My Documented Life - weeks 51 & 52

The challenge for the penultimate week was 'hidden journalling'. My journalling is very hidden, as I created a spread with journalling as its base, but then really hated the pages! So I added tracing  paper on top of the pages, so that my background only peeked through. I added the paint drips and the tags as focal points.

  

The challenge for the last week of My Documented Life was storytelling. I wrote about the past year and then covered it with paint, collage and stamping.

I feel I somewhat lost my mojo for the last two weeks of the project, but was glad I managed to actually complete it. Now, I look forward to a new year of creativity.

My Documented Life - week 50

The prompt this week was 'using quotes and lyrics as story-telling'. I decided to use a carol, 'It Came upon a Midnight Clear'.

Apologies for the quality of the picture. I was hoping for a bright day, but ended up having to use a flash.

My Documented Life - week 49

The prompt for week 49 was 'Life is a book; we fill the pages' and the challenge was 'words front and centre'. Well, you can't see a lot of my words, as they are hidden under all the layers, but my theme of 'advent' is visible. I have to say, I really like this page!

My Documented Life - week 48

The challenge this week was to use a combination of stencils, masks and stamps. Can you spot them all?

My Documented Life - week 47

The challenge for this week was to use a mask. I used paper circles.

I stuck some decorated deli paper onto my pages and then painted the blank areas. After adding the circles I added more paint to the page. Once dry, I removed my masks and added various marks, turning the circles into flowers!

My Documented Life - week 46

The challenge for week 46 was to use a homemade stamp. Michelle Ward was the guest artist and, as I love her work,  I decided to emulate her page.

I made a large tree stamp, about 8 inches by 5.5 inches, using foam. I cut out the tree and stuck it onto a second layer of foam. I then stuck this into a backing of cardboard. I stamped three trees onto tissue paper that I had decorated and then cut them into strips and collaged them onto my ready prepared background. It took quite a time matching up all the pieces of paper, but I'm pleased with the result.

My Documented Life - week 45

The new theme for November is 'stamps and masks'. So, for the first week we were charged to use stencils on our pages. Here's my finished spread.

My Documented Life - week 44

Still on the theme of translucent papers, the challenge this week was to use tea-bags or similar. I prepared my background with stamping, acrylic paint, gesso and spray inks. I then stamped images onto my tea-bags and used matte medium to fix them to my page. As matte medium is wet, the tea-bags picked up the colours of the spray ink. I added various marks using water-soluble oil pastels to complete my spread..

My Documented Life - week 43

The challenge this week was to use glassine paper. Jeanette House was the guest artist and I took her pages as my inspiration. I didn't have any clear glassine paper so I used tracing paper instead. I did however have some brown glassine paper, so I crumpled it and coloured it with spray inks, tore it up and added the pieces to the left-hand page.

My Documented Life - week 42

The challenge for this week was to use vellum. I found this one hard! I decorated some vellum using a stencil. I then created the background - a layer of green acrylic paint under a layer of purple. Once it was dry, I stuck on the vellum and added other elements and marks. It reminds me of toothpaste. Not quite what I intended ....

My Documented Life - week 41

The challenge for this week was to use tissue paper and Dina Wakley was the guest artist. I used her layout as inspiration for mine. I painted and stamped onto tissue paper. Some of this I then glued onto my pages. The rest I used to collage onto drawings on tracing paper. After painting the backgrounds and scribbling over them, I stuck these drawings onto my pages so that they can be flicked upwards to reveal the pages underneath. The quote reads 'The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new' (Socrates).

My Documented Life - weeks 39 and 40

The challenge for week 39 was to create a storyboard. Well that was easy - I told the story of my trip to New York.

Week 40 started a new month, with a new overall theme of translucent papers. This week the challenge was to use deli paper. here is how my spread ended up. I go from loving it to hating it. What do you think?

My Documented Life - week 38

The challenge for this was 'silhouettes'. My page didn't quite work out how I had in mind, but here it is. The pictures inside the silhouettes are both by Degas.

My Documented Life - week 37

The challenge for week 37 was to use digital imagery. I took one of my holiday photos, digitally manipulated it using an app on my phone, printed it and added more colour using my water-soluble oil pastels. I now wish I hadn't added the black paint to the page, but hey we learn from our mistakes! I might fill the space in further ...

I'm Back!

Well, I am now back from my break. We spent 10 days in New York and had a fabulous time!

I am now catching up with My Documented Life Project (DLP). The theme for September is journalling with photos. As the challenge for week 36 was 'photo transfer' and the prompt was 'from here to there' so it seemed very appropriate to transfer two of my holiday snaps onto tissue paper and add them to my journal. I then used acrylic paint, stencils and pens to do the rest.

My Documented Life - week 35

Well ... the prompt for the challenge this week was 'mirror, mirror - a self portrait'. Oh my! The guest artist was Pam Carriker and I tried to follow her techniques. I made two attempts, neither of which quite look like me, but I think they are both reasonable attempts. I can see where I have gone wrong and, therefore, which areas I need to think about improving next time.

My Documented Life - week 34

The prompt for this week was about layering, whilst still thinking about faces and/or the human form. You can see that there are far more layers on the page on the right. I copied a photo of me when I was about 11 years old and then used one of the current me on the opposite side. I nearly didn't show this spread but, hey, I am not going to produce work that I like all of the time!!

My Documented Life - week 33

The challenge for week 33 was about painting faces/figures. I loved watching Mystele, the guest artist work her magic and tried to emulate her. Here are my two pages:

In a bit closer detail:

My Documented Life - week 32

The challenge for last week was 'characters', with the prompt 'if you are going to be weird, be confident about it' (author unknown).

Inspired by Carla Sondheim, the guest designer, I did some finger paintings. I am quite pleased with how these two folk turned out.

My Documented Life - week 31

The new theme for August is 'faces, the human form and characters' and the prompt for the first week is 'expressive faces'. I'm not sure mine are that expressive, but here they are.

Having created the background, for the face on the left-hand side, following Roben-Marie Smith's lead, I used some of her pieces: one eye, the nose and the mouth. I then filled in the rest of the face and added the arches and collage. On the right-hand side, I used similar techniques, but painted the face from scratch.