Wednesday's Word: Explore!

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover."  ~Mark Twain

Have you lost your sense of adventure?  Have you become complacent in your life never seeking out new things?  Are you creating in the same way, eating the same meals, following the same routine day to day?   Maybe you should reintroduce the word "EXPLORE" into your life!  Now, more than ever, we have the power to explore easily from the comfort of our own home. 

Whether it's people, places or things, the opportunity to explore something new is here on the Internet.  With a simple google search, you can visit any region of the world or find a tutorial on making fried rice, or research where bumblebees go in the winter.  Anything you want to know can be found with a simple search, and lucky for we creative types, that includes all forms of creating great art.

Step outside your comfort and explore all the wonderful possibilities that creativity has to offer.  Take a class, go to the art museum and study the masters, or search YouTube or Google to explore what others are doing.  You owe to yourself to expand your horizons.  You might just discover something exciting and new!  Wherever you decide to explore, remember: "Celebrate, LOVE and Create!"

"After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery.  It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe.  Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."  ~Sophia Loren

Three In One

OK...I hope you've got your comfy spot and favorite beverage set again, because here are the three days worth of posts I promised for today!

Before I get started, I want to mention a couple things.  First, one of my dear followers mentioned that she has a difficult time reading and listening to the music at the same time, so I've moved the music box to the top of the sidebar.  All you have to do is click the middle button to stop the music.  I hope this helps anyone who prefers to not to listen!  Secondly, I've decided that "Thursday's Child" is a bit much for me to handle at this time.  It's a lot more labor intensive than I anticipated, so I'm still mulling over what to do with this feature.  I was experiencing technical difficulties posting the last interview to the page, so I'm going to have to figure that out as well. 

I will continue my "Tuesday Tips and Techniques" as well as "Wednesday's Word".  I enjoy bringing these features to you and I hope you're enjoying them too.  "Angelia's Art Journal's" is still in it's infancy, and I'm still evolving and growing and (hopefully) making improvements along the way!

I want to say again that I appreciate EACH AND EVERY COMMENT, and I am trying my best to answer each one.  I know I've missed some along the way, but please know that I do read each comment.  Thanks to all of you for your support.  I maintain this blog for YOU!

LINKS! If you've created pages from inspiration you've found here on a post, I encourage each of you to post links to your pages in the comments section.  We would ALL love to see what everyone is doing!

I hope to begin instructional videos soon.  My tech guy (one of my sweet sons, Mike) is helping me walk through the tech problems such as converting and editing MP4s (I think that's what we're doing! LOL), positioning of the camera, etc.  I'm determined!  OK, enough of my babbling.  On to the art!

TUESDAY TIPS and TECHNIQUES

Wax Paper

Wax paper is your friend.  Most commonly, I use it between pages in my journal that tend to be a little sticky or between pages that have oil pastels that tend to smear.  It's invaluable for those purposes but it's fun to use in creating pages too.

Using a stylus or old ink pen, you can emboss your page using wax paper. Using a fairly heavy pressure, the wax from the paper is left on the page as a resist.  This technique works really great with watercolor or colored pencils.

I've used a fine point Sharpie that's beginning to run out of ink so you can see what I'm doing.  I've made vines, spirals and random lines as a background.

Here's a close up of a watercolor wash on top of the embossed area. Some of the areas where I wasn't so heavy handed left less wax so the lines are much thinner.

After the first wash dried, I took the wax paper and drew a face on the upper right side of the page.  The dark areas are the areas that I want to retain the original wash and remain as highlights on the face.  You have to think in terms of "opposite" when you're doing this.

Here you can see the dark blue wash that I applied.  As the was began drying, I added more pigment to the areas that I wanted to be even darker.

Here's a close up of the left eye.  I love the way the eyes turned out!  I haven't decided what else I'll do with this page, but I'll post a picture of the page when I've finished.

Wednesday's Word

"MUSE"

I've given a lot of thought to my creative muse this week, and I've decided that I have a team of muses.  Yesterday, I told you about my inner child muse, but what I've discovered is I think I have a team of muses, each with a distinct personality.

I'm happy to say that my other muses are much calmer than my inner child muse.  I have a muse that loves the outdoors.  All of her inspirations come from the things of nature.  She's the muse that loves the lake and long strolls through the woods.  She loves flowers and animals and the way the clouds move through the sky.  She is my messenger of SPIRIT.

I have another muse who is "the philosopher".  She loves exploring the unseen and mystical.  She loves the night sky and lives among the stars.  She loves symbolism and has connections with the ancient worlds.  She knows the secrets of the indigenous people of the land.  She is solemn and sensible.  She is the muse that grounds me.  She is my SOUL.

My other muse is "the explorer".  She thrives on experiences, visiting new places and meeting new people.  She is the "class clown" and is the one who continually gets me into trouble!  She doesn't know the meaning of "politically correct".  She speaks her mind and really doesn't mean any harm when she thinks without speaking.  She loves laughter and happy times.  She loves words and language.  She loves communicating with everyone and thrives on art shows and creative websites.  She is my hoarder.  She is my MIND.


All of my muses keep me busy and are part of who I am.  There's never a dull moment with my muses around.  What are your muses like?  Do you have one?  Do you have many?  Do they come and go?  Can you summon them at will?  Do new muses come along?  Create a journaling spread about YOUR muse!

