Ultimate Blog Challenge - Last Day of 30 Days!!

 

The 30 Day Ultimate Blog Challenge has come to an end with this being the last post. It has been great being part of the challenge, I did it alongside the current 100 Days of Foam Stamps challenge that you can see the daily or weekly stamps.

What I Learned From the Blog Challenge

Pace - I think that I learn to pace myself better, half way through the challenge I became stuck, I had wanted to plan my posts ahead of time but things got in the way and there were quite a few days where I had decided that I didn't want to do it any more.  

Self Care - After taking a week off I decided that I would just show up and share what I was doing at the time and if any other gems of inspiration came forth that would also be shared. - I have linked to other interesting posts for the days that I missed.

Meeting other Bloggers - I was glad I decided to go for it again and came out the other end having connected with some other interesting and inspiring bloggers, there was so much to learn from others and I will be spending time going over some of the posts that I didn't get a chance to read over the 30 days.

Celebrate Each Step - The other thing I learnt was to celebrate each and every step, writing blog posts can become overwhelming and when you celebrate the steps that you have taken you encourage yourself even more.

I Missed blogging - I also realized how much I missed blogging, I had let my posts generally slip, posting sporadically, and after the challenge I will be posting on a more regular basis about some of the creative projects I am really looking forward to it!

You can catch the rest of the Ultimate Blog Challenge posts that I did HERE

In conclusion - Overall, taking part in the challenge and sharing all my posts reminded me that I love creating, and sharing what I have been doing, teaching techniques and connecting with others.  I hope you have enjoyed visiting my blog and I hope you come back and see what other things I will be sharing over the course of the week.

Do come and join me on some of my other channels

Let me know what has inspired you on your visit to the blog and if you have been tempted to do a challenge of your own.  

Stay Blessed and Be a Blessing,

Amandax

Creative Awakenings - Book Review & What If?

 

I will be resuming my twice monthly book reviews of the books that I have brought over the years and have had a chance to work through them and see how I liked their lessons.  I think it is important for us to be continually learning and expanding the mind, especially creatively, there are so many tools, supplies and techniques that you can learn that might add something to your own creative practice.

Todays book is Creative Awakenings by Sherry Gainer 

The back reads - what if you could unlatch the doors to your heart and allow yourself to explore hopes and dreams that you haven't visited for a very long time?

Creative awakenings is the key to opening those doors showing you how to use art making to set your intentions creativity coach sherry gainer will guide you through the mile posts of this exciting journey.  Creative Awakenings envisioning a life of your dreams through art which is such a lovely way to look at things. 

It has got several chapters and in between each chapter a mile mile markers.  In the first chapter she talks about how it all came about and connecting with other artists and how she how she contacted with them and building your dream journal.  She's also got examples of supplies that you can use and setting yourself up for the journey so the envision process is a specific process that she walks you through step by step.

Check out the video on Amazon for more details HERE

Playing Card Art and the Art Bundle Sale

 

Art Bundles for Good On Sale

This is your last chance to get the 105 art classes and resources in Art Bundles for Good #6. If you missed out last November, you have 5 more days to get this fantastic deal on online art classes.

Visit the Art Bundle website to see all the amazing courses included this year. They are all listed on the homepage.

My offering in the bundle is my Course - Playing Card Art and a Mixed Media Art Digital Download Bundle  

Playing Card Art shows you how to create art on a playing card and use a range of recycled elements, adding texture and creating a pocket for your card in your Art Journal

I loved the texture that I was able to create on the card, and working on the card you can either have them loose in pockets like the one that you create on my course, or you can attach them to the page, either way they are great fun to create and come with a set of my mixed media art papers for you to experiment with too.

When you purchase the Art Bundle for Good #6, you will get lifetime access to my course, so you can take your time - there are a lot of courses to get through in this bundle!!

With over $5000 worth of art courses and other resources on topics like watercolor painting, art journaling, sketching, mixed media, acrylic painting, oil painting, stencils, collage, pastel pencils, colored pencils, stamp carving, mandalas, and much more all bundled together for one low price. An opportunity to get 105 art resources at such a low price. With so many products, it works out to about $1 per course!

25% of the Art Bundle profits are going to support Courageous Kitchen, a Bangkok-based charity helping refugees. We’ve raised US$95,354 for charity so far!!

The Art Bundle is also backed by a 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. Try out the courses for a couple of weeks. If you are not happy, John, from Art Bundles for Good, will refund your money.

Check out the Bundle HERE

If you want to just access my Playing Card Art Course, you can check it out HERE

Celebrating Textiles - Textile Challenge.

