Society of the Owl Women - A Spirit Animal Collaboration

In late 2016, Holly, Sofia and I started an owl theme collaboration. We were taking the Rituals class offered by Get Messy Art Journal and all had made spreads on the Owl as our totem/spirit animal. The journals are all back home so we're sharing the completed spreads. It's great to look back to see what style of pages I was making at the time. 

I'm going to start by sharing my completed journal and then share the spreads I made for Holly and Sofia's. Holly and Sofia are also sharing their completed journals so please check out their blogs. I can't wait to see them myself!

Sofia's spread turned out to be such a nice companion to the spread I made on the previous page.

I love the background Holly made for this spread. It's simple but adds such a level of interest.

The way Holly made the words look this the wind behind the owl is so lovely. And the forest background! 

This is such a great reminder from Sofia. Especially with spirit animals, it so easy to forget the playful nature of animals. 

I like to imagine that this is a giant owl spirit in Holly's last spread, especially in comparison to the female figure. 

Sofia added French to the journal and my sister kindly translated it for me. "Messenger of the gods, you reveal the mysteries of the universe and open our eyes to the sacred secrets of the invisible, unseen world hidden to the unenlightened." I absolute love this!

The next three photos are the spreads I made for Holly's journal. 

And these I made for Sofia's. 

Painted cover for Season of Kindness

I had such a fun time making my first tutorial video as a Mess Maker for Get Messy, that I just wanted to record my process for painting the cover of the journal I'll be using this season. I made this journal with a pamphlet stitch and canvas paper.

I've used canvas paper only once before and it did not turn out well. But that was years ago when I was trying to hard, so we'll see how this goes together. The paper feels like canvas but when I accidentally tore it, it tore like paper. It didn't have the canvas threads that I expected. 

I also didn't gesso the canvas first. Honestly, I never think of gesso unless I'm working on a stretched canvas, and those come pre-gessoed a lot of the time, so let's just say I never think of gesso. Unless it's to use instead of white paint.... go figure. 

I did notice that the canvas paper started to pebble up after I used the water and scrubbed a bit with the brush, so I probably should've put down a layer of gesso. 

Other than that, this is pretty much the style of abstract painting I've been doing recently. I'm over the "fear of the white page" and have moved onto the "fear of layering." I'm really working on adding more and more layers, and not focusing on just one layer in fear of covering it up. I love the depth of layers, so I'm hopefully that I can one day be confident in creating layers. 

If anyone doesn't know, Get Messy is an art journaling community that provides theme based prompts and tutorials for eight (!!) weeks at a time. This year I am one of their Mess Makers, as part of their creative team and I can't wait for share this year with everyone. 

To learn more about Get Messy Art Journal or to join, click HERE!

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