DLP#11 Borderline

I was on a trip while making Documented life Project #11 which brought a few challenges. The main one being I didn't have unlimited supplies and ephemera to work with. Here is the theme the gals came up with this week.

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 14
Art Challenge:  Borders
Journal Prompt:  "Borderline feels like I'm going to lose my mind."

The next page in my journal had some texture beads already on it. I had brought dylusions paints with me, using the dabber sponge applicator made it easy to apply paint while sitting in the passenger seat.

 For the borders I added the black through a Tim Holtz stencil and once dry a few dots with a sharpie paint pen. The title was also with a TH stencil but this time I used archival black ink. Again I added some dots with my sharpie. I had this tag with me that was just paint & stencil with colors that looked good on the page so on it went. I seem to be in a -main feature smack dab in the middle mode- which is odd for me but I am going with it. TIP: When I travel with limited supplies I usually bring pre-stamped card stock so I am not hauling stamp sets. Dina Wakley's cute owl, hearts & saying did the trick. For these I used distress stains to paint the owl and hearts. 

As I was in Dina mode I decided to do my journaling in rough pen. It is the first time I have done this but I kinda like it as I got a lot of writing in but it doesn't detract from the page. I wrote about what was going on at the time of the prompt when life was busy, and crazy. I did feel like I had to make a determined effort not to lost my mind so this prompt was perfect. That is the beauty of art journal, I didn't have to journal about the now, just whatever writing fit the prompt. If you like this page please leave me a comment! Art on!

DLP#12 Coming into Focus

Soooooo I am back from my most awesome adventure with Eileen Hull on #paprtrail6. I will post about that in a few days but today I had to get back to being inky! I am soooo far behind on Documented Life Project  (Art to the 5th) but I knew this would happen & I have ever intention of catching up. Yesterday I had fun playing on my deck and worked on #10 and finished #12 ironically about focus however I missed #11-opps. I will just do them out of order- I know how flexible right! Here we go-it's good to be back...

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 21
Art Challenge:  As a Focal Point
Journal Prompt:  Coming into Focus

Here is my take on the prompt. I started with the intent that "coming into focus" would be about my recent experience at the PaperArts show and how that really has helped me decide to move onto a travel teaching business. 

I was feeling very "Dylusional" so i started with her paints for my background  and a mix of stencils. These paints are so rich, creamy & vibrant! As I am totally addicted to this blue/green combo I will be making an attempt at changing up my color palette in the future. My caption was painted and than stamped, added a bit of doodling around for fun.  I decided to add a border and had an opps while lining it up. As you can see above I simply moved my title to cover it up-yes very sneaky.

 While deciding what the "art as a focal point" would be. I got off track looking at the cool guest artist blog of Danny Gregory. I do not draw-I suck at it but I also recognize that I have the ability to learn to draw just not the patience for it right now. My brain moves at 1000 miles an hour and for right now lacks the zen I feel is necessary. It is on my list of things to learn. 

Motivated by Lorraine Bell & Danny I drew!!! Using pen on watercolor paper and painted using distress stains and sprays. My camera did start all grey but I HAD to add color. Again with the blue and green...the camera is a tad lopsided and simple but as it may be my first real attempt at pen and watercolor I will take it. My brain was refusing to "see" the camera and wanted to make up the outline on it's own (not helpful) but I forced it into line. I wasn't happy that my frame (dylusion stamps) made my camera lay flat on the page so I added some color to help make the frame pop. Looking back at it I would move the frame a bit farther out to show it more but...

The frame does help the camera to pop and the white gel pen words do as well. Now for the journaling. I pulled out some of the new Heidi Swapp for Project Life cards from her brand new kit Picturesque Edition, which I had to buy cause I NEED to own ALL of them. It was at this point I realized my entire page had gone - left- and that my title- "focus" was none existent. So I added 2 journal cards one with the story of the end result and one how I had lost focus...actually all very appropriate with the theme! I turned my camera into a pocket, wrote out my cards, added color with markers to the title "laugh". As I went I used the excess paint on my dabbers to color another card:

I did want to add some random stamping to the page but held off as there is a lot going on, wouldn't want to detract from my lovely drawing (insert hurumpf). That is it, come join us at Documented Life Project!!! Ps:

Arting on the deck outside is really fun!