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