Get Messy Art Journal Season of Magic 2

The second week of Season of Magic for Get Messy Art Journal has found me with a lot more time on my hands for working in my journal and for creating Magic.

Get Messy Season of Serenity Prompt 3

This week's Get Messy was all about inspiring and trying new techniques.The Get Messy community is cool and amazing for very many reasons but one of the main ones is that there is just so much inspiring work out there for all of us to draw on. I know you can feel "guilty" about "copying" someone else's work but I think it's great way to try out a new style or a new technique. Besides, it's rarely going to look exactly the same and your own style will most certainly creep in there.

Get Messy Season of Serenity Prompt 2

We're back with Serenity again this week for the second set of prompts about what Serenity means to us.

For this page I printed onto tea bag paper for the dictionary definition. There was much swearing involved, not appropriate for the season of serenity that's for sure! It worked eventually though and I was pleased with the results.

The second page has a tissue paper background and acrylics painted over the top. I used a card I bought from a shop when we were visiting Westport this summer and it's of the West Coast of Ireland. It's perfect for this page and theme. I like how this page turned out with the poetry covering most of the page.

Get Messy Season Serenity Prompt 1

So here we are at the start of a brand new season from Get Messy. This season is "Serenity" and it will be very nice to have this theme after "Adventure" and "Brave".

This weeks prompts were based around the divine within us and how we are all spiritual in our own ways. now I am not one for organised religion at all but there is something very spiritual and calming about being outside and amongst nature for me. My parents live in the middle of the Irish countryside and there is something about the comfort of being there that is good for my soul.

I kept this page simple (well for me anyway!) and didn't over do it with embellishments. The vellum flowers I've had forever and I thought they went very well with the page.

I love my little sequins and my stamped images in the background.

The next prompt was all about our Goddess within us. After taking the Goddess quiz I was matched with Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Civilization. Whilst I didn't identify with all of the characteristics of Athena some of them are especially true.

What surprised me most was the information about Athena Goddess Types attitude towards motherhood. It really struck a chord with me;

"As a mother, if she chooses this path, Athena would be less keen on the baby / child years. She will enjoy an older child's ability to speak intelligently so that she could engage with her/him in an adult manner regarding learning, goals, projects and accomplishments"

Not that's not all true, I adored my daughter as a baby but I am enjoying her now she is older and able to relate with me on a much more in depth level. I really enjoy encouraging her and nurturing her creativity so she can share this with me.

Here is my double page spread. I really like how my Goddess turned out. As she is the Goddess of wisdom I used book pages for her flowing hair and purple for the color of Wisdom.

I recently bought a Copic Marker to add to my arsenal and can I just say I am totally in love and they are so worth the investment.

Athena is often pictured with an Owl for wisdom. I've had this guy sitting around for a while so I used him as a tape transfer and I love him!

I also bought an old vintage pattern from Oxfam for €1. Half the pattern is ripped and it's not in my size so I feel no sorrow for ripping it up and using it in my background. It's so soft and the colour is beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by and if you are interested I joining the Get Messy Community I can HIGHLY recommend it!!

Second Star to The Right - Get Messy On Thursdays

This week's Get Messy has us working along with a different prompt every week so this page is a bonus one I've been working on inspired by our adventure theme. Well you don't get much more adventurous than Peter Pan now do you?

The page is not my usual style as drawing would NOT be my strong point so I normally stay away from it and rely on a stamphoto or a found image from a magazine.  But in the spirit of adventure I had a go and I'm quite pleased with the result.

I used liquid acrylics for the background and I really love the pearlescent shine one then which really doesn't come across on the photographs.

 I used my colored sharpie collection to do the hand lettering and liquid acrylics in silver for the "star"

I also used one of my mists and sprayed them all along the edges to give the edges some interest.

Here's a close up of the cityscape I drew. I used my Pitt artist markers for this and you can just about make out the gold dots I added for the cars.

So just goes to show if you try something adventurous and push yourself you can make something you never thought you could!

Love Your Lettering

I recently signed up to a class with Studio Calico called "Love Your Lettering". It's a class to improve your hand lettering and let me tell you, I am so glad that I did. The class takes you through the basics of hand lettering and how to play around with different fonts and sizes.

The part I loved the most was learning about cursive writing. I should add here that I've always loved my handwriting and I always get a lot of compliments on it. Not blowing my own horn here I promise up if there's a card to be written or a whiteboard to be filled it's always me who ends up being volunteered.

That being said there was a lot for me to learn about forming the letters and where to add the heavier "down" strokes. I would write a lot of my handwriting in cursive but some letters like the "b" and the "s" and the "r" took some work to get down!

Here's a birthday card that I played with. I really like the Kraft card and keeping the decoration simple. I think I'd like to make a batch of these for Christmas presents and give everyone a whole pack of different ones so they always have cards on hand for different occasions.

I made some pages in my Art Journal for the class too and I'm really pleased with the results.

I used a good old Sharpie for the art journal pages and I then went out and bought ink and a good brush for the Birthday card. I like the convenience of the Sharpie for sure but I loved the flow of the ink and brush, I think I'll be using that quite a bit.

What about you? What are your favourite ways of writing? Brush or Pen??