Time to Reflect

Depending on where the moon is, I find there are times to be active with art and times to study what I've done, where I'd like to go and how I'd like to get there. Art has a language that I understand. I try to listen to it and follow it's lead. It's the muse that guides me and I'm okay with that.

Right now, today as I write this, I'm having a low energy day. It's a New Moon, meaning for me, a time to plant metaphorical seeds for art not yet tried, to turn inward for quiet introspection. In other words: it's time to reflect. I get a lot of low energy days around this time in the moon's cycle. Physically I'm struggling a little bit which adds to the energy ebb and flow but within the next few months that should be taken care of and I should find more energy, more often. Cross those fingers. 🤞

Meanwhile, on the days when I am filled with ideas, I try things. And almost always something surprises me. This past week was filled with surprises! Check them out below.

A new art box. 2-1/2 x 1-3/4 x 2-1/2 inches

Inside shows hand drawn cut out doodles, the door has a broken piece of a charm and the deer sticker stays on the outside. Painted papers and scrap book pieces were glued to this.

Love this broken pendant as a topper for the box.

Magazine scraps glued together, coffee stained and Plaster of Paris added.

My favorite coffee stained painted paper at the moment. It dried a softer color but it's still perfectly grungy and awesome.

Alcohol ink is a lot of fun to play with but I have a heavy hand and it requires a light touch. This is medical exam paper that I grabbed to pick up the excess. Gorgeous!

Alcohol ink test pieces. Teal is a bit overly done here but I really love the pink. Can't over do that color! 

Celery leaves from the gel plate using magenta acrylic paint. I'm on a pink kick, I think.

New stamps. These are so cool.

I had to cut the dandelion stamp to fit the mini die cut machine and then didn't use them in the machine anyway. But small additions here and there of these stamps are definitely going to be used.

Another hour spent in the Purple Palace produced another side of the mosaic vase completed.

This is an edited and cropped photo of Gaara from a few years ago. I'm planning on eventually making a collage of him using this photo but I need to work on his eye which is round.

When I picked up my Sidekick journal I found a page that had roll off paint on it. I wish I had taken a photo of it before I drew the eye because right where the eye is, there was a shape that looked a little like a cat eye and I followed it's guidance and created this.

I really love how this turned out and it was good practice. Following the random paint smears turned out to be a great exercise in finding a pattern within it. I said it was a fluke that I found it, but really, there are no accidents during times like this. It was meant to be!

Mindlessly doodling using colored ink pens, alcohol ink markers and a black fineliner pen is probably the best thing I do for my health. Being creative every day is important to me especially with Glaucoma. Precious time spent and never wasted at the art table.

The little piece on the left is a Gelli plate pull that didn't turn out too well (you can sort of see a design on it) but it's perfect for these little die cut wildflowers I made. It looks like they are in front of a pond with grass and storm clouds in the distance. All of that from one paper! And of course next to it is a random sunflower that I drew and put glue on for another piece and then decided not to use it but it had glue on it, so here is where it ended up!

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey

Another Great Week to Look Back On

Last week my grandson graduated high school. I watched from home through YouTube and do not regret it. I didn't miss sitting on hard bleachers in the heat. This is a snapshot taken from the video (a bit washed out, sorry).

 

And of course there was art made! The most exciting piece is coming from the Purple Palace. I started a mosaic vase!

I haven't gotten it completely organized in the Purple Palace yet but there's enough room to work on a mosaic at the table. Yay!

It's been a while since I've done a mosaic and I really missed it. I'm taking my time with this piece, maybe only working on it once a week for a few reasons. One, I enjoy the process and want to honor that feeling. Two, I'm out of grout and it'll take at least a month or two before I can get some! And three, in between I can still organize a little bit and continue to find the organizational skills needed (not my strong suit - I'm more prone to making a mess than cleaning it up) to get this area utilized at it's peak.

At the art table, there was a flurry of activity and yes, messes were made!

