Get Messy Gifts - Week 6

For the last week of Season of Gifts, I'm sharing a spread that I actually started after Christmas. I used my favorite wrapping paper, one I've actually had for a few years now. My plan was to paint in the left half and I might go back and do that still. But for now I'm sharing as-is because I also like the contrast between the lines and wrapping paper. 

This is a technique I learned in high school. Where you trace half of a sheet of pattern paper and then use the piece you traced to match the colors and paint it in. In school we used a light box, but I just used graphite paper. It's a great way to practice color mixing as well. 

For all of 2016, my Get Messy art journals have been handmade out of mixed media paper and all the same size. As much as I loved making them, I want to change this up for 2017. Work in whichever journal inspires me or in an altered book. I also just found sheets of watercolor paper, 22"x30", and I need to decide if I want to bind a journal out of or use it full size in some way. 

Colour Blast - Minted

OMG! It's another jump up and down and dance situation! Like when I was asked to collaborate with the Zine Squad.  I was so excited when I was asked if I'd like to be a part of this year's version of 2016's Colour Chaos. This means we all pick one color to be the focus of our art journals. They are then mailed from one lady to another until making their way back to it's owner.

We're all introducing our colors and the pages we made today, so please be sure to check the list below to find out this years colors. It's like getting seven more "colors of the year," but way cooler since you get art journal pages along with it!  Oh and since this in an international group, I'll probably be interchanging color and colour.

Moriah

Vanessa

Julia

Lauren Brown

Riet

Lauren Blood

My color is mint. That perfect mixture of blue, yellow and white that brings Spring to mind.  And if you read my pages in order, they are a section from the Tao Te Ching.

The art journal itself is made from a small Moleskine cahier, that I took apart and rebound with a variety of papers. There's Moleskine paper, scrapbook paper, watercolor and mixed media paper. Also some tracing paper and a transparency sheet. I hope everyone has fun with it!

Get Messy Gifts - Week 5

It's been a quiet start to 2017 as my maternal grandmother passed on New Years Day. So instead of making goals and setting up for the year ahead,  it's been a bit more melancholic.

My grandmother lived in Wisconsin, and I always associate red-winged blackbird with the fields behind her house. It's not a bird I see often in New York, so it has an extra special meaning for me. 

And to go along with the Season of Gifts, I made a page to honor my grandmother's gift of growing roses. 

Get Messy Gifts - Week 4

I still wanted to create a weekly spread even with the busyness that was Christmas. So I made this spread in about 5 minutes!

It was pretty simple and intuitive. I had fun playing with white crayon resist during past Get Messy seasons, so I grabbed a gold crayon for these pages.

I closed my eyes and swirled, dashed, and squiggled it on the page. Next came a few layers of watercolors and the quote! And that's it, a lovely spread with a focus on the blended watercolor.

Weekend Plans:

1. Gift exchange with friends

2. 2017 goal setting

Get Messy Gifts - Week 3

I don't want to be cliche and say this is about the gift of life, but it kinda is. Or at least the gift of personal growth. The strength and confidence we gain when overcoming struggles or trying new things. 

The base of the spread are craft gift bags and a pink metallic gift bag from the previous page. I thought the metallic pink would be great to go with the heart and used the vellum to tone down the shine. 

There's also three types of glitter! Some fine glitter for the heart outline, larger glitter in the swirls, and holographic glitter on the white paper cutouts. I'm really happy with the effect of the glitter outline on the vellum and I definitely have plans to keep experimenting with this technique. 

Weekend Plans:

1. Merry Christmas!

Get Messy Gifts - Week 2

Week two of Season of Gifts and we're dealing with the idea of living in the present. Of not just letting the days go by. This week I was really challenged with this. I have a few projects to finish up before the end of the year and I'm feeling the lack of time and find myself wondering where that time has gone.

Over the last few years, I felt like I was just existing. Just going through the motions of life. I'd find myself thinking and telling others that I couldn't even remember what I had done the previous week. And that was disheartening. I don't want to look back on the year and only remember the "big" events. 

I was inspired by Matisse's collages, where he would "paint with scissors." To me, theses shapes represent events passing by. Events that I'm trying to capture and remember and to not let the dark pain's gray overwhelm me. 

Weekend Plans:

1. See Rogue One

2. Christmas Potluck

Get Messy Gifts - Week 1

As much as I love Christmas, for me, the month of December is also a time to look back on the past year and plan for how I'm going to start January. It has that exciting feeling of possibilities that I used to get at the start of every school year, especially during college.

So how appropriate that the last season of Get Messy for the year is called Gifts?! Since the more introspective themes are my favorite, I'm going with a list of attributes I want to work on for the new year.

I'm starting of with the idea of persistence. I admit, goal setting is a struggle for me.  Most of the time I never make them, because then I don't have to admit that I might fail at something.

My journal this season is make from a mix of gift bags and mixed media paper. I had the larger, neon pink doilies already, and then die cut more doilies out of pattern papers. I love the look of hand cut letters, so I splattered some metallic mist paint on black construction paper to help break up the solid black. 

Van Gogh has some of the most insightful quotes I've ever come across. And although I've read variations like this before, I'm a firm believer in the idea that sometimes you need to read something over and over before it clicks. 

Weekend Plans:

1. Finish up One Little Word 2016 album

2. Continue with December Daily

3. Kelly Purkey workshop on Sunday in NYC!