Samhain

I was playing with spray inks last night and the raven jumped on the page so it sure seemed appropriate for today.  Happy Celtic New Year!  Samhain is the Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest/beginning of winter.  Its a time to be thankful, celebrate loved ones who have died and more. Its the halfway point between the fall equinox and the winter solstice.   Happy Halloween  Happy New Year. Oh by the way Samhain is pronounce Sow wen. Here is Loreena McKennit's awesome song Samhain Night. Enjoy.

Gelli Printing Plate

I was on Pinterest last night and saw videos about this. I had to order one right away. They look like so much fun and I knew I would us it a lot. CHeck out this video by the company.

 

Then there are videos by both Samantha Kira and Roben Marie Smith.  They both are worth watching. You can make some amazing backgrounds with this too. You can get them from Dick Blick or the Gelli arts company.

I have been playing  with some of my new supplies so I have a few pages to share.

This one I started weeks ago and never finished for some reason. Its is mostly acrylic paint with some stamping added.

This page was made with dylusion inks in the background. I have been wanting to start adding more journaling to my pages so I made this one the way Judy Wise does hers. I like having a little snippet of journaling on the page. So often there is one space left on my page where I think it needs something, It will be nice to add some words to those spots.

Insomnia

Oh I had insomnia bad last night.  I had gotten a flu shot and the pneumonia vaccine earlier in the day and my arm was killing me, every time I moved it woke me up. I finally got up did some art and just as I thought I could get back to sleep Flynn woke me up, he was restless so I put him outside for awhile.

Then about and hour later one of my cats is throwing up all over. Then its back to bed listening to some calming music hoping sleep will come. Then Lowes calls about our wood delivery.  I gave up and got up. Its going to be a very lazy day.

Here is my drawing from 3 am. I sure hope I get some sleep tonight.

Putting It All Into Words or Paint

I have had a hard time blogging about Total Alignment. On one hand its that I need to weed through the hundreds of pictures from my trip. Make those decisions what to show, what to talk about. On the other hand how do you put this experience into words at all.

For now I think I will show you some of the paintings I created. You can also look at the pics that Connie at DirtyFootprints Studio posted. Here is the link to see a little bit of what Total Alignment was like.

This first one is about a character that I will be writing about in  November, she shape shifts into a raven. I wrote words on the piece to encourage me.

In this piece I attempted to go looser or freer in my approach. I had no preconceived ideas, just kept layering on the paint I loved making this.

At Connie's suggestion I tried to look at a painting in view of my dyeing experience. So I started with warm colors in a stripe pattern. This was vertical at first and I thought it looked like all the scenery of Sedona so I turned it around. I used oil pastel to draw in some of the rocks.

I had a lot of color on my palette so I continued with the same color scheme. I see this as one of Sedona's many vortexes.




















This one is still a WIP. I plan to put it back on my painting wall and work in some imagery on their dresses.

This one is my favorite, I so love layering colors and using fun tools to change the way paint looks.  Every time I look at this I see something different.

I played with photographing it.

Over and over and it was easy to find all those sweet spots.

When you take micro shots of a piece amazing things can happen. This one is from the second painting.

I know this guy is watching out for me.

This was my last piece and its a memory painting. When we took one of our walks there was this tree that many of us sat it. It was a special place and I loved creating a painting around it. It is more vibrant in person.

Don't you just love this little me?

This week I started DEEP, Connie's second course in the Fearless Painting Process. Here is my painting table all set up with paint and tools.  I plan on using up all this miscellaneous paint I have. Some was given to me and some I bought for one purpose or another and just never used. I am hoping to empty some of these jars during the next month.

This is my first piece, it is 35 X 46, the biggest I have ever painted. We were to think about Joy as we painted, as a  result I see a lot imagery of things I like. I see the cup as the cup of life, it holds all those wonderful things in my life.  I am not sure where the elephant comes in. I do like elephants and have been drawn to Ganesh lately so that must be it.  In intuitive fearless painting you never  know what will appear in a painting. I am loving working this way.

Writing Wednesday- Nano Kickoff Party

We had our Nano Kickoff party last night. We usually have a theme because its fun and it keeps people motivated. This is my CO-ML Amber with the artwork that my daughter Sarah created.

Amber is our super hero leader.

The two ML's of our group otherwise known as Wonder Woman(Amber) and her faithful sidekick Art Woman(Me).

We made 75 of these masks. Mine needs to be moved up a little, I can't see a thing.

