Random Act of Kindness

This week's challenge at The Documented Life is to illustrate a Random Act of Kindness in some way. It could be a RAK we've witnessed or one we've done for others. I decided to illustrate a RAK I did for a blogger named Joann, whose blog (Laundry Hurts My Feelings) I have followed for some time. She is a wonderful writer and always makes me smile in her posts.

Well one day, a few years ago or so, her blog graphics all disappeared. She posted about it because she was at a loss for what to do; she had no idea how to fix it because her blog had been setup by her designer. And that was the real problem. Her designer hosted all of Joann's blog graphics--and the graphics of all her other clients--on her own PhotoBucket account. The designer closed her PhotoBucket account, and as a result, every client of hers ended up with a blog with no graphics! Joann didn't realize any of this, but I did and let her know what had happened, and offered to fix her blog for her as well. 

I was able to retrieve Joann's graphics from cached web pages, thank goodness. And I had her blog restored in relatively short order. I was happy to help her and expected nothing in return. After all, what good are we if we can't help someone simply because we can...and we WANT to?! But imagine my surprise later when I received a package from her with a lovely art print in it, which now hangs in my studio. I will treasure it always, as a reminder of how kindness can bring people together.

So anyway, this is my journal page spread dedicated to that RAK. It is not very artsy, as I really focused more on documenting it rather than making art this time. And I added a quote that I have always loved as well. 

It is true: No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. If you can help someone, you should. It's as simple as that.

I Must Have Flowers

The challenge this week for The Documented Life project was to use a quote in our journal page. I decided to pick a quote by Claude Monet. 

I mostly used colored pencil for this one. I was sitting on the couch on Friday evening, not feeling the greatest thanks to a cold, and I felt like drawing. So I picked my quote and created some flowers as I sat watching FRIENDS reruns. :)

A Star Can Never Die

It's no secret that I'm a Michael Jackson fan. So whenever I get the chance to put Michael in my art, whether it's in digital form, or a painting, or in my Art Journals, I jump at it. This week's prompt for The Documented Life gave me that chance. The prompt was "Monochromatic." Well, I've painted Michael twice in a monochromatic color scheme, so I decided to use a photo of one of those paintings as my starting point. This was the result.

Once I got the photo printed out, I sealed it with some Judikins Microglaze. I use that on almost every image that I print out to protect it. Then I embellished the photo just a bit. And then I created the companion page, using Inktense blocks and an Uni Posca paint pen, with one of Michael's quotes that I love. What can I say, I love knowing that Michael's face is in my art journal!

If you'd like to see the original oil painting of Michael, just click on the link below:

MICHAEL JACKSON IN SHADES

And the quote reads, "A star can never die; it just turns into a smile and melts back into the cosmic music, the dance of life."

Bloom Art Journal Page

So this week's prompt at The Documented Life project was to add someone else's artwork to our journal page. That was tricky, considering I really don't like other people messing with my Art Journals! But then I realized exactly what to do: I'd add a copy of some of my mom's artwork to the page. So that's what I did.

My mom's artwork is the center cut-out portion--of the girl and two flowers. I added more flowers, extended her pony tail a bit, stamped on some butterflies and added some dots here and there to kind of suggest spring rain. It's that time of year, my favorite season will soon be upon us, so this seemed perfect in lots of ways. 

And I love this page, because my mom and I used to do art together--whenever we lived close enough to each other to do so. I sure miss those days. And I love it because it's a little piece of her inside my art journal. She's probably the only person (outside of maybe my grandkids) who I'd let draw in my art journal. I only wish she was here to do it for me.

Mag the Fairy

This week's challenge at The Documented Life was to cut something from a magazine and use it in a creation in our art journal. This was a difficult challenge in the beginning, because I no longer subscribe to any print magazines, so I seldom have any around. But I was digging through my stashes of goodies and found an image of a girl I had tucked away from a magazine ad. I remember thinking, when I tore out the page, that she would be good inspiration for a project at some point. So I'm glad I kept her. This fairy is the result of my creation.

In the original photo, the girl has long, brown hair that's in a pony tail, and she's wearing an all white lace dress. I changed her up by painting on her, making her clothes blue and giving her pink hair. I'm calling her "Mag" since I cut her out of a magazine. :)

Song Bird

This week's prompt at The Documented Life challenge was to use a bird on our journal page. I decided to use it both literally and figuratively--using Michael Jackson as my Song Bird, and adding a little bird at the end of a quote.

The quote is from a Stephen King book:

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”

The first time I ever read that quote, it immediately made me think of Michael. He was our Song Bird, of course, but in many ways he was also in a gilded cage, imprisoned by his fame. And though he loved his fans, he really couldn't be truly free as the rest of us are. His true freedom, sadly, only came in death. And our world is truly more drab and empty for his departure.

All About Me

Time for another Art Journal page for The Documented Life project I'm doing. This week's prompt was to include a list of things about myself in the page. Here's the result.

