ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK #10

Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires. ~Charles Caleb Colton

This week, we're thinking about clocks and time.  Time is a commodity that seems to be fleeting in many of our lives. We over-commit and run from dawn to dusk and well past that daily.  Electronics eat up our time these days it seems -- hours online chatting, trolling the feeds, dreaming the dreams of the perfect art studio we found on Pinterest, lusting after the newest, latest & greatest art supplies.  We're inundated with texts, phone calls, television.  We cannot escape it......but we can do our best to manage it.  And once we use up that precious commodity of time, we cannot get it back.  So we have to learn to use our time wisely.  Set strict family time, art time, computer time, and of course, rest and ME time -- whether you use it to take a long, luxurious bath with the door locked, or a quiet solitary walk where you can center and collect your thoughts.

Since Daylight Savings Time returns to most of the northern hemisphere today (2:00 am), let's focus on CLOCKS & TIME in our journals.  And remember to "SPRING FORWARD"!  Express the theme any way you want.  I think this week your Artful Chicks went in all sorts of directions, given the "time" we had to create! (ha).  Have a look at our interpretations of this week's prompt, and see where you go from here.  Have fun with it and let those creative juices shine this week!

LYNN JACKSON -- Clocks! For this weeks prompt I used two colors for the background..lime green with diva pink made by Apple Barrel. The clocks are a stencil I have and the fingers pointing towards the clocks are washi tape. I look forward to the time change with more light in the evening.  This was a fun page to create. I think I'm getting my mixed media mojo going! Thanks for looking!

MELODY ELZY - Melody is wowing us again this week with another of her bright and colorful spreads.   Melody is just teasing you with this pic! Go check it out on her blog here,  to see the finished spread in all its luscious glory and be sure and leave her some blog love!  She will appreciate it!  We always like to know you are actually visiting us and seeing what we're up to!

BETTY RICHARDSON - I'm still a little into grunge mode with this week's prompt, hot off our "grunge" pop-up challenge.  And besides all that, all this paint was still sitting on my dining room table!

I created this as a tip-in for my journal as a 'trifold."  I upcycled a K-cups coffee box and made use of all the box folds.  Base was coated with a thin layer of gesso, applied with  a ratty acrylic flat brush I use just for this purpose. Then I began slapping on different shades of red acrylic:  Liquitex Heavy Body in Alizarin Crimson, Liquitex Basics in Napthol Crimson, Aquatec in Cadmium Red Light, and Daler Rowney in Brilliant Red. Some of the paint was scraped on, others brushed, and in some places smoothed and thinned with a baby wipe and my fingers.  I wanted to let some of the wording off the box peek through.

Once  that was all dry, I made some random marks with some generic black acrylic, and a splash or two of some permanent drawing ink.  I had gathered up several different clock faces and images, and the ones I had previously printed out on white cardstock, I covered in Cadmium red.  I wasn't very happy with that decision, but I had no TIME to do it all over.  I am embracing the Tim Holtz philosophy of embracing imperfection!  The silhouette was in my stash of happy mail goodies and she is holding a cup of coffee.... my favorite.  Really, that silhouette was the decision maker for the lettering. Had to do it.  And in my world, any time is truly coffee time.  I finished off the lettering, edging and marks and called it good.  It was TIME for me to move on to the next thing on my never-ending to-do list.

So here's what I learned:  Recycling is always good; coffee is always good, any time day or night;  I still love red and black together; I'm liking grunge more and more; and time is something I never have enough of.  I'm fixin' a fresh cup.  Care to join me?

TAMIE RODRIGUEZ WILSON - Another beautiful and very creative spread from Tamie with glorious use of color, texture and a little of her "madness" thrown in. See the full details on her blog, here

We hope that we have inspired you in some way this week.  Be sure and show us what you create and how you're thinking about TIME and CLOCKS this week over at Artful Journeys.  We'll get Tamie's interpretation posted sometime later today.  There was a little glitch over there in the big Detroit. But fear not, we know there is something masterful coming!  We'll get the blog updated for you as soon as we get the finished images.

We appreciate you stopping in, and if you'd care to leave us some blog love, that would be fantastic. We read all your comments and love knowing that you're here, reading, watching and playing.

Keep it artful!

Betty, Melody, Tamie & Lynn
ARTFUL CHICKS

POP-UP ART CHALLENGE #12 - GRUNGE IT UP

We've got a pop-up art challenge for you this week.  ADD GRUNGE OR MAKE SOME GRUNGE IN YOUR JOURNAL!

Many of you know my life is all about "order" and the sensibility of order. So I have trouble with the concept just adding more when it comes to adding more papers and bits to my journal pages for fear of trashing them, but oddly enough, I have no trouble with it when it comes to adding paint!  I have no fear collecting the paper bits, saving them, and knowing I am going to use them, but collective bits added in a random fashion -- I definitely have trouble with that.  It's my mean Inner Critic, I know. She is ruthless. She shouts at me "You're messing it up.....stop"  and sadly, I listen to her.  But the times I have ignored her and kept adding more are the pages I truly love the very best.  Letting go and letting the art just come organically is really quite rewarding.  Making something look grungy, well, it was invigorating for me. It was quite freeing.  Really.  Try it.  Grunge it up.  You'll love it!

I love using red and black together. Something about those two colors together I find very powerful when combined.  Of course there still seems to be a big sense of "order" to my completed page, but honestly, I just had a blast with it.  You gotta start somewhere being messy and "grungy", right?