"I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me." ~Jackie De Shannon

"The most potent muse of all is our own inner child." ~Stephen Nachmanovitch

"There is something else at work here that is beyond me." ~Genie Francis

THURSDAY'S CHILD

An'Angelia Thompson

Since I don't have a new interview to share with you, I thought you might enjoy seeing a snippet of my life.  I created this video as part of the 21 Secrets workshop that I was so honored to be a part of.  What began as a trip to my old neighborhood for "just a couple of pictures" for a completely different story, turned into a life changing experience for me.  I hope you enjoy my video.  I recommend watching it in full screen so you can see the subtitles.  Thanks for watching!

"Going Home" from An' Angelia Thompson on Vimeo.

VIDEO NOTES:

Circumstances had to be "just right" for me to stumble across that marble.  Just the very top of it was showing through the dirt and the sun was hitting it just right.  I walked right over it and had to step backwards to see what it was.  The large maple tree where I played marbles is long gone, so for me to find this (obviously old) marble was somewhat of a miracle.  The whole experience was incredible for me.

When Mom died, my brother and sister and I had to pick out her headstone.  We had decided that since Mom so loved roses, we would incorporate roses into the things we had to get for her memorial service and burial.  It was important to my sister and me to have three roses on her headstone, representing one for each of her children.  That there were three red roses left blooming on that rosebush hit me after I got home and looked at the pictures.  Coincidence?  I chose to believe not.

Here are my completed journal pages.  I painted over the letter to Mom and the words, "everybody sails alone but we can travel side by side" are lyrics from KT Tunstall's song, "Heal Over".

Well, that's it for today, dear friends.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend filled with lots of creativity.  I'll see you again Monday, so until then remember: "Celebrate, LOVE and Create!"

Wednesday's Word

Today's WORD is "HOME".  What does home mean to you?  I'll tell you what home means to me.  Read more HERE.

All of us would love to see your journal pages created from "Wednesday's Word"!  Have you created any pages?  Please post a link to your images in the comments section!

Wednesday's Word

Today's word is WORRY.  What are you doing to your spirit, psyche and health when you participate in this activity?  Read more HERE.

Wednesday's Word

Today's Wednesday's Word is TIME.  What exactly is tiime?  READ MORE HERE ...

Wednesday's Word

I love words. (pun intended!)  Words are the fabric of communication. We toss them about, often times without thought to what we're saying.

"Wednesday's Word" is an exploration of a word and it's meaning; not the Webster's definition, but what the WORD means to you.  "Wednesday's Word" will always be easy to find by clicking on the "Wednesday's Word" icon to the right of this post. 

I hope this feature will be food for thought and an inspiration to you in your creative endeavors.  Until next time, "Celebrate, LOVE, and Create!"

In with the New!

A Happy New Year to you all! I love the idea of beginning with a clean slate every 365 days.  It's like having a large, shiny white canvas and complete and total access to an art supply store; the possibilities are endless!  I like the idea of using "tried and true" and I like the excitement of exploring the new.  That's what January 1st feels like to me.

I've been thinking about a new look for "Angelia's Art Journals" since autumn, and I've also been thinking about new ways to share with you and how I can blog more efficiently.   All that thinking and brain storming lead to the creation of a new look and some new features that I hope you'll enjoy.

My first new feature is "Tuesday Tips & Techniques".  I'm going to show you all my little tips, tricks, and methods, and hopefully, there will be plenty of accompanying video.  I'm still trying to work out some tech issues with compression and conversion.  We'll see what happens!

The 2nd new feature I'm offering is "Wednesday's Word".  I love words, and a lot of my artistic inspiration comes from song lyrics, quotes, and the origin and meaning of words.  This will be a weekly feature that I hope inspires you to contemplate your choice and understanding of words in your creativity.

The new feature that I'm most excited about is "Thursday's Child".  I've met a wonderful array of very sweet and talented creatives through sharing my artwork here on the Internet, and I want you to meet them, too!  "Thursday's Child"  is a weekly interview segment with my friends and fellow creatives.  I was thought about how much we all have in common and how "like finds like".  I  thought about the commonality of our struggles, our loves, our fears,  and our incessant need to create.

"Thursday's Child" was inspired by the line from the poem ("...Thursday's child has far to go") and by the David Bowie song, "Thursday's Child" ("All of my life I tried so hard/doing the best with what I had/sometimes my courage fell to my feet....)  Anyway, that's how "Thursday's Child was born, and the first segment premiers this coming Thursday with Kelly Watts.

Kelly has been an ongoing source of inspiration to me since I started following her blog almost a year ago.  One of her posts inspired me to focus on one word for 2011.  I've chosen "love" as my focus word.  If I can focus on "love" in all it's different forms and meanings, and start with myself, just how great will this year be!

I leave you with one of my favorite photos from the last day of 2010.  I took it at Mentor Headlands yesterday around 10:30 am.  It looks extremely cold, but there was a gentle breeze out of the SW and it was around 50 degrees.  I was there for 2 hours and spent the last 20 minutes watching a bald eagle feed from a small ice floe just off shore.  (I got a few pics but they're really bad.  I hope to get some good ones of my eagle friend soon!)

So, Happy New Year!, my friends.  I'm looking forward to an exciting year of unending possibility and I hope you are too.  Until next time, Celebrate, Love, and CREATE!