BoD update 1

I have been really enjoying the process of working in my BoD

Book of Days with Effy Wild

Unfortunately I dont have a good internet plan living here by my river so I dont get to watch most of the video's, however I do get to follow along with the group on facebook and I just sort of go with the process now.

These are pages I have played on ready to journal with,

and I often start a diary in the new year but I do tend to let it slip pretty easily

I am finding combining my art journal with my diary = Bod is working really well for me.

Book of Days

 I along with almost 8oo fellow BoD'ers

have taken up the 

very generous  free offer by Effy Wild

to travel through 2012

working in a Book of Days together.

The group is a lovely supportive

  open and thriving community 

and all are welcome.

I have chosen my word for the year

it is

CLARITY

Effy is offering lessons

in mixed media and art journaling 

throughout the whole year.

This is a pocket I have added to my BoD

 

 It is a lovely collaboration of art journaling,

diary and community,

and everyone is being very inpired and very creative.

 

These pages are from my first week

and I am loving the discipline and the process.

 

 

I have prepped a few pages for future weeks

and have challenged myself to work in

warmer colors.

I have a page to store some inspiration

for things I am considering this year.

I think 2012 is going to be a big year of change for this river girl,

and am thankful to have my Bod and my word for the year 

to accompany me.

Happy New Year

 It is the start of a new year

 and there are so many juicy offerings 

of wonderful free classes online.

I have taken up quite a few of these offers

 and I hope I have not over committed.

I am doing the 365 Project and so are my boys.

It is photographic documentary of your year and my boys have both got cameras now so I am hoping we will all improve our photography skills and the boys will enjoy being part of an online community. I'm not super confident we will all post every day but we will do it as much as we can.

I am also taking  the Strathmore Online Workshops

There are 3 workshops on offer

 and the first one is with the fabulous 

Traci Bautista Doodles Unleashed

It is a 4 week course and I am so excited about this one,

There are 2 other work shops as well

Water color sketching with Cathy Johnson in March

and 

Force Drawing with Michael Mattesi in May

 These images on this page 

are from another course I am doing

at wild precious life with Effy Wild

2012 Book of Days

It is a year long art journaling course,

and I am already inspired.

So far we have altered  our books and 

are searching for our one word for 2012

I have narrowed my choices down to 

AWARE  / AWARENESS

or

CLARITY

I have also decided to play along with Jan Fox

and her 52 Playdates

with weekly prompts for arting.

I don't plan on doing all of these 

but sometimes

 its nice

 to have inspiration delivered right into your inbox!

I am also slowly working my way 

through all the fabulous lessons

in 30 days with Gulfsprite

I love these lessons

 and I love Christy's teaching style and artistic style,

she is so inspirational.

I have recently joined a wonderful ning platform

Flutterbye

with the fabulous and so very generous 

AMy McDonald

So many free groups and lessons,

videos and tutorials .

I am also participating in 2 round robin art journal swaps,

 although I only have 2 more art journals 

to work in for the International  Art Journal Swap.

Oh and Artist Trading Cards's

I will have to be joining in on various ATC swaps 

as I am loving my growing collection of these,

If anyone wants to do a swap with me for ATCs

 please leave me a comment and we can do a trade.

So that should keep me

 artistically motivated throughout the year.

I am going to need my word  

and my book of days to keep me focused.

Bright Blessings for the new year to you.

30 Days of Art Journaling with Gulfsprite

I have been working in another art journal as well

this one is a repurposed hardcover novel from a garage sale

and I have been using it to do a fabulous art journaling course

30 days with Gulfsprite

Christy Sobolewski

is an incredibly generous and gifted teacher

and I am so thrilled to be able to take her class.

These are just a few pages I have been inspired to make.

The Elements of Art Journalling week 4 - Water

This week we took the plunge
Deep into WATER
where we explored our more tender emotions
with the fabulous Effy Wild
in the forth part of our journey in
The Elements of Art Journalling
at Wild Precious

This is my Water mini book
where I keep my course PDF
right in my journal and handy for when I need it


This course is so much more than an art course.
It is really deep and transformative art therapy
and
Awesome art lessons all in one.

Our main focus with water was to look at our tender emotions.
We used contemplative meditation
and we learned a new technique of sitting with our emotions.
Effy took us on a journey to
honour and then to transform
these deep emotions.


I went deep into my emotions and I find that when I am really feeling deep emotions I like to doodle, I like to make intricate pattens and it is a form of meditation for me.

