Wednesday 15 February 2017

My Valentine-Bible Art Journaling

Hello darlings!
 It looks like I've gone from Halloween to Valentine's Day in a blink of an eye.
 Has it really been over a year and a half since I've last posted anything at all on my blog? 
Oh yeah, it's been 17 months.
 Do I still remember how to blog?!
Lets find out... 
 
We moved last year and it has taken me crazy long to unpack all of my art supplies and get my studio room set up. 
Ugh! Why would I leave that room for last? Obviously I didn't have my priorities right!
  It's all set up now though, so I can finally create again.
It's also been about that long since I've colored an image or made a card.
After all this time I felt like I thought I forgot how to color.
Thankfully it's a little bit like riding a bike.

Today I have something new to share with you so I will muddle through and give this blog post a whirl...
...so far so good! I'll just quickly add a few pics here...

 (An hour of time goes by while I search for my watermark file somewhere in my hard drive of a zillion pictures.) (And then more time ticks away as I get Picmonkey to work properly)
While we're waiting...Happy Valentine's! I hope you found a little extra bit of Love today!
 I had an awesome day!
Friday night we started the celebration by going out to a Valentine's Dance Party at the German Canadian club with so many of our good friends.
We went there because our friend Bill and his band, Hudson Cruiser were playing live 
My friend Bill at the dance

Me and my friend, Tammy at the dance

Me and my friend, Sylvie at the dance

Today hubs made the day x-tra special by preparing a delicious Ukrainian lunch for us and he
  picked up Chinese takeout for dinner.
 He also bought me a giant bottle of French Vodka!
I know that's a a lot of culture I just 'talked' about right there! 
That's a lot of vodka
It's been so bitterly cold here all of last week, but today the sun was shining and the snow was melting, so we enjoyed a fun walk through the neighborhood with the dogs.
My good neighbor brought over a plate of delicious Valentine cookies.
Barry doesn't like delicious cookies so I don't even have to share.
One of our 9 grandchildren,Morgan celebrated her 8th Birthday today!
I got to color as much as I wanted to all day!
It was just a fabulous Valentine's day!

And now here's something you'll really like...

I've started Bible Art Jounaling!
 Finally!
 I've been gathering my supplies for a a couple of years now, and I guess I finally felt I had enough of the artsy stuff I needed to begin, so I began.
(I always have to have everything before I start....I'm working on it okay)  
I came across a youtube video by Rebekah R Jones in 2014.
She teaches a free Bible Journaling Challenge series.
Her new challenge series is called,
 Deeper Still
Adventures into the Depths of God
The page I created is inspired from her lesson.

I made my first bible art journal page today, and thought I had finished the first lesson of the challenge until I noticed I had stamped the wrong date on the bottom of the page. Ack!
 I had stamped the date, Feb 21 2017, a week into the future! Nice!
 Of course I had to fix it but I wasn't exactly sure how.
  I knew the end result was going to be better than what I had just imagined so I
 kept calm
and kept 
Arting.
Really, I wasn't loving how the completed page looked, as nothing seemed to flow together for me. Something was missing!
 My mishaps in art always open up an opportunity for me to create something that I love even more than what I originally created. 
That's Grace!

-Before
There are no mistakes in Art
I would have called this page finished if I had stamped the proper date. Obviously it was not finished. 
  I had to fix,change or cover up the future date I stamped!
 So the experiment began...
First I took a very, too wet, water brush and dipped it into a yellow Distress ink pad, and onto my page...
 That was a mistake! 
A huge part of the page just bubbled from the water.
I don't really think I knew what I was doing...actually I'm pretty sure I didn't know what I was doing...
 There was a moment or two of panic at this point. How do you wreck a Bible page?! Everyone knows how unforgiving that paper is and that you have to be so careful with it!
And how do you fix a Bible page? The edges of the page looked like it just about had enough handling and I was pretty sure it was about to tear a few times.
 I was delightfully surprised that it didn't!
I blotted the page with paper towel, then dried it with the heat tool.
Now the page looked like it was going to roll up like a taquito.
 I had colored the image and words with Prisma pencil crayons. I guess a little too much pigment and water was applied to that thin,shiny piece of paper, because it was curly!
  I used Archival ink to stamp this fabulous, but discontinued rubber stamp image from Kraft'n Kimmie Stamps. Hannah Hearts. An image from one of my favorite artists,
 Annie Rodrigue.
I managed to ink a beautiful, dark, crisp image thankfully, but the ink bled through and I now have a reverse stamp on the back of the page. Not a big deal because I can white gesso that page if I need to. 
I'm not sure which kind of ink to try next. Distress ink or Memento? Perhaps I should have just prepped my page with clear Gesso. Next time!
Still learning as I go...
 I have a beautiful set of Staedtler porous point fine liner pens, in 20 different colors. I do not recommend using those at all in this kind of project. They don't dry over Prismacolor pencils. The black I used to do the outlining started to smear when I added more pigment over that ink. It was starting to make a mess out of my words around my heart so I just left it alone.
 I should have outlined everything with a Micron or Multiliner.
All good things I now know for next time.

-After-

 So yada, yada, yada, After I blotted my page and used a heat tool to dry it completely,it was crazy wrinkled, and rolly! 
I used my finger to dab some white Gesso over the wrongly stamped date,
 all over the bubbly part,
 above the image,
 and around the edges of the page.
 Thankfully the pages didn't rip, and I was starting to like what was happening. Once the Gesso was heat dried I added a little more color with Distress inks and a foam applicator. Very gently!
This page has a lot of wrinkly texture and I don't think it will ever completely  lay flat.
 It may need to be ironed out a bit perhaps.
  After the bible was closed for a while I was surprised and pleased with how much the page actually did flatten.
I think the gesso part is perfect on there, it reminds me of Holy Spirit's presence.
I inked up the correct date stamp with Distress ink and finished off the journaling page again.
I highlighted verse 10-13 to connect the Word with the Artwork. 
 Thank You. Jesus for creating a clean heart in me. I know I will always find restoration with You, just like King David did; for You, God are merciful and nothing, not even guilt can separate me from Your love. 
I love this promise!


I love how it turned out so much more than how I thought it had turned out! Haha!
-Relationship not Religion-
 
 
-Psalm 51
For the choir director. A Davidic psalm,when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba. Psalm 51
A Prayer for Restoration


Thanks for the love!  
B U-nique! Hugs!


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