ITAC 17: Oceania: The River That Was Made of Tears

I stumbled upon ITAC '17 and was intrigued by the challenges there.  The part of the world we're visiting this week is Oceania.  The challenge is to be inspired by stories, symbology, nature and art of the region.

Years ago I went on a field trip with my son's class to Seattle Art Museum.  There was an amazing exhibit of Australian aboriginal art that we explored.  I was especially intrigued by the art of Gloria Petyarre and when I started this project I was planning on channeling her.  The Muse had other ideas though and I went a very different direction incorporating lots of circles, symbols and a dreamtime story I found which resonated with me.  Following is my art journal page sharing the story of how the Giddy River was formed.

At first I wasn't planning on writing out the dreamtime story on my page, but as I finished up, I liked the idea of having it on there.

I have a small art journal made from gelli-printed paper that I put together a while ago.  One of these pages started as the base of my project.

The symbols on the brogla's neck are 'man', 'boomerang' (my thought for the hunter), 'water' and 'star'.

The blue circles were made with the ends of various paintbrushes.

There are some amazing projects uploaded by the guest artists/judges.  To check the out, and to find out more info about ITAC '17, click HERE.

Have a great day!

Magical Paradise Cards

I'm all ready to send out a couple of ATCs for a swap and decided they needed to be sent snuggled into a card.  I whipped up these using simple Distress ink blending techniques and some of my fave Stampotique stamps.

These make me feel so calm and serene; I think it's the lovely, cool greens.  Must be time to go on an adventure deep in the woods...

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

MFT Summer Camp

Now, this is my kinda summer camp - no mosquitoes, no roommates who snore, no corny camp songs (although I have to admit, I kind of like corny camp songs), no nasty food.  Over at MFT this past week there was Camp Create.  I couldn't participate during the week, but I managed to bang out all of the challenges today.  And they were fun!  Here's what I came up with:
I was tempted by the recent MFT retirement sale and picked up the Love You More stamp set.  Kept this card CAS by creating the square with Distress inks and adding a woodgrain embossed heart.

Day 1: Inlaid Made Easy

I love these little band-aid dies - so cute.  I paired them with the ancient Umbrella set for this card.

Day 2: Magnificent Masking

I was tempted by the MFT retirement sale and picked up the Love You More stamp set.  I kept this card CAS by creating a square in the middle with Distress inks and adding a woodgrain embossed heart die cut.

Day 3: Background Bonanza

 I LOVE how this card turned out!  Gotta love the cool shades from the Geek is Chic set.

Day 4: Monochromatic Magic

The Peek-A-Boo dies are so fun and I don't bring them out often enough.  I kept this really monochromatic by using only the Distress ink and marker in Fossilized Amber.

Day 4 Round the Campfire: Awesome Ombre

The Onesie die has been in my stash collecting dust.  I love the little details on it (you can see them in the die below).  Distress inks are super easy to create ombre colors with.  I ended up doing the inlaid technique again with the heart, using an off cut from the onesie die.

Day 5: Delightful Die Cutting

It doesn't get much easier than this.  I added a smidge of dimension by putting some foam tape behind the sun.  Easy breezy!

I need to go to camps like this more often!

Thanks for visiting my blog.  Which of these cards is your fave?

Creative Life Art Journal Page

Hello, friends.

The Muse has sort of taken the summer off.  Work and life in general have been really busy.  Where has summer gone??

I joined Marjie Kemper's Mixed Media Art Book Group over on Facebook recently and we are working from Dina Wakley's Art Journal Freedom book this month.  I channeled Dina in my flower sketching/painting attempt.  My other prompt was the color challenge over at Rubber Dance Art Stamps (green, rust and magenta).

A few summers ago a gessoed a bunch of pages in an old composition book.  When I have leftover paint from another project I randomly swipe it over these pages.  The background here started as a deep orange and metallic gold page.   I sketched the flower with charcoal pencil and then painted over that with acrylics.  The background of the page is strips of book pages, stencilling, splattering and stamping (background stamps and leaves from Rubber Dance Textured Flowers set).  The quote is stamped too.

It was really nice to get my fingers dirty with some paint.  It's been WAY too long.  Thanks for stopping by!