Wednesday Wish- You are my sunshine

This art journal page is one I made for my oldest. "You Are My Sunshine" is my song for her. She is such a joyful child, always smiling. She knows this is her song, and she even has her own verse I made up. Making this page was a sweet reminder of what the moments singing this means to each other. I like how the greys mirror the Northwest, and give it a feel of our home. She immediately recognized the page as one for her. 

Supplies:
Dylusions Art Journal
Dylusions mists
Derwent Inktense Pencils
Daniel Smith Acrylics
Uniball black pen

~Venetia

Art Journal- lock and key

I'm loving the key on this one. I meant for this page to be for something I have upcoming (yes!! There's upcoming!) and plans changed.

I got to play with some Twinkling H20s in this one. I'm loving their vibrancy. They definitely shimmer, which leaves a smooth texture.

The key and lock are hand drawn, inspired by tattoo art.

I've definitely been struggling artistically, so be ready for lots more soon! I've got some self challenges and I am going to finish my creativity series.

Art Journal- with Hope

This is one of those pages that happened, not that I planned. I am not usually a huge hot air balloon fan, but for some reason, the print on this paper spoke to me for this page. I don't know if it is my hope that things are looking up, or the Richard Branson documentary I watched over the weekend. Apparently, Richard Branson took a hot air balloon across the ocean or the world or something. I suppose I wasn't paying that much attention.  There was a balloon, I am sure of that. Where inspiration started is hard to tell, but apparently, balloons stuck. They sure look pretty and light don't they? The thing with sketching, or journaling is that sometimes the flow can reveal what the mind is processing.

I've been pretty open in sharing the last little bit of time has been a little challenging for my family. I think that darkness shows through on the background. However, the lightness of the foreground pieces reflects where I am at today. I was a little surprised by the outcome, because I let my whim guide the page.

 ~Venetia

Creative process- Hope Grows

 Here is my dirty little secret. There is a point in almost every creative project that I undertake where I hate my work, passionately. This is where I reached that point with this art journal page. I hate how the daffodils dulled, and the background muddied, and the elements feel disconnected. At this point, I want to rip the page out and throw it away.

 I decide to see it through, because I was loving the idea of the daffodils, and didn't think I could remove them without destroying them. I decide to try and clean up the piece with some stronger color, so I add spray ink. At this point I like it better, and love the look the pink gives it.





Then the ink dries. and it gets really pale, runs off the desso, and looks pale. I darken the lines on the daffodills, and on the bird, which is getting washed out.









I add some dark blue to try and add depth to the backround. The paper element soaks it up and looks almost black, while the top of the piece is still grey and muddy. Gross.

 At this point I am really upset. I decide that I can't un muddy the piece, so I have to add unpainted/uninked paper to try and build up the color. Right here, this is where I decide I have lost my mind. Yes, it looks like I shoved a piece of paper on a mess, but notice how the backround "pops" a little more once there is this pale paper?

At this point, I work the background a little harder, and repaint the daffodils to brighen the color. I use a blue to dover the lighter paper and add the striped paper to add interest. I add the hearts to balance the page, and incorporate the saying. I added the black scrap to give a fluid feeing, and start adding white doodling to lighten the feel of the page. This is the point where it really starts looking trainwrecky. 

I added the light ink on the black, and build up the white sections more. At this point, the piece is at a point where I feel it is "complete". 

Hope you liked this peek into my process. The hardest part is not giving up on the work at the point it is feeling frustrating.

~Venetia

Art Journal- Be yourself

Sometimes, I find inspirational quotes pithy. "Be yourself, everyone else is taken," for example. Some days you don't want to be yourself, because life is busy, or difficult, or sad. I explored this with this journal page.

I wanted something fun and bright, but I wanted the sentiment to reflect that sometimes, being yourself isn't the easiest choice. I like the color on this one.
~Venetia

Art Journal- Hope Grows

The past couple of weeks have been just nuts in our house. Major things keep breaking. My husband's car is in a gazillion pieces in the driveway as he rebuilds the engine. (Thank goodness he is a tech).

