O'Keeffe marks the end to this years traveling art journal journey!

Well here I am, just a bit late with my entry for Gemma's art journal.  Her artist of choice was Georgia O'Keeffe- one of my all time favorites.  I've always loved O'Keeffe's use of color and shape with that touch of surrealism- YUM!
I knew I wanted to do a combination of flowers and bones and I've always been inspired by her white on white on white paintings, so I decided to do a triptych spread with the outside a collaged nod to her bones and flowers series opening to a double duo of poppies.

For the cover entry, I took advantage of having a blank canvas to play with (the artists that went before me did the front and inside covers) and being the last, I could be selfish and take over the whole cover (insert evil grin here ;-)) so I did and had a BLAST doing an O'Keeffe-ish landscape with another floating skull and flower.

What a perfect way to end this year's art journey with one of my favorite artists!
Have a blessed day!
xxoo
Stephanie

Modigliani meets Kahlo!

Here I am again to walk you through my journal entry for the month of July.  This month, I had the pleasure of working in Priti Lisa's book, and her artist of choice was Modigliani.  I decided that I wanted to do a piece honoring his style and giving a nod to one of Lisa's other favorites; Frida Kahlo....and off I went!
First I did my addition to her back cover- I don't know why, but this is often the hardest part of each journal for me and I find myself procrastinating over doing it- so I've started making myself-work on that first!

I love his figure paintings, and as I was playing around with it, I noticed that the lines of her body worked well with a rendering of his signature- so, WHEW, my entry for the cover was planned, painted and executed!  

Next, Gemma and then Maggie will add to this cover to complete it before it makes it way home to Lisa!

I designed my spread for Lisa to be a triptych with a Modigliani inspired landscape 

framing Frida's face- I must admit to becoming a bit hooked on village scenes....here it is:

And here is my Frida a la Modigliani- had SO much fun doing this and of COURSE I had to include some words......just because I love doing them so much!

 

Each month, I've struggled and dug deep to come up with a design for each of these artists we've chosen.  And each month, the artists have seemed deceptively easy and simple to emulate their styles, until I've dipped my toes in and found that NO, it's not simple or easy by any means.  But it HAS made me grow and grow and GROW!  I am SO grateful for my little group of artist friends- I hope we continue this inspiring exchange of art for many years to come!

xxoo

Stephanie

Traveling Journals.....Jennifer Judd McGee

Ahhh, it's that magical time again; time for me to share my entry of the month for our Traveling Journals Journey!  This month I had the joy of playing around in Kat's (gorgeous) journal.  Her artist of choice was Jennifer Judd McGee and while she was totally new to me, what a delight she was to discover!  Her style ranges from illustrative botanicals to lovely layered collages rich in color and texture.  I fell in love!

I decided to to a series of layered pages that could each be seen individually but also as a whole.....I asked Kat about her favorite flowers and she told me she loves lilies and hedgerow flowers- I went with lilies and based the lead in page on Spider Lilies....which led to a wandering lady which in turn led to a painting of a village......

 

For her sign in page, Kat created a wonderful patchwork of squares for each of us to add to.  Here's mine:

So there you have my journal pages for the month of June- next up; Modigliani for Priti Lisa- I can't wait!
xx
Stephanie

Going with Matisse for Lisa Wright

So it's that time of the month- time for me to send the traveling art journal on it's way.  This month, I had the pleasure of working in the style of Matisse- Lisa Wright's artist of choice.  Henri Matisse has long been a favorite of mine- I love the wildness of Fauvism and the way the care and attention is emphasized more on color and it's unexpected use than on realism.
I started out doing the outside of a double page spread by free painting a woman inspired by Matisse's "Woman with Green Stripe" and somehow she insisted that she needed to be holding a cat.  So, my cat Mojo made her way into the painting as well- sporting a purple stripe!  Because, why not?

I finished the spread with a cut out interpretation of Mattise's signature- 

it wraps around to the inside pages....

which were inspired by his simplified doves and stars- another favorite of mine.

