TOTEMS

totem |ˈtōtəm|
nouna natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem._____________________________________________________________________

Funny, how someone can plant a seed in your head and it grows into something that you had never imagined.  In this case it grew from something scary into something beautiful and not scary at all. You see….I always though that totems were kind of scary…something that I would imagine to be present in nightmares. (They never appeared in any of my nightmares but anyway…)  Animals and faces with snarly teeth and squinty eyes…ready to dance around you and pounce on you once you run out of ground in which to escape but after I saw the beautiful artistic quality of the totems created by Teesha and Tracy Moore...I became excited about drawing totems. I saw them in an entirely different light. They're not scary at all!!! They are "totems" of beauty!

Footnote:  Teesha and Tracy Moore, in the Artstronaut's Club, are currently exploring drawing totems using different media.  

Until next time,

Hugs,
Ginny



                                                                         

CLASS WITH DINA WAKLEY

I finally got to take two classes with the awesome and very talented Dina Wakley at the Whim-So-Doodle in St. Petersburg, Florida.  If I had a "bucket List," this would definitely be on it!  Anyway, the classes "Random by Design," a class on how to achieve a random look using layers of paint, stamps, masks and stencils, and "Composition Basics," a class about achieving good composition by using the rule of thirds, proximity and continuance were a lot of fun and very enlightening.  I love how she breaks everything down into simple to understand steps using the "Principles of Design" that most of us learned in a high school art class or college. Many artistic journalers today follow the "there are no rules" principal.  Which is OK but it doesn't work for everyone.  Some of us need a good foundation of rules in order to make artistically pleasing art whether we follow those rules intentionally or by intuition.

ABOUT THE CLASS...At one point, Dina had us ink up our fingers with watered down acrylic paint, grab the paper with our wet fingers where the horizontal and vertical lines met in the design and set aside.  Done!  Leaving a beautiful contrast of paint in a pleasing position on the paper…adding interest and color to the piece.  (see the pink marks on the left side of my journal pages?) I loved everything about the classes but next time, I will take gloves.  I am a neat-nic….was one as a child and I still am as an adult.  Will my nails ever recover?  They look awful!

NEW ACRYLIC PAINTS...The Whim-So-Doodle is an awesome shop…they have everything.  I ended up buying many stencils and of course all of Dina's acrylic paints and writer tips that are new to the market.  Dina had them express shipped to the shop just for use in the class and we were glad that she did…they were big hit with everyone.  The shop had a big glass jar filled with them and by the evenings end…the jar was two thirds empty. I bought one to go with each tube of paint…and I wasn't going to buy another art supply. Who could resist?  Not ME!!!!

ABOUT THE TIPS...These little gems screw onto the end of the tube and have a fine line tip with a screw on cap. What makes these special is the cap…it has a needle in it that inserts into the fine line tip when the cap is screwed into place…this ensures that the paint tip does not clog.  The fine tips allows you to doodle, draw, and write with acrylic paint…almost giving a dimensional paint look. The yellow lines in the pictures below were drawn with a paint tip.  Don't you just love it!

Writer tip on tube acrylic

detail of writer tip

Until next time….

Hugs,
Ginny

HAPPINESS DOES NOT DEPEND ON…..

"Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are, 

it solely relies on what you think"

Buddha

I couldn't wait to use these retro black and white bonnet heads.  They sat in my basket just begging to be used in a collage.  They spoke to me!!!  And….I love black and white against a bright yellow.  What could be more retro than that I ask?

Finished Collage

I tried something new in this collage…pencil!  I don't know why I hadn't done this before but while watching Teesha Moore in one of her videos for the Artstronauts Club she said that she uses pencil to add lines for interest…so I thought that I would give this a try.  I added lines around the rocks and a few lines for cracks. Then I shaded with pencil which is more subtle than the black gel stick that I usually use.  I really like it!   

(Oops!  I got carried away and started to alter the collage before I photographed it.  You can see the pencil lines around the rocks.  Guess I was really anxious to try the pencil.)

Collage prior to pen work

Until next time….

Hugs,

Ginny

THANK YOU FOR BRIGHTENING MY DAY

This one was a sleeper!  

I put off doing the pen work because, well…I just wasn't inspired 

by the color or subject matter but as I said before…

put pen to paper and go with the flow!!!

Just let it happen!

Completed collage

Collage prior to pen work.

I don't think that this needs further explanation…it is what it is!

The bug on the girl's dress and the lettering is from a collage sheet by Teesha Moore, the rest is from magazines and children's books.

Until next time….

Hugs,
Ginny

THE UNIVERSE SPEAKS

Aaarrrgh….this collage was a real stinker!  I painted, repainted, added more collage, painted again.  I have sooooo many layers of paint on it that I finally had to say ENOUGH!

I think the problem was that the composition and colors didn't speak to me.  It started out predominantly red and yellow so I introduced the color green in order to provide more interest.  I made the heart shape into a martian face but it was too dominant and took away from the main character, the girl with the headdress. The solution was to cover the heart shape with a flower girl collage piece by Teesha Moore and by adding yellow paint to the main character's skin.  This created a better balance.  

Finished collage

Collage prior to pen work

This would have made a good Valentine's Day theme collage but you know how it goes…the painting sometimes takes on a life of it own and BOY…did this one ever!

Until next time…

Hugs,

Ginny

IMAGINE

"I think the artistry is in having insight into what one sees around them.  

Generally putting things together in a way no one else has before 

and finding a way to express that to other people who don't have insight."  

Steve Jobs

Sometimes the finished collage piece surprises me because it turns out in a way that I had never imagined.  Such is the case with this journal page.  I felt that it was pretty ugly before the pen work and I knew that pen work would really liven it up but this page took on a life of its own.  More embellishment with collage, the addition of the color blue, the tinting of the flowers to match the skin color pull it all together.  I think that it is one of my favorite pages!

Finished collage

Collage Before Pen Work

Until next time…..

Hugs,
Ginny

TIME TO COLLAGE

It's been a while since I last collaged in my "Teesha Journal."  

It feels really good to be back and doing what calms the stress of everyday life. 

 I don't get this feeling from other art forms and it is a puzzle to me why that is.  

Could it be because my other art work requires more planning and skill

whereby, collaging in my journal is more intuitive and there are "NO Rules?" 

With collage I can cut out different elements from magazines, books or 

collage sheets (my go to for collage fodder) and try them out in various locations 

on the page before I commit to gluing them down permanently. 

Then the magic happens…the pen work.  

This is where the "intuitiveness" come in….this is where I put pen to paper and 

color, doodle and draw until I like what I see.  

Until I feel that the page is finished.  

Sigh…..pure bliss!

Here is the finished page with before and after photos.

Finished Collage

Collage Before Pen Work

That's all for now.  I am working on several more pages in my "Teesha Journal"…so stay tuned!

Until next time……

Hugs,

Ginny