Being Me - Week 10

The topic for Week 10 of Being Me was Eating Fresh. And since we already know that I'm trying very hard to eat only REAL food - difficult lately because it is definitely ice cream weather - this topic is all too familiar for me.

I chose to do a collage of many different "healthy" food pictures taken from magazines and paired that with several quotes and a really random variety of letter stickers and rubons. And when I had it all together, I splattered paint all over it  - reminiscent of the mess you'd make while cooking or during a food fight. Wetter paint (the red and orange) got me droplets. Very think paint (white) got me the stringy splatter that I absolutely love on this page!  And by the way, splattering paint is FUN! :)

My quotes are:

1. "Let food be thy medicine." ~ Hippocrates.  Very apt considering how much changing my diet has lessened my fibro symptoms.

2. "If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.  And he may have said that a long time ago, but it is even more true now. What passes as the "Standard American Diet" or "Conventional Wisdom" right now requires that the bulk of our diet be comprised of grains.  As I learned from my paleo/primal eating experiment, it was all those grains that were making me so sick. Not saying it is the answer for everyone, but sure made a difference for me.

3. "We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are." ~Adelle Davis.  Hear, hear!

Being Me - Weeks 8 and 9

Week 8 of Being Me occurred while I was on vacation at the shore. So needless to say, I'm playing catch up.  The theme for week eight was finding solitude.  The theme for week nine was reflection.  And to me, these two go hand in hand, I use solitude as a time to reflect, gather my thoughts, recharge, and start anew. So I found a lot of overlap in the two layouts I created for these themes:

Week 8 - Solitude:

This page started with a photo of sunrise at the shore that I printed at roughly 10x7 on regular copy paper. I laid the photo in place and painted a background around the space that the photo would occupy. Then I adhered the photo down and went to work trying to blend the photograph into the background. Obviously, I couldn't get a true mix of all the colors in the photo, nor am I able to paint quite as well as I photograph, but I was happy enough with the results.

The quotes read:  "Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary, this is the time we sort them out, air them, get over them, and go on without the burden of yesterday." Joan Chittister  and "Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. Great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart."  Jeanne Marie Laskas

Week 9 - Reflect:

For this one I first painted a background of sand, sea, and sky. And added bits of stamping and texture. I printed off two 4x6 photos on actual photo paper and fit them into  background I'd made. Both photos I chose have reflections in the water, so symbolic of the week's theme. I had to trim down the one on the right hand side to fit. Then I went back with paint and blended the photos in a bit with the background.  The quote reads "Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away." Barbara De Angelis  

While I'm happy with both pages, this second one is brighter and just feels more like me.

Mixing It Up - Post Five

But with a twist... I did NOT mix it up this week!

The Being Me theme for this week is happy and here is the page I made for that:

The background is a really fun technique that I will likely revisit.  Just glob several colors of paint on your page and then spread with an old credit card or gift card.  Creates a fun marbling effect! The color combo - lime green, bright yellow, and various shades of turquoise truly is my personal summer palette and the colors make me happy!

The Summer of Color challenge combo for the week is sage and sepia.  And this is what I came up with:

The butterflies are actual lace. The owl is from a paper napkin.  The "remember" is ribbon.  The girl is a Unity stamp. All of the stitching is from an OLD set of rub-ons.  I love the way this page came out and how the elements worked together.  And I'm really going to miss this challenge now that it is ending. Working with specified color combos forced me out of my comfort zone and into areas that really allowed me to capture feelings.

Mixing It Up - Post Four

click on the photo to see larger and read quotes

The week five Summer of Color combo is candy apple red and yellow.  Initially I resisted this color combo and had a hard time getting started because all I could think of was McDonalds (yuck!).

I created this page with a wash of yellow acrylic, layered on the b&w wrapping paper, red tissue paper heart, and white heart shaped doily. Then I used purple spray mist and dripped red ink.  Added texture with yellow and orange acrylics.   Added some word and music washi tape. Inked the edges of my quotes and applied them with gel medium, allowing some of the paint and spray mist to smear onto them.  And then finished it off with some stamps with red ink.  Nice and messy!

The week 6 Being Me topic is being kind to yourself, banishing negative self-talk, etc.  I found a handful of quotes that I really loved to include with this page as personal reminders.  You can click on the photo to make it larger and view the quotes!

Mixing It Up - Post Three

The week four Summer of Color combo is pale pink and charcoal grey.  I created this page with a wash of pale pink acrylic and a little bit of "Diva Pink" for depth.  The flowers and leaves are created with light modeling paste mixed with a couple drops of black ink to create a dark grey and then applied in a thin coat through a stencil.  The quote was provided as part of week 5 of the "Being Me" course.

Another Mixing It Up post

Lime Green and Purple is definitely not a color combination I would normally choose to work with - a little loud for my taste - but I'm still happy with the way this turned out!  This is Summer of Color week 3 combo combined with the Being Me week 4 assignment.  I used a patterned paper napkin, bits of lime green and purple tissue paper, acrylic paints, rub ons, and a variety of pieces from the happy mail that Deb sent me.

Finishing Out Get Artsy & Starting "Being Me"

I used the techniques in Week 4 to create my OLW pages for May.

Week 5 covered water colors and week 6 was about India inks.  I combined both of those lessons techniques (most of which I was very familiar with) to create this art journal layout:

The layout is actually my week 1 assignment for Being Me.  Lots of ladies are still signing up for this 52 week free course about loving yourself. Week 2 has been posted and I can say based on the first two weeks that there is plenty of good stuff happening here even if you just want to do the assignments in a notebook and not get artsy with it at all.  And if you want to get inspired, there is a good bit of creativity being shared on the Facebook group!

Having finished "Get Artsy" I can say I definitely enjoyed the class and love the layouts I created in response to the assignments. But I don't expect to see any more of these type of layouts appearing in my scrapbook albums any time soon. I prefer the freedom of using all the art stuff on art journal pages or mixed media work  where the final result is less important to me in terms of telling a story.  For scrapbooking, I think I'm really a digi girl at heart.