Create a background of markers and ink stamp your name over the top
A. Put the title "Celebrate Me" along with your name and text
A. Take a photo of yourself, glue it into your book & repeatedly write your name over the top of it
A. Do an ink character self portrait and use watercolors or pastels to add color & add your name
A. Print name in a font you love, put your page over the top of it, use a light table and trace


For the next few weeks, I'll add other people's images to get your imagination going as well. This will hopefully give you ideas and ease you into making your own images.
REMEMBER, this is about you, for you, to celebrate you.



Candice Windham
JK Bees
Cafepress Primitive
BlueBazaar.com
Whimspirations

Ohhhhhhhh! I almost forgot.
On Friday morning, everyone can upload a photo of their celebrate me • art journal page on Shannon's Studio Facebook page. You can't not share with us.
It's not a critique of your expressions, it's a celebration of each of us. Let go. Do it. Friday.

9/03/2011

Art Journal Tabs

Julie was talking about sections in her art journal over here on our FB page. I came across this gal, Mary Macilvain, and saw her photo of a journal page with tabs. It looks simple to do. So, I thought I'd share the idea in case other's were looking to section off their journals.

9/01/2011

Celebrate Me • Art Journaling • How Do I Begin?

Let the Celebrate Me Art Journaling Journey begin!

Art Journal Short Definition:
introspection and images in a book

Art Journal Long Definition:
a personal point of view which can include
wishes, wonders, wisdom, workings, warnings, war-ings, and worthwhile times,
recorded in the form of doodles, drawings, designs or dressed up words and images
all bound in a book


So, those are the definitions that I've come up with. That way we are thinking the same things when we're talking. There are tons of art journaling sites on the net. A lot of them are just about image making. Which is nice. But, I happen to think pictures and text are a powerful combination. Then, when you add a person's life into the mix, it becomes extraordinary. It's the personal point of view that is the intriguing part, seeing the person and what they're about.

Journaling is something we usually do as kids. I have several diaries from back then. I've always thought is was important to keep a record of life but life got busy and my entries sporadic. I've missed some memories that are important to me. We can't be all things, to all people, all the time. So, I'm not going to beat myself up about missing some of the past. But, that doesn't mean I can't record some of the present or thoughts on things now.

Our art journaling will focus on finding out more about you (say, "me".) It's about celebrating. Celebrating your (say, "my") life - past, present and future. It's record-keeping with images. And you don't have to be an artist to do it but if you're worried, I'll share ideas to bring out your creative side. Because it's a little intimidating here's what you'll need to get started.

1) GET YOURSELF A BOOK
It can be anything. If you are going to be using wet medium (watercolor, acrylic, glue, etc.) then you'll want a book with thicker pages. A craft store will have a good selection with the cost being from $5 - $15. I'd go ahead and invest so that you can experiment and not worry.

2) GET YOURSELF A BOX
Not everyone has the space to have a studio, but you don't need one. Just get a box so that you can put all of your stuff in one place. It's ready when you're ready.

3) GET YOUR BELONGINGS
Gather up all your art belongings into the box.
Markers, pens, colored pencils, watercolors, white out, glue, small blow dryer, tape, ruler -
things like that.

BOOK • BOX • BELONGINGS
BAM!! YOUR READY TO ROLL

Get the stuff this weekend. This weekend. Then we'll get started. Monday. Every Monday.

I started a Facebook Page just for Art Journaling and sharing pages. Like it here.