Some Art by People in My Class...

I thought I would catch you up on what some of the women in my art journal/mixed media class have been doing. I am so proud of them all. They are doing excellent art. Here's some examples...

A journal spread in the making.

Half of the face from a magazine the rest is all painted/collaged with painted papers.

She works wonders with magazine images.

She is working on cardboard fans.

Sorry about the glare on her nose and mouth. She is using bits from 

a coloring book to enhance this face.

This is a painting in progress

and below is her inspiration.

She is experimenting with pouring medium.

This is amazing in the sunlight.

There's gold paint throughout and it just glows.

This is done with gel printed papers.

It's beautiful.

She is enhancing a magazine page.

Another amazing transformation 

done by the same woman who did the red one at the top.

And this one is last but not least.

Beautiful colors and little stamped flowers.

These women are amazing!!! Every week I get to see them create and they always inspire me. I will miss them this month as I am not going to be teaching my class until after July 4th. They will still meet and play together and inspire each other but I won't be there. HB has had some surgery and I'm staying home to play Nurse Janet! He's doing fine in spite of my less than stellar nursing skills, and I will be back to my class before you know it.

Am I Fooling Myself??

Making art. Why do we do it? Is it for pleasure, for recognition, for money? And should we try to follow the pack or strike out on our own?

I've been thinking about all this for quite some time now. I usually create art simply because it's fun and I enjoy it. But lately I've noticed that when I create for my own enjoyment I create the same kind of art over and over. Is this just my style or am I in a rut and getting lazy?

When I first began doing mixed media/art journaling, I wanted to learn everything. It was all exciting and new. But after a while I realized there were some things I didn't enjoy doing and other things I loved to do.  

You may have guessed that collage is at the top of my "enjoy" list. There's nothing I like better than to sit down with a big stack of magazines and start finding collage material. I have tons of it! And I love to create journal pages using it. But am I really creating art or just playing with junk? Am I stretching myself enough?

Here are a few things I've been doing...

Working in black and white for a change.

It isn't finished but I like where it's going.

The quote above and the heart seemed to go together.

I found this quote on Pinterest and loved it.

Somehow the person just seemed to go with it.

As you can see, I'm mostly doing simple collages. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing unusual. Just doing what I enjoy. Is that bad??

More from My Journals...

I'm still working in my art journals. I have a couple of larger pieces of art that I need to finish but my journals keep calling to me.

This is my latest spread...

Just a few bits from magazines and a bit of paint pens and doodles.

This one is much "quieter" than my usual collages.

And this is just a Sharpie doodle done while watching/not watching TV. I enjoy doing these with bright happy colors punctuated with black and white.