Radiate Joy

How do I Radiate Joy...by making art! I am the most happy, content, and fulfilled when I am in the "zone" making art. The buzz, or vibe, or as some would say, being in touch with my "muse," creates joy. Knowing that making art is exactly what I should be doing creates joy inside me, and that joy radiates into world, sending positive energy to the planet and anyone who needs it.

My favorite place to start creating joy is my art journal. It is my safe place, where sometimes I create magic, sometimes I experiment and test new stamps, stencils, paints, and inks, and often try new techniques. Some pages turn out fantastic, and I am tempted to tear them out and frame them. Others are incomplete, lackluster, and utter failures. Sometimes the pages are full of angry vents, sometimes to-do lists, and sometimes words of gratitude.

I tested EGL23 with black ink on white cardstock before using them in my journal.

Sometimes the pages are just full of color blobs and smears where I have used up leftover paint. The Radiate Joy page started as a "clean-up" page, with yellow paint smeared across a page. I decided to test some of Gwen's stamps and loved the painted page with the sepia inked stamp on top. I just kept going and stamped the whole page to create a large tweed effect. I didn't worry too much that the stamping was imperfect because I knew I would be adding other layers over it.

The square "tweedy" stamp was used all over the painted page.

I knew I needed more in the background, so I went to one of my "go-to" stencils, the Ornamental Petals Mask. I carefully taped the stencil and matching mask together, then used it twice on the page with white embossing powder to create an 8-pointed snowflake effect.

White embossing powder looked magical with the Ornamental Petals stencil and mask.

The stamped background looked pretty cool, especially with the white snowflake, but I wanted more magic and depth. What to add? The Medieval Cyrillic stencil, of course! I used it all over the page with Ranger's gold embossing powder and it really added a "wow" factor.

Above are the Medieval Cyrillic Stencil, embossing powder, and pieces of the doll.

A close-up of the stamped and stenciled page.

I used several of the stamps from Gwen's EGL23 collection. I had been playing with the stamps, adding colors with watercolor and TomBow Brush Tip Markers. I came up with a doll figure using the same geometric texture stamp and coordinated the colors with the butterfly. (I used a face from a portrait I had previously painted; I reduced the size of the 8.5" x 11" face to about 2" and printed it from my color laser jet.)

Once the "snowflake" and Cyrillic stencils were on the background, I carefully glued the figure and butterfly wings.

Almost done, but I wanted to add the words--Radiate Joy--that had come to me as I was working on the page. If I were talented at calligraphy I would have written them in gorgeous, flowing script, but that skill needs some refining! I decided to play with Gwen's Deco Alphabet stamps, EGL16, instead.

I puttered with the arrangement on a piece of deli paper and came up with the idea of stamping them in a semicircle, then stamped each letter directly on the page with black Archival Ink. I got a little overexcited and stamped JOY a few times on the bottom just for fun and visual interest.

To add extra sweetness, I stamped a little sprig of a leaf and berries from EGL17, the Tickets set. I added color and dimension to the leaves and berries with assorted Nuvo Drops.

Close-up detail of the Radiate Joy journal page

 

Here's a really short video I made of the whole process: