Creating Women Who Run With the Wolves

Faces are fascinating. They can convey softness, strength, vulnerability, power, anger, sadness and a multitude of other emotions. But faces are tricky to draw or paint from scratch. A great help is using a stencil to get the basic proportions right. Once the eyes, nose and lips are positioned, you can let your imagination run wild.

For two recent journal pages, that is exactly what I did. Once the facial features were in place, they developed into strong, fierce looking women, who reminded me of archetype women inspired by the book Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD.

What started as a stenciled face morphed into an archetype woman
after adding some handwritten thoughts and Gwen Lafleur designs.

I started this face with an old Jane Davenport stencil. On my lunch break, I lightly traced the stencil lines into my handmade journal and added watercolor randomly. I was going for unnatural colors and sort of an alien mood. I could have stopped at the watercolor stage, but my brain cried, "More, more, more!"

Over the weekend, I had  more time to work on the journal page, so I used three of Gwen's stencils to add interest and texture. Using a small wedge cosmetic sponge, I applied white acrylic paint through the stencils, giving a suggestion of a neck tattoo with the decorative folk flower stencil, a dangly earring with a section of the art deco border stencil, and a crown with the decorative medallion stencil.

I then added a little more color and accent with colored pencils, white paint, chalk and gold paint.

The last steps were adding some sparkle to the eyes, and words about inner strength that came into my mind as I looked at the almost-finished page.

I recently got a new Khadi journal, which is made with wonderful, handmade Indian watercolor paper. I have been testing various art mediums in it...it is terrific for watercolors, watercolor crayons, and watercolor pencils, but if used for stencils, you need a layer of paint or gesso first to prevent unwanted bleeding, which I found out the hard, messy way!

So, I put down a layer of white gesso on the journal page and let it dry. Then, through another old favorite Jane Davenport stencil, I penciled in the lines of the face and added in my own lines for the hair and upper body.

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Next, I used some parchment paper as a mask before I started working on the background. I wanted to showcase some of Gwen's stencils in the background, so I mixed up some purple acrylic and sponged it through the decorative folk flower stencil. It was a little too dark, so I used some white paint on bubble wrap to soften it.

Next, I went to work on the face. The color I mixed was not perfect, but I knew I would paint over it.

I painted in some lines for the hair and clothing, and when dry, added color with watercolor crayons.

The page looked like a hot mess with no hope, so I put it away for a few days.

The next weekend, I used some more acrylic paint and colored pencil to get the face to look less gray. I added eye color with a TomBow brush tipped marker, and some turquoise watercolor to add depth to the purple stenciled background. It started to look like less of a hot mess.

The eyes needed work. I softened the eyebrows and added some blue accent under the eyebrows. I also added green watercolor to the clothing.

She looked almost done, but something was missing. Using a sepia ink pad, a small cosmetic sponge and a mini dabber tool, I added Artistcellar mini chakra pocket stencils at her throat, third eye, near her heart and in the background. With a sharpie marker, I added inspirational words.

Once the words and symbols were added, what had been just another pretty face transformed into a second archetype woman.

Both women on these journal pages are beautiful, feminine, and graceful, yet the added words and symbols convey inner strength, knowledge, and wisdom. Side by side, they make a powerful team.

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To see the two types of Artistcellar mini chakra stencils I used, click here.
Jane Davenport stencils are available here

In December, Gwen's Artist Tribe is focusing on creative ways to use Dresden Trim and English/German Scrap. Look for posts from me, along with Jackie P. Neal, Lynda Shoup, Jill McDowell, Sandee Setliff and of course, Gwen Lafleur (links are on Gwen's blog) ...annnnnd you can save 15% when you order any Dresden or Scrap during December. Details are on the coupon below.

Washi Weirdness

Jane Davenport has a huge and devoted following of mixed media artists. Her books and videos are wonderful, and her work whimsical, sensitive and beautifully done. So, when her exclusive line of art supplies hit the shelves at Michael's, most of them flew off the shelves. One of the items that I have been coveting--for almost a year--is her washi tape printed with assorted eyes, noses and mouths.

