Summer of Color

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The lovely Kristin at Twinkle Twinkle is hosting the Summer of Color again!

This year, Kristin is putting the weekly colors up to a vote, making it very interactive!

The first week color combo was citron and turquoise:

I couldn't resist trying out my new HANDS stencil from Stencil Girl in the background.

 This week, the color combo is orange and hot pink!

The words say, "and as she moved through the world, it transformed into a beautiful garden."  There seems to be a theme of a girl (is it me?) and she may or may not keep appearing...

If you want to get in on the fun, go to Twinkle Twinkle where you can vote on the color combo for week 3 and check out the colorful work of lots of amazing artists!

Linking also to Mandarin ORANGE Monday, and Make it Monday.

And ...  in case you missed it, here's my guest post for One Little Word! 

Thank you for visiting! I hope you will leave me a comment to let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

Living a Life that's Crazy Full

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When Ronda Palazzari asked me to be a Guest Designer for One Little Word,  I was beyond flattered.  When she told me the word was "Crazy," I thought she must have esp!  While the usual word associations for "crazy" might be "crazy over you," or "you're driving me crazy," for me the word immediately described my life right now!

Let's see -- how many balls do I have in the air??  They are all memorialized on this art journal page!

Sometimes I feel I bit overwhelmed by the energy swirling all around me...

But then I remind myself to pause and breath, and try to enjoy the ride.  Because it's all good!

My life is crazy full, and I love it!

I stenciled the word "CRAZY" using a technique I learned from Carolyn Dube's free online workshop "Use Your Words!"

Here's a short video of how this page came together.  You might even say my process was a little crazy!

Thank you so much to Ronda and the rest of the DT for One Little Word for inviting me to guest design.  What does the word "CRAZY" bring to your mind?  I hope you'll create something around it and link it up to One Little Word!

This crazy page will pay a visit to Inspire Me Mondays, Mandarin Orange Monday, Monday Mantras, and Make it Monday.
 
Thank you for stopping by and (I hope) leaving me some words!  I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

Some Flowers for You

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It's so rainy and dreary here in New Jersey today.  So I thought I'd share some recent pictures from my garden.  Just looking at them lightens my mood.

 

 

Hope you see the sun today!

Thank you for visiting! I hope you will leave me a comment to let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

Buried Treasure

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Seth Apter , who recently participated with this gorgeous piece in the dots and dashes Stencil Test Drive,

by Seth Apter: http://thealteredpage.blogspot.com/2013/06/mixed-media-morse-code.html

has created a wonderful blog hop happening, called "Buried Treasure."  He has invited bloggers to reach back into their archives and re-post a post that is "buried." 

I reached back to last summer for a post about discovering a Holocaust survivor in my community. 

The post is called Heroes and Heroines Among Us, originally posted on August 6, 2012:  

On Friday, I played in a round robin tennis game with my dad.  Midway through, I had to use a restroom, and one of the men watching offered his nearby bungalow.  His mom was inside.  She's a sweet, tiny woman -- probably barely 5 feet tall, who visits every summer.  As we exchanged pleasantries about how lovely it is here at Pine Lake Park, I noticed the numbers tattooed on the inside of her forearm.   I had had no idea.

It turns out that Regina and Victor Lewis, my neighbor's parents, survived the Holocaust in an amazing story that intersects with Schindler's list.  You can read about it here.  I have known her for many years, and had no idea of the horrors she endured and the miracle that she survived!  It made me think about the people we encounter every day -- we have no idea of their back stories.  We think they are ordinary when they are probably extraordinary.

Reading the Lewis's story, I wondered whether Regina looked at the starry skies over Auschwitz and wondered if she would see Victor again.  The unlikelihood of ever seeing him again must have been overwhelming.  Even if she had known of his daring escape from the cattle car bringing his family to death, to believe that she would survive and that they would reunite would have surely been too much to bear.

Immediately after reading their story, I created this collage on a 12" x 12" canvas with a rough sketch of an angel in the stars:

I painted in the background using paint chips (more fexible than a plastic card) to drag various colors across the textured background:

And then more collage, more paint, some stamping and stencilling, and the words "I think of you in starry skies" from the song "Sound of Winter."  The next part of that lyric is "I keep you so alive."  Regina and her beloved Victor found each other after the war.  Perhaps it was their love that kept them alive.  I hope you'll read their story.

http://jessicasporn.blogspot.com/2013/06/buried-treasure.html

You can find this canvas in my canvas in my Etsy shop.  

I hope you will go to Seth's blog and visit the other artists revealing their buried treasures.  I've already discovered so many cool techniques and have been so inspired from visiting artists I know and love, and those I'm just discovering!

Linking to Paint Party Friday.  Thank you so much Kristin and Eva for hosting such a wonderful blog hop each week!

