• Art - Blog - Creativity

    A tale of two pages

    February 21, 2021 - By 

    After day in which my ADD was in high gear, I settled down to create late in the evening. Past my bedtime, for sure. Evidently I was still cruising from the whirlwind of activity earlier…Mini-me even commented on the fact that I had half a dozen things going at once and I was jumping between them in crazy succession. Not sure what’s up with that but I’m not here for therapy.

    wonky junky journal page

    This journal had not seen any love for quite some time. I grabbed the wood grain papers without any plan and glued them down to the flimsy pages underneath.  Then added  a chunk of equally flimsy black paper to the left side. It was way to dark so I smeared some peachy, flesh tone with my fingers. Over the top I added floral washi sticker. This side was now starting to inspire me.

    I used a previously made paper cluster meant for a greeting card to break up the wood grain. While digging through a small bin of saved bits I put together a little collage of punches and a yogi tea tag. After adding a bit of stamping to each side I completed the page with the words love yourself first

    I was so happy with how this page turned out that I grabbed another journal to create a bit more.

    Ivanhoe journal page

    Layering papers has been a go-to of mine lately. I am finally convincing myself that I need to tear into those papers instead of hoarding them because they are so pretty. It’s a work in progress.

    On the right side of the spread I placed this tag I have had in my stash for a while. I thought the colors complemented that page very well. I love that there is a tag on the tag.

    I decided to use a wide variety of paper patterns for this spread. Things you likely wouldn’t see together, The jumble of colors and styles along with variety of textures inspired the words… everything has beauty

     

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    T Tuesday: Christmas and catching up edition

    January 5, 2021 - By 

    It’s certainly been a while since I have joined in on T stands for Tuesday. So much, yet so little has happened.

    This doodle is from before Winter break. Since I have had the same class over and over, I tend to doodle while waiting  for my small group time to begin. I never realized how often I doodle until distance learning began.

    Winter break started a bit early for me…similar to last year. My back was giving me trouble from all the sitting. UGH! At least we found out that we are going to back to hybrid in-person learning mid-Feb. Since all the sitting is really hard on me I tackled making a new table for the treadmill.

    It still needs a bit of work as it now tilts backward a bit which is kind of uncomfortable to type. But now I have the ability to slowly walk or just stand when I need to and still work. I’ve been working from school some days as well to change things up.

    Christmas was a quiet one. We had a blizzard on the 23rd that lasted into Christmas Eve. Not a big deal when you aren’t going any where. The drifts were crazy in places…these were just cool!

    We had fondue and played a couple board games…a nice and peaceful day.

    Marvin always enjoys posing in front of the tree for me. He’s kind of a diva.

    And what self-respecting cat wouldn’t crawl into a present box. Of course he’s huge and didn’t completely fit.

    Since I hadn’t been creative at all for what seemed like weeks I did a page in an art journal to start off the new year. I don’t love it but that ok. Just trying to start the year off right.

    Speaking of starting off the year right…I have chosen the word Strength for my Word of the Year.

    You can check out the post by clicking on the image in the sidebar.

    And if you were curious how I did with last years word: Mindful…be sure to check out that post as well.

    I’ll leave you with a my breakfast and my fortune from last evening.

    T stands for Tuesday
    Today has me working from home.
    What are you doing today?
  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    A second look: Wishes and Dreams

    January 2, 2021 - By 

    I thought I’d play along today with Second on the 2nd and share a second look at an art journal page I had a lot of fun creating.

    Take a look….

    Wishes and Dreams – 11/7/2015

    I’ve been very drawn to the multi layered look of journal pages, collage and mixed media of all sorts lately. The more textural, the better. As I sat down to create, I had two things in mind…texture and spray mist color.

    wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    I placed masking tape down the spine then layered joint tape randomly in opposite corners of the pages. Next I gave the whole thing a thin coat of gesso.  Even with the thin coat of gesso, I got impatient waiting for it to dry so I started spraying sooner than I likely should have.

    wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    At this point everything was so wet I had to walk away.

    After it was thoroughly dry, I began laying down some texture.  I used foreign text from a Brothers Grimm fairy tales book, leftover burlap from my monogram wreath, rusted fabric, a clothing tag and a bit of calico fabric for my layers.

    wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    In addition I used a punched square from an old greeting card as a focal image on the left hand page. A sweet little girl blowing a dandelion seed head making a wish.

    wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    Which ties into the words I used on the clothing tag. The words are from a Tim Holtz sticker pack.  I cut the phrase apart to place on the clothing tag.

    I watered down some black craft paint to make splatters but was unhappy with the result so I attempted to soak them up with a cloth.

    wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    Lastly I used vintage photo distress ink to stamp a floral vine in opposite corners to give balance to the pages.

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    Hope you had a happy and safe New Year! Wishing you all the best in 2021!