Sunday Sketches - A Mandala

I am getting ready to take the course Mandala Magic with Julie Gibbons. It starts on the 20th. So of course mandalas are on my mind. This page started with a face and I painted black gesso around it. Then I painted the whole page black which led to the idea of a black and white mandala. I started with a spiral and then just kept adding patterns. The drawing of this was very meditative. I used a Uniball Signo Broad white gel pen.

Art supply goodness

This year for my birthday I asked for money for art supplies.  There were things I wanted that I had to buy online so this is what I got. It doesn't look like much but I had to order from three separate places which meant paying for shipping 3 times, I hate that. These were items I really wanted so I was willing to put up with the shipping.

Gel pens, I really love the Uniball Signo Broad Gel pens.  They come in tons of colors but I really like the black and white















Ahh some golden fluids, may favorites.  The cobalt and raw umber are refills but the others are new colors for me.  I do have the Manganese blue and Indian Yellow Hue in their heavy bodied versions. They are both fab colors so I wanted them in the fluid versions too. The Burnt umber light is a new brown to try.

These are dauber caps, the screw on to craft paint bottles. This way you can use your own favorite colors or mix new ones.  Ranger sells their paint with the caps already there but I want to make some of my own with goldens and folk art paints.

I wanted to try some of the new Strathmore journals.  Since I have 2 of the Canson Mixed media ones I went for a watercolor journal.  The interesting thing is that the cover is paper that you just tear off. The real cover is thick and is a brown alligator like surface.  It was shiny so it didn't photograph well. I am looking forward to trying this out.

Don't forget to enter my give away. I am giving away a space in my online class and Pam Carriker's Book Art at the Speed of life.  You can enter at this post

A Completed Journal

Today I had some quality time in the studio. I managed to do a few more pages to finish my manilla folder journal. Here are the results.

I thought for this page I would play with some more things I have not used in some time.  I pulled out my pan pastels and fabric tape and pieces of walpaper.  It was fun layering this all together

I just got these henna stencils  and was interested in trying them out. I had this background already painted, so it seemed a fitting match.  After adding the stencils I added this ATC I made a couple years ago. It seemed to fit the theme of the page.

This page started out with black gesso, then I layered several layers of chalk pastel, on top. Then I stamped words and scrolls in black.  The bird was stamped with metallic ink and then I stamped words over the bird. Then I made up a little story about her.

I started this page by painting black gesso on the page. I cut strips from a calendar and glued them down.  Then I added the image and words.  I got some new white gel pens in the mail yesterday and oh it is awesome when they really work.

In this page I used this awesome paper my sister had given me.  Its hand made and the texture is really neat. The image is one I love, and I have used it before. I layered it over some black card stock before glueing it down. It feels so great to have this journal finished. Now I am ready to move on to some new paintings.

Since I am getting questions in the comments:   The white gel pens I get are Uniball Signo Broad.  There are 2 kinds broad and fine and the fine doesn't work so well. I get them from jet pens.com. Here is the link to the pen. You'll notice they come in all sorts of colors.  I always get some black too, I like how well think ink flows. The other thing about gels pens is sometimes its all those layers of paint and such that make them difficult to use. Before tossing old pens, see if they work on another surface, like smooth paper.

Also I got my henna stencils from Traci Bunker and she has a video on using them at her site here. The stencils are available here