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Thursday 26 December 2013

Hope rising

I had a bad few days physically again before Christmas, the fatigue flared up with a vengeance after going to work leaving me feeling really ill and fed up - I thought I had seen the back of it for a while.  I sunk pretty low one day before I was able to get hold of myself, turn to God and pray.  I've learnt over the years that its no use pretending, actually just like in the psalms God wants us to be real.  So I am, I pour out my feelings in prayer and turn to Him for help. 

Art journaling is a real help in this situation because I can express myself in paint and colour together with words.  I did two pages while I was feeling like this.

This one, I started off in a very low place so decided I would do the page all black and grey - just like I was feeling.  But as I worked and wrote the journaling out and prayed, I started to feel a lot better.  When I turn my eyes on God and off me, as I've said before, things always seem better.

The backround is acrylic and then stenciling and stamping in shades of grey and black.  I added my home made texture paste through a stencil and I love the effect:


I stamped the clocks to show this sense of waiting to be better, waiting on God for strength.  The page was going to be in unrelieved black and grey when I started, but by the time I finished I was so much more positive that I had to add white, hence the star which I embossed in white snowflake embossing powder:
I wrote the journaling on a scrap of paper, folded it and glued it:

My other page is much brighter:

The backround is blue acrylic with white, and this lovely heart stamp which came free with Craft Stamper magazine a few months ago.  
The paper circles and pieces are from Christmas wrapping paper, I loved the trees and snowflakes and the colours:
I journaled round the circles and pieces:


So after art journaling therapy and a few days rest I felt much better and was able to enjoy Christmas with my family.  In fact its still going on!  

I hope you have all had a happy time too.

Friday 20 December 2013

The Lord is my Shepherd

I created this mini book on the 23rd psalm for my mother-in-law:


Sheep again! punched ones this time.  The backround is sponged distress inks, spattered with water then sprayed with pearl cosmic shimmer mist. 





Its a concertina book and fun to make.

 The psalm inspired this page in my art journal:

I like to read my bible in the amplified version sometimes and this psalm is wonderful in this version.  Here are a few extracts:

The Lord is my Shepherd to feed, guide and shield me 
He refreshes and restores my life (my self)
You anoint my head with oil; my (brimming) cup runs over
and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His Presence] shall be my dwellling place.

How wonderful is that?  As we head into Christmas lets reflect on the wonder of Jesus being born all those years ago, and the wonder of His Presence with us today.

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Eyes Up!

This is a very simple page - just playing with a mask and acrylic paint.  I wanted to show a woman with her arms reaching out but couldn't find a suitable picture so had a go at drawing one.  This is the first ever 'person' I've drawn and cut out - I can't really draw so I was quite pleased with the result.  Then journaling written in pencil and torn into strips - this is a quick way of adding journaling which I really like.  The title is handwritten in pen - I'm in the middle of doing Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's class 'Getting Started with Lettering' and am trying to be braver with handwriting - I've got to practice more!


She is lifting her hands up and worshiping God - as we worship God our eyes are on Him and not ourselves and it really helps to get a proper perspective on things!

Friday 13 December 2013

Have joy!

The last few weeks have been really rough again in health.  This time due to horrible fluey cold which I got twice in quick succession.  However, I've managed to keep my spirits up most of the time!  And the last two days in my prayer time God has led me to scriptures about rejoicing!  So this is what I'm doing - how could I not rejoice when God has blessed me so wonderfully with my family, friends, church, I could go on and on....

I had to express this in my art journal and of course it had to be a bright fun page:


I started with a canary yellow backround and then added a backround which I'd done for a card but didn't like how it came out.  I tore it into pieces and stuck down randomly.

 Then stenciling and stamping.  I didn't have a canary stamp but I love this bird - doesn't it look like its rejoicing?!


And I added sheep because they look happy too, in fact I got a bit carried away with the sheep.....there's a lot of them.

The scriptures on rejoicing:

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; 
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thess 5: 16-18

Through Him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand,
and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, 
knowing that suffering produces endurance, 
and endurance produces character, 
and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, 
because God's love has been poured into our hearts 
through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
Rom 5: 2-5

Thursday 12 December 2013

Free to be ME

I've been a Christian for about 25 years and its been a really interesting journey!  I can safely say I am not the person now I was 25 years ago and that's not just due to the colour of my hair now  (reddy brown covering silvery grey and brown mix :) .   I much prefer the person I am today.  As Christians we are meant to surrender our lives to the Lord and to live His way.  I've come to realise that there is freedom in living in surrender - freedom to be who God intended ME to be and NOT who I think I should be; freedom to do what God wants me to do which is always good and NOT what I think I should do which isn't always good.

This is the page I did when I was thinking about this:


I stenciled the flowers and bird in bright colours to be coming out of a broken down wall - being free!  I love birds so here's a closer peek:


The more art journaling I do, the more I love it.  Its just such a good way to play with paint and colour and express what's going on in our true hearts.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Eat good things

This is the second page I did for the newspaper challenge set by Julie for Art Journal Every Day.  I used words torn out from a newspaper this time.  I saw the words hunger and Eat! and it made me think how important it is to eat the right things to be healthy.  Then I thought this is the same for everything, not just eating.  For example, if I spend too much time watching the wrong kind of tv programme that's not going to do me any good.  I need to feed myself with good things and I need to feed my spirit with the things of God.  Jesus said, 

"I am the Bread of Life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, 
and he who believes in me shall never thirst."
John 6: 35-36
When I spend time with Jesus in prayer, or at church, or am just conscious of  Him as I go about my day I just feel better!

This is my page:


I really enjoyed doing this.  The backround started out with colour which I'd previously scraped on a page when I had an accident with a Cosmic Shimmer bottle!

 I filled the rest of the page with yellow and orange with Brilliance inkpads:

But I didn't like it so I mixed blue acrylic with a little perfect pearl and scraped it all over the top so just a little of the colour beneath showed through which I really liked:

Then I added doodling:


This was really fun to do and definitely satisfied my creative hunger!  It also led me to do this page where I cut shapes out of newspaper.


Spending time with Jesus is definitely feasting on love!  And that means that I'll have more love to give out to those around me.

Monday 2 December 2013

Sometimes I need to NOT think

I've been thinking more about..... NOT thinking!  lol!  Sometimes I overthink things when I should either be getting on with things or just not doing or worrying but resting.

We had a challenge from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer for Art Journal Every Day to use newspaper in an art journal page.  I'm really enjoying this challenge, here's my first page using newspaper, I'm sure I'll be doing more!


The backround is red and blue acrylic painted with a dry paint brush and white acrylic through a hexagon stencil. Then I put my home made black texture paste through the mini tile stencil.  I really like the effect:

I added punched scalloped circles and daisies from newspaper.  I used a black bit of the newspaper for the daisies and love how one of them has the word 'jelly' - I love jelly :)

I don't like this page that much.  Still, it reflects too much thinking!
 
This is the scripture I'm going to meditate on to help me with not overthinking things:
Thou dost keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on thee,
because he trusts thee.
Is 26:3