Summer and Mermaids

It never fails, once summer hits, my thoughts turn to warm summer nights, cool water to swim in and mermaids. I’ve always associated mermaids with summer. I dream of them returning from the waters where they spend the winter to cooler waters, basking in the warm sun, their young splashing around, or clinging to their mothers.

 

 

 

To celebrate summer and mermaids, I created a treasury on Etsy inspired by the creatures I love.

'Summer Mermaids' by kmichelecreations

Treasury tool by StylishHome.

Technorati Tags: art,etsy,water,mermaid,summer,art journal,mermaid treasury

The result of play...

I guarantee you 100% of the time when I create art, I have some idea already what it's going to be and how I am going to go about bringing what's in my head to life on the page/canvas. It's very, VERY rare that I create something without having that basic idea. Life Book's week 8 lesson was with Mystele and it was all about just letting go and playing.

For me, it was very freeing just starting with a page and adding layer after layer. I played with colors I don't usually use (there's a lot of red in there) on a regular basis. I played with tissue paper. I played with book pages. I played with bubble wrap and even used some rubbery shelf liner to add texture. I played with charcoal pencils and some india ink. 

I even tried something I've never done before, "pulling" an image from the many layers on the page. I wasn't sure how my page would turn out, but I'm really pleased with how she did turn out and how I feel afterwards. It just feels like a huge weight of what I should do, what I shouldn't do, was just lifted off my shoulders and tossed aside. I can see myself creating like this a lot more often.

Creative Inspiration ~ Make Art!

This weeks inspiration comes from a quote that I saw on Pinterest. This quote inspired me to do just what it says..Make art and then make MORE art! So I pulled out one of my art journals and went to town!

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” ~ Andy Warhol

I know I have a hard time trying not to listen to my inner critic. But this quote just really hits it home. Who cares what other people think as long as you are creating something you love.

Hope it inspires!

Art Journal pages

Summer's are always busy around here. As we start July, weekends will be filled with birthday parties, graduation parties, swim lessons, and everything else that goes on during the weekend. It's hard to believe that in just 3 weeks we'll be heading north for our annual family camping trip. And before I know it, it'll be time for school supplies and 1st grade for the kiddo. Time really does fly.

I thought I would share a couple of art journal pages that I've completed recently.


This is the title page for the Art Heart and Healing course that I started last year. The cover of this journal had such a rough texture, I just used the front page for the cover.

My celebration page.

And this page, in my altered book journal, was inspired by a quote someone had posted on Twitter.

Art, Heart and Healing Journal Page 2- part 2 (actually it's page 3)...

This is part 2 of week 2. I had finished my whimsy page a while ago and have just gotten around to taking a decent picture of it.

Here's part 1 if you have forgotten. I do apologize for the quality of the picture. It had been snowing non stop for a couple days when I took the picture, so the lighting isn't that great.

The idea behind part 2 of week 2 was to heal some sort of childhood trauma. Without getting too much into the details, the relationship I had with my dad and my sister wasn't at all the greatest. To this day, either relationship still isn't great. So my idea for my whimsy page was to begin to heal the relationship that I had with my sister (the little girl in the pink dress), and heal the relationship we both had with our dad.

The words stamped on both pages say; encouragement, praise, understanding, support, connection and love.

I hope to get back to both of my art journals once the holiday chaos is over with. Stay tuned!

Art, Heart and Healing Journal Page 2- part 1

I'm making progress. I'm still about a week behind in the Art, Heart and Healing classes, but I'm enjoying the process so much. This has been such an eye opener really. Not only in how I see myself, but how others close to me affect that same view, and how I deal with it. Honestly, I don't do well. I worked really hard on my layout and was really excited to show off one element of the layout before I was totally finished. Mom liked it a lot (she's always been my biggest fan really) and dad, well he didn't say a thing. He just did his classic "Humph".

I shook it off like I usually do. When Chris got home from work, I showed him. He liked it as well, but when he started in with the suggestions he usually does (Which I am thankful for, he really does help me see my art from a non artist point of view), I just got really defensive and broke down into tears. I was really upset by my dad's lack of praise. 

