Brave-Strong-Worthy

Art journaling is good for the soul. Picasso famously said: "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." When I want to regroup, relax, and re-center, I grab an art journal and start working. Sometimes I start a new page, sometimes I just make a background. Sometimes I paint, sometimes I collage. Sometimes I'm neat, most times I'm messy.

Some of the July 2018 Stencil Club designs from Gwen Lafluer

This journal page started when I received my very first shipment of stencils from the Stencil Club, an offering from StencilGirl. I was fortunate that my very first Stencil Club experience was with stencils designed by Gwen!

I started working on two pages side by side in my journal. The one on the right developed into a beautiful golden Tuscan Summer page. The left side was covered with old book pages and vintage handwriting printouts, then a repeating mandala stencil was added in white.

Two unfinished pages side by side in my journal. On the left, vintage papers and on the right, turmeric teabags.

The white medallions add a subtle lacy feel over the vintage paper collage.

I knew I would eventually use the unfinished page, but it sat in my journal unfinished for a few weeks until inspiration struck. 

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Pablo Picasso
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/pablo_picasso_162882

The spark that got me working on the page again was "happy mail." I had just received two gifts: some beautiful paper hand printed by Gwen Lafluer using gold paint with a wood block, and some gorgeous papers and vintage images from fellow artist Darlene Campbell. I decided to try to use both items together.

The hand printed paper, vintage image and roll of washi tape with vintage images.

First, I carefully cut a strip of the black and gold paper. I placed it on the background with the vintage image to see how they looked. They seemed to work together: both had a feel of art nouveau and the black, gold and sepia tones were harmonious.

Step 1

Next, I edged the photo with sepia ink and decided on a tilted placement. I used a glue stick to adhere the papers to the background. Next, on the left bottom of the page, overlapping the photo, I added a bit of thick washi tape with vintage handwriting.

step 2

The page was shaping up, but it needed something horizontal, so I tried a strip of antique looking measuring tape from my washi stash.

step 3

The page still cried "more more more" to me so I added one of Gwen's art deco/art nouveau corner stencils with Emerald Creek gold embossing powder. I also used some sepia archival ink and white acrylic with  her ornamental petals stencil/mask design, which added more interest to the page, but still kept the vintage/sepia feel.

I felt it needed words so I used some small Dina Wakley stamps that said brave, strong, and worthy and placed them around the page. The words were strong, but they were small and got lost a bit.
I decided to use the same words, but make them larger.

step 4

To make the big words, I used one of Gwen's stencils called "not afraid to try" and adapted the letters to spell out the words I wanted. The e and g were a little tricky since they are not part of the stencil, but I fiddled with the o to create an e, and stenciled an a, then flipped the f to get the curve of a g.

For a finishing touch, I poked holes with my awl, then added three black mini brads.

detail of awl, holes and mini brads

When I look at the finished page, I feel calm and peaceful. The colors are soft and earthy, and the vintage image is serene. The words remind me of my inner strength, and that I am indeed brave, strong, and worthy.

Fuscia Zetti Self Portrait

Back in 2000, I was an emotional mess. I had very bad panic disorder, and was trying many methods to rid myself of it—from traditional medical treatments to all kinds of alternative therapies. I decided to spend a lot of time doing art in order to heal. One of the first things I did was an oil self portrait. True, it doesn’t look exactly like me, but I painted the way I felt, which wasn’t pretty. Needless to say, no one but me liked the portrait.

However, it was a starting point. I decided to scan it, alter it a little in photoshop, then digitally embellish it. I called the first variation my Picasso Self Portrait. I later used a variation of it to do one of my first art quilts, and it was used to illustrate an article I wrote for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine called Painting Out the Panic.

I decided to add my favorite yellow fabric design behind the Picasso Self Portrait, and use that image for my business card and also for some of my mini quilt Art-O-Mat blocks.

Recently, I had an ATC trade with my Arts in the Cards group. This month, the color prompt was fuscia. I drew a blank on the color fuscia, so I started looking through my stacks of fabrics and papers and unfinished artwork for inspiration. Nothing really struck me, so I decided to revisit an old theme: self portraits. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I keep coming back to my first self portrait. I have painted other self portraits over the past 12 years, but this one speaks to me the most.

I took out the yellow background and added several other fuschia designs—a scan of a page from a journal that I painted with beet juice, a fuscia mandala that I drew during my lunch hour, and a photo of a wet leaf on a sidewalk that I manipulated in photoshop into shades of fuscia. I also changed some color on the face.

Since I have been enamored of the Zetti trend, I added, in photoshop, the black and white harlequin band at the top. After printing the design, it seemed to need something extra, so I added inspirational words printed on Extravorganza, along with some ribbon and seed beads.