My homemade paint sprays: on the left, acrylic paint and water in a spray bottle and shimmer sprays using liquid watercolor and mica powders on the right.

The test papers came out perfectly! They shimmer and shine!!

I used some of the sprayed papers on these pages above. Since this is usually a layer I cover with either paint or some collage papers, I'm going to study it for a bit but I'm thinking I'll collage around the shapes. The colors here are just so awesome. I'm not sure I want to cover them completely.

I have 18 working art journals at the moment. Some are handmade, some are spiral bound, some are old books repurposed. All are used!

The grid work page for this week was using collage and paint plus some favorite word stickers.

Sticker book. The idea was to find all 4 letter words and glue them on a page. 

A new 100 day collage journal has a few pages in it. This time I'm mark-making and embellishing each square. There are marks I love to make and some I'm not sure of. This is a great place to find out which I prefer to use.

The collage journal was pulled out last week. I used stencils I like of a dove for the collage, inks (both spray and pads) and a funky pattern behind it. The orange is from the shimmer spray. And of course there's words and a little doodle.

 

Saturday night around 3AM I finished this up. I was awake and figured, why not? It takes a few days to do these because I put a layer down then paint, then another layer, then mark-making.

So those are the highlights for last week. If you want to see almost daily photos, join me on Instagram

 

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey

 

At the Art Table

These days, I'm doodling less but I'm loving my watercolor paints! Of course making painted papers with acrylics is also a large part of the week, even though I have a lot of painted papers for collage already to go and use, I enjoy creating the fodder just as much. I'm learning it's okay to enjoy the creative process just as much as enjoying using them in my collage art.

A few days ago I finally got myself some new fine liners, so I'll be doodling again as well as mark-making and am looking forward to it. I've missed them!

As usual, there's always something on the table. And by the time I write this, I'll have reached 100 days in the collage a day journey. I studied the book briefly, flipping through from day 1. Actually the collages I made are fairly uniform in the way I approached them: a few different colored papers and either cut or ripped to fit the small square almost always adding an embellishment of some sort at the end.

95-98

 I'd like to do another 100 days because now it feels like a habit I'd like to continue. It's possible I'll just start a new art book but maybe using a different approach or more papers per square or maybe make shapes within the squares.

The many journals I have are continuing to grow and I grab one each day and do at least one thing in them. I'm learning the more I do this, the better I am getting at my favorite art forms. It's true, practice makes progress.

Creating a grid work journal has helped me study composition

An old book turned into an art journal helps me learn negative space and I like it!

Making a book using brown paper packaging, junk mail, painted papers, book pages helps me play freely in any way I choose. Here, this particular page's background is actually from the brayer roller and paint brushes. It's so pretty.

Cover page of the brown paper packaging journal and a favorite Emerson quote.

Creating watercolor cairns - love doing these and try making at least 3 each week.

The Hardibacker boards (made of concrete on one side) are getting used for paint practice and I'm diggin' the results so far!

Playing with watercolor, acrylics and ink like a kid creates the funky looking designs that I am drawn toward (literally).

Doing one of my favorite techniques on this page: layering of painted papers, watered down paint then sanding it off a bit and adding more paint, stencil and some vessel shapes turns the page into a grungy look.

This page started out with a black background, I added magazine clippings in green but the yellow paint just created more yellow wiping out the green and so, I went with it - adding more yellow, gold, black, white and grey.

Another page in the brown packaging art book. This has small scraps of painted and embellished papers along with some affirmations. Feels very zen.

I still make cards - side A

Side B (love these circles!!)

Painted papers using stencils and an old credit card on the left, watercolor doodles on the right

On the left is an egg carton bottom, on the right a few layers of hand made masks both on the Gelli plate

Left side is a few stencils and leftover paint on medical exam paper, center is a rub off of another paper, on the right is the same egg carton paper shown above.

Putting stencils under medical exam paper and rubbing paint on it creates these interesting designs. Can't wait to use them!

Some of the stencils used to create the papers above.

 

 

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey