What's on my workdesk, Saturday!

I've had a photo of an owl in my computer pictures folder for ages and wanted to do something with the wise old guy. For some reason this scripture popped into my head and they just seemed to be meant for each other.

Now that I've done my coloring for the day it's time to do a little pasting...into my scripture journal.

I had good intentions of going outside and working in the yard, but it's kind of drizzly and cold. It seems like a better idea to stay inside, play in my artroom and get a little housework done.

Have a great day and shalom! :)

Grape leaves...

There is a beautiful wild grapevine in our pasture. I just noticed yesterday that it had grown to huge proportions, climbing over the tops of the wild plum bushes. I decided to borrow a short bit of vine and see what I could do with the leaves.

I painted these two pages of my scripture journal with a light wash of violet and added a border of green.

Then I took two of the smaller grape leaves and Mod Podged them to the upper left and lower right of the two page spread. I didn't dry them or press them. I just smeared Mod Podge on the bottom and then a generous layer over the top. I wondered what would happen. I figured I was sealing out the air, so maybe they would stay green. Actually, I didn't completely cover the back of the leaves with Mod Podge, so maybe some oxygen pockets remained there. In any case, they turned brown in spots, but I think they still look cool. Don't know if they'll change any further.

I'm going to take my time deciding what to write on these pages. I may also go back and twiddle around some more with some of the other pages. I want to come up with some more creative ideas. Anyway, enjoying this journal journey!

Shalom!

A little decoupage...

I picked a small bouquet of wildflowers while walking around the pasture fence yesterday. (Checking it to see why it wasn't sparking!) So I decided to dry a few to decoupage onto my scripture journal. I hope to eventually have it positively encrusted with flowers!

Have you ever dried daisies? I wasn't sure they would turn out, but they look pretty good!

I also picked some hyssop. I used to call this mint (and it is in the mint family), but I found out later it's hyssop. Like in the Bible?

Here I'm Mod Podging a daisy and some little yellow flowers (cinquefoil?) to the back cover of my journal. I love this! The columbine looks great, don't you think?

I also felt like splashing a little watercolor on paper, so I did a little background painting on these pages of text. The pages actually came out of my scripture journal because I was reducing the number of pages to make room for expansion as I added stuff to the pages. (Does that make sense?) I will, hopefully, do some pen and ink drawing on these later.

Yesterday I did a couple more drawings using the auraknot tangle. It's a lot of fun, so I keep trying new things.

I'd better get to bed!! I had a great weekend doing a little art, spending some time outside and helping with baby Audrey. Please send up a prayer for my daughter Micah. She has to take it easy and rest a lot until baby Hazel is born. That's hard for her to do! She needs six more weeks for Hazel to be a good size. Thank you, Lord, for protecting Micah and baby Hazel, in Jesus's name. Amen.

Good-night and shalom.

Why do we do this?

I've been thinking about why I love to draw and paint. Why do I feel the need to create a scripture journal? I don't believe I'll ever be one of those with an Etsy shop where I sell my creations, so what's my motivation?

Hmmm...I think it's a lot like self-publishing a book. My sketchbooks are my self-published books. I don't need to find someone who agrees they're wonderful and agrees to foot the bill for putting them into print. I just do it and nobody can stop me, lol!

I don't care about the size of the audience that will view my creations. I don't care about making money on them. I mostly hope my kids will someday find them and have fun getting to know a side of mom they might not have suspected existed. I kind of live in my own head a lot, so this is a chance to reveal some of what I'm thinking, though nobody may see these until I've gone on to glory.

As far as my scripture journal, I think that is the most important of my creations. In it I hope to collect many of my thoughts about life on this planet and I hope some of those thoughts might help my children as they go through the inevitable hardships of living in this fallen world.

I've never thought of my art as just a fun hobby, though it is fun. Most of what I've posted here so far has happened in the last year. In fact, it was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote this first post! This blog has been a vehicle to inspire me to practice the craft of drawing and painting so I might use these gifts for God's glory. I'm still in the practicing phase and have so far to go, but I'm seeing some progress and searching for ways to actually use my skills in real life.