Whilst I was down deep I did get a bit lost and was having some trouble finding my way back up to the surface, I was stuck in the beginning of the process and I contacted Effy. I have to say how amazing a facilitator she is. She is so onto everyones issues, really quickly with kindness and solutions. Whether it is a technical issue, and in a big online class there are plenty of them, an encouraging word or a real life line for those who need one is this deep and challenging course. She is there. She looks at everyone's work and offers honest feed back and is so there for all of us on the course, and everyone else over at Wild Precious.
Effy you are a blessing.


Whilst I was down deep
I also found much beauty and knowledge in my soul
and I am so glad that I am taking this course.


There is so much happening over at Wild Precious
and if you haven't checked it out you really should.

The Elements of Art Journalling week 3- Air

This week in Effy Wild's amazing
The Elements of Art Journaling course
we have been working with the element of
AIR

Air is all about deep thinking and meditating, and as usual Effy had a swag of ideas for us to try and work with and the discussions in the studio and the work being done by the participants has been awesome. There is a great network forming here and it really is special.

I have been thinking about Air all week and really noticing things, the local sugar cane farmers are burning off the cane for harvest at the moment and there are a lot of raptors around. I love to watch the raptors soaring through the air, they are so powerful and masterful, searching the ground for morsels to eat.

I have been arting on this, all weekend and this morning I woke with the words to John Denver's Windsong in my mind, I had not heard the song in years though and could only remember tantalising snatches of the lyrics but they seemed to be perfect for my planned page so I had to google them with breakfast and they were just right for my raptor page.


This page was a snap shot of my days at the moment, it is so windy here and with 2 boys I have so much washing, I really appreciate the great drying weather the wind provides.
I had my lovely Mum come to stay through the week so I didn't get to my course work until this weekend, but I did get my Mum art journalling, and she went home with a lovely new journal and has done a few pages in it up here. She also went home with a good selection of supplies and a bundle of inspiration. It was so lovely for me to share my passion with my mum, and to have her take to it so readily, even though she thought she didn't have an artistic bone in her body. Yay Mum.

The Elements

This week has been very inspiring over at Wild Precious Studio
and I have been finding it hard to stop arting :-)


I have done a few more spreads on the elements
it seems they are just itching to get out of my head and onto my page.
Here are a couple.


I have really enjoyed the aspects of The Elements of Art Journalling that have been happening inside my head as well. I have always related to the elements in a very physical way but have been contemplating them as aspects of my self, not just the energies around me.

Another aspect of this class and Wild Precious Studio that I adore is the supportive healing environment Effy has created over there, some serious soul bearing is happening and it is so brave of the women who are sharing and so healing for them and for others offering some light for their journeys.

The Elements of Art Journalling week 1

I have started doing an online
art journal course
over at Wild Precious Studio
with the fabulous Effy Wild

It is called
The Elements of Art Journalling
and it is still open
if you want to join me and loads of other lovely ladies.

Week 1 has us contemplating the elements
and creating our journals
this is the first layer on my
brand new spiral bound visual diary.

I do love a nice new art journal,
all bright and shiny and full of possibilities.

Over my collage I added paints and inks and some stamping
and inside I added a series of tabs for each section.

to finish off my cover on my gorgeous new journal
I quickly made a simple spiral stencil
out of a piece of copy paper,

and added one of my goddess figures.
I also stamped a title-
The Elements

Inside I made a tabbed page for each element,
I also made a pocket to hold any collage elements
or other inspirational bits and pieces
I find on my journey through the elements with Effy.

Next up was some mind mapping on each element.

I loved this part, really thinking about and just
intuitively jotting down my thoughts.

Personally I really identify with Earth and Water
so Air and Fire were going to be really difficult,
So I thought,lol.

I took my journal down to the skate park with my boys
and sat with Air,
the normally very boring time at the skate park
was a great opportunity to have to sit
and have no other distractions
and contemplate Air.


Next up was water~
water is my element,
I love all forms of water and live overlooking
my beloved Clarence River


So water was like a lovely little holiday
soothing and restorative.

I am really looking forward
to exploring water further with this course.

Fire - I love a nice fire on a cold night
or a camp fire when I am out in the bush

Mind mapping fire
was also easier than I expected,
I did this one sitting on the lounge
if front of the fire one night.

Spirit-
this one actually turned out to be the most challenging
and I have not quite finished this page.

I will sit with spirit again and come back to this page.

I couldn't wait to play in my new journal though,
and this is my first page.


I started off with the Charge of the Goddess,


and one of my printed Goddesses
and then I played with colour.

I used Caran d'Ache neocolours
and my new glimmer mist on these pages

and here is my first elements spread.
I worked with my caran d'ache neocolurs again
to represent each element,
Out lined with zig writers
and finished off with my current favourite
silver acrylic.

I am so ready for week 2 Effy.