365 Week 14

You did it!  You made it through the first quarter of 2013!  Are you still doing something creative every day?  It’s hard to believe time has gone by so quickly.  We still have a long way to go, but hang in there!  I know you can do it.

Here’s a list of prompts for the coming week. 

• My morning routine…
• My deepest regret….
• What makes me me?
• If I could only teach you one thing
• If my pet could talk, it would say…
• Safe
• Favorite season of the year

And now for a peek at some of my latest entries:

Day 85 - Nurture

One of the things this 365 project has taught me is that good backgrounds can be a long process.  If I want one that’s really complex, it takes time.  So over the last few weeks, I’ve been starting on some backgrounds in advance, and I keep them in a little folder to pull out and use when I start working on a prompt.  These backgrounds are really just scratch paper that I’ve used to test a stamp, wipe off excess paint, etc.  I also use pre-cut pieces of paper to “clean” my palette and paint brushes when I’m through painting.  I just keep adding bits to assorted papers until I’m ready to use one of them.  The result is some very nice, varied backgrounds that give me a great place to start building a page for my art journal.

Day 86 - Something I am proud of

This background was actually one I did straight on the page.  I started out with a base of turquois paint and went from there.  The splatter dots are Tim Holtz alcohol inks dropped onto the felt-padded applicator tool and dabbed all over the page.  I also used a foam stamp to heat emboss with an almost translucent color, which gave it some nice texture.  I tried my hand at the running drip using Judikins Mica Gloss pigment ink dropper, but it didn’t give me the effect I was looking for because it soaked into the paper before it could run down.

Day 87 - Look through a magazine, clip a picture, and use it as the prompt

I decided to go a little abstract with this prompt, so I found a magazine layout that had a lot of overlapping rings and circles.  I cut some of them out for the background and then I started layering on more using stamps.

Day 88 - Tradition

I tried my hand at a few different effects and techniques on this page.  The background is ink applied with a brayer over gesso, and I used a mask to create the journaling frame.  I made the frame itself as a way of practicing my flourish-drawing skills.  I’m not very good at it, and need a lot more practice!  I tried some different techniques with the butterflies, as well, but it really didn’t show up very well.  The black Memento ink didn’t stamp on the gesso very well, and when I came back a while later to sponge some color into the flowers, it smudged because it still wasn’t dry.  Over all, this is one of my least favorite pages, and oddly enough, Christen said she loved it.  

Day 89 - Pearls of wisdom

I wanted to work on my Copic marker coloring skills, so I created this page to do just that.  Using a hand punch, I cut out various circles and stuck them to my paper as a mask.  I used some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist to spray the background so that when I removed the mask, I had a lot of various-sized circles to color with my markers.  I think some of my “pearls” turned out quite good, but I still have a lot of problems with bleed (could be the paper I’m using), and some of the colors don’t blend as well, even though the numerical distance is correct.  I also found that for some colors, I could use the Colorless Blender to create a highlight on the pearl, but for other colors, it was either too harsh of a difference or you couldn’t even tell I’d done it at all.  It probably would have been more effective to use a 3-color blend, but I don’t have that many colors.

Day 90 - Mothers

For this prompt, I used one of my ready-to-use backgrounds.  This one is a piece of paper I used to wipe off my paint brush while painting, and I just kept adding to it.  I don’t know why, but I just love the color combination of lime green, turquoise, and orange.  Maybe it’s a tropical thing and it reminds me of our annual scrapbooking cruises.  The photos are some leftovers from another project I’ve been working on and depict 5 generations of women in my family.  One of the recurring themes you will see in my art journal is parenting, and specifically the choices we make as parents and the consequenses of those choices, both good and bad.

Day 91 - Daughters

Here I go, back to using song lyrics for my journaling!  I just can’t help it.  Sometimes a prompt just immediately brings a specific song to my mind and it taints everything I do! This one is actually quite fitting when viewed in the light of the previous prompt.  The silhouette of a mother and daughter were actually a photo I found on the internet.  I Printed the photo, cut it out with scissors and craft knife, and secured it to my paper with temporary adhesive.  The background was Tim Holtz distress ink applied with the applicator tool using the sponge pads.

Well that’s it for this week!  I can’t wait to show you what I’ve done with the next set of prompts!  I’ve got more fun with pictures along with some personal revelations!  Until then, go do something creative!  And don’t forget to share your work in our gallery:  Flickr 365 Group.