I'm really thrilled that Tangie Baxter asked me if I would write a little bit about my book for her blog. I did and also created a PDF of how to do the pages with doors in them. You can read it and get the PDF on her blog, Studio Tangie Baxter. While you're there check out all the other great stuff she has! Maybe you'll want to join in on the Caravan for next year, it's lots of fun! Here are a couple of pages I did featuring Mandalas. I drew the mandalas myself, which is a lot easier than it looks. I made one petal (using the pen tool in Photoshop) and then copied it eight times, rotating it each time to form a circle. I then duplicated all eight, sent them to the back and rotated again to make the back layer of petals. I used my wacom tablet and pen to fill in the shapes with doodles. I did the doodling on a separate layer. Then I filled each group of shapes with a neutral color and copied each group to a layer to make a template that I could clip papers too. After that I just clipped the papers I wanted to each shape group. I hope that makes sense. I'll try and do a little tutorial when I get a minute.

The prompt for this one was paused and I chose a quote from Albert Enstein as my inspiration. The children in the photo are myself (the baby) and my sister and brothers with our uncle.

In news that would surprise no one who actually knows me I haven't updated in ages. Oh well, that'll make this a long one!

Here are the pages since the last one. The top page is based on the prompt "I Want..." There's a little typo on one of the top tags. Have to fix that. The bottom one was made after I got new I was being referred to a surgeon. The women with the swords are my friends and it's meant to show they have my backagainst the monster. The dragons represent the men in my life who also have my back.
The photo of the women was taken at Patricia's wedding. The men had the swords but the photographer had them switch off and gave the men flowers and the women the swords and this was one of the resulting photos.

As promised I continued the story I started in week three for my week four pages. This art journal thing is a little bit like ripping your heart out and tossing it on the floor. I did a two page spread this time.

We're in week three so I suppose I should post my week two! I mulled over the word 'Thrive' for most of the week and kept coming back to the image of vines and flowers. Sort of like pretty kudzu or something. I decided to just work with that and see where it took me. I drew the word on my wacom tablet, leaving the centers of the letters empty for a fill. Then started adding random vines and leaves. Once I had my word how I wanted it I started trying different backgrounds. I think I ended up with three or four papers in the end combined with blending modes and masks. Then I added the long quote and some embellishments. I'm happy with it.

Hi. Welcome. Hope this isn't all too boring for you if you've stumbled across it!

I decided to join the Art Journal Caravan at scrapbookgraphics.com (run by the amazing Tangie Baxter) and it seemed like a good idea to blog a bit along the way. Right now I'm pretty much just confused! I have the first assignments and am contemplating. Oh and I have a camel. More on her later.