Not sure if you can tell, but it's basically a drawing of myself in profile (albeit, a much thinner version of myself), and I've filled it with four traits about myself that I like, along with the word 'me,' and a heart for a pop of color. I hadn't originally planned for this to fill two pages, so when my drawing spilled over onto the second page, I decided to add a quote there that I like.

So that is my first journal page for the month of March. And we are ten weeks into The Documented Life project! :)

Happy Mail Journal Page

This week's prompt at The Documented Life challenge was to Recycle something into a collage. So I decided to make good use of some Happy Mail I've gotten from other members of the group recently. We send out envelopes full of goodies that we can use in our journal pages. I've gotten some neat stuff.

The large flower near the bottom was cut from the envelope of one Happy Mail. And the polka dot letters, and the large flower's leaf were also cut out of some other Happy mail envelopes. The background color in blue was created with distress paint. And the other elements were drawn in with my new Posca paint pens.

Red Lipstick

Another journal page created in the studio this weekend, this one for The Documented Life project. The challenge this week was to create a flap on the page. I was wanting to keep it rather simple and just draw this week. Not sure why or how I came up with this--especially since I never wear lipstick myself! But hey, when inspiration strikes, you just have to go with it.

The left side image shows the flap on my page as it's closed, and the right shows the flap open. It's a wee bit blurry, but you get the idea. And then I just added in the flap, "the world would be boring without a little color." So true!

A Work of Heart

Even after I swore to myself I wouldn't do heart art this week, I've done TWO journal pages with hearts on them. Oy! What can I say. I'm either a romantic, or a creative cliche. But either way, I guess I just had hearts in my head and they flowed out onto the pages of my art journals.

This week's prompt at The Documented Life was to draw a shape, fill it with color, and then repeat. So my shape was a heart. And this was the result.

The page on the left is just another art page. I like to do facing pages with different art, but the same (or similar) palette of colors. The page on the right is my prompt page. Lots of acrylic there, and some markers, ink, and of course the Washi tape on the edge (Washi tape is fast becoming one of my addictions!). This blue color is one of my favorites right now. It's appeared in my artwork a lot in the past year. We'll see how long it takes before I tire of it. :) Love how the page turned out though!

Art Inspired by Stephanie Corfee

This week's art journal challenge for The Documented Life is to create a page inspired by something or someone (like an artist) that we like. I like so many artists, and so many styles of art, that this can be a real challenge for me to do. But as I thought about it I decided that I wanted the talented artist, Stephanie Corfee to be my inspiration. 

I recently bought one of Stephanie's books called, Creative Illustration & Beyond. I loved it so much that I also just ordered another of her books called, Creative Doodling & Beyond. I love Stephanie's style, I love her use of rich, vibrant colors, and all the detail that she puts into many of her pieces. So it was really very easy for me to be inspired by her art. This was the result.

The page on the left is just one of my weekly pages that I create. I add notes there and what not, or just little anecdotes about the day. It's the page on the right that is inspired by Stephanie Corfee. I love how it turned out! I used Inktense blocks in the background and then doodled over the colors with white and black pens.

If you are interest in seeing the fabulous art of Stephanie Corfee, please click on her name below.

STEPHANIE CORFEE

She has a gallery there, and you can see her books there also. I can't wait until her Doodling book arrives this week. I know that I will put it to good use with both of my current art journals!

The Documented Life Project

Since I'm totally absorbed in art journaling at the moment, I have been spending a lot of time looking at other folks' journal pages and it's so inspiring! During the process of browsing all that creativity, I stumbled across another year-long journal project The Documented Life. So guess what? Yep, I'm joining that challenge as well! These weekly challenges are so motivating for me and help me to push myself to let the creativity in my run wild! I just love it.

So here are the first few pages of my new Documented Life journal. I'm still kind of playing catch up on that since it started January 1st. But we can do whichever prompts we'd like, and skip some if we want, and add our own as well. It's very open and free to let us do what we want. 

Top Left photo is from the "Door" prompt.

Top Right is the "Doodle a Border" prompt (my granddaughter wanted me to drop her Loopsy gals).

Bottom Left is my own intro page with a quote I found and love.

And Bottom Right is for the "Selfie" prompt.

So far so fun! I do most of these sitting on the couch in the evening. I've got a little art tote bag full of supplies for when I am not in my studio. I am still adding stuff to it because you know how it goes--you'll be doing some art project and you need something and you don't have it. So annoying! So I'm trying to add more things to fulfill any creative whims I might have while journaling on the couch. Because I just can't always go outside to my studio--and believe me, when we have windchills in the -30's, going outside is the LAST thing I want to do. LOL. But I do prefer the studio because really, it has everything in it that I need! But I'm determined to get my little art tote up to snuff with lots of doo-dads and what-nots.

If you do Art Journals, The Documented Life is a great creative project to join into. Click the link below for me info!

THE DOCUMENTED LIFE PROJECT

Now I need to get off this PC and get some journaling done! :)