Let your soul and spirit fly!

Firstly, Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there, whether you are a biological mom, a step-mom, an adoptive mom, or mom to a furry little one.  It's a day of pleasure and pain for me.  I'm a step-mom to 2 great kids, well adults who have children of their own, but I'm also at a loss of my own mom who passed on almost 15 yrs ago though it seems like only a short while ago sometimes.  So, my feelings are bitter sweet on Mother's Day.   So, this page is my tribute to my Mom this Mother's Day.

I started my page by prepping it with gesso.  Once dry, I sprayed some sprays on the page to marble them and create some runs.  I then did some ghosting with the stencil to create a lightening effect of the roses.  My Mom loved roses!  The image was very faint and not very detailed so I took the same stencil and went back over the images and used the blending tool and gesso so create a whitening effect.  I loved how it turned out.

Next, I used the new Tim Holtz distress ink and went once again back over the images and added some of the gorgeous coral color to the roses.

What to do with the leaves.  I wanted something shimmery and beautiful and something that would pop off of the page.

I colored in the leaves with the embossing pen and some Perfect Pearls in heirloom gold which has this beautiful green tone to it.  Love it!  I also took a background stamp and lightly and randomly stamped some background imagery with an archival storm grey I think it was.  I added a butterfly stamp to the center of the page.  The butterfly represents my beautiful Mom.  Death isn't the end, it's a metamorphosis of something new, reborn that is free in body, soul and mind.

The roses needed some outline and definition to them.  So I used the Glitter brush pens in both white and clear to create a clearer imagery of the flowers.  I also used the clear to add a bit of the shimmer to the coral color as well.  Soft and subtle and ties in with the shimmer of the leaves.

I wanted a bit more sparkle to the butterfly so I added some Clear Rock Candy stickles to the butterfly.  Once it dried, I did go around the butterfly with some white charcoal pencil just to lighten the backdrop a bit so the butterfly popped off the page a bit more.

I stamped the sentiment onto some cardstock and cut it out, then misted it with the pink Lyndi spray.  I inked around the edges with black archival ink.  Then I glued it down and used some charcoal pencil a bit more around the edges so it popped off the page.

I love you Mom!



 

Fast or Far...

Sunday's... my favorite day.  Why?  Because it is the one day that I can usually dedicate some time to my art journaling.  I signed up for another art journal challenge that will be trying to do 2 pages a week.  Well... I might have to pick and choose which prompts I will be doing, but I'll try.  The first challenge prompt hasn't been given yet so this page was just diving in and doing something, anything.  I recently bought a whole load of napkins from the dollar store and so I used one of the napkins today from one of those packs.

I used 4 different colors of gelatos and randomly made swipe marks on the pages and then dampened my finger and blended them out trying not to blend all the colors together to muddle them.  The new orange color in the gelato was a lot brighter than I thought it would be so once I had them all blended I took some white acrylic paint and went over top to soften the colors a bit.

Next, I took my napkin of butterflies and used gel matte medium to seal down the napkin covering both pages, and to white out some of the branches from the napkin at the top of the page I added some more white acrylic paint once the matte medium was dry.  Once dry again, I grabbed my Prima stencil in basket weave I believe it was and used Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste randomly on the page trying to avoid going over the butterflies.

Next, I grabbed Wendy's new Archival ink colors in Forget Me Not, Tea Rose and Sky blue and a blending tool and lightly blended the colors over the embossing paste to color the raised texture.

I then took a Prima stamp for the circled water marks in Forget Me Not archival ink and stamped it randomly around the page.

Next, I used my Posca paint pens and colored in the butterflies in a light blue.  I outlined the butterflies with my gel pen.  I then took some of my Inktense pencils and added some colored details in a darker blue to create some shading within the butterflies.  Next, I went back in with my black gel pen and added a few light sweeps in the wings, and some white touches with a White out pen.  I took a charcoal pencil and added some shading around the butterflies.

Next, I added some color to the branches with my inktense blocks and a small detail brush, then went back over with a charcoal pencil to add in some darker shading.

I stamped my sentiment onto a piece of white card stock, cut it out and inked the edges with a black archival ink.  I then used the rest of the color from my blending tools and blended the Tea Rose and the Forget Me Not onto the paper so it wasn't so white.  I glued it down onto the page and then used a charcoal pencil to shade around it.

I took the Forget Me Not archival ink and distressed the edges of the pages to frame them and add a border.  I find that just nicely finished the pages.  And whallah... my page is done.  :)

I can't believe my day is already done and back to work tomorrow.  I am starting to count down my days to my holiday.  I'm so looking forward to my quiet time at the acreage in amongst the squirrels, the deer, all the birdies chirping each morning and the total serenity of the outdoors and mother nature.  I'll be taking my art supplies with me and hope to get lots of pages done while I'm up there.  I should be able to get a few blog posts done for you.  :)   Thanks for stopping in.  Please pop down to my comments and let me know you were here.  :)  It makes my day to hear from you.  <3