A Few of My Favorite Things ~ Plus a Tutorial!

It is no surprise to anyone who follows my blog or views my art journaling and photographs - I love birds. I enjoy watching them, studying them, photographing them, and include them often in my art. 

Another passion I have is for Bible study and theology. Last week at the library book sale I found a new book by one of my favorite pastor/author/theologian/ Bible commentators, John Stott. I usually buy any book I find by him when I go to book sales, but this one was special. It's called "The Birds Our Teachers: Biblical lessons from a lifelong bird watcher". A book that combines two of my favorite things by one of my favorite authors! And I had no idea that John Stott was also a bird watcher - bonus!

A few weeks ago I found out that 2018 has been named the year of the bird by Audubon and National Geographic to mark the 100th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It's a good excuse for me to continue to use birds in my art. Jeanne Oliver is doing a year long project called Series 52 which she says is a way to create a body of work that is just for you. One of my favorite art mediums is collage. Last year for the 100 day project I did scrap collage projects on Rolodex cards. It was a fun challenge to make them on such a small background, but what I loved most about the project was that I did collage more frequently. So I thought doing one intentional piece of collage per week would help me stay connected to this art medium and would be a nice way to work on a different size than my Everyday Journal, although some weeks it may be in that journal. And since it is the Year of the Bird, they will be my focus for my weekly collage.

My collage for week one was made to go into my commonplace notebook.

My collage for week two was inspired by the illustrator Richard Faust, who often includes small geometric collages on his work. This one was done in my Everyday Journal, which is a Traveler's Notebook.

In 2015 I was a member of the foundation team for a group called His Kingdom Come. We did a number of classes that year that were exclusive for group members. Now that this group is no longer in existence I thought I would share the art journal I made for the course we did called God's Aviary. It was a course that studied birds in the Bible and combined that with art journaling.

This was one of my all-time favorite art journal projects! I added the tutorial and the video flip-through of my journal to the pages at the top of this site. Or you can click this link to go directly to that page. Enjoy!

Let Us Make Class

Because I love nature and combining that love with art and photography I decided to participate in a class on the Jeanne Oliver Creative Network called Let Us Make. The instructor, Sheila Atchley, is using the account of creation's first six days in the book of Genesis as the outline for the class. I'm enjoying listening to her read the Scripture and then talk about God's creativity.

I have decided to try some of her art techniques which are new to me, while at the same time simply using the Scripture and discussion as my inspiration for creating. One technique was to use acrylic inks and rubbing alcohol to create the separation of water and sky in Genesis 1:9-10. I was not happy with my results. On the first one done in an altered book journal, I apparently picked up the wrong roll of masking tape because it tore the watercolor paper as I took it off. The second attempt I did on a loose piece of watercolor paper, but still not thrilled with it. I'll have to keep playing around with the acrylic inks until I find a way to use them that fits my style.  So, instead,  I reverted to my favorite tools and technique to make my page- painted papers and collage.

acrylic inks

Once I did that, I decided to make a section in my commonplace journal dedicated to the art pages that result from this class.

My as yet untitled comonplace journal

I may try mixing in some of my photos from nature walks. Happy weekend to you!

January Art Journaling

So far this month I've finished some projects, continued others, and started a few new ones. Here's a view of the journals I worked in this past year.

A few completed pages in my journal for the Minimalist Art Journal course with Caylee Grey:

This collage used scraps from my scrap box and found poetry:

The last two pages for the Get Messy art journal community Season of Gifts challenge:

This page was done in response to one of the podcasts I was listening to from Jeanne Oliver's course "Salt and Light".

Rest and Creativity

Since Memorial Day life for me has been a whirlwind of activity with preparation for end of the school year events for our ministry to the public school we adopted as our community partner. Each year the school and Parent's Club holds a Field Day in the last week. The role of our church is to provide a bag lunch for each student and to provide two volunteers to supervise lunch in each classroom while the teachers get a much needed lunch break. Since I lead our school partnership ministry this makes for a very busy end of the year in addition to my other activities at the school. April and May are always very busy months at our church and for me in the roles I serve in on staff. I find, that when June comes and we have finished our events and activities at the school, that I have been operating on adrenaline, and my energy quickly leaves me like air leaving a balloon, and I deflate! So I scheduled a 10 day vacation for the week after school closed - a "staycation", a time to rest and renew.

On day one, I was amazed how quickly I felt re-energized just by doing some of the things that I know bring me energy and joy. This is where knowing yourself is beneficial. I know what drains me and I know what energizes me. Part of self-care is being in touch with these things and doing what is necessary to keep them in balance. Someone said, "Stress kills creativity" (sorry, I can't find who said it!), and I resonate with this from experience. When I get overly busy and tired I find I have a hard time creating. So, this week at home has been about restoring and making time for creativity, art and some of the other things that are enjoyable to me.

Some highlights from my past week:

• My pastor had asked me to share in a Sunday service while we are in our series on the Theology of Sabbath. He had asked me specifically to share how practicing a Sabbath Day has enriched my soul and to share some of the spiritual practices and "non-spiritual" practices that fill my Sabbath day. So I did that last Sunday. One thing that really stood out for me as I prepared for sharing was that keeping a Sabbath Day has been an instrumental part of getting to know how I am wired and what energizes me. It has helped me discover how much being creative energizes me. Sabbath rest is a gift from God and a spiritual practice I am very thankful for. Check out the Sabbath Society at Redemption's Beauty http://redemptionsbeauty.com/sabbath-society/ for more Sabbath practice information and ideas.
• I got on a roll making altered book art journals for my Etsy shop:{found on brighton}
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I have already sold three! I participated in a course by Jeanne Oliver (http://www.jeanneoliverdesigns.com/) about how to have a creative business and this past week I have been catching up on watching the videos. I made a decision a while back that if I was going to have an Etsy shop I might as well be serious about it being a small business. So far I am enjoying my little business. :)

• I have done very little outside my home this week and have really enjoyed it! This is when I have no doubts that I am more of an introvert than an extrovert (another discovery made through practicing Sabbath!). The few things I have done were: attending the boys Little League baseball games. participating in my spiritual direction group, and yesterday my friend Rox and I went to two library book sales. We found a lot of goodies! They will be used for my personal journals and to make altered book journals and paper packs for my shop.
  
• I have also been catching up on my art journaling challenge projects, making art, and catching up on some movie watching (two I highly recommend are Monuments Men and Philomena). I post some of my art pictures in another post this weekend.

So, that is the start of my summer. I'm hoping for a slowed down pace - actually, not hoping for - I intend to have a slowed down pace this summer. How are you planning to spend your summer?