Posted by: Mary @ 9:09 pm
Book of Days is a yearlong art journaling adventure in an altered book. It is run by Effy Wild and as she said in one of her videos “This rocks my pop tarts!” The class is free and you will learn so much about mixed media and art journaling from Effy. Here are the front and back covers for my book.
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Word for 2012: Be
The practice of choosing a word at the new year to be a touchstone for the following year has become an internet phenomenon that has grown over time. My word for 2010 was create and my word for 2011 was focus. After giving this a lot of thought, as I usually do, my word for 2012 came to me tonight: be. Just be. Both simple and profound at the same time, my word covers a lot of ground and holds great meaning for me.
Be authentic.
Be honest.
Be real.
Be true to yourself.
Be there for those who matter.
Be yourself.
Be creative.
Be curious.
Be who you want to be.
Be mindful.
Be thoughtful.
Be kind.
Be brave.
Be strong.
Be at peace with yourself.
Just be.
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Posted by: Mary @ 7:57 am
Today I realized how much the Heart of the Valley quilt retreats and friendships mean to me. There is a buzz of creativity in the YMCA Camp Hazen Lodge as we all come together for three days of quilting, sewing, eating, and talking. This is a place for friends old and new to share family style meals and special times together. There is a view of Cedar Lake out the wrap around windows in the lodge which brings a peaceful feeling to all. The surroundings are beautiful and there is time for a walk with friends to explore the woods or to sit by the huge stone fireplace and share stories. I have been going to the HOV retreats for many years and it is always a time for renewal and inspiration. Friends are so important and spending a weekend with friends in creative pursuits is life affirming and empowering.
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There have been some requests from friends to see the questions I came up with and am working through to see where I’m at as mentioned in the previous blog post. For me, asking questions and writing about them is a tool for self discovery and a way to determine creative direction and goals. I would like to share the questions with you here and feel free to come up with and add your own. Some of the questions have two components because they relate to each other and follow a train of thought. I am a very visual person but find that writing with paper and pen taps into a different source and can bring great insight.
- What really excites me?
- What do I really want to do?
- Do I want to have a creative business of my own?
- If so, what would that business look like?
- If not, what do I want to do with my creativity?
- What direction(s) do I want to go in?
- What things do I not want to do?
- What do I want to do with my life?
- What is important to me?
- What are my goals, short term and long term?
- What are my issues? How can they be resolved?
- What is working for me in life?
- What would I like to change about my life?
- How do I feel about blogging? About social media?
- How do I feel about family, friendships, relationships?
- How do I feel about myself as an artist? As a person?
- What do I want to focus on?
- What do I want to let go of?
- What brings me joy and happiness?
- What is holding me back?
- What inspire me? Who inspires me?
- What are my hopes and dreams?
- What am I grateful for?
- Why am I asking so many questions?
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Posted by: Mary @ 9:29 pm
This photo was taken in the aftermath of the October snowstorm that came when the trees were still full of leaves, weighing down and breaking many branches and trees. This photo belies the ordeal we all went through losing electricity, some for a week or more, and living with the cold and the darkness. Everyone was grateful when they got their power back and we had crews from many states including Michigan and Maryland who came here to Connecticut to help us. Big thanks to all!
I have been busy adjusting to a new job as a Marketing Coordinator at an architectural firm and can honestly say I love it there. The work is varied and interesting and the people are great. It’s a very upbeat place! They do work that matters, projects ranging from community centers to homeless shelters to transitional housing for battered women to affordable housing to educational facilities to commercial real estate. It’s awesome to be a part of this.
My creative work has slowed down quite a bit recently and I am taking this time for reflection about where I’m at. I have been doing a lot of personal journaling to try to clarify my direction and see where I am going. I would like to set some goals but I don’t want to push myself. Right now I am more into letting things flow naturally and freely.
Ask yourself some questions and dig deep for meaning. What is important to you? What do you want to do with your life? How do you feel about yourself as an artist? As a person? What really excites you? What do you really want to do? What inspires you? Who inspires you? What is holding you back? Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.
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My friend Betty is making and donating quilts for this worthy cause and I want to let other people know about the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. She has encouraged me to get involved too especially since smaller quilts are easier to complete and I have difficulty working on (wrestling with) large quilts now because of my hand injury. My beloved aunt has some dementia so this is a subject near and dear to my heart.