Celebrating Textiles

A couple of years ago I was asked by the previous curator of The Queens Park Gallery - Janice Whittle to take part in an exhibition - my first exhibiting some of my new textile work.  She also mentioned Boro Shashiko which I was not familiar with at the time and gave me two challenges to explore Boro and to go much larger in size with my work than I had previously gone.  

You can check out the video below of the exhibition

What is Boro?

Derived from the Japanese Boro, meaning something tattered or repaired, boro refers to the practice of reworking and repairing textiles (often clothes or bedding) through piecing, patching and stitching, in order to extend their use.

At first I couldn't imagine how I would tackle such a large piece and also learn a new technique and create a piece for an exhibition but Janice encouraged  and I became excited at how I would execute the challenge.

It took me months to get started - just as well she had given me 10 months notice!  I decided to create a series of small pieces, the size that I was used to and then join them all together.

This made the world of difference, I could just focus on that piece and then move on.  I found the stitches to be also relaxing, Boro is also known as 'The Mending Stitch'

I gathered my jeans fabric and set about creating stitches on them

I also added elements such as painted fabric, laying  and using alternative colors on the fabric.

This is the finished piece.  The wood is Moringa and Cotton Tree wood harvested from my garden

Art by Amanda Trought - Wall Hanging

My challenge for this piece was to learn something new and go much bigger in size than I normally do.  What have you challenged yourself with this month that has stretched you?

Stay blessed and be a Blessing

Amanda

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I am also taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge and you can check out all the posts HERE

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Mixed Media Art Courses to Check out

SALE - Enjoy $10 OFF all courses until 30th April Click on the image to see the course.

Use the Code at the checkout - create2

Fabric and Textile Art - Slow Stitching

Over the years I have been combining a lot of slow stitch and working with fabric within my work and have really enjoyed the process.  It started getting serious at the beginning of lockdown when the whole world seem to changed overnight and we had to come to terms with a new normal.

As I looked at the creative activities that I was doing none of them seem to still my mind until I remembered the work that I had done the previous year for a textile exhibition in Barbados at the Queens Park Gallery called Celebrating Textiles ( I will share about the exhibition tomorrow).

I realized that I liked the detail that you could get with stitch, fabric and paint - I was keen to experiment, learn new stitches and it set me on an amazing adventure of embroidery, fabric and textile art.

I had done a few fabric projects and made things from fabric as you can see in some of my 'Material Monday projects'  which mostly included crochet pieces.  The stitching, painting, dyeing started to grow.

I combined my love for painting with stitching and haven't looked back.  I start out painting my backgrounds, adding the figure and then the stitching process continues until the piece feels done, learning new embroidery stitches and being comfortable with the supplies.

I am still learning about fabrics and how to work with all the different supplies to create the look and feel that I am after.  I have been enjoying the process and continue to allow my imagination to come up with different characters and scenes.

I  immersed myself into all the fabric, threads, beads and more that I had collected over the years.  It was all there waiting for me to recognize their importance in my creative journey, and so I set about stitching, dyeing, embellishing and bringing together an array of techniques that I had developed over the years into a needle, my sewing machine and all the supplies that welcomed me with open arms, and I have not looked back.

What creative activities have you immersed yourself in over the past 2 years that has helped with your health and well-being?

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

Art Journal Page - Inspired, Material Mondays!

 Art Journal Page Process

Today I share an art journal page process as I do quite a bit of mark making on the page.  I had already created the face, which is something I do a lot in my journals, either fill up the pages with background color or faces until I am ready for them.

Material Inspired

One of the other things that I would like to get back to is working with fabric.  I like creating different activities that enable you to play with your supplies.  These spools have been wrapped in fabric and lace and I have added stitching and a variety of different fabrics together

I also found some beads and buttons that were in my overspill container and was able to use them.  The container holds all those elements that I haven't yet put away and so I would see what could be used on a project.

I managed to put together 3 spools that I can use in other projects.  It was really fun working on them.

What do you have on hand in your creative space that you can get to work on if you had limited time to create, you have to try and make time for your creative practice?

Stay blessed and be a blessing!

Limitless - Your Brains potential

 

What would you do if you could see how much better it was going to get, how different would you act now? and what would you do with the time you have?

Limitless

I have always liked the movie that came out called 'Limitless' and the idea of being able to maximize the use of your brain to 100%  to learn and do all the things you wanted to do.  Though I wouldn't want to have to continually take a drug to do so.  Some say we only use 10%, others say it is a myth and we use far more.

I think it depends how we are looking after the bodies that we have been given.  How do you look after yourself, nurture and take care of your body?  What foods are you putting in, or rather what kind of foods are you putting into that which you want to take you all over the world, perform and interact  or not if the last two years have been anything to go on - When was the last time you had a health check-up?  Are you drinking enough water, getting enough rest, finding ways to destress in a stressful environment ? and the list goes on.

