July Journaling!!!!

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• I have been journaling like crazy in my short time off of work. Jumping off the crazy carousel of year-round teaching left me drained and exhausted! I am trying to slow down, enjoy my family and just BREATHE!!! My journal becomes a happy place where I illustrate positive messages to myself. I recently sent off 5 finished journals to be considered for the Art Journaling publication. They were completed in the past three years. I could definitely see a HUGE learning curve. I had to cringe a little over my first visual journal. But, hey, baby steps right? I loved a few of those pages and hopefully won't be judged too harshly on my first awkward attempts. I am now working on 5 different journals that differ in size and paper type. It's fun to skip around and work in whatever journal I feel like grabbing ( or that fits into my purse, beach bag, etc.). I am hoping to start a journaling group with my friends at work as a stress management tool. I know it works for me and I am totally hooked on this form of self-expression.

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Awesome Class with Teesha Moore!

Yesterday I drove to Carson to the Rubber Stamp Convention all by myself because I couldn't get anyone to go with me. I tried begging, bribing, whining...NOTHIN'! So... I got adventurous because I really wanted to take the 2 hour visual journaling class with Teesha Moore. I had taken a mini-workshop several years ago and I knew I liked Teesha's artistic and teaching style.

I was not disappointed! We got to work on a single journal page which I put right into the journal I brought with me and did a double page spread! Teesha talked about the steps she uses and her take on paper, paints,markers, pens, journaling,etc. It is always fun to work alongside creative people.
The first two photos are the pages I worked on at the workshop.

The pages below are some recent journal pages I've done.





After spending most of my time and energy on work and hosting my nephew's wedding reception last week, it was great to spend some time journaling! Art rocks!!!

New Journal Pages and more portrait practice!

I have been so busy at work I haven't made time to update my blog. I have been working away on my journals and round robin altered book groups. I thought I'd share a new little journal I made after watching Teesha Moore's online tutorial. These are all paper journals made from Fabriano artistico 140 lb. hot press paper. It is a dream to work on and I painted the backgrounds on these pages.


These are some practice portraits from my journal. I used pencil to sketch all the faces and different mediums to color them. The first one I colored with Portfolio Oil pastels that have been rubbed into the paper with paper towels.

This face was colored with prismacolor pencils, the background is Portfolio oil pastels.
This face was my first attempt at pan pastels. The colors blend nicely and I LOVE them. This face came out too yellow and looks too dark. But it made me run out and by a set of 10 colors and I know what my new collection will be!
This is a pencil sketch from a magazine photo. Can you guess who it is?