Ami Simms of Flint, Michigan is the founder and executive director of the AAQI, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operated entirely by volunteers. She is a quilter. Her mother had Alzheimer’s.”
You can view some of these wonderful quilts on this Flickr stream and some of my friend Betty’s many quilts are displayed here.
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It has been raining for a few days now and I walked to the library yesterday underneath my purple umbrella to check out some books and videos. I almost walked past this dramatic leaf and then stopped and backed up to have a closer look. The leaf was huge and probably a variety of hosta or similar plant. I am not a gardener like my mother, although I did make an attempt at gardening at another time in my life. My garden always seemed to be an overgrown haven for invasive plants that spread underground runners and took over things.
This leaf stands alone, its veins marking the passage of time and its coloring heralding the coming of fall. The drops of rain along the surface stand up quietly to announce their presence on this quietly grey day. The shape of the leaf folding back on itself is what intrigued me to take a closer look. Sometimes, when we hurry through our lives, we miss the small things, the important things, the quiet beauty of the things all around us. Just for a moment, really see instead of just looking. Try to capture this beauty in your mind and hold it close to your heart.
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Posted by: Mary @ 2:07 pm
Here is an easy mixed media collage booklet that I put together last week. It started out as a 4″ by 9″ 16-page promotional booklet for the town of Chester that I picked up somewhere. It was in my pile of local interest flyers and turned out to be the perfect size for this. First I glued pairs of pages together with mat gel medium and separated the pages with wax paper while they were drying so that they wouldn’t stick together. Once everything was dry, I removed the wax paper and primed the pages with gesso. After that was dry, I painted color fields of acrylic onto the pages to make interesting backgrounds. Finally, I sorted through my collage bins and chose items that appealed to me and glued them down using a glue stick. Here is an animated gif of the booklet.
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My rainbow leaves quilt was in the GHQG quilt show last weekend. Fall is my favorite time of year and this was a perfect theme to design a quilt for my antique four-poster bed. I chose a rainbow of colors in my favorite fabrics from stash. This is an original paper pieced design that was laid out in Adobe Illustrator. It was machine pieced and machine quilted by yours truly. It is a bit like wrestling an alligator to machine quilt a bed size quilt on a Bernina 1090 with a standard size opening but I rolled and tugged and pushed and pulled and did it in stages. The background area is quilted in loose puzzle piece shapes so that the leaves pop out and the strip pieced border has freeform leaves quilted into it.
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I’m taking flying lessons with Kelly Rae Roberts
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Here is a list of my top 10 creative artist blogs that I’d like to share with you, listed in no particular order. These friends never cease to inspire or amaze and always get me going when I need a break from my own art explorations or daily life. Enjoy!
Dirty Footprints Studio for amazing art journaling workshops and thoughtful insight on life
Ali Edwards where scrapbooking is shared life art inspiration
Journal Artista for live Ustream art journaling demo inspiration and technique magic
True North Arts for shared stories and creatively inspiring with guidance and direction
Jamie Ridler Studios for full moon dream boards for discovery
An Artist’s Journal for weathered paper collages and sharing every day life
Expressive Hart for patient teaching and creative sharing
Creative Potager for writing, photography, and painting that inspires
Wright Story for creative writing and TIC TOCC challenge
Anne’s Creative Cornucopia for inspiring digital collage from my sister
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Posted by: Mary @ 3:44 pm
The 21 Secrets workshops continue to amaze and delight! This time I made a little booklet from Silky Hart’s Paint Writing class. There were problems with the pen nib not working when I switched from ink to tinted gouache, so I improvised and used a chopstick to draw shapes and then enhanced the drawing with colored pencil details. I will do some ink writing of special sayings in the little booklet later on as I couldn’t wait to see what it would look like. It was so easy and wonderful to assemble the booklet and it is like a small treasure in the palm of your hand. Enchanting!