I had every bit as much fun playing in Matisse's world as I hoped.  Can't wait to see which artist I get to play around with next month- bring it on!
xx

Stephanie

A Taste of Duy Huynh for Tammy's Dreamy Journal

So it's the end of the month, or actually a couple days past and Tammy's pages inspired by her artist of choice; Duy Huynh are ready to go!  He is a "new to me" artist, but what a joy to discover him and his amazing surreal style!  His backgrounds are made up of layer upon layer of glazed paints overlayed with wonderful, quirky paintings.  Far more illustrative than anything I've done in ages- which is ironic since that's what I majored in in college!
Anyway, here are my pages for Tammy....
I was a little scared of the glazing technique, so I came up with three designs to paint for her.
Duy Huynh uses a lot of circus imagery in his paintings, so I thought I'd do a little acrobatic scene:

 

And the for the back, I did a simple series of glazing in lime, yellow and white

 (I think I may be hooked on this technique!) 

and a quote from the Eurhythmics 

For my next page, I featured a lady painting in wings to fly with

And on the back, another glazed background with a C.S. Lewis quote:

For my last page, I did a lady holding a tree

and on the background more glazing and a note to Tammy.

So there you have it, my Duy Huynh pages for Tammy!

The next artist coming my way is Matisse a long time favorite of mine!

Can't wait!

xx

Stephanie

Channeling Anahata Katkin along with Edith Wharton and Charlotte Bronte.....

Hello again, I know, it's crazy- me posting twice in the space of a few days?  What is up with that?  But, nevertheless; here I am with snaps of my (finally) finished pages for Kim of IM Girl.  You may remember that her artist of choice was Anahata Katkin......you may also remember that I mentioned having a hard time designing pages that honored her style without infringing on her creative rights.  And it took me a while, but I got there in the end!  I am really pleased with these pages!
I knew all along that I wanted to use an Emily Bronte quote I recently came across and as I was drawing the cherry branches and bird, I realized that it brought to mind a long time favorite artist of mine; Edith Wharton who wrote and illustrated The Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  I LOVED her work as a child, and was happy to re-remember her as an adult!  If you've never heard of her; google her- she's incredible!

 

I knew the bird had to be yellow because of the yellow

 (Anahata Katkin) bird on Kim's card

And I'll share a shot of this page as it appeared before I painted the letters but
AFTER I spotted a HUGE typo- 

it would have completely changed the meaning of this quote!  

I'm really glad I saw it before I painted all those layers of brown lettering- do you see it?

I wanted to continue with the bird theme for the outer side of her two page spread...... 

And I HAD to do a lady because I felt that was one of themes I have in common with Katkin- also, the tree is inspired from my current WIP canvas- I'll share it at the end of this post for anyone who wants a peek.

The words are part of an Emily Dickinson poem (I couldn't figure out a way to put her name on it without messing up the oval)  Here is the complete poem:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

I really feel like I've poured a LOT of blood, sweat, and tears into this spread, but I am SO glad I stuck with it until I came up with a piece that was "me" as well as honoring Anahata Katkin.

Here's my WIP if you want a peek- I've been working at it on and off since January- it's the biggest, most complicated piece I've ever done- and I'm pretty fond of it too!

I think that's about enough from me for one day- I still miss all my blog friends, hopefully I'll make it back one of these days!

xx

Stephanie

Some Anahata Katkin for Kim

I started working in Kim of IM Girl's
 art journal last week and her artist of choice is Anahata Katkin.  For her sign in pages she provided us with some awesome cut out hands to decorate, and I realized that I already had what I wanted to do for her sign in.  A few years ago, I did a self portrait in Katkin's style and I thought it would be a great way to represent myself.....I couldn't resist using the inside cover Kim created as a back drop for my self portrait hand....

For my  two page spread I had a plan of what I wanted to do, and I worked on it it all week.  Unfortunately, it was one of those things that went more and more wrong the more I did to it!  In fact, after cursing myself for not getting off my a$$ to go get the canvas paper I needed instead of trying make acrylics work on water color paper (too absorbent, doncha know ;-)), I decided to make a collage out of the parts I DID like and use it for Kim's cover- we are all contributing on each other's covers.  So this morning, I finished my part of her cover, and then left to get the correct paper- and NOW, I'm ready to get back to business...more on that later!

For now, here's Kim's cover with the face I painted torn and collaged onto more paper and glued into place 

As much as I despised this before I tore it and glued it, I am really quite happy with it now!

Now to get back to the inside pages- I hope to get the finished product on it's way the beginning of next week- should go faster now that I have the right materials!

xx

Stephanie

 

Magical Journal Journey 2014 began last month.....