I have learned to not say "What next". I have also learned to try and see the little blessings in it all. It's been a string of awful luck, or circumstance, but we have had some good luck too.  Hubby's a tech, so the car will be fixed and brand new (mechanically). We had some help with the furnace getting fixed. No one was hurt in the accident that took out my car mirror.

Yes, I'm tired. Yes, I kind of want to cry. Yes, I need it to all stop. Yes, I am okay. Because my hope grows.

~Venetia

Art Journal- Stress

Last week sucked. Sunday, there was a gas leak. Monday, the Furnace shot a fireball across the basement, and we found out it is toast. Thursday, my car got backed in to. Friday, my tire had a tear.  Seriously, last week. I'm over you. 

Naturally, any sort of hectic mess brings stress, and last week really took a toll.  I took it out on my art journal and ended up with this messy, angry frustrated page. Which pretty much summed up the week.

See my poor car? The girls are loving reminding me about how the truck bonked my car and then it broke. The daily reminder is much appreciated girls, I hadn't noticed my driver's mirror missing.

Here's to a better week!
~Venetia

Art Journaling- Lost Peacock

Sometimes it is hard to find inspiration, and sometimes, it is sitting in your driveway on a Friday afternoon. I live in the middle of Tacoma, WA. I love city living because of the colorful atmosphere of the neighborhoods. There are no HOAs or covenants, so as long as homeowners aren't cooking meth, or housing enough junk to create a health hazard, people can pretty much do what they want. This creates an eclectic mix of houses. Yes, I have to put up with neighbors having grass a little long, and dandelions in the yard. Since my yard isn't particularly gorgeous, its okay. When the girls color the sidewalk, it can stay there until the rain washes it away. There are odd colored houses, and boats and RVs parked in yards, and I just don't care. The people around me care about their homes, and they may not maintain them in the same manner I would, but we all get to live and let live, and I love that. There is so much personality in each home, and that makes me happy.

Art Journaling- Free your Heart

Mixed Media, Free Your Heart, Venetia Holbrook 2013.

I've been meaning to play with art journaling for a while, and I finally made myself sit down and finish a page. What is an art journal?  Read this great post about how to make one at Daisy Yellow.  One of my 2013 goals is to finish an art journal.

If you are interested in Art Journaling, and you are a mixed media artist, or a scrapbooker, you will find you don't need much to start. Yes, I know that it is more fun to enable purchasing, and believe me, I plan to review more artsy supplies to enable your purchasing.

What do you need to start?
~A journal (you could use a box, or a sketchbook, or a used book.)
~Paper of some sort
~Acrylic Paints, stamps/stamp pads, ink, alcohol ink, watercolor, crayons, markers, colored pencils (ANY of these)
~Adhesive
~Junk from around the house
 
I am going to share the creative process I used for this project. Since I play with hearts often, I decided to start with a heart theme. I have a crate of Authentique paper from Scrapbooksteals.com.  I dug out papers I liked, then I freehand cut the heart. I've sewn around hearts before and liked the look, so I hand stitched the edge and recut the heart to reshape it a little. Holding it against the background I decided it looked dull so I colored the heart with colored pencil. I wanted the grey background more colorful, but was feeling too lazy to pull out my acrylics, so I misted it pink. It looked like I over-misted, and I didn't like the result. So I added blue mist which blended into purple (a counter intuitive fix to over misting, but it works). I drew the corner motif on the bottom, used bubble wrap painted with acrylic to make the dots. To fill the extra space of the background, I tore paper to fill in the edges, glued it down, then tacked down the large piece of background paper. Once the background was ready, I placed the heart and decided it needed wings. I sketched the wings, and fussy cut them. Then, I decided on the title. Once that was all down the doodling  looked lonely, so I added more black, and finished with the white because it needed something else.

The result was this journal page.  Have you tried Art journaling?
~Venetia