Get Messy Season of Brave Round Up

I have just realised I really didn't post many of my Get Messy Brave pages up here on the blog! This will of course change with the new Get Messy on Thursdays commitment I have made to get all of my pages posted on a Thursday each week on the blog and Instagram.

 "We'll Be Free" - Acrylic, Sharpie and Rub Ons

This was the final closing page for the Season using a quote from Mumford and Sons. Love me some Mumford and Sons they have the most inspiring lyrics in their songs. I used some Golden Acrylics for the background on this page. You can't really see in the photo but it has a kind of shiny finish to it. Not sure how I like this as I prefer my paints to be matt for the background. I normally use the cheap but good Anita's Acrylic paints so not sure I'll be in a rush to change over.

 "Be Brave Little One" Scrapbook Paper, Gesso, Gelatos,Stamps, Washi Tape, Paper Heart Bunting, Rub ons

Oh Gesso, how do I love thee.... I have been looking through the "5 Ways to use Gesso" class on Big Picture and one of the cool ways they had listed was to paint it thinly over a very busy patterned paper to "mute" the colors slightly. I love how the background as become muted and it can still be seen peeking through on the edges and in parts.

I wrote little notes from my now older self to my younger self and vice versa about the things I would like to tell myself from those points of view. I did this the same day as International Scrapbooking Day so I wanted to give it a scrapbook "feel".

Get Messy - Brave Zine

The new prompt from Get Messy was all about making a zine. It's not something that I'd ever thought about doing before so after a bit of research into what exactly it was I had a good idea in my head how I would construct it but was a little stumped about what it was going to be about.

We were to make it about someone we thought of as brave. Easy huh? Well not really, there are so many amazing people throughout history and in the present that you could easily think of as brave.Then it hit me, there was no one closer to me and more of an inspiration than my Mum so the zine was born.

I have some amazing photographs of my Mum over the years and I wanted to use the tape transfer method as it would allow me to keep the "rough" photocopied feel of a zine. The front page is above as I think this is such a beautiful photo of her it deserved a special page all of it's own.

I roughly splashed paint onto the background then put my image over the top. I love how the colors bleed through the transparent parts of the tape. I cut out my own stencil and faux screen printed my phrase over the top on all the pages using colored modelling paste.

I love how it turned out and I can't wait to show her in person. She's a true inspiration to me and my sister. She never says no and never let's anyone dictate what she should do. She suffered from Polio as a child and has been living with the after effects ever since. Despite all of this she's owned her own business, and went on to be an amazing mother to my sister and me. Love ya Mum!

Season of Brave 1 - Get Messy Art Journal

So I've joined up with the Get Messy art journal group online. I really wanted to participate in a group to get some inspiration and hopefully make some new online friends in the process.

I joined up at the very end of their last season which was the season of love and decided to wait to jump in for this new season which started at the beginning of April. The new season is the season of brave which is really exciting.

You get prompts throughout the season (6 weeks) and there are journaling prompts to get you thinking and writing and art prompts to get you using some new techniques and pushing the comfort zone a little which is exactly what I am so excited about!

Here is my response to the first set of prompts from the Brave Season;

I have to say that I did find it quite hard to fill the page with journalling about what I think brave is. Of course the amazing thing about Art journalling is that there is no right and wrong, no rules. The Art journal police won't be coming to your door. I didn't HAVE to put the journalling in but I wanted to so that I have a record of me and my thoughts in the journal as well as my Art work and how it evolves over time.

 Above is a close up of the woven edges I put on the side using torn magazine pages.

Funny story - I used to have a Dymo Label Maker thingy. The old school one that uses the 3D tape. I hardly ever used it and ended up throwing it out. Guess what? Last week all I wanted was another one so I ended up buying another one. Lesson - NEVER THROW ANYTHING OUT!

Here is my second layout. I have to say I love this one a lot. I used cotton buds to paint on this and I love the background colors and how it makes everything pop. I used a old OHP transparency to make the wings on just used a magazine cut out for my lady.

I used the Dymo again and a glassine bag I've had lying around forever to make a pouch to hold my journalling. As this journalling was a bit more personal I wanted to hide it away a little and I love the extra dimension it adds to the page.

Here's how I included all I wanted to in the pouch. Maya was so keen to get involved she wanted to do one too and insisted her pie chart be included with mine. How and why would I say no to this? As you can see she got a bit bored after coloring her's in but done is done and I am very happy to give it a home in my journal.