My sister brought up a good point. He's never really been supportive of my art. I don't know if it's just because I never finished college and doing something with it, or what. While growing up, the only time he seemed to show any kind of praise was when it directly involved him. For a recent example, the kitchen cabinets. Because he bought used cabinets and saved money on refinishing them because I did it, he was proud of how they looked. My sister and I put up the kick boards under the cabinets with 45 degree cuts and everything. I admit it looks good, dad's proud because he didn't have to pay someone to put them in. 

But when it comes to supporting the things my sister and I do that doesn't involve him in some degree, there is no praise, or even that look of pride. I wonder if it's because he and I aren't close (We just barely get along as it is, mainly because I stay out of his way most the time and totally avoid him when he's been drinking).

Anyway, here's my page 2. I didn't have a board book to alter, so I just stuck it right in my journal with page 1 that I did last week. I feel the journal is more of a self healing, self discovering journey and the pages fit well together.

I definitely need to practice more with gel medium image transfers. I haven't decided if it was not enough water, too much water, or my pressing down too hard that led to the image peeling a way a little bit, but I still like it.

See my cute little faery?! She was what I was excited to share with my mom.

I love how she turned out! I think I must draw more faeries just like her. She was so fun to draw.

Well, on to page 2 of week 2.

Healing Art Journal Page

This weekend was a blur of activity. It started with my having to pick the kiddo up from school on Friday because of pink eye followed by a trip to the pediatrician. Saturday we finally put the kick boards up under the kitchen cabinets. And Sunday it was another trip back to the doctor because the kiddo has an ear infection. 

Thank goodness for art therapy! Without it I don't think I would have survived the weekend much.

I stumbled upon Tam at Willowing.org a couple weeks back while reading another blog (I apologize that I can't remember which one) and loved the idea. So I signed up and finished up a few projects that needed to be finished before I started. This is my week 1 layout.

I've drawn when I was upset, I've drawn when I was happy. But drawing to heal is something I've never done. I wasn't expecting the feelings and emotions that came when I started, but I welcomed them all the same. It felt like a huge weight was being lifted and that I was finally able to breath again.

To be honest, I wasn't exactly sure if I was going to like how it turned out. Half way through, I was starting to get upset because the paper wasn't taking the water colors well and it started to get really thin because of the water. But as I continued to work at it, and use more colored pencils for the shading instead of relying on the watercolors and acrylics, it pulled itself together. And I got to use some of my distress inks for the background which was really fun. 

I learned to let go of my constant quest for perfect portraits and drawing people who look real. That was never really my style. And even when I try to draw a realistic portrait, they are still stylized. So I've come to embrace that. It's what makes me unique. 

Art: Journaling: Mermaid page

It seems like forever since we went camping, when it's only really been a week since we've been home. And since we've been home, everything has been a flurry of activity. 

I am taking a break from my craft space overhaul to share the page in my Art Journal that I worked on before, during and a little bit after our camping trip. I slipped outside this morning to get a really good picture and glad that I did, it's now gray and dreary outside.

I know we didn't go to the ocean. But whenever we go to the River, I always start daydreaming about merfolk. This trip was no exception.

I painted the background before we left on our trip. I had hoped to work on my journal a lot while up there, but with a 5 year old who needs a bit of entertaining, that really didn't happen. But I did get to spend a few hours drawing the mermaid in the upper right hand corner and the tail fin of the diving mermaid. 

I finished the layout after returning home with another image of a mermaid and tried something new for me that was really fun, packing tape transfers.

The poem is by Lord Byron titled "There be none of Beauty's daughters..."

There be none of Beauty's daughters with a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me. 

When, as if its sound were causing

The charmed ocean's pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming;

And the hill'd winds seem dreaming.

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep,

Whose breast is gently heaving, 

So the spirit bows before thee

As an infant's asleep.

With a full but soft emotion, 

Like the smell of summers ocean.

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

Art: Journaling in July: page 2 spread

I can't believe July is almost over, where has all the time gone?! I was hoping to have more pages in my journal finished, but I guess with everything going on lately, 2 is good :)

Anyway, I started this page a few weeks ago. One dusk evening, it was cool enough to sit outside and talk with the family. We even let the kiddo stay up later than his usual bedtime. As we sat on the deck, the lightning bugs started to come out and play. Well I just felt like a kid at that moment. I grabbed the kiddo's hand and told him to follow. 