As I said before, I think my scripture journal is the most important thing I've done so far and I hope to continue to fill it with thoughts that will be helpful to succeeding generations of my family, until the Lord returns. I hope they will keep it as a family treasure. To me that's an awesome idea!

So join me in creating wonderful "self-published" works of art that your family will love and that will bring back good memories for years to come!

Shalom and God bless!

Working on the scripture journal...

I've made those first few scary marks in my scripture journal. Now I'm committed! :)

I started with one of my favorite salvation scriptures, which I think explains the gospel in a nutshell. I wanted a simple representation of Calvary in the corner. I will add scriptures and thoughts as I come across them. Now I need to add more watercolor paper pages. This is so exciting!

Now I'd better draw a face for today! I'll be back to post it...

Yup, I think I'm tired if this is all I can come up with! :D I do have to say, this challenge has removed my fear of drawing faces, and for that I am thankful!

To see many interesting faces go to the 29 Faces Challenge!

Shalom!

 

Beginning my scripture journal...

I've been procrastinating on beginning this journal for a while. I made one false start, trying to gesso the text pages, then realizing I didn't have the right paints to work on that surface. Now I'm gluing a couple of text pages together, then gluing watercolor paper on top of that. Now I can just paint with watercolors and use pen, which is what I prefer. Maybe later I'll try acrylics, but for this journal I'll go this direction.

I'm planning to write a theme word, such as Salvation shown here, on each two page spread, then paint some blocks of watercolor. When the paint dries I will write scriptures and thoughts in pen. I may do a few drawings as well. On this page in the upper right where you see a peach colored area I'm going to do a sketch of Calvary. In the pink area I'll write a scripture. I look forward to filling in these pages with scriptures I want to remember. My challenge will be narrowing down the scriptures to a pithy few!

It's SUNNY! Time to get ready for work. I'm looking forward to Monday when I can spend the whole day on art and other delights! :D

Have a great day filled with shalom!

A new Diva Challenge!

So glad to hear that Artoo is on the mend and baby and mom are home! The hospital is not a pleasant place to be, though we appreciate their care. I've missed the challenge, though I've done some tangling on my own.

This week's challenge over at the Diva Challenge is to use "auras" in our zentangles. I thought this was a lot of fun! I learned several new tangles, which isn't difficult to do, since I'm a rank beginner! Go over to the Diva's website to see more zentangles!

Here's mine:

I may try another before Saturday...or I may work on my larger zentangle.

Here is the cover of my scripture journal.

I've glued a couple of maps inside, but I'm not quite sure what I will add next. I think I will do more reading and studying of the Word before deciding on something special to put in it.

Everyone enjoy your zentangling!
Shalom!

A beginning for my scripture journal...

As I'm reading through Galatians I see many scriptures I'd like to write about in my journal...but first I need a journal! I've already removed pages from this copy of Barchester Towers in preparation for making an altered book, so I'm going to use it for my journal. .
Rather than putting gesso on all of the pages I'm going to write my scriptures and thoughts on old pieces of paper from a 1905 copy of A Child's Garden of Verses which I dismantled earlier. (How could I tear these two books apart?? you may ask. The Garden of Verses was in very bad shape and falling apart already. I posted earlier about saving the cover to make an art folder out of. I'm also saving the colored prints and some of the poems for other projects. The copy of Barchester Towers was a nice one, but I see copies of it at the library book sale all the time, so I can easily get another to read, though I'm not sure it's my cup of tea anyway. This one was nice, with a sewn binding that will work for an altered book. I've taken some of the old blank pages from The Child's Garden of Verses and (between sneezes) painted some watercolors on them. When these dry I'll try writing on them. These pieces of paper I will then cut to size and paste into the journal. This will leave the text in the altered book still exposed and I will either draw or paint over that. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but it will certainly be an experience! :D
The paper to the far left is curling and behaving differently than the other two, so I'm not sure if I'll use it. Oh, and here's how my zentangle is coming along!
I'm enjoying listening to my YouTube favorites list while I do art. Ah, this is the life!

Shalom to all who visit here! :)