Therapy Journalling
This morning I woke up with a head full of thoughts related to my personal therapy yesterday which I wanted to record.
I wrote the thoughts on the back of a postcard, then painted the other side using acrylic paint.
To keep my thoughts private, I made this little pocket using scrapbooking paper in my handmade journal.
Then I had a little fit of digital madness!
I started out cutting and blending several detail images from the ‘Most Success’ journal page…
…took pieces of the ‘Cut and Blend image and created this Kaleidoscope…
…but I had to have one last fiddle and changed the colour to purple. Which one do you like best? I think I like the first one. It reminds me of the patterns and colours in my kaleidoscope when I was a little girl.
Inter–connected–ness–
Ever since I can remember I have always believed in the interconnectedness of everything. So when I came across this Pueblo Indian saying in Way of the Doll: Art and Craft of Personal Transformation by Cassandra Light, I couldn’t help but feel a journal page needed to be created.
I decided to use my recycled journal, and created this double page spread using acrylic paint, moulding paste and a linocut stamp. I added the quotation by cutting up a digital printout of it, glueing it down then adding paint, stamping and permanent marker to help it to blend into the page. Did I mention that I printed it on yellow paper?
And talking of blending…
…I just couldn’t resist the digital kind!
Patchwork Doll!
Continuing with my doll making addiction, the other day I got an urge to make a patchwork doll! I adapted the pattern from Elinor Peace Bailey’s book Mother Plays With Dolls … and Finds an Important Key to Unlocking Creativity, and decided to have a go at hand painting a face…
…and this is the result! She’s very colourful and rather playful! What do you think?
Being me, I couldn’t just leave her like that, I had to try adding her to a digital blend!
Do you like her in her new setting?
Addicted to Doll Making!
Did I mention that I am becoming addicted to doll making? This one’s taking a bit longer than the others have, and she’s still not quite finished, but I thought you might like to see her anyway.
The pattern came from Elinor Peace Bailey’s book Mother Plays With Dolls … and Finds an Important Key to Unlocking Creativity. It’s a generic pattern which can be adapted to make any number of variations – there are some amazing examples in the book. I stuck pretty much to the basic pattern, but wanted to add some wool hair. I searched online for some tutorials and finished up using a combination of these two tutorials: this one from Gillian Wynn Grimm at Dried Figs and Wooden Spools; and this one from Gillian Austin at Astableulah. I haven’t decided whether to paint or embroider her face, and I may add some other bits and pieces while I’m at it, but I’ll post another picture when she’s finally finished.
In between playing with dolls, I’ve also been playing with paint.
I started off with some recycled cardboard and a double page spread from a newspaper, added some blobs of moulding paste then swirled them about. I added acrylic paint, acrylic ink and spray paint to the mix, then left it all to dry. But that wasn’t the end! After scanning it I had to play digital blending…
…I thought this one was quite nice, but then I thought I’d try inverting the colours…
…and came up with this which I rather like. What do you think?
Breathing space!
I’ve finally finished handing in my written work for this academic year and have a little bit of breathing space before the next marathon of academic writing begins!! I haven’t done any painting yet, but I have been playing digital and making dolls!
It never ceases to amaze me how many variations it’s possible to create from one image simply by copying and blending.
The problem comes with knowing when to stop – tricky one that!! Both these images were created from one original piece of artwork which I played with digitally to achieve more depth and interest.
Ever since we had a doll making workshop on the course, I’ve been obsessed with doll making and have been reading about the history and researching well known doll makers. I bought this Art Doll Instructional Zine from Lani Gerity a while ago, and finally managed to have a go at making one of the dolls.
She’s called “Study’s Over” and if you want to know how I made her you’re going to have to splash out $9 to buy the zine from Lani, but I can tell you I used pipe cleaners, fabric, yarn, air drying clay and acrylic paint. She was very simple and great fun to make!
I’m working on some more dolls and am hoping to get the paint out very soon, so keep watching!
Just in case…
Just in case you thought I’d forgotten to play digital, I had a little break from essay writing tonight and played with gradients and blending.
First I made it in colour…
… and then I desaturated it to turn it black and white. I can’t decide which one I like best. Which one do you prefer?
Another Journal Page!
Following on from yesterday’s success, I’ve managed to create another journal page using the scanned digital technique. Yay!
This is the background I created in my altered journal using acrylic paint, home made stamps and stencils.
And this is my digital interpretation of todays ‘When Frogs Sing’ journal prompt.
I finally got around to processing the second of my recycled cardboard paintings from the other day. I created it using acrylic Paint, acrylic ink, stencils and moulding paste.
You can’t really see the relief on the big picture so I took a couple of detail pictures to show it off. It makes a lovely textured surface – I really love texture!
And you know what – I haven’t played blending for ages! So I just had to try a little blend here! I really like how this one turned out. What do you think?
Darkness Digitised!
As promised, here are the images from Sunday with some digital enhancing added.
Which do you you prefer? The original straight from the camera images, or these digitally enhanced images? I’d be really interested to know what you think.
Colour and Light
In contrast to yesterday’s post, and just to prove that I have been creating some of my more usual bright work, here are the latest two – digitally altered of course!!
This is my favourite – I love the softness of the colours and the textures which the tissue collage adds to the image. I created the collage using home made background papers, torn paint tissues, acrylic paint, stencils and some Krylon webbing spray. After photographing, I digitally altered the image using filters and blending.
This one is Bry’s favourite – he loves the bright colours, and yes, it is meant to make your eyes go funny!. I created this using acrylic paint, stencils and Krylon webbing spray, then digitally altered it using filters and blending.
I’ve been playing digital with yesterdays images, but you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see what I’ve done to them!
Postcard Swap
Life has been a little manic since my last post. But I couldn’t resist the call to the latest iHannah’s DIY Post Card Swap. If you love mail art and receiving beautiful works of art through the mail then you really should try it! Just click on the link above or the link button in my sidebar to join in the fun.
Since I started the Art Psychotherapy course just over a month ago, I haven’t managed to do very much art work at home – I’ve been too busy trying to get to grips with all the new information my brain has been receiving. But we do create art at uni as part of the course, and I photograph it. I still take photos on the occasional days out we have. And I still can’t resist the urge to do a spot of digital blending to see what happens.
This is the result of a digitally altered piece of artwork blended with a photo of an piece of underwater paving. But I have ten hand made postcards to create for the swap – so I’d better get busy creating! Keep watching!