I love faces and paper dolls and that particular item really called my name. Finally, today, I found it. The minute I got home I started playing with the tape. I probably could have spent all day puttering with the tape and mixing and matching it with my various art and paper supplies.

First, I matched up three sets of facial features on a journal page. I thought it would be just a test page, so I used a page that had a splash of paint from cleaning my brush, and some random thoughts I had about the incredible light on a trip to Acapulco years ago and similar light on summer morning in my childhood bedroom, which had nothing at all to do with the washi tape girls, and mostly got covered up with paint anyway.

Next, I extended the heads, added lines for hairs, and added in the shoulders.

I added watersoluble oil pastels and acrylic paint. Then I had the idea of adding clothing from my stash of paper doll parts.

I added the paper doll parts. I decided to let them fall off the page a bit, and added brads so the legs and wings would swivel in when I close the sketchbook. I intentionally used items that were a little out of proportion to add to the whimsical feeling. Of course, the girls needed wings, so I added butterflies from Gwen Lafleur's downloadable pdf called Beautiful Butterflies as a finishing touch.

I'm Part of Gwen Lafleur's Art Tribe!

This week's exciting announcement was the debut of artist Gwen Lafleur's first design team, which she calls her "art tribe." And guess who is part of the tribe? Yes, me! I am super thrilled to have a chance to play with her amazing papers, stencils (she is one of Stencil Girl's designers), trims, washi tape, stamps and journals, as well as her unique jewelry and decorative components from around the world.

The first items I had access to were some downloadable pdfs of butterflies, flowers, birds and animals. Butterflies always make me feel happy, so after a bad day at work, puttering with some butterflies and using them to enhance some previously ho-hum ATCs made me feel a whole lot better.

Some blah ATCs got a boost with butterflies from Gwen Lafleur's downloadable collection of pdfs

While I waited eagerly for my package of Lafleur goodies to arrive, I kept busy with journaling. I took the little journal I made last weekend to work, and pulled it and my watercolors out on my lunch break. I lightly penciled some old Jane Davenport stencils on the page, and painted for about 20 minutes. At home, I took a few more minutes and added stamps, handwritten thoughts and other accents to complete the pages.

Lunch time journal page before stamps were added

Journal page with Michelle Ward's Greenpepper Press stamps added

Lunch time journal page before stamps were added

Journal page with my own hand carved stamp and Michelle Ward's Greenpepper Press stamps

Lunch time watercolor with handwritten thoughts about starting a new job in a new place and missing my old work friends

Lunch time watercolor with unnatural face colors

Finished journal page with washi tape necklace and third eye from Gwen Lafleur's collection. Hand writtten thoughts were also added.

If you didn't see the announcement about the new Art Tribe on Gwen's website, here's the link. I am super excited to start playing with all the new art materials, and also curious to see what my team members will create.

Back to My Roots

When people don't know what to draw or paint, I usually ask, "What did you love when you were about 10 years old?" Then I tell them to start with that. Going back to what you loved as a child--be it coloring books, finger paint, Play-Doh, mud pies, dandelion bracelets or any other child-like artistic expression--is good for the soul.

Folding ATC doll for PaperTraders "Winner Take All" June 2017 art lottery

I have been through a difficult time in my business life lately, and it put a big strain on my emotional state. So, I took my own advice and backpedaled to my childhood for some art fun. My favorite childhood thing to play with? Paper dolls. For the folding ATC doll above, I used royalty-free reprints of vintage paper doll parts from The Graphics Fairy. The 2.5" x 3.5" base (ATC, or Artist Trading Card) is made of a piece of vintage magazine text that was painted and stamped. The limbs are put together with mini brads, which allows the pieces to be posed and even interchanged with other dolls.

The face is an original that I made using the method from Jane Davenport's Beautiful Faces DVD. I scanned it, reduced it, printed it on card stock, and cut it out. Here's my step-by-step blogpost on how I created the face.