I brayered on several different layers and colors of red artists quality acrylic paints, including Golden, Liquitex and Dayler-Rowney, both regular and heavy body.  I grabbed up my giant bottle of generic black acrylic and brushed on strokes here and there, dry brushing in some places, thinning with a paper towel in others.

I made a flap or a "tip-in" using a recycled K-cups coffee box that I covered with the same colors of paint, in the same haphazard, slapping-away method.  I splattered black india ink.  Wheeee! Such fun!  The flap will serve to hide some journaling I plan to add to the spread later, but generally just gives the page a little more interest. Finally, using titanium white, I added some slashes and dots randomly over the page, and a pretty piece of red glittery yarn to the flap.

Seeing that brown cardboard underneath the flap now, I better add some more paint to that. Another journaling and painting opportunity!

Thanks for stopping by and looking.  If you have a moment, leave me some blog love in comments. I am interested to hear what you have to say about my grunge look and creating with wild abandon!

We're keeping it artful!

ARTFUL CHICKS
~~Betty

Tactic Tuesday - Let's play with the Brayer!!!!

Hey, y'all...it's Melody, and I'm here to bring you our first Tactic Tuesday post!!!!  (this post is very photo intensive, so consider yourself warned...lol)

I have to tell y'all...I LOVE my brayer!!!  When I bought my first one, I used it to smooth down stuff I'd glued into my journal...that was it...it never occurred to me to use it for something else, until I saw somebody use it in a tutorial video, and I almost died!!!!  Well, with MUCH trial and error, and I'm pretty sure an entire 50 count package of cardstock, I got the hang of it and actually created some pretty damn amazing backgrounds for my journals!  Let me show you!!!!!

This one was created mainly with a brayer, but I used a makeup sponge to do a  little blending 

"Oh, Mel, those are pretty cool!  Can you show me how to do that?"
"Why yes, my dear friend, I can and will!!"

So, let's start by gathering our supplies....

• Brayer - it doesn't matter what size it is, but if you're going to be working IN a journal, I highly recommend getting a smaller one...2"...but you can do it with a 4"...soft is better, but hard will work.
• Craft mat (if you're going to do the 2nd way I show you) or any slick, easy to clean surface
• Paper/journal - if you use the first way, you'll want a thicker, sturdier paper to handle the wet, the 2nd way will let you use any kind of paper you'd like, including deli, printer, or even heavier weights of paper!
• Paint!!!!  Now, I'll tell you this straight up, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT KIND!!!!  Craft acrylic in the bottle, tube acrylics (I love Liquitex Basics), fluid acrylics, too!
• Baby wipes (for cleaning your mat and brayer).

Ok....let's start with the first way you can do this!  Now I'm sure the 2 I'm showing you today aren't the ONLY ways, but they ARE my faves!  So let's do this!

First we start by squeezing out SMALL dots of paint onto our paper...if you go bigger, you're gonna have a hard time spreading it out the way you need to for a quick drying background, not to mention you will lose your individual colors in the mix....

Here are some of the spots of paint...always be sure to use colors that work together and are touching on your color wheel...we don't want mud.

Added a few more spots here, and got really excited about the whole thing...lol

So, now you grab that brayer and start spreading out your paint...yes, the colors will meld, spill and blend...and you never know what you're gonna get...probably why I like it so much, lol...

DO NOT PRESS TOO HARD...on this way of using the brayer, a little pressure is good, to help move the paint around, but you don't want to press too hard, yet!

Be sure to always start at an outside edge of the paper, and again, don't use too much pressure yet.

and be sure to take your brayer to the opposite edge of the paper as well.

The paint that you push off onto your underpaper can be pulled back onto your paper, or spread out (with your brayer) after you're done...Remember, that underpaper is GOLD, y'all!!!

When you're done, it should look  a little like this...

Don't get discouraged if it's a mess...it's fodder for later pages...just keep going...getting enough paint to cover the page, without turning it into a sodden pool of wet paint takes time and practice...if you come up with something like THIS...

That's ok...you just need more paint!  Just a little at a time when adding, tho...

NOW...for the 2nd way you can go to town with your brayer, and this one is my personal fave....

Here is where you're going to use the craft mat/sheet/slick surface ...and not to catch paint!  Get your paper and your brayer ready, then put some (NOT A LOT) paint onto the craft mat....

Now use your brayer to spread the paint into a very thin layer on your mat

Again...do NOT apply pressure while spreading the apint around....let the weight of the brayer do the work for you, or you won't spread, you'll slide and smear.....

Now move your paper over, and using the brayer start at the edge of the page and move up in a straight line

Turn your paper, and run your brayer back thru the paint on your mat, and do the same thing again

Keep going like this until you run out of paint on your mat...

And your paper should look a little like this....

But wait!  We're not done yet!...Let's do another color!

Now, if you want, add another color....here's the thing...you can layer colors on top of each other with this and without a lengthy drying time!  Because if you feel your page, after that first layer, you'll find it dry...if you didn't use too much paint....less really is more here, because you can layer and add, and layer some more, and even put together colors you normally couldn't blend together....

There are just so many options available with both of these techniques...and the possibilities are truly endless!  

Here is a page I made from one of the backgrounds I did for this tute...

This was actually created using some dolls from Deviant Scrap and PicMonkey (<my new bestest buddy)...lol.

So, I hope I helped you more than I confused y'all...and if you have any questions, y'all can find me over at Artful Journeys on Facebook!!!!!  Thanks for stopping by and happy arting!