August Swaps

I have had a fabulous busy creative month making art swaps

PRAYER FLAGS

I am not normally one to dabble in fabric arts but I do admire them and couldn't resist joining in with this lovely swap over at Milliande's Art Community for Women

Each participant made 5 prayer flags and made them with good intentions for our anonymous receivers and it was not until the end of our time that the list was posted and we got our 5 names to send out our cards.

I have really enjoyed this process and am making some more to hang with the 5 I will be receiving, and the gorgeous sunny one I have already received from my lovely Mum who has taken to art swapping with great enthusiasm.

Almost my whole family is joining in the art swap fun,

we are getting the homeschool kids over at

the Rockpool Homeschool Forum

to start swapping winter themed ATCs and my Mr8

received these gorgeous cards from a fellow

8 y.o. home schooled boy.

snowmen must be symbolic of winter for little boys in Australia

because my little one did a snowman as well

and he has never even seen snow.

He also did the gorgeous tree at the top of the post.

I was doing Tree ATCs as well and made the embossed one above

and the wired ones below for a Tree themed swap

at Milliandes

and I have already received this one from my

Mum.

It is such a treat having Mum start arting,

we now have a common interest and that is really special

and birthday and solstice presents just got a whole lot easier.

Mother Earth ATC swap - part 2

There was great excitement
for my little one meeting the post lady
2 days in a row with a parcel from overseas :-)


Ruth Dailey's gorgeous cards arrived
all the way from America,
along with some beautiful calligraphy.

Ruth's cards are so delicately beautiful,
each one a little tree scene.

Ruth has used pen and ink and watercolors,
with the addition of tissue on True Gold.

Thank you Ruth for your lovely cards.

The Elements of Art Journalling week 2- Earth

This week I have literally been in my
ELEMENT.
I am such an earth girl,
and I love our
Mother Earth
so much,
so when Effy Wild
from Wild Precious Studio
asked us to really think about Earth
and about ourselves as well,
I had lots of fun.

This weeks lesson focused on texture,
on working up a background using tissue paper,
I had all of these other lovely earthy papers that I was keen to use instead so I just did it my way, and was pretty amazed when this curvaceous goddess popped out of my page, and she was wearing thigh high boots! The boots were a wonderful serendipitous coincidence, I stuck a torn piece of burnt umber lizard skin textured paper onto my page and it turned into the boots.


I have been thinking about earth all week,
walking in the rain forest,
digging in the dirt,
and one of Effy's extra suggestions was to have a nice big meal of root veggies and journal about that, and I just happened to read that suggestion the day I was baking beetroots.

So onto the journal page went the tops and tails,
and they left behind such pretty marks.


That led me to an even greater appreciation of beetroot.

Did you know it has been cultivated since ancient times?
Babylonia, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome all enjoyed this wonderful plant, leaves and roots.

It is even said that Apollo himself dined on it.


Each week Effy sends out lots of video
and she also sends out a PDF,
that I have reformatted
so I could make it into a little mini booklet
and add it to my journal,


all that wonderful information
will now be stored right where I need it.


and I will do a mini booklet each week
and add it to the relevant section.


With all of the earthy contemplation I have been doing I have been waking up filled with enthusiasm and ideas of what to journal about, if only life didn't get in the way of making art I could fill a whole journal on earth.

On morning I woke with John Seed's
INVOCATION
on my mind,
and I had to get up and get that into my journal as soon as I could.

This is actually the first page I did,
before I watched Effys videos.
I just felt moved to do an Earth page
and this is how it came out.
I have been going to add more to it,
but I think that is all there is-
Shelter Me.

The Inspiration

This week in The Elements
the fabulous on line art journaling course I am taking
at Wild Precious Studio
we are deeply exploring Earth
and being a rather earthy girl myself
I am totally enjoying it.

Earth to me is so many things
it is everything and in everything
and it is
TREES.

As a confirmed tree lover
I adore getting into the bush
or the rain forest.

After sharing with you the little fig tree I am making
I thought I might share the trees who are
the inspiration.

Look at these gorgeous trees,
at there wide and strong buttress roots,

at their adaptable
and spreading
firm hold on the earth

at their wide and many branched trunks,

this one even has doors and windows
tunneling through its base

such majestic beauty.