Thursday, February 26, 2015

Faithart 101 Class Launch 2.28.2015

On Saturday February 28th,  His Kingdom Come is launching its first collaborative class prepared by the 5 members of the Foundation Team.  Faithart 101 has been developed for beginners to Faith Journaling.   The 5 classes cover basic journaling information, how to translate scripture into art, the basics of drawing people, using scrapbooking techniques and mixed media techniques.



Each of the 5 classes can be purchased individually or all 5 can be bought together with a discount.  The individual classes are $8 each but you can buy all 5 together for $35.  PayPal will sort out the currency for you if you live outside the United States.    Once you have purchased your classes and have been added to the class site you can work through the classes at your own pace.  You will have unlimited access to the classes you have purchased.


The Foundation Team consists of Bernice, Mary, Shonna, Merri and Diane and each day this week you can find out more about each of us on our personal blogs.  We will also tell you about the class we are teaching as part of Faithart 101.
Bernice at Newly Creative on Sunday 22nd Feb.
Diane at Adore Him Creations on  Monday 23rd Feb.
Shonna at Twisted Figures on Tuesday 24th Feb.
Merri at Connecting Faith and Creativity on Wednesday 25th Feb.
Mary at Me, With My Head in the Clouds on Thursday 26th Feb.

My class is:


Let me tell you a bit about myself:
I live in Toledo, OH, have been married to Bob for 23 years, and we have two grown daughters and two step-grandsons. I have been a Christ-follower for 26 years. For the past 12 years I have worked in full time ministry at our church as the Executive Director and the Director of our outreach ministries. 

Below you will find some questions each of the blog hop participants will be answering:

How does your faith impact your creativity?  
When I got connected to art journaling it opened up a new life of creativity for me. God has used art journaling in my life as another spiritual practice. It has become another way of drawing me near to Him. Madeleine L'Engel says, "Art is incarnational." Art, whether in word or image, helps me put form to what is inside my heart and mind. When I take what I am seeing in Bible study and prayer and express it visually it is planted in my heart and mind more fully. Art becomes another tool used by God for spiritual transformation in my life.


What is your favorite technique?
 That's a hard question to answer! One of the things I love about art journaling is that it gives me opportunity to use a variety of techniques and art mediums. As far as techniques go, I think it would probably be a tie between finger-painting circles doing hand-cut letters. My favorite art medium would be collage - I love gluing paper!





Who is your favorite person in the Bible and why?
 It often changes based on what I am studying! Right now we are going through the Gospel of John at church and I really appreciate how focused the Apostle John is. He keeps the bigger picture purpose of why Jesus came as a man in mind as he writes. John is vision and mission minded (qualities I can relate to) and is always reminding his readers of God's mission and vision through the Son. And even though John is passionate about sharing truth, he is just as equally passionate about sharing God's love.


What Bible verse do you regularly rely on?
Again, this answer can change based on what I am studying. But, overall, I think one of the verses that keeps me grounded is Philippians 2:12-13: "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed - not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." I need the constant reminder in this verse that God and I each have a role to play in my spiritual growth and maturity, but even in my role I must depend fully on Him.

Where to find me: 
Join us on February 28th in taking Faithart101 at His Kingdom Come and learn more  about Faithjournaling.  If you are not already a member of the His Kingdom Come community then please sign up.  You can purchase the class or classes from today.





Friday, February 13, 2015

Art Journaling a Song

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a song stuck in my head that we had sung at church and decided to get creative with it. I made an accordion page out of watercolor paper. I buy my watercolor paper in a large 18 x 24 pad in order to have more flexibility in how I use it. So I cut a piece 8 1/4 x 24 and then scored it every 4 inches. Once folded it gave me 6 - 4 x 8 1/4 sections per side. In the previous post I showed my pages in the prep stage:


I spread the verses and the chorus out on the 4" sections on both sides.








This was a fun project. It gave me opportunities to play with my Gelli plate and to experiment with some different colors - such as the navy background behind the earth. It also was fun expressing a song through art journaling. And I enjoyed working with 4 inch panels. I now just need to work out how I will attach it into my journal.

For Take Me Deeper at His Kingdom Come this week we responded with art to Matthew 22:37..."love the Lord your God with all heart, soul and mind."

#TMD2015 Feb week 2
And I worked on some goals for January and February in conjunction with my Logos365 word for the year: Renew. I'm going slow and trying to work toward lasting change that will lead to renewal, so I'm just focusing on one area at a time. Right now it is health.





I don't scrapbook and haven't done Project Life but a friend gave me a package of these graph project life cards and I'm enjoying using them on my art journal pages. Last week I made a little gift of prayer cards out of them: I already posted a picture of them but will do so again since I'm talking about the graph cards.


It was a great way to use up scraps from, Gelli printed papers. I've ended up using one on the current page I'm working on for TMD. I'm hunkering down this weekend and staying inside as much as possible as we get a visit from the Arctic with frigid temperatures. It's a good excuse for playing with art. :) Have a good weekend!




Monday, February 9, 2015

Monday Meandering 2.9.2015


We visited my sister this weekend. The past few years have been full of weddings and wedding showers and the family events that surround them, so it's been a while since we just went for a weekend to hang out with no events or plans driving our time. This weekend we just "chillaxed" together.
I love to experience the lake in different seasons. It was very peaceful and quiet, frozen and covered with snow.
(I just love the patina of the rust on the bottom of the blue paddle boat!)
My niece just purchased her first house and is expecting her first child. So, while my hubby went to a classic auto swap meet, we ladies went furniture shopping. We explored some great used and repurposed furniture stores. It was a nice relaxing weekend.

I have a little catch-up to do on posting my pages for the Take Me Deeper faith art weekly challenge. 

Our theme for week 4 was Transform Faithfully.
Our theme for week 5 was Transform Purposefully.

For February we switched themes and are focusing on love. Week 1 focused on God's Love:


The past month has been full of writing and art journaling in preparation for various aspects of the His Kingdom Community. Last Sunday we sang "How Great Thou Art" in church. The song was stuck in my head for days and I was feeling the need to just play with paint and paper and do something that wasn't tied to a particular project or group. So, I decided to make an accordion style page using the song as my theme. I can then attach it to a page in my journal. This has been a fun project to just loose myself in. I find painting background pages using my Gelli plate to be very relaxing as well as a creativity spark! Here a a few shots of the process:

Side 1


I experimented with some shades of navy blue. I really like how they turned out!
I was afraid the text wouldn't show through such a dark color.

Starting to add collage pieces.

Side 1 before adding some highlights and details.

It's almost done so I'll post more pictures on another day. I got a little inspiration while doing this project and used some paper scraps to make a little journaling gift:

Prayer cards to insert in a journal.

Those are my meandering thoughts for today. I hope you are finding inspiration and making time for creativity. :)