Day 22 Time to Escape

I really am amazed that I have managed to keep this going for 22 days. Its a big ask every day to read and comment on other blogs and to then also write my own, and to have something interesting to say. I do wonder what will happen at the end of the month. Will I carry on reading other blogs, will I carry on writing my own. I try to read everyone’s pages, but there are so many its not possible. I do accept that’s why Effy tells you to limit it to just 3 blogs, but there are so many interesting people on the blog along I want to follow them all!

Some websites are easier to comment on than others, I have had to create many accounts on many blog sites just to comment and some (WIX I am looking at you here) I have had to install the app so I can comment as doing it via the web page fails every time, seeing the comments from other bloggers I am not alone in this issue. The positive side to this is as long as I have worked out how to follow a blog, they are all there in the app and I can go to them easily. Googles’ own Blogger is a good web based blog system, but you need an account, and as soon as you signup it wants you to write a blog. The Blogger app is awful and only good for the writer not the follower, so I have to remember to go to the blogger link via the Google Chrome link and find anyone on my reading list.. not very intuitive. The best I have found so far is the WordPress app, its so easy to follow blogs via web pages and comment via the app and you get notifications of new comments, posts, likes etc – well as long as you have an account and are signed in. All this is mute at the moment where we are posting in the FB group – but I want longevity of this so I am trying to work my way through the issues.

Anyway, enough moaning – here is my art journal page for today.

Today I decided to go a little different and do a cut about page, almost a mini journal within a journal. It has a cover, a middle section with a cut about page and a final page. I guess my inspiration has come from something I saw ages ago by the artist Denise Lush this is my version today, its been building a while in my head. I had a need for blues today, the image of the lady is a photocopy of an image from an old CALM magazine. I brayered the pages with 3 blues and a white acrylic paint, then I collaged various papers and cut outs, some from collage paper I’ve previously downloaded and the little flowers are mine that I drew and cut out and added some watercolour, I also added some fabric scraps as it just felt it needed it. I found some quotes that spoke to me today, in searching for inspiration I have found the poet Alexandra Vasiliu I wanted to fill the pages with her poetry, maybe one day I will, she writes some beautiful stuff. I used one quote from her, and one from Maya Angelou

art journal page 1
art journal page 1
art journal page 2
art journal page 2
art journal page 3
art journal page 3

Well I think I have had quite a productive morning so far, I can smell the bread is finished baking, the slow cooker is bubbling away for tonights meal, hubby has been on a zoom call all morning so I have had time to play in the journal and write the blog and its only 11:30 am. I think I will publish this for today, maybe it means I will have more to talk about tomorrow!

Enjoy your day

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Day 21, Lollipop

It’s the tail end of day 21, and I have been very much “offline” today. I read and commented on some blogs this morning, but I have been away from all things social media today – very unlike me!

My Notebook challenge today, was done in my Scribble & Dot notebook and used Sharpies to create the design. I used a stencil to make the arches then hand drew the mandala shapes and wrote the date in bubble writing. The paper is thinner, and the sharpie did bleed through as expected, however it also in a couple of places bled onto the next page too. I really should remember to add a protector sheet between the page! I am all about the blues and purples at the moment – apparently they are the colours of the wild woman archetype phase – and I am most definitely in that phase!

April 21 S&D Sharpie
April 21 S&D Sharpie

My April LollipopBoxClub subscription kit arrived yesterday and the theme is “Good Vibes”. I didn’t get to open it until today and OMG there is so much fun stuff in it! It is definitely worth the cost if you are into this sort of thing. I have pretty much spent the day reading the blog and watching videos from the creative team to get ideas for making pages from the kit. I am trying to decide if I want to subscribe or not. I’m not a writer journaller so I do wonder what the use for me would be. I am beginning to at least evaluate my subscriptions with the practical aspects rather than “ooh that’s pretty, I must have it!” I love art journalling but doing it for memory making is new for me so I am not sure whether its my “thing”. I decided to put the kit into its own journal – it’s one I have made recently. It’s not great, it’s an early model of my “Donna” journal, but it’s mine so that’s what counts right?

  • April Lollipop Kit out of the box (1)
    April Lollipop Kit out of the box
  • good vibes page 1 (1)
    good vibes page 1
  • good vibes page 2 (1)
    good vibes page 2
  • good vibes page 3 (1)
    good vibes page 3
  • good vibes page 4 (1)
    good vibes page 4
  • good vibes page 5 (1)
    good vibes page 5
  • Good Vibes page 6 (1)
    Good Vibes page 6

I was definitely on a “CBA” type of day. We didn’t do our walk today because we couldn’t be bothered, which is ridiculous because we do no more than 3 miles at a lunchtime walk, I just couldn’t get the oomph together to go out. But I did compensate slightly by doing a SMALL amount of gardening, as the garden bin gets emptied tomorrow and it needed some thing in it!

Well thats me for the day, the CBA is still here, and it wants feeding with chocolate… hmmmmm

Until tomorrow TTFN

Day 20 – Its an Art and Shopping kind of day

Today I decided to go supermarket shopping, and thanks to Cheryl post yesterday I decided to go to one of the out of town stores, and it just so happened to be right beside The Range. I have missed the arts and crafts stores, so I was at Sainsbury’s for 8am, at the Range for 9am and home again by 10:30am having spent a decent amount of money 🙂 which included new jeans and craft supplies (of course) for me, jeans for the boy, Harry Potter erasers and a Diamond Painting set for the daughter, and.. oops nothing for hubby – well does a new washing up bowl count??