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Posted by: Mary @ 2:17 pm
This didn’t start out to be the footprints painting. It started out as a loose watercolor scene from my imagination of a sunset over rolling hills typical of New England. The painting has been leaning against the wall unfinished for quite some time now, set aside until I could decide what to do next. Yesterday while art journaling I decided to cover the large purple mass in the middle area with white gesso. This morning some ultramarine blue followed by a touch of payne’s gray added a tint to the white area. When I got back from church today I was inspired to write the Footprints story in undulating lines in the light area. This is a technique I have seen in Somerset magazines and have long wanted to do. Now the painting has take on a life of its own and is finished because the painting expresses what I want it to say.
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Posted by: Mary @ 1:56 pm
Last week I made some little inspiration tags to hang on the wall next to my desk. My scrapbooking tag punch [1.75″ x 2.75″] was used for the shape and scraps of leftover scrapbook paper were torn and glued down collage fashion. Positive words for encouragement were written on each tag and sequins and star punch details were fun additions too. A 1/4″ hole punch and a piece of ribbon to weave through 3 or 4 tags for hanging completed this simple project. Enjoy!
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When I got back from running here and there, it was so beautiful out that I didn’t want to go inside. So I decided to paint my art journal covers out on the front porch. I have a great adjustable height craft table from WalMart (small and inexpensive) that folds up for storage and is a perfect work surface. My paint box (a small fishing tackle box) went on top of an upside down milk crate and the palette (a plastic solo plate), gesso, and brushes went on an old end table. Enya played on the stereo turned up a little louder so that I could hear the music on the porch.
What a magnificent day and here are my art journal covers and work setup. I may add more details or layering to the covers later but I am a minimalist at heart and really like that fresh got it down in one painting session look.
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Posted by: Mary @ 3:58 pm
On Saturday night while relaxing for a peaceful moment and playing with my phone, I noticed a twitter post that JournalArtista was demonstrating how to use stencils in your art journal at that very moment in a *live* Ustream video. Of course I clicked the link and headed right over there to join the fun. For days afterwards I was visualizing her gorgeous work and how easy she made it look. Naturally I had to try it myself and couldn’t rest until there was time for a trip to Michael’s for craft paints on sale at 2/$1 (have been using my expensive Winsor & Newton tube acrylics for art journaling because that’s what was on hand) and found assorted stencil packs for $2-$4 from Joann’s. It was so awesome to be able to do something spontaneous that I’d seen in a creative video online. Get inspired!
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Posted by: Mary @ 9:26 am
The incredible workshop Becoming Brave is being led by Erin Kenepp as one of the many delightful offerings in 21 Secrets: An Art Journal Playground. Erin’s videos are so captivating, free flowing, and enchanting that you want to watch them again and again. Her videos are a wonderful intro to this little ring bound book that you create about yourself. I am finding that I closely identify with this particular workshop and especially the concept of being brave as sometimes I don’t feel very brave at all.
The size of this chunky book fits nicely in your hands (I made mine 5″ square) and it feels like a treasure to explore. I can see that I am going to enjoy creating each page as it unfolds beneath my paintbrush, glitz, collage papers, and glue.
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The swan quilt is finished. It’s small, 22″ x 28″, and I found a place for it on the wall above the table where my sewing machine sits. It is hand quilted, something that I don’t usually do any more as machine quilting is faster and easier. Still, there is something about sitting in a comfortable spot and working the cloth with the needle. And it’s portable and can be brought to a get together with quilting friends. The design is from a large stencil I came across on one of my quilting adventures years ago. This was another time progression piece or UFO, unfinished object.
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Posted by: Mary @ 11:28 am
Recently I visited Newport, Rhode Island and walked about the charming neighborhood just south of the Newport bridge near the edge of Rhode Island sound. What enchanted me the most was the colorful entry doors to many of the homes, each with a personality all its own. When I got home and studied my photos from the journey, the concept for this poster came to me fully formed as an image. Don’t you just love it when that kind of serendipity happens?
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Posted by: Mary @ 9:34 am
Alma Stolller brings you back to a simpler time to connect you with your uninhibited and creative art self in her Child’s Play Workshop on 21 Secrets. Prepping pages for art journaling using a variety of mixed media techniques had me totally absorbed in the process and at one with my art spirit. Yesterday I attended an evening lecture that focused on the concept of mindfulness and being present in the moment. When focused on an engaging art activity this is exactly what happens: mindfulness. Thoughts of the past and the future recede into the background and there is only the here and now. For me art is a centering activity that greatly enhances my vision and my clarity.
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