New Beginnings!

Heythere Beautiful Creators!

Yes, yes, yes, I know, it took me quite some time to get back into making videos but here I am!
I started a new journal now that my sweetheart and I are setteling in a little bit after emigrating to Bonaire.
We are on a huge adventure here and it takes up a lot of time and energy.
But I always knew I'd somehow find the time and a place for my art so here it is! :-)

New beginnings, new surroundings, new climate, new views, new friends, new work and business and therefor a new journal!
New everything actualy! But we are very, very happy and you can tell from the music in the video, haha.
A happy bouncy piece of music (by Kevin MacLeod) because there's no audio and/or voice-over in this video.
I'm sure my improvised workspace will improve by the day so not to worry, soon you will be able to hear my soft voice again. LOL

Now sit back, enjoy my fidling and creating and the music! This will make you smile my lovelies!

Happy Creating,
Monique

Art Journal Flip!

Hello there Journal-Artists!

A short and sweet one for you today...A flip through of my latest finished journal. I did it! :-)

I usually have a couple of journals going at the same time but at the end of 2013 that sort of got
out of hand. :-)
I had taken some classes, started my own experiments and off course my BOPA journals.
And as the end of the year approached I felt I needed to finish some projects. I wanted to clear my head and my shelf from projects that were somehow not moving along, or simply waiting for some last finishing touches.
So I did, I picked up my JEMM (Journal for Experimenting with Mixed Media) and focused on finishing it.
I loved working on the finishing touches, it just felt so good to give it some more TLC and lovingly putting it on my bookshelf!

While flipping through and finishing it up it turned out to be a mixed media mixture of al kinds of pages.
There are pages from classes, mixed media experiments, touchdrawings and pages with a lot of journaling in it. Sort of a happy and chaotic mix of al kinds of things I did last year.
To be honest......that's quite fitting! :-)  I can be like that.... thank goodness I have the urge to clean up things every now and then.... LOL

Here's the Flip through...
If you have any questions about a page, I'd be happy to explain more in detail so ask away!

Happy Creating!
~Monique

Up, up and Away! (Blogpost and video)

Hi Beautiful Creators!

My first blogpost of 2014! :-) And off course a little video of my Art Journal page! (for the video just scrol down)

Here's the how and why of this page and some info on the materials I used. Enjoy!

I stumbled upon a post on face book last week titled, Journal52. It is a free art journal workshop with, as you probably already guessed, a prompt for a journal page once a week.

As I have no classes planned to take just yet I joined their face book group and happily made my first journal page with their prompt of this week. I had so much fun! :-D

The prompt was called;” Up, up and away”, and the idea was to make a journal page with flying as a theme. As I was pondering this idea I could feel myself breaking free and flying towards the sun. In my mind I was dancing with the clouds and having a blast playing with the wind and soaring through the sky!

I decided to express all that I was feeling so I started creating a sort of fence-like background from which I could literately break free on the paper. I used a homemade stencil and gesso to keep it a bit transparent.

I then went back to that free feeling of flying and playing in the sky and went completely wild with acrylic paints and stencils. Gosh, how I love making a happy mess! Lol

After a couple of layers of color-fun I drew the birds. I used acrylic white paint with some pouring medium an a little bit of water to get it to flow from my bottle. I used a bottle instead of a pen to stay away from to much control, I just wanted to stay with that delicious feeling of freedom.

That is also the reason why I wanted to finger-paint the next layer, not to much control just play with the colors like playing with the wind.

To outline the birds I diluted some black acrylic paint with water and used a dropper to draw around them. Then I added a few details with a black pen and wrote my text with a thick black marker. The outlines of the lettering were done with a white gel-pen. Et Voilà, the first prompt from Journal52 is done!

I'd like to thank Chelle Stein for creating this free workshop! I'm sure I will go back often to be inspired, get ideas and prompts I would never come up with myself. A beautiful opportunity to expand my creativity, share it with like minded people in a face-book group where we can learn from each other inspire and be inspired!

Happy Creating!

~Monique