As part of our exercises for week 4 of painting Big with Connie over at the Dirty Footprints Studio, one of our tasks was to do a 20 to 30 minute art journal page each morning.  These didn't have to be big, it was more about the practice of just letting things flow and getting all the junk out.  I have to admit a trip out of town to my parents did interfere with this a bit on my end.  I only got pages done on five out of the seven days but it was fun and a great discipline.  Below are the four pages I actually did.  Mostly they are done with oil pastels except for the mandala which is done with copic markers.

Here are a couple more pages out of my Teesha Moore inspired art journal.  I made the journal after watching her You Tube videos which I found very inspiring.  What I like about these pages is that I wasn't trying to make pretty art.  I was just trying to push my own creative boundaries, to think in a way I haven't before when looking at my art journal.

I have been reading the novel "The Mists of Avalon".  It is an amazing book, one of the best fiction novels I have ever read.  It is one of those books that is so good when you look up from it you don't expect to find yourself in your living room because it seems so real.  I felt inspired to do a painting of two of the characters from the book.  Morgaine, the priestess to the pagan Goddess and Gwenhwyfar, the Christian Queen.  Two more opposite women could not be found yet they both pursue life with intense conviction.  So here is my tribute painting to the strong, courageous albeit fictitious women.  I am really happy with how it turned out, as a matter of fact I may scan it and offer prints of this once I open up my etsy shop next month.  They may not speak to anyone else the way they do to me but you never really know.

Today marks the start of "BIG" over at Dirty Footprints Studio.   I am so excited, almost too excited I am afraid.  You see I have this idea that this course is going to change my life, not just my artistic life but my real life as well.  I am not sure I can even explain why I feel this way but I do.  What makes me a little afraid is that when I usually come into something with such high expectations I am almost always disappointed, but I am not going to worry about that now.  I am just going to paint big and fearless and let this journey take me where it will.  No worry, no doubt, just letting the paint flow.  

Below is a fearless painting that I did last weekend.  I had painted the background over a month ago when I was playing with the new fiber paste I had bought but I had no idea what I wanted to do on top of it.  Last weekend I decided to paint a face.  I had done quite a few faces but never have I just picked up my brush and painted one.  I always draw them out first so I can make them pretty, but this time I just picked up the brush and went with it.  She isn't perfect, here face is lopsided (my husband nicely suggested perhaps she has the mumps) and the texture I had been playing around with underneath kind of looks like acne.  I was tempted to try to "fix" her, paint more hair over the lopsided part of her face but the more I looked at her the more she told me that just like all of us she is perfect just the way she is.  She doesn't need to conform to conventional ideas of beauty.  So I didn't fix her instead I gave her the name, she is Sandy.  I don't know why that is her name but it is. 

Occasionally on facebook I will put up a status that says I am fearless painting and I know full well that none of my friends or family have a clue what I am talking about.  You can find out all about fearless painting over here at the Dirty Footprints Studio.  Fearless painting is just about letting go and letting your intuition guide your painting. 

So here is one of my very imperfect, but completely fearless paintings.

I am trying to add more actual writing to my art journal pages.  I used to think I had to have something profound to say but I decided to let that go and just put down the exact thoughts and feeling I was having that were frustrating me. 

I think this is one of my favorite journal pages to date.  Not because it is at all artistic but because it flowed out of me and I was able to release some of my pent up emotions onto the page which is, of course, the whole idea behind art journaling.

Well I finally did it.  After watching every You Tube video out there and reading numerous books I still was not able to wrap my mind around how to do a Coptic bound art journal.  But finally a ray of hope, through the Willowing website I was able to find a workshop put on my Rhomany of Rhomany's Realm that teaches a simplified Coptic stitch and low and behold...my first born Coptic art journal made all by myself.  It is far from perfect but I am confident that with some more practice they will get better.  If you are at all interested in learning this technique I would highly recommend Rhomany's ecourse, it is very well taught and easy to follow.

So over the weekend I took some time to watch Teesha Moore's  You Tube videos on how to make a 16 page art journal and then the videos that walk you through her process.  You can find all of these videos here.  It was a fun and simple way to make a journal but I wasn't very confident about the collage and drawing part but I thought I would give it a try. 

I did two pages side by side and the one I thought I wouldn't like turned out the best and I ended up ripping up the collage off the other side of the paper because it just didn't work for me.  The issue then was a spent the rest of the day trying to force something onto that page and nothing would work at all.  I finally realized after a couple frustrating hours that I was just trying to hard and I needed to let it go for now and the right idea will come later.  I decided jus to enjoy the picture I had completed that I surprising liked, although she still scares my husband a bit. 

So here she is big eyes and all. 

Here is another art journal page from the "Beautiful You, Radiant You" workshop over at 21 Secrets.  This workshop is taught by the amazing Ingrid Murray, who I have to say has amazed me with her wisdom given that she is so young.  You can find Ingrid on her blog My Peace Tree. 

This isn't the best photo of my painting/collage but it was too large to scan so I had to make due.  The images may not seem very cohesive to someone just looking at it but to me they basically spoke one word and that is "free" and a little freedom is something I have been longing for.  The large circle is supposed to be a manadala and I am afraid it doesn't look very mandala like to me except that it is a circle but overall I really like the way this piece came together and spoke something from my heart.  I see more mandala art journal pages in my future, thank you Ingrid!

Here is my princess I think she looks like she is from the renaisance era myself.  I drew her in graphite and then added the color with water soluable oil pastels, which I am really growing to like, and a little bit of white acrylic paint.

I have been working a lot on faces lately.  I am kind of trying to find my face, the one that I want to draw so I am experimenting with a lot of different materials, shapes and styles.

Here are three ladies that I drew the other evening.  They aren't perfect but they are quite different from anything else I have done.

Below are a couple new art journal pages.  They aren't my best work but my goal with these was to focus more on using new mediums that I haven't tried before so the result vary but I had fun working with these new to me products.

The background and face on this first page are done almost with Tombow watercolor markers.  I used acrylic paint for the tree, sparkling H2O watercolor paint for highlighting and a white conte crayon to add some highlights. 

I am taking the online course 21 Secrets over at the Dirty Footprints Studio.  It is a simply amazing art journaling course.  I would highly recommend anyone interested in art journaling check it out.  Below is the first page I finished in my journal using what I learned from Jane Davenport's "Draw Happy" course.  I have to say that Jane is incredibly inspiring and I really learned a lot of her workshop.