My wonderful international art exchange group has started a new traveling journal and I finally made it here to share it with you!  This year, we've each chosen an artist as the theme for our journals and I've chosen Marc Chagall as my artist.  I bet those of you who know me would have guessed that I'd choose Gustav Klimt or Georgia O'Keeffe for this project....and I almost did.  BUT, I wanted to choose an artist that would be more out of my comfort zone.  I LOVE Chagall for his dreamy surrealism and his incredible use of color.  Also his work is quite romantic and he occasionally features flowers.  So, while it is a reach for me, it's also not a terrible stretch, either!
We each began with sign in pages and inside covers and we've decided to do collaborative covers.  Me, being ME, decided to do a front and back cover and also two "covers" to be placed inside as dividers of a sort.....anyway, here is the beginning of my book- I can't wait to get my completed Chagall-ish treasure in a few months- what FUN!
My inside cover is a based on Chagall's famous painting "I and the Village" I actually got see it in person in Paris last Spring :-)

I made little houses set in picket fence pockets for my "village" of art friends to do their sign in with

The first interior cover- I gave them a quote to play with......

Second interior cover with another quote....

The collaborative front cover- I just played with some Chagall-y colors-

 it was VERY hard to stop.  

I can't wait to see what my friends create on it!

My backside cover- I felt like I should do a bit more on it since I had the extra covers.....

plus, AGAIN, it was very difficult to stop painting!

 

So that's my journal- can't wait to see it grow!

xx

Stephanie

A BAD Case of Journal Envy......

OK I admit after visiting my friends at our Magical Journal Journey blog party, I started suffering from a BAD case of video envy....you see, the majority of them created wonderful videos for our friends to see their creations.  And it got bad enough, that I spent the weekend creating a vid of my own.  And what an adventure THAT was!!!  I finally uploaded it to my Picasa and linked the below photo....sorry for having to go "low tech"  I obviously need video making lessons!

https://picasaweb.google.com/114218337612144279548/JournalVideo#5968353852487353074
Keep in mind, that it's the first one I've ever created so watch without too much criticism please.  But please do enjoy!
And be sure to visit my friends to see their journals as well!
Gemma
Maggie
Lisa (the Priti one)
Lisa (the Wright one)
Kat
Angie
Tammy
Kim
Can't wait to get started on our new year of traveling art!!
oxox
Steph

Our Journals have completed their grand journey- time for the Big Reveal!!

So my journal (which you may remember traveled about dressed grandly in all shades of purple flanked with metallics and pops of turquoise ;)) started with a sign in page for each lady to check in...

And then off it went on it's travels; first to visit Gemma of Gemma's House
Here are her beautiful pages; I love all the gorgeous textures and detail and how did you know that Calla Lilies are one of my favorite flowers? Thank you for the Dragonfly- so special!!

Next, my art book wended it's way to Maggie who put a lovely oriental twist in her pages for me- LOVE the elephant and the flower and the butterfly and the beautiful lady plus all the quotes...I love it all!

Then my book traveled on to  Lisa  (the priti one) who created a gloriously queenly Mary with lots of texture and yummy purple and gold plus a Mehndi  hand for me (I think it's so funny, because I created a Mehndi hand for HER;)) and then a paint chip collage with assorted Mary's peeking through the windows....gorgeous-ness!

The next stop for my book was a bit further away, crossing the sea to the UK to stay with Lisa (the Wright one ;)) who started my pages with a scrumptious peacock feather glued onto a gorgeous wash of all my colors combined and moved on to a wonderful page filled with assorted textures and and collage elements mixed with words and so many wonderful elements i love love love.  She ended her work with one of her famous ladies who advises me to dream big- beautiful!

Onward my book made it's way to Cornwall where  Kat of the Wright Story, who not only created some gorgeous (dragonfly filled!) art for me, but also wrote a short story just for me- so special!!!  I will treasure my Dragonfly Bay (the painted one AND the written words) forever!

For my book's last stop in the UK, it traveled to Manchester to visit with Angie of Art Angel for a bit. And she filled her paged with very Artangel-esque textures and patterning- absolutely beautiful!  And of course, she knows how fond I am of butterflies, and birds and quotes and ladies- very wonderful pages!

Then my book made it's way back to the states and to Tammy's studio where she combined a painting of a lady with a dragonfly (!) tattoo, wonderful words and a tree of friendship- such a fabulous addition to my my book!

And last but never least, my art journal traveled to Kim Collister where she created an incredible series of collages rich with birds, flowers, women and of course dragonflies- such a beautiful end to my little book's travels!

I love that you can see all the pages and bits of wonderful-ness peeking out of my book- what a treasure! 
What an amazing year of art it has been, AND best of all; we're gearing up to start again in amonth or so!  I can't WAIT!
xxoo
Stephanie