Thank you for visiting! I hope you will leave me a comment to let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

The Power of Doing It For Someone Else

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At the start of every yoga class, I ask my students to set an intention and dedicate the energy of the practice they are about to do.  There is something about doing it for someone else, that gives you more strength and determination than if you were just doing it for yourself.

There's also something empowering about creating art for someone else.  That energy can make you feel expansive and tap into your inherent goodness, so that you're creating from a place of freedom and love.  That's how I felt when I created this journal for Glenda, who won it by commenting on this post.

Here's a short look at how I created it and a peek at the inside pages.  Hope you like it Glenda!

Linking to Inspire Me Mondays, Mandarin Orange Monday, Monday Mantras, and Make it Monday.

Thank you for visiting! I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

Stencil Test Drive with the Dots & Dashes Stencil

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It's time for another Stencil Test Drive!  This time, we'll be driving the Dots & Dashes stencil from Stencil Girl Products featuring the amazing art of:

Seth Apter 

Carolyn Dube

and Maria McGuire

I created so many things using this stencil and have two videos to show you!

I used my gelli plate and stencil to build up lots of layers by repeatedly rolling out paint and changing the registration of my paper slightly to get the imprint of the stencil in different places...

(Did you know that I'll be teaching a gelli plate workshop at Little Bird Creations in NY?  Friday, September 20th -- it's a gelli plate party culminating in making your own journal!  Hope you can come!)

I also used a pouncing technique with a cosmetic sponge to create a rainbow colored page.

I cut the rainbow colored page into very narrow strips, mixed them up, and glued them down on a piece of cardstock...

Which I then cut up to make lots of shapes, flowers, hearts, and leaves to use in other projects...

 and to form the background for ATC's and MOO cards, which I will share when they're done!

I also used several papers created with this stencil on my gelli plate to make squares and circles of different sizes, which I sewed together...

I painted a square 12 x 12" canvas with black gesso...

and stenciled it with metallic paint using the Dots & Dashes stencil...

 I adhered the squares to the canvas using Tacky Glue...

and then made a paste of glass bead gel and mica powder.  (You can see a demo of this technique in this post.)  I dragged it through a portion of the stencil using a palette knife to create a border.  I isolated a pomegranate from the Apples & Pomegranate stencil to echo the circles in the squares.

 I hope this post has given you lots of ideas for using the Dots & Dashes stencil!  And I know the creations of:

Seth Apter

Carolyn Dube

and Maria McGuire

will give you even more inspiration!  

Giveaway!  Comment on this post by Sunday evening, and be eligible to win a Dots & Dashes stencil of your own!  Let me know you follow my blog for an extra chance to win! 
UPDATE:  The winner is Kelly!   She found me through Seth Apter's blog, and I'm so glad she did! 

And did you know that The Summer of Color is open at Twinkle, Twinkle?  Kristin has a very cool twist on the challenge this time around...check it out!

 

Thank you for visiting! I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

Linking to Paint Party Friday, Artists in Blogland Show and Tell Saturday, and Art Journal Every Day.

Lace, Ribbons & Paint, Oh MY!

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I recently discovered some new challenges (new to me that is!) and decided to give them a try.  At Our Creative Corner, the monthly challenge is "Recipe."  You have to choose one element from columns A, B & C and use them in your artwork.  (Amazingly Jenny, the host of the challenge, used all 9 elements in a beautiful pincushion creation!)   I decided to use lace & ribbon (column A), metal & clay (column B), and paints (column C) in mine.

I started out with the metal top of the tin from my neocolor II crayons.  I love them, but whenever I buy anything in containers like these, I immediately empty them out into a more accessible plastic take-out tub.  Opening and closing a tin, or having to put things back in one,  just takes too long!  I save the tins for substrates.

After sanding it down, I decoupaged the tin with gelli print scraps...

which I tinted with a mixture of glazing medium and acrylic paints.  Then I cut out a dress from lace patterned handmade paper, and glued it down.  I painted gold a strip of lace for the trim at the bottom of the dress, and used a piece of ribbon that I had imprinted on my gelli plate for the waist band. 

I made the flower is out of polymer clay, and created the dimension in the hanger, outline of the dress and border with the fabulous Pearl Pens by Viva Decor.  I printed out the text on my computer, and heat embossed and outlined it.

I also found a challenge blog called Make My Monday; and this week it is to use lace and/or ribbon.   Serendipity!  Having used both, this dress is going to party over there as well! 

(This is available as a print or stretched canvas on Society 6!)

And... you may remember this face from this post....

Turns out my camcorder was on when I painted it.  I finally got around to editing the video... so here it is.  I have always learned so much from watching other people paint faces... So I hope this is helpful to you.

Thank you for visiting! I hope you will leave me a comment to let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.

Linking to Creative Everyday,  Glue it Tuesday at Artsyville, and Create Daily.