Life update and art journal share: How meditation works for me

Hey guys. Ive been super busy lately. June is a very busy month for our family. We have my father-in-laws birthday, my fathers birthday, Steve's birthday, my birthday, fathers day, and our wedding anniversary. This is the card I made as copper is the traditional 7th wedding  anniversary gift.

We purposely kept all of the days pretty low key. On my birthday I binge watched criminal minds episodes, Steve did the school run for me, I had a NAP, and went out for a great meal. The perfect day for me. Here are a few cards from my lovely friends at card club:

 and out for dinner:

Now we are back to normality for a few weeks. I want to get the garden tidied up before my MOM COMES BACK FOR A VISIT! That's right, my mama is coming.  I'm really exited if you haven't noticed by my dramatic use of ALL CAPS. She will be here for the last week of school for Scarlett, and her last week we have booked a week in the Isle of Wight. None of us have been there and everyone tells us its beautiful. We booked a cottage about a 1/4 of a mile from a sandy beach. You better believe I will be blogging all about it.

Ive also been playing in my art journal. This has been a difficult page for me. By that I mean I really liked it, then I didn't, then I was annoyed with myself for overworking it, and then I fixed it. It has been a great learning experience though. That's the amazing part of art and art journalling. All those emotions over some paint on a page.  It can take you through a range of emotions and you come out the other side learning something about yourself.

I started by putting a few stencils down, and then completely white washed the back round using gesso. Then I just continued stencilling and layering. Paying attention to what colours are over what and keeping in mind the overall composition.

I put a prima stencil down and used a distress tool with a victorian velvet distress ink to outline a
flower towards the center of the page. I then just used a mixture of gelatos, white and black posca pens and even a red sharpie to get the flower how I wanted. Now, I'm not in anyway a professional and I dont claim to be with my colouring. Meaning, im not going for realism.

Then I coloured in a stamped image of a Prima bloom girls stamp with prismacolour pencils. I cut it out with scissors and a cutting blade for the fiddly bits. I pasted it down using studio multi medium.

Then.....I ruined it. I put some awful lettering right above the flower and it looked..bad. I was mad at myself for an entire afternoon. I even mentioned it to my husband about the page screw up over dinner. Of course he said it looked great. He always does, bless him. I had a mini temper tantrum within myself saying how much I suck and I should just give up on art journalling right before I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and it was a Saturday. I had no rush so I like to start my day with some meditation. Whilst I was meditating I completely cleared my mind. It allowed me to shed all of my insecurities and get over my hurt ego.

When I was finished I approached my journal in a new way. I fixed it. I pulled some sheet music pages apart, and pasted it using white gesso giving a whitewash coat over it.  I took a script stencil and used some yellow distress ink over it, and stamped a Dina Wakely stamp using blue archival.  I used the archival ink as it stamps a more sharp image then the distress ink.

Ta-Da! I like it again. I mean I know its not perfect but I like the composition and I fixed it. That means something. I like the journey I went down with this page.  That's what its all about.. the journey.

speak soon lovelies!!

                                                                         Always, -Kass

Art Journal page inspired by Dina wakely

Hello all, I hope this post finds you all happy and well. Ive been rather chipper myself lately and I'm chalking it down to sunshine. I feel so much happier when able to spend some long hours out in the garden getting my hands dirty. June is the time of year when things really start to bloom and take over in the garden. It's gorgeous but it is high maintenance.

 But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. I'm here to talk about a fun, flowey, art journal page I created. This week I was stoked to receive my squiggly birds stamp set by Dina Wakely, in the mail. I immediately had to get to work with them. I grabbed my favourite bird and decided to create an art journal page. This project was inspired by the artist Dina Wakely. I'm very inspired by her recently. I love her style so much. Bold contrasts, painterly brush strokes, and a "no fear" attitude when it comes to white space. To check out more of her work , click here

So here's my go at a flowy back round mixed media art journal page:

 The Materials I used on this project:

Fresco chalk acrylics- chalk, dolly mix, orange

 Daler rowley Hard bodied acrylics- magenta, turquoise, yellow

Black gesso or paint

Silver metallic acrylic paint

Large, hard bristled paint brush

Copic fineliner pen 1.0

Scissors

Washi tape- pink/white stripe, music notes

Stencils- Chevron stripes, small squares, some bottles or glasses (you can use the bottom for different size circle stamps)

Magazine clippings and/or printouts of words you can make a sentiment from

Dina Wakely Squiggly birds stamp set, and her textures stamp set

Archival ink-jet black

1. Create a flowey back round by adding water to your hard bodied acrylics and "swoosh" different colours to your liking. I like the contrast from light white to dark black and everything in between.

2.Use your stencils. First with the chalk fresco colour through the chevron stencil then stamp Dinas grunge circles with the dolly mix fresco colour. Then run your orange colour through the stencil with the tiny squares. Try and put these in compositionally  pleasing places. A rule I always go by is placing things in odd numbers. For example,  the dolly mix grunge circles I have stamped in groups of three on adjacent corners.

3.Then grab the silver metallic paint and stamp it around using the bottoms of some glass jars you have handy. (dylusions sprays work, lid from gesso pots, also glass jar lids).

4. Stamp the bird with black archival ink. Preferably in some white space so you can see it clearly.

5. Rip off 2 bits of washi tape and position them so the bird is standing on them.

6. When the page is completely dry take your fineliner pen and draw squiggles and lines randomly throughout the journal page.

7. Cut out a word or quote from your magazine clippings and paste them on how you like. I went for a quote from my favourite book The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger. :

"she wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there,leaning on the balcony railing,holding the universe together."

8. That's it , your done. Stand back and admire your artwork.

Hope you guys liked this page. Don't forget to follow me on here and on instagram.  the link can be found here: Her altered heart instagram page,

most of the materials you see on the list can be found online at some of the following shops:

Art from the heart     a sprinkle of imagination  The craft barn  (these are UK based shops)

For some more of my projects like this one click on the following links:

Vera Lane Seaside Tag

Stampotique art journal page

All about the journey card (suzi blu inspired)

Thanks, thats it for today! Check back soon .x

                                       Always, -Kass

Stampotique designers challenge: Stencils

Hi guys! Ive decided to join in on the stampotique designers challenge this week. I love my stampotique stamps  but have been neglecting them lately. So this was the perfect opportunity to get them out and have a play! This week is hosted by Corrie Herriman and here was the challenge:

"Hello and Happy Wednesday!  I love using stencils.  They add another layer to your background and lots of interest too.  Use them with paint, ink model paste or even gesso.  Show me what you do with stencils and have fun!"


I chose to work in my art journal for this challenge. This is a relatively new concept for me and I'm not used to the layout. Its a lot of space compared to the cards and tags I usually make! So I'm not too sure about how this turned out , but its my art. Its from my soul and it has lovely stampotique images So I decided to jump in the deep end and show it to you guys. Here it is:

There are so many layers I lost count! I just kept on working and working till I was happy with what I had. I used daniel Torrente's smushallaum and smushasha, all kinds of stencils with normal texture paste, and transparent texture paste. Then I used dylusions sprays, prima bloom sprays, and treasure gold (told you I worked it a lot). I finished off with moody song lyrics from one of my favourite Florence and the Machine songs. I liked how it said "ghouls" in the lyrics, as these mermaids remind me of "ghouls playing".

Hope you like it as much as I had fun making it! I hope to join in on more challenges soon.

here some more close ups:

                            I like the way the treasure gold makes it shimmer in the light!


                                   Thanks for stopping by!  see ya soon.x
                                                           
                                                                                     Always, -Kass