For a folding ATC doll, the rule is that all the extra pieces must tuck behind the base card. Here's what the doll looks like folded up:

ATC doll folded up to 2.5" x 3.5"

Continuing my "back to my roots" art theme, I used an old McCalls pattern piece as a base for a journal collage. As a young girl, teen, and into my 30s, I made many of my own clothes. I still have my favorite patterns from the early 1970s!  After applying (with matte medium) an old pattern as a base on my journal pages, I added some pretty ribbon, printed teabags, a handmade soy batik fabric strip and a mini piece of fiber-art for this two page spread in my art journal.

Art journal left and right spread with old sewing pattern as a base.

The third part of my latest "back to my roots" artistic journey was rediscovering my inner textile designer. In my early 20s, I studied textile/surface design at FIT and worked as a print stylist in New York's Garment Center for nearly 10 years. I "retired" for motherhood, then went into graphic design and writing as a career.

About five or six years ago, I took part in a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) project called "Visioning" and designed and printed my own line of fabric. Many of them are available on Spoonflower.com.

While recently cleaning my bins and boxes of papers and art supplies, I stumbled on some prints of vintage French textiles that I had ripped from an interior design magazine. I was startled at how similar they were to some of the fabrics from my own line. It really had me wondering about reincarnation. The designs are dated 1941, and I wasn't born yet, so who knows?

I used the magazine print on the right side of my journal, and added strips of my fabrics as borders at the sides and top. On the left side, I created a fabric collage of scraps of my own fabrics that struck me as similar.

On my worktable: vintage textile designs on right, collage of my designs on the left.

Reproduction of textile designs dated 1941

My original fabrics, printed on cotton, bear a striking similarity to the vintage 1941 designs.

Finding My Inner Warrior

Inner Warrior Priestess

The last two weeks have been awful. No one died. I am healthy. And I have many blessings. I spent a lot of time counting those blessings while my heart broke and my eyes overflowed with tears, while I tossed and turned and my mind re-lived the trauma of the corporate axe. In the big scheme of things I was fortunate. Very fortunate and blessed. I used my art to work through my many emotions, my angry times, my sleepless nights.

The backstory is that the company I worked for terminated nearly 400 executives two weeks ago. Maybe I saw it coming...but I didn't want to see the handwriting on the wall. I felt like a woman whose boyfriend was cheating on her with a brainless floozie. My boss could barely make eye contact with me. Our meetings were rushed. He acted weird. I thought, naively, "Oh, it's the stress of the coming layoffs, it's not personal, it's what he has to do on Friday." But then the phone rang about noon. I nearly collapsed on the walk from my office to the other side of the hospital to the firing room. I did my breathing exercises, blowing out for more counts than I was breathing in so I didn't hyperventilate or have a panic attack. He talked, I breathed out like a woman in labor as the rhetoric swirled around. "It has nothing to do with your job performance...we are eliminating executive staff with no direct patient contact...yadda, yadda, yadda."

I went back to my office and packed up. My work friends gathered around for support. Gave me hugs. Helped me pack. I didn't cry. They did. I finally cried two days later. I got angry. I painted. I cried. I painted. I cried some more. I updated and honed my resume. I bumped up my LinkedIn profile. I applied for jobs. I went to post-employment seminars and a jobs fair. Thankfully I was offered a new position at another location, this time with direct patient contact. I took a big, big hit on the salary. I am reinventing myself in the business world, tightening up the family budget, and hanging on to my pension fund and healthcare. So I am blessed. I am looking ahead, not behind. I am trying to let go of anger and hurt and resentment. I am channeling my anger into emotional and spiritual power. And I am painting.

