Chalk on the Wild Side #2

...I wasn't going to post pictures of my mini album after I'd put my poem in it, and because I wasn't 100% happy with a couple of the pages that I thought I'd ruined... But, some pages are pretty, so I changed my mind and decided to share. Some pages were made using the different chalk techniques from Nathalie's workshop, the rest were filled up with the papers and embellishments from Nat's kits, and some of my own that I found in my collection. The album is called 'Anything Can Happen (if you let it)' (from the Mary Poppins stage musical) and the poem is 'Hope Imagine Wonder' , a very simple poem that I wrote a couple of years ago, but has always been a favourite, and seemed to fit here.

I found a flower that was the exact shape of the chalk flower from the stencil .

Addicted to butterflies... 

Poor photography skills still evident... 

Doodle birds!

The poem:

Hope, imagine, wonder, 

Wish about why, 

Believe every dream,

Make time, 

Enjoy the journey,

Discover life*

Together. 

* I realised when I had nearly finished all of the pages, I had forgotten this line, and then it was too late to fit it in. Never mind. The beauty of the poem, I think (it was created from found words) is that it still reads nicely without. 

So yeah, there it is. Comments, as always, more than welcome - especially as this is very new for me - new techniques, new style, and using poetry in my art (and showing it in public!). Obviously, I would appreciate it if you respect my work and not copy it or repeat it anywhere. It's my poem, from my head and very personal that way. Borrow with credit if you wish, but please don't steal! 

Taking a Chalk on the Wild Side

Just a quick post (I forgot to post this yesterday..) to express my excitement and happiness for a new project I just completed. On Friday night, I went to my first ever workshop, in Munich, at Scrappies (which, by the way, is like heaven on earth! If you're in Munich and love scrapbooking and art journaling and crafts - go!) to take part in Nathalie Kalbach's workshop, Chalk on the Wild Side.

I had so much fun. I was nervous - I chose my first workshop to be in a language which is not my first - but it turns out that art really can overcome language barriers. I understood almost everything, and Nat was such a good teacher that anything I didn't get, I could understand from her demonstrations, or she'd explain it in English for me! Nat was so funny and lovely, which made the whole experience even better! We created our own mini-albums in the workshops, working with fluid chalks and Pan Pastels - it was so fun to try out new things and have a play around.

I finished off my album at home, embellished it and added a poem that I wrote a long time ago, that I still love now. Unusually for me, no pictures on this post, but it turned into something quite personal - maybe one day I'll show a few sneaky peeks of my favourite bits; and also, you should find one of Nat's workshops and try it out for yourself. I'm so proud of how it turned out, and it's given me a new lease of inspiration and motivation to try new things and go in different directions with my art.

Nathalie does lots and lots of workshops, in lots of different places (I wonder how she finds the time and the energy!!) - if she's ever near you, I implore you - go! You won't be disappointed! Check out her website here too: http://nathaliesstudio.com/ - I hope she doesn't mind me posting that here, but you really should see her great work :) Personally, I'm gearing up to do some of her online workshops, and praying that she comes back to Munich soon (or decides to come to England when I'm back in Blighty...)

So yeah, a different post to usual, but I just wanted to express the love!! xxx

Happy Two Month Birthday!!

Last week was the two month anniversary of me starting my art journal - I can't believe it's only two months! It feels far longer, but it's flown by! Of course, to celebrate the occasion, I created a birthday page, combining some of my favourite media and techniques, some things I've been doing from the beginning, some things I've picked up - original media and some new favourites I've acquired along the way.* It also refers back to the very first page I ever did - a test page. When I first the book that became my journal, I used the first page to test out media that I already had, see how different things reacted, test out if I could use certain things in different ways, and just have a bit of a scribble. So, I'm posting both pages, almost as a sort of 'before and after'; so you can see the references I make between the pages. You can probably also spot some of my favourite techniques from my previous posts, too, including pockets, which is where I hid a tag (see below) with a little journalled note explaining what's on the page and why, and also how much of a positive impact art journaling has had on my life, and how I can't imagine my life without it now. I didn't think I'd ever feel like that, I thought it sounded a bit cheesy, a bit of a cliché, but now I realise that it is totally true and I stand by it - art journaling keeps me sane, calms me down, makes me happy and has saved me from myself a few times, especially during some particuarly stressful times recently in moving abroad for a year. In short, I love art journaling!!

Happy Birthday, dearest journal....

*At first, I admit that I didn't like how the page turned out, but now I'm starting to like it a bit more and more. More so , I like what it stands for... 

This is the test page:

Page Tested. 

The hidden journaling-tag:

Decorated with washi tape, my newest addiction love:)

Be Brave...

Inspired by DPP #57 - One word journaling, I created the collage background, and painted the word that I need to remember most of all while I'm here in Germany with black acrylic. Maybe better paint will make that a more enjoyable task... I didn't want to cheat and use more than one word, so I bent the  rules a bit and drew the friendly little bee to represent the imperative - everything is so new and a bit scary and I left my comfort zone behind a long time ago, so I must "bee" brave...

Let's go fly a kite and the someone collage.

I like the neat, uniformity of the frame/window collage. Two of the frames are washi tape, the rest is my doodling. I wanted the inside of the frame to be brightly colours, and this is the third incarnation; first it was going to be balloons, then a hot air balloon, then the Mary Poppins soundtrack came on itunes and it, obviously, had to be kites; lots of opportunity for colours!!

This is loosely the 'Leftovers' DPP (#7), using receipts and old lists and post it notes and bits of packaging and leaflets and the like. It is the 'someone' collage, because I stuck down the photo of the German man (identity unknown) and then on the floor I found the word 'someone' that had fell out of my pile of ephemera and collage scraps, that I must have cut out for something else and never used. So, it was fate, and it became the 'someone' collage.

Here is a close up of someone:

I think he looks friendly...

Triumph

I love this page! Red, again, and my first go at 'found words' collaging.. It reads:

Feel like a 

seductive

stubborn

gorgeous

super

perfect

happy

romantic

Triumph....   (Power to you.)

Then in the bottom left: Oh, never mind. 

The gorgeous seductive-looking girl in the red dress and it all went from there. Power to women-kind! We CAN be all those things. We ARE. But sometimes, it's just too much effort. Feathers and doilies; two favourite journal/collage materials..

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside!

Inspired by home (Blackpool, for those who don't know...), played around and created sea and sand (probably a bit cleaner and brighter looking that Blackpool seafront!) stamps and pastels and paint and glimmer mists (there is more detail in the yellow section, it just doesn't show up very well..)