Today’s Art show :

Wanderlust Week 16, Dyan Reaveley

Wanderlust Wk 16, our tutor was Dyan Reaveley. I do feel a bit guilty that I don’t own a single piece of her art supplies, but I made do with my stash, and to be honest I think it came out pretty good. Warm colours of yellow, orange and magenta were used for the background and they were put on with a baby-wipe. Then using the same colours I stencilled with in rounds of 3 to create a triangle. Once dry I then doodled using a fine-liner and then added the black using a homemade stencil of a woman – representing the younger and grown up versions of me. I then stumbled for a question that the younger me could ask, and get a response.

Wanderlust wk 16 Dyan Reaveley
Wanderlust Week 16, Dyan Reaveley

Daily Notebook Art

I also completed my Daily Notebook challenge using my Mindful Giraffe notebook and Sharpies. The design inspiration came from an internet search, unfortunately the web page (one of those 20 things type pages) had a broken link and I couldn’t find anything about the original artist. Fortunately the image is quite different to the original so I don’t feel like I have “copied” as much as been inspired by.

April 20th mindful sharpies
Daily Notebook Art – Mindful Giraffe and Sharpies

Evening Doodle time

A piece of doodle art I completed yesterday evening, was from Scrawlrbox January box. They have just started having a weekly art prompt and this is the first one I’ve participated in. It was “flourish” which also happens to be my word of the year. I really enjoyed slowing down and doing this piece with Tombow Alcohol markers.

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Day 19, Digital Art & Haircut :)

So I keep thinking about getting involved in digital art, its easy isn’t it, you just draw shapes on a screen and hey presto there is an image!. Well..that’s what I thought, but the reality is a bit different. I bought Affinity Designer for the windows laptop. I don’t have a drawing tablet, so its a mouse and cursor click all the way. Add to it that finding tutorials that are at such a beginner level (I haven’t used design software very much if at all before). Apparently Ipad and Procreate is what I should be using, but I’m not spending several hundred pounds just to find I don’t get along with the subject. Anyway, yesterday I found a web page with a tutorial on it, so I have given it a go. Several hours and a LOT of cussing later I have a finished picture. Yes I have learnt a lot, I definitely want to learn more, the software is vast, can do so much and is confusing when you are reading a tutorial for Ipad! It may not become my regular art form, but I do definitely want to learn and use this much more.

So here it is, what do you think for my first “real” picture design.

VW Beetle
VW Beetle

Other than this I have also completed my day 19 notebook page. The test this time is with Sharpie pens. I was not quite feeling it this morning, and I went for easy peasy doodles. Im not happy with my page, but for a change its not the fault of the paper, its all down to my lazy design.

April 19th a&o sharpie
April 19th a&o sharpie

I saw a quote on Instagram today, and I just had to borrow it and write it for myself, the timing was perfect as today was HAIRCUT day!!! “I don’t have grey hair, I have Wisdom Highlights”

Wisdom Highlights
Wisdom Highlights

Thats it for me today, I’m off to find more digital art tutorials – after seeing the kids, dealing with the washing on the line, cooking tea, watching some TV etc etc etc!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Day 18, Sunny Sunday

Its been lovely here today in the East of England. Hubby and I went out for a nice walk we completed another 5.5 miles for our monthly target. It was warm and sunny with a gentle April breeze. We saw some deer, a heron and a baby duckling that was clearly lost but we named “speedy” as he sped away so quickly in the water.

  • deer
    deer
  • speedy duckling
    speedy duckling

When we got home both children had been watching TV in separate rooms, we had lunch then Hubby, Son and I watched the Formula 1 whilst Daughter returned to the TV. Fast cars don’t really do much for her! It was a pretty good race overall, rain, slips, slides, crashes, penalties and retirements with Max Verstappen winning the race and Lando Norris getting his second ever podium coming in 3rd.

My Art today has been limited, as I have been enjoying the day with the family. First up is my doodle which I started a couple of days ago but has been done mostly whilst watching the F1 today. This was a Scrawlrbox from August 20 and I hadn’t really played with the pens. They are Chameleon fine liners they have a 3 mm nib and colour changing caps. Put Pen 1 into Cap 2 for a maximum of 30 seconds and you can create a blended writing / doodle etc. I chose to draw flowers, create the blends and then used the grey to make dots to fill the background.

scrawlrbox aug20 chameleon pens
Scrawlrbox August 20 box contained Notepad and Chameleon Pens

After this I did my daily challenge piece and today was the turn of the Scribble & Dot notebook. Its the cheapest of the three in the test and I have to say it performed the best in this ink test! Very little bleeding occurred and even where I pooled the ink (I’m still learning!) it really didn’t struggle too badly. I had to take the photo outside in the garden, as the evening light was casting an awful blue tint to all my photos. I also am the happiest with this page in terms of its overall composition. I think I am getting better at planning my ideas.

April 18th Scribble & Dot
April 18th Scribble & Dot

Well that’s about it for today. We’ve had our evening meal, kids have disappeared to their rooms, Hubby is on the X-Box and I’m writing to you. We have found out that the new IndyCar Season begins today, Romain Grosjean (last year was in F1 and had a horrific crash in Bahrain) is on TV at 8pm here in the UK, so we think maybe our evening viewing is sorted.. Now to decide what to do until then.. Hmmm a video tutorial on using Affinity Designer maybe?

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.