What resulted was a few hours of catching lightning bugs in our hands and letting them go. The look on my son's face when one bug decided to hang out and crawl around his open hand a bit was priceless. At one point, he asked if we could catch them in a jar to keep. When I explained to him that lightning bugs need to be free to live and not kept in a jar because they'll die, it seemed to hit home.

We've since spent a few evenings together, just he and I, hunting down, catching and letting go of our glowing friends. And there's been no mention of glass jars since :)

This page I played more with layering of different kind of papers. I used my favorite vellum for the faery's wings as well as the jar. I drew out a shape of a jar on regular paper, glued some glitter swirls, and covered the jar with the same shaped jar cut out of vellum. 

The quote says...

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul ~ Moshe Dayan

The blue background is mainly watercolor with some blue ink accenting the ridges and folds of the paper after the water color dried. I'm still trying to get the hang of the water color background. I think my pages have something to do with it not working all that great. The water just soaks right into the page. But for the most part, I really like how the background turned out.

The other background is Distress Ink in Tea Dye by Tim Holtz. Oh My Gosh do I love that ink! I went to his website and spent all afternoon looking at all the products that he puts out and all his videos. It's gotten me really excited about paper crafting. Michael's is definitely my new favorite paper crafting store. They have a bit more of a selection than my beloved AC Moore. 

My next page is in the works already. I find that I get inspired for the next page as the previous page is nearing completion. I've read about some techniques over on Craftster and that just kick started the creativity even more so. They were techniques for ATCs, but I think they would work just as well for an altered journal.

Well it's time to get back to work on my swap items and get them ready to send out before our camping trip. I will definitely be bringing some paper crafting supplies with me to work on, since I've already started thinking about working on a page there lol. 

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

A book that encourages destruction and creation..who knew!

I took a break from crafting today (my next page for my journal is almost finished, and I'm currently waiting for paint to dry) and have been poking around Craftster and the internet looking at different paper crafting techniques. Fun right? I'd say so! I've been getting a ton of ideas to use in my journal.

But what I got a kick out of is this...

A book called Wreck this Journal by Keri Smith. I found it online here and I just got a kick out of it. Flipping through a few of the pages that Barnes and Noble had up on their webpage, I just giggled even more. What are the odds that I'd find a book that tests your creativity and gets you creating an Art Journal at the same time? Slim I bet. But I find that this is a very clever book, especially for those who have thought about creating an art journal or altered book and have been nervous to do so. 

I haven't physically checked it out yet, but I just had to share!

 Paints' dried, back to crafting!

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

Art: Journaling in July: page 1

Today was a pretty good day. It was comfortable as far as weather goes, the kiddo was behaving, Mom and Dad were in a good mood, Mom and I went through the rest of her boxes full of craft supplies. So over all a really good day. And then...

It all went down hill from there. Kiddo broke his being good streak, my sister pissed me off and we got into an argument. So instead of working on the pages I had already painted the background on, I decided I needed to de-stress and work on a different page. 

I worked on the title page, just inside the front cover. And this is what I came up with. I have to apologize, my lighting in my craft space isn't the greatest so the colors are a bit washed out in the photos. I'll have to find a better place in the house to take pictures I think.

The faery sits inside the little window. I glued a few of the pages together a few nights ago and cut out a little window tonight for the faery. I love dragonflies. I drew the one that is on the page and cut out its wings from vellum and glued the center onto the dragonfly and left its wings free from the page.

And a close up of the page.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. Working on the page was a great way to de-stress. I can say I'm cool as a cucumber now :)

Happy Crafting!
~K.Michele

Art: Journaling in July

Since I'm starting my "Me Kick" soon, I thought it was time to actually do some things that I've been wanting to try. Art journaling is one of those things.

And wouldn't you know, Danni over at Whimsical Cottage is doing just that. I look forward to learning different techniques involved with altering a journal/book. I hope this brings on some much needed creativity. I also look forward to sharing some of the pages that I create. This will be fun!

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele