One BADASS Art Journal Course - Week 5 - Late Night Conversations

Welcome to my interpretation of the class led by Cristin Stephenson in the BADASS Art Journal Class.  For this class as with the others I did 3 pages, one double spread and then two that came after that could either follow the same theme that I had worked with in the main page or be totally different.

Magic at midnight

For my main page below I started out with random shapes on the page, then as I thought about the late night conversations the song 'Dancing in the Moonlight' by Thin Lizzy came to mind

That connection with the moon, the music, and the sea also came in as well.  My characters that came out on the page seem to want to go on an adventure, perhaps a Thelma and Louise type of adventure in a car on a raft on the ocean with the music blazing...and free.... who knows

Adventure awaits

Some times you have to take that leap of faith, not knowing how everything is going to work out.  Some times we prevent ourselves from doing things because of fear. It is either we fear failing or we fear changing and things working out so we don't fit in our neat little boxes.  Fear to laugh and be yourself, fear to say yes to something or no.

Follow your dreams

Listening to a speaker called Lisa Nicols she was talking about her life and saying that fear can paralyze you and that you should use it instead as your fuel to get you to where you want to go.  We can sometimes fear using a particular art material, or fear that creative play because of what might reveal about you.  You can put anything in there that you might be feeling fearful about, and think about what the worse that could happen.

It is time to let go, step out, step into but make that change!  This page then came out of all of that, she chose to step out and be who she knew she could be, she stepped out and is 'Dancing' as well, not worried who might be looking or that 'its always been done this way' or about anything else that could get in the way.

Come join me next Friday and see how I interpreted the next lesson

One BADASS Art Journal Workshop Week 4 - Creating and Using Painted Papers

In week 4 of the course we looked at creating and using your own painted pages which was led by Effy Wild.  I love creating pages and find that they don't normally last long in my studio, as I always find faces emerging out of them and end up painting them.  I decided to do my own thing for this lesson.  You can see last weeks session HERE

I treated the page as if I were creating a background page with different elements, shapes and colors.  I then kept adding different layers which sometimes covered up the layer below or allowed them to show through.  This is a technique that you can get using tissue paper on a page, the underlying image will come through.

The more layers added the more it began to mimic my feeling of being surrounded by things that needed to find a home. I had to force myself to stop as I kept adding doodling and crowding it out, then covering it with paint and then going again.

Sometimes my mind be like.....and then I need to tidy up

On the first side of the main page I then drew a group of 4 simple figures.  It was almost as a way of  clearing up, and expressing aspects of my creative process, purposely not going into any detail but keeping it as plain as possible.

The many sides - keeping it simple

It then became more about an expression of the me I wanted to see.  How is it that you see yourself within your journal, do you express yourself freely or are you hiding something even from yourself.  The art journal for me can hold answers, but you got to let go of your perception of what you think others will want to see.

I see You Me

All of the pages for me are all linked and are about expression and the different forms it can take.  The way I create using many different mediums and styles seems to feed my desire to create.  I find working with different mediums suits me and the impatience I sometimes feel, there doesn't have to be the one thing there is always something I want to create, or try, and Mixed media art enables me to explore as many as I choose.

Again the style is kept very simple, but the textures and the colors ones that I find interesting.  If you are following along with the lessons, perhaps you can try putting changing something and seeing where it takes you.  You don't have to do each lesson just once, you can do it as many times as you wish and with different mediums.  Come back next week Friday to see how I worked with the next lesson.

One BADASS Journal Workshop - Week 3 - Explore, Dream, Discover

Week 3 of the One BADASS Art Journal workshop was called Explore, Dream, Discover with teacher Tracy Scott.  You can still sign up to this workshop as you get lifetime access.  Why not check out some of the other class bundles that is on offer.  You can check them out HERE 

For this painting I worked on black card and started out creating the flowers on the page.  I love creating faces with a story and so this character came through to tell hers.

I called the page Escaping to the gardens of the mind.  Working in an art journal can be very therapeutic and I find that the pages that I create usually have some bearing on either something I am working through or needing to put to rest.

An art journal can express many different sides to you, and those who have visited my blog from the 1st April to the 30  of April will see some of the different types of art journals that I have created in the blog series 30 Days of Journals that I am doing as part of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

When you want to escape to a place that is nurturing you don't always have to go far, turn to your journal.  Sometimes I can be sitting for hours working on different pages in my journal, playing with color and different textures and expressing those things that I cannot yet put into words.

As I mentioned in last weeks post either side of the main page I will be painting corresponding images that pick up elements or sentiments of the main journal page.

Remember that the journal that you create or alter is entirely for your use, you decide how you want to use it and what you want to have in it, so dive in and have some fun.

I will be posting another page from my BADASS Art Journal next week Friday, but you will also see my A-Z challenge that is also being done in April, going to be quite a busy month, so do stop by, there will be something practically every day.

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

One BADASS Art Journal Workshop - Journal Pages - Week 1 and 2

Well for those of you who signed up for the workshop you know that it is in full flow, and we have had some great lessons so far.  You can still sign up as you get lifetime access.  Why not check out some of the other class bundles that she is offering.  You can check them out HERE

I have been taking my time and really savoring the lessons and I decided to slightly change the way that I create my pages this time round.  

Badass Art Journal

Kiala Givehand lead the journal construction in week 1.  I used an old canvas that I felt wasn't working for me as a painting.  As soon as I used it for the cover of the journal it felt right.  I made a loop attachment so that the journal could expand especially if I collaged some of the pages.

Everything was stitched together and I have left the inside cover so that it can be an activity at a later date, possibly with some doodling or ephemera addition.

The other thing that I decided was to do the lessons on a double page spread, but I didn't want to leave blank pages on either side of the double spread, so I have kept these pages all about the main page.  Tiare Smith led week 2's journal page entitled Dream Girls.

For me this page expresses the dreams that I have when I sleep and the ones that I have when I wake.  I may add additional journaling on some pages or use just one word to express what I want the journal page to say.

I really love the finish I used textured card and acrylic paints alongside some Inktense pencils which give you a very vibrant look

On the front and back of the double page spread I wanted to pick up elements of the main page.  On this one I focused on the lips.  Again, some dreams we can speak into existence.  Many dreams started out with a declaration of what is to come.

An then the back of the two pages, I focused on the word dream and the eyes that can express so much - are they seeing the dream pass by or come to reality?

Amanda Trought, Mixed media Art

I really enjoyed getting back into the journal again.  I will be posting another couple of pages on Friday, so do come back and see what I do.