Latest Drawn Mandala

Watercolor pencils, pencil, colored pencils, markers, ink, and a severe use of eraser.

Playing with wool....

I named her Chloe because of her hair.  ;)  I needle felted her.  She came from a kit from Coyote Rim Fibers that I got for my birthday.  And as you notice, she doesn't look much like the kit said she should..... I don't follow directions well.  My troll looks more angry cute than regular cute, which is also appropriate because of her name.

Drawn Mandala

Here's my drawn mandala from my class on willowing....  Water color pencils, watercolor crayons, ink, art markers, and sharpies.

Mandala Kick....

I'm also drawing them, but I made some electronic ones and wanted to share....

Images made from items off:

http://kldezign.blogspot.com/

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

Tutorial:

http://www.wicca-spirituality.com/digital-mandala.html

New Creations....

I'm posting a few photos of 2 projects.  The first was me turning a brown cardboard Halloween mask into a colorful Day of the Dead piece.

The second was more involved.  It is based (with permission) off a photo that Artem Rozhov took of birds on a phone line.  Please take a look at his photography!

Self portrait....

So, I am part of a place called Willowing.  I did the 1 st week healing assignment.  It involved me writing down all the negative things I think about me, figuring out what the positive intent of them is and then painting over it.

I did not take a photo of the negative things I said, but I took a few intermediate photos.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Junque Journal pages revisited....

I know I've posted most of these before....

I took new photos of all my pages: done, in progress, prepped, and partially prepped....

Click on the cut to see 61 photos larger sized.

I might be overdoing it.....

Kinda blurry.  I need to take photos of everything during the day so it's less blurry and there's natural light.

I did this for Andrew Thorton's weekly blog challenge.  This week's word is Cherish.

2 more pages... on a roll...

I don't have a picture of my first ever portrait that I've successfully done pasted into my book.  All of those came out blurry.  As it is, I need a better photo of my aurora piece.  Aurora was done with art marker, pen, pencil, and watercolor crayons.  The portrait was done with pencil, watercolor pencils, watercolor crayons, thinned gesso, and a lesson from Willowing.

Two new pages...

The first was me trying to learn how to use my water color pencils & crayons.  The second was me playing with new stamps and my new markers.  I think from here on out I'll be using watercolor pencils instead of actual watercolors.  I like how it turns out.  I feel like it's some of the best work I've done with watercolor.  And sorry that the images are blurry.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I can feel the depression swooping in to lay on me like a blanket.  It feels like a blanket made of lead that makes it hard to leave my apartment for anything outside of work.  It's times like this when I remember that I need to batten down the hatches and do more artwork.

So, I signed up for a classes on mandalas online.  It's free.  I went and got supplies.  I also got things to make fake sugar skulls because the stuff is on sale.  So, more battening down.  More organizing my stash, and more using up what I have.

I create more in the winter than I do in the summer.

Small collage pendants....

I made these tonight.  They are 1"x2".  I only got 5 because a 6th one cracked into little pieces and had to be discarded.  These have designs front & back.

It's the weird little details in life....

Today I worked on my art journal.  I didn't really complete any pages.  I prepped a few for creating later.  It involved gel medium gluing paper into my book and then also gessoing over.  I also glued some treat bags that I got out of the bargain bin from Halloween for pockets.  I also made an origami crane and glued it in as well.

But really that isn't the important thing about what I worked on today.

I use my fingers a lot in painting.  I prefer to gesso over my pages using my hands.  I like the patterns my fingers make in the paint.  It gives some depth to the background rather than just being a smooth surface.  It's visceral.  I even made a hand print on one of my heavier pages.  After it was dry I found myself placing my hand into the print again, just to admire how it matched up.

My hands are the most important physical feature of me.

That was the realization from today.  I used to think it was my voice.  I used to think that was my most important tool, but as I get older and I move further away from my youth, I've grown more silent and contemplative.  I appreciate comfortable silences more.  I find myself communicating in text more and with my voice less.  Even then, it is my hands that do the communicating.

I surround myself with people who are like that.  We can sit in a room quietly reading and that comfort speaks volumes.  Jeff and I do that often.  We lay in bed, just enjoying being there.  We sit and read.  Or we sit in the office and both work on our computers, silently, just the tapping of our keys making noise.  Under the desk our toes touch, or feet touch, and the silence between us is comfortable.  Our feet express the love between us.  We don't need words.

I sat with Oblivionrising in Texas, us both knitting, the silence fine between us.  We were both busy creating.  her hands were busily working on the thread and I was editing photos.  Our hands were busy creating.  Our creativity creates and weaves love into the world.  We sat in my hotel room and we were letting light into the world.  That was important to me.  It was one of the most important time between she and I and it did not involve words.  It is why she's my best friend.

I think a lot about the women in my life.  In my teens my step-mom was a very important part of my life.  Her hands were always busy.  They hand paint under the nails and it seemed like she never could get the glue completely off.  We'd sit and make things at the table.  My mother also sat and made things.  We were quiet, though, just the music was in the background, no noise from us.  Our hands making love and light in the world.  It was binding, that silence and that act of creating.

When I'm creating I'm happiest.  I spent years in relationships where I did not create.  It was frowned on.  It was discouraged.  I was unhappy.  The people I was with didn't understand.  I was miserable and depressed and I was not whole.  I never could figure out how to fill that void inside me because I did not get what the void was.  It took another woman, my counselor to remind me why I was so sad.  She said I needed to paint and draw and make.

Make.

Making is important.

It's nice to be whole and it's nice to have people around me who understand how important the act of making is in my life.  I don't need to make masterpieces or get paid amazing amounts of money.  That's not what's important.  It's the creating that is.

My hands keep my mind healthy.  Without them I'd be lost.

Sometimes I wonder what the postman thinks....

Today I got two packages.  One was attachments for my kitchenaid mixer.  I had to replace the normal bits that you attach as they have gone missing.

The other was bird wings...

Yeah... not a big deal, right?  Well, they came from the UK and so the customs label said they were dead crow wings.

Now, I have to figure out how to get the smell of mothballs out of them.

And maybe the postman won't think I'm strange with the odd packages I get sometimes.

I think I will be making a fascinator out of them if I can get the smell out.