Are you doing all you can do to keep your body in tip top condition in order to use all your abilities to their maximum potential?  It can be a massive challenge when you are bombarded with foods filled with E numbers and preservatives or pesticides (The food industry determines that we can safely ingest a number of harmful chemicals), these are designed to make our foods look the 'right' color, bind them or keep them at a certain consistency - and that is just one part of our lives I will not go into the environmental effects on our bodies and brain health.  

With all that and more that we are told by big business that won't harm us but have been found years later to be responsible for cancers and other illnesses you can understand why we might not be performing at 100%

What can we do?

We can have an impact on our brain and overall health by doing several things:

• Get enough sleep, take a power nap if needed - don't feel guilty
• Eat a balanced diet - A variety of food groups - quality food, not processed, heavily salted or laden with fat or sugar.
• Increase your water content - most of us are drinking water but not enough - if you feel thirsty then you are already dehydrated.
• Exercise your brain - puzzles, conversation, social interaction, learn something new, teach what you learn to others.
• Fresh air - exercise your body, go out into the fresh air, get some sunshine on your body
• Take part in a creative activity - great for your mental health and wellbeing
• Plan what you want to do, set some goals - make a list, schedule and find time to pursue those things that are important to you, challenge yourself.
• Growing your own food
• Get rid of the clutter - mental, physical... and more

These are just a few things to get started of the ones currently on my list, let me know what you ones you do.  Stay blessed and be a blessing

Handmade Foam Stamps, Miracles & Neurographic inspired Art

How are you getting on creatively?  Today I shared Week 10 of my 100 Days of Foam Stamps - each week I create a painting out of the stamps for that week.

I am on stamp number 70 and there are 30 left, it is amazing to think when you put your mind to something the results that you come out with. What were you doing 70 days ago? 

Similarly I am combining the Blog challenge which combined has really been challenging me to consistently show up. Even thought I was going to plan my posts for the Blog challenge, it didn't quite happen - had a wobbly period, so I have to regularly push myself to show up for the rest of the challenge each day.

Still experimenting and being inspired and creating daily in my Art Journal - it is a place of comfort where you can express yourself with words, imagery or both or just add color to the page.  It is important that you try and do something creative on a daily basis.

By continuing to show up, whether it is in my art journal or on my blog, I honor my word to myself about self nurture.  When was the last time you kept your promise to take time out, or have a break or treat yourself with kindness.  I love the boldness of these pages and as well as creating them just looking at them fills me with peace.

Waiting on a Miracle - there are miracles all around us.  This Art Journal Page is a reminder to look at the all the things that we have around us, sometimes perhaps the miracle that you have been waiting on is the very thing you hold in your hand.

I like the science fiction feel to it, and would love to do more work in the style.  Are you working on any new styles in your creative practice or found any new tools and supplies to play with?

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

Growing Lemon grass - My Tropical Garden

 

Lemon grass in the Garden - it loves tropical environments

Growing Lemon Grass

I go out in my garden several times a day, choosing to do the bulk of the work that I need to do first thing in the morning - about 6.30am, it is cooler at that time so if you have any thing that might be strenuous you can get more done.

I have been growing lemongrass (also known as Fever Grass) and it's official name is Cymbopogon citratus and it is used widely around the Caribbean,  Asia and South America.  I started off with a small shop brought plant, and then it multiplied giving me 3 in total.  They don't like to dry out so I need to make sure especially in the dry season that I am providing it with water.

It has many traditional uses, can be used in cooking and a variety of dishes with the leaves and the stem being used and it also makes a delicious tea on its own or added to other teas.

Being in the garden for me is a very therapeutic activity - even when you have tasks to do.  It is important to reflect on progress and just enjoy being around the plants taking in the aromas, hearing the birds chattering and feeling the sun and the breeze on your skin.

When you break off a piece of the lemon grass you get a gorgeous scent, and it can also be dried and used later.  The oils are also extracted from the lemon grass and used in many cosmetic preparations.

I hope you enjoy taking a look at the state of play with my lemongrass plants and if you have any tips for care please leave your comments on the video.  You can also check out some lemon grass products HERE

Blessings, stay blessed and be a blessing.

100 Day Project - 100 Days of Foam Stamps

If you would like to see the stamps daily you can check out my Instagram HERE

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I am also taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge and you can check out the previous posts HERE

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Mixed Media Art Courses to Check out

SALE - Enjoy $10 OFF all courses until 30th April Click on the image to see the course.

Use the Code at the checkout - create2