Lee and Robin, you don't want to mess with these two.



Ana-Lisa, Amy and Rupert all in their masks.

These guys are also known as The Avengers and they are the best writing buddies a girl could have,

The had to pose as the You Should Be Writing Guys.

Then some of us unmasked ourselves. These ladies are new members so I don't know their names. We had a blast at our kickoff and I know November is going to be awesome.

For those who need some art inspiration, here are two pages in my art journal that I have been working on.

I showed these backgrounds previously in this post 

Sunday Sketches

Here is my sketch for Sunday Sketches. I made it this morning but I am a bit late getting it posted. Its graphite pencil and Carb Othello Pastel Pencils.  It did  not photograph very well but I like the mermaid I drew today.  I hope you enjoy. Check out Sophia's blog to see what other sketchers are doing.

Its Almost November

I missed most of October being gone so now November is right around the corner.  How time flies. As many of you know I set aside November to write a  novel. This enterprise is put on by the Office of Letters and Light the organization that hosts the National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as it is affectionately called. It is a worthy cause and organization that is run by donations.  They have a young writers program and an adult program.  I always try to do my part and donate something every year.  This year I am going one step further and am giving all of you a chance to donate and to take part in my Nano month. You can go directly to my fundraising page and read all about it here.  Or just donate through the button below. I will be posting my progress throughout the month on the site and as I usually do here on this blog.  I would really love your support.

Art Supply Shopping

I know you all want to see what goodies I found. It was my anniversary while I was gone so my sweet hubby gave me 100.00 to spend while I was away. How fantastic is that. Let me tell you when I added that to what I had already I was in art supply buying heaven.

I was so excited to find these, I have never even seen them online, just in Youtube video's. So I got 10 colors. I can't wait to play with them. They are the dylusion spray inks designed by Dyan Reaveley for Ranger. Remember this video I shared awhile back. I found these at Hobby lobby in Phoenix.

Then I found these liquid acrylics by Daler Rowney and they are awesome.  People in my class were using them. So I had to head down to Sedona Art Supply and get me some of my own. The color supply was limited but I still managed to find some I liked.
















Then there are always miscellaneous crafty things to pick up.  A new gel pen to try, tiny tiles and discs for jewelry making and a glue stick. A girl can never have too many glue sticks.

In Phoenix my sister dragged me to a quilt store called Quiltz, where I got these 2 fat quarters.

In Sedona I found another wonderful quilt store and found this little pattern for a small quilt/wall hanging. I had seen rock art the day before so this felt like a great way to have memory of that.

I found these 3 orange fat quarters to use for the pattern. I figured I had enough in my stash for the other colors needed.

My last piece was this petroglyph piece that will be great as the main panel in a tote bag. I sure had fun buying all these things and I am sure using them will be a blast.

New Journal Pages

Yes I am finally back to blogging. After a 12 day hiatus I have a few things to share. Today I thought I would bring out some of the journal pages that I made while on my trip.

I played with a ziploc bag of collage items that I carry with me when I go on a trip. Its always fun to see what can be arranged.



This is a  journal I received as a gift from one of the retreat participants. It is one of two journals that were gifts.

It was filled with lovely Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper. Its the best paper and really can take a lot of abuse and still look wonderful.

This page shows the Louise Hay Inspirational card that came with the journal. I taped it down so you could flip it and read both sides.



This is the flip side and what the right hand page looks like with it moved.

I started with an image of the stone door and played with the idea of stones and all the places I have seen them.

This one was inspired by my travels. I saw lots of red rock and many petroglyphs. The background was made using gelatos. I am loving this little journal, I will be sad when all the lovely paper is used up.

Next time I'll share all the art supply goodies I found on my trip.

Headed to Sedona

In the morning I will put those last few things in my car and head south. I am going to Connie Hozvicka's   Total Alignment - A Fearless Painting Retreat  in Sedona, Arizona.  Four days with 11 other women from all over the world. It should be fabulous.  To be able to head back to Sedona, the place I met my beloved Glitter Sisters is a big plus.  After the retreat I am heading to Phoenix to see Glitter Sister Gemma and my real sister Marianne. I will also get to see long time friend Nancy and my daughters college roommate Brenna.  Lots of people I know have settled in Phoenix. It should be lots of fun.  I'll be post on Facebook and Twitter but not sure I'll have the time to blog.  I'll catch up with all of you when I return.