The Inner Warrior Priestess journal page started with a Jane Davenport face stencil. I outlined it lightly in pencil, then added my own lines for the body, hair and background. I used Portfolio water soluble oil pastels for the face and background colors, blended them with a wet paintbrush, then added watercolor pencils, TomBow brush tipped markers and other accents. When it was dry, I placed Artistcellar mini chakra pocket stencils on the appropriate place for the third eye, throat and heart chakras and used black Archival ink with a mini dabber to create the stenciled shape.

I revisited my Jane Davenport beautiful faces CD to get the eyes and cheek color the way I envisioned it in my mind. The words came to me at the very end, and I added them with a black sharpie marker.

Prior to creating the Warrior Priestess page, I worked through my various emotions with an assortment of techniques.

Page from my mini journal. Words were added while in the waiting area of Post Employment.

This is a mini journal page. The words and shapes were doodled while in the waiting room of the Post Employment office.

The words on this mini-journal page were added during a long, long wait in the Post Employment office.

The words "I am resilient, I am the phoenix" kept playing in my head to the tune of the Beatle's "I am The Walrus" so I painted it. The marker was not water-resistant so it ran, but the runny words echoed my teary eyes.

My friend (who was terminated in the first round of layoffs) was amazed at how resilient I was, so I painted the words "I am resilient" as a mantra. I didn't like the sloppy look when the markers ran and the words blurred, but it did echo my emotional state.

This scribbly floral journal page has many layers of paint, markers and gesso and was a way to channel my anger and emotions.

After I was offered a new job, I was so relieved and thankful, and I came home and painted the "Joy" journal page.

The day after I accepted my new job offer, I created a romantic, sepia-toned journal collage expressing my gratefulness for all that I DO have. The little angel photo was a gift from an artist friend, and seemed especially appropriate. I stamped the word "trust" with sepia ink and added "the universe" with a sepia pen.

Crazy Messy Faces with Jane Davenport Stencils

Jane Green, finished. mixed media journal page

Above is the finished journal page I named Jane Green. Jane, for the Jane Davenport stencil that I used as a guideline for the face, and Green because I got all sloppy and messy and the skintone accidentally turned greenish. 

Jane Green finished looks completely different than the unfinished, fairly neat drawing below, done the day before. 

I lightly sketched, with a pencil, the facial features, then hand-drew the lines for the hair, neck, swirls and checkerboard. The drawing was started one evening as I sat beside my husband and quietly drew while he was watching a TV show. I felt pretty calm and just wanted to relax with some art supplies and see what emerged.

Jane Green unfinished

The next day, I let loose with the wet paints and the design turned into something unexpected. I ended up painting over areas I didn't like with gesso, and smearing some of the colors together and getting muddy.

There is a big Jane Davenport fan base on Instagram and Facebook. I am a big fan too. But where I go with her products is pretty unlike what most fans do. I seldom have an adorable mermaid or a doe-eyed child. Mostly I end up with crazy looking females. Hmmm...what would Freud say?

Below is another journal page, using a different Jane Davenport stencil. Lots of scribbling, painting over, mixing of medias. I glued a strip of scrapbook paper over the forehead to break up the design, but wasn't sure if I liked it. It was sort of '80s Flashdance meets '60s hippie. I stepped back and decided it was too busy, and went to bed.

Jane Black, unfinished

The next day, I looked at the page and thought, "What was I thinking? This is busy, what a mess!" So, I grabbed black gesso and knocked back the purple in the background. I had to stop myself from painting over the whole page and covering the face. It's still kind of a mess, but it is done--at least for now. I named her Jane Black: Jane for the Jane Davenport stencil, and Black for the background gesso.

Jane Black, finished

When it comes to drawing, I can be pretty neat. Aided by a computer, I can be rather precise. Never reaching the perfection that my Virgo brain seeks, but lines are reasonably straight and if I am trying to do a repeating design, I can figure out the math and make it work.

Sometimes my brain needs to work on something orderly and neat to calm it down. But sometimes a design that starts out neatly drawn ends up a hot mess. And sometimes that hot mess is gorgeous. Mostly I end up gessoing over hot messes or cutting them up into ATCs.