Showing posts with label fortune cookie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fortune cookie. Show all posts

Monday, September 8, 2014

A Happier Place

I've got a bunch of stuff to share this time.  

First, I'm going to share my Journal 52 (J52) page from last week.  The prompt was to "make a page that's all about time" and here's what I did:



"over time"

I got the inspiration for this page from this song, "Over Time" by Lucinda Williams (you may want to turn down your speakers, btw, because the tremolo on this song is pretty loud):



I had some sad-sackery insights into this page and song and was going to get all philosophical and blah, blah, blah...but then I stopped myself.

I've been on a binge of depressing stuff for WAY too long, and I'm going to try to pull myself out of that habit.  It gets old, you know?  

So I'm sorry for the long term wiener-ness that's been happening on the blog and let's try to have a binge of good stuff for a while, ok? :)


For this week's Documented Life (DLP) the prompt was to "use a white pen prominently on your page" and here's what I did:


The right page is actually a dark purple, but for some reason it's showing up funky...I don't know why...camera user error is my best guess...

This spread was a little bit of a battle for me.  I had done something else completely, but the pages sucked up the white pen and it was really faint in the end.  I decided to start over and painted over everything with acrylic paint.  I like it much better now.

I love the way the background shows through the paint on this and that the previous layer picked up too!

On the left page especially, you can see parts of the original stuff I had done (and the SmashBook image, a rotary phone, comes through as well)...I think that's pretty neat.  And I like the way the blue and orange set each other off so well...oh complimentary colors, you are making my day!


"Don't you know yet?  It is your light that lights the world." - Rumi


I saw that quote on Pinterest (where else?) and thought it was a good one to use with the white pen on dark backgrounds.  

Wouldn't that be such a nice thing to have someone say to you?  "Don't you know yet?"  I like that...  Sometimes we don't see our own good things...but someone out there does.  The "yet" gets me right in the feels, because he's saying 'one day you'll see it too'...that's such a nice thought!

And finally, this week's J52 prompt, "Create a page that has a lot of texture":

I was inspired by the fortune cookie fortune I got on Friday: "Now is a good time to explore the nearest coastline."

Can I just tell you how very stinking happy this piece makes me?  Cause OOH BABY!!!  I love looking at it!  Seriously, like running around the house holding it above my head going "TRA-LA-LA" because I love it that much!

Here are the textures I used (I tried to pack as many as I could into this one spread): crackle paint (thick layer for big cracks), coarse texture gel, glitter glue (cheapie kind) and Stickles  for the sand textures, gloss gel medium  (tinted and not tinted) and acrylic paint with micro beads added to it for the water, THIS aluminum foil technique for the palm tree trunk (I used brown paint instead of black), book pages, handmade paper, and crackle paint (thin layer for smaller cracks) for the palm leaves, and Crackle Accents, Enamel Accents (the black holes) and Souffle Pen (white accents on the holes) for the coconuts.

Be impressed because I cut all the shapes out freehand, and if you know me, you know how much I don't care for snipping! :)



I like it so much I have to show you two pictures, because this one shows better just how shiny the water is...ooh  I can't stand how much I like this!

I did this piece on Grungepaper (from Tim Holtz/Ranger).  The dimensions of it is 12x6, and so it's a weird shape compared to the rest of my J52 pages...it kind of makes me love it more...

On a side note, I don't know if anybody else is familiar with Grungepaper, but if you know of any technique tutorials using it, would you pass them along my way?  It's got such a strange feel to it that I'm not super sure how to work with it...it's not like paper, it's not like chip board, it's not like cardboard...it's strange stuff!  I'm at a loss as to how to use it in the 'intended' way...

At the end of this month, my mom and I are going to the beach for four days away, and I am so excited and ready to go!  I've been looking forward to this trip since last year!  And now it's just a few short weeks away and I am in kid-going-to-Disneyland mode...aka I wake up at 4 AM going "Is it today? Is it today? How much longer? Are we there yet?"  

It's probably a big part of the reason I like this spread so much...it reminds me of the beachy goodness just around the corner...even though there are no coconut palms where we are going (they have Palmetto palms...which are very short and a little anti-climactic if you are expecting the big tall palms)!  Coconuts or not, I'm ready for the beach to go!!!

Monday, August 4, 2014

A Pirate's Life For Me?

For the first time in a long time,  I made a spread that has very little meaning to me!  

Most of my art comes from somewhere inside and I end to splatter my emotions on the page...but not so this week for my Documented Life spread!

The prompt was to use a fortune cookie fortune and I ended up having only one on hand!  

Here's my spread:

Acrylic and a tad of a black micron...

The fortune kind of backed me into a corner...or so I thought while doing the spread...


"A pirate's life for me?

That has to be the tiniest pirate ship ever!  'Tis a dainty wee boat, matey!


"Boats and water are in your future.  Have fun!"
Her hair and eye are both done with metallic paints, so I enjoy the little bit of shiny in my journal.



The really crazy thing about it is that water really is in my future!  

In September my mom and me are headed to the beach for a little getaway.  But for some reason,  that didn't come to mind when I found the fortune, so I ended up with the pirate girl instead...  I can't believe the beach trip didn't immediately pop into my head when I saw my fortune...I've been thinking about this as my "happy place" that I go to when I am half a second away from stabbing someone with a paperclip!  ...so you know I am thinking about it a lot!

But no.  The pirate girl came out instead.  That's ok.  I like her pretty well, and I don't think I have a pirate anywhere else in any of my journals...so she'll do!

The most surprising thing to me is that I could not get this girl to circle around to a mental or emotional connection.  No specific interest in pirates, no song, no quote, no thought behind it...even the visual of the page itself doesn't produce any real reaction for me...  That hasn't happened for a such a long time...I don't know if that's ever happened!  (I'm really good at making everything about me apparently! Hehehe...)

I even tried to reason out some sort of subconscious reason I picked the pirate...traveling, freedom from convention/being a rebel, being a bit mischievous...but nope...NOTHING!  She's just a pirate and I have no feelings for her one way or the other...which, as you know if you keep up with my blog, is pure insanity for me...

Maybe that's a good thing, my meaningless pirate gal...maybe it means I had, for at least one day, a taste of 'normal'...where nothing was over thought, over analyzed, or overtly consuming...  It's an odd feeling, let me tell you!

Do you tend to have mental/emotional connections to your art like me?  Or do you make your amazing art in order to bring more beauty into the world, without having to have a reason for what you're creating?