Advent Study - Day 3

Running a little bit behind in my study already ... but hoping to get caught up (or close to caught up) soon.  Day 3 focuses on God's strength and how He is glorified more as we admit our weakness and let Him work through our weaknesses.  Oh how I sometimes wish I didn't give Him so many areas of weakness to work with LOL  It is still difficult for me to rejoice in my weakness knowing that it will glorify Him, but will keep working on that.

This lesson also focused on Isaiah 11:1-10 ... a prophecy that the line of Christ would come from the branch of Jesse.  I just love this passage, but the book of Isaiah in general has become one of my favorites; I find it so full of hope.

I collaged a variety of text pages down for my background and added a thin layer of gesso to mute them.  I drew a tree stump and a branch shooting out in charcoal.  Then I added a wash to the background using dye re-inkers ... loving those more and more these days!  I am having to get creative to find a way to use my Christmas stamps in these pages, but oh so fun!

Advent Study - Day 2

I just finished day 2 of my advent study and it spoke of God's promises ... especially His promises to Israel and Judah ... despite disobedience and unbelief.  The point to ponder is what promises God has made to me and kept.  There are many biblical promises He has kept certainly, but my heart always goes back to the promises He made me when I was little ... when I was unable to defend myself in a cruel world.  Before I was even in kindergarten, He told me He would protect me from the worst ... that nothing I experienced would cost me my life ... and that one day He would save me.  I didn't know exactly what that meant, but I knew it would be a day of celebration.  Reflecting on that, I see a chain of broken promises from imperfect people ... and a chain of fulfilled promises from a perfect God.

I focused on the advent prompt for my journal page.  I scanned and enlarged an old Polaroid of me from that time.  I got gobs of pixellation, so I painted the image, but it is still a bit blurry.  I added a red ribbon to highlight Isaiah 9:2.  My eyes look haunted ... a reminder of all that God has brought me through ... and a reminder of what my own spiritual death looked like.  I felt like my mouth needed to be covered ... a reminder that I grew up with a social handicap and that God is my voice when I let Him :)

My life is full of life.  I could not always say that, but walking with Christ, I can say that.  He remembers His people ... and He is Truth ... and He fulfills His promises.

Advent Season and a New Journal

Well, I have been terrible at blogging the last few years, but hoping I can be a little more consistent over the holiday season.  I started a new art journal to record my artistic responses to an advent study I am doing over at Pause, Ponder & Prepare.  I am still embellishing the cover, but started on the study part.  Many of us are starting on the study in November and will go back through our study, journals, etc and reflect more in the month of December.  I am not likely to get this done in a month, so hopefully I can finish up in December.

I don't know that I am going down the path the study writer intended ... but God is leading me somewhere with this study :)  I used the word prepare on my page, because the real meaning of the word is starting to resonate with me.  If Christ came back tomorrow, I would be excited and also disappointed in myself.  God chose the word "persevere" for me this year and I have persevered through much for sure ... but my first instinct usually is to run.  I want my heart to be ready for Him when He returns ... and all the hard stuff He has asked me to persevere through this year is meant to prepare me for Him.  I have to keep reminding myself of Jeremiah 29:11 ... that God has plans to prosper me and not to harm me.

The scripture at the bottom is from 1 John 1:5.  This scripture has came up 3 times in different places over the past month, so God is speaking to me.  Most of my life -- especially childhood was filled with a darkness I did not understand.  My heart was heavy and without hope ... without light.  Only through Him have I dared to live in the light ... and had reasons to hope.

Here is to a God who loves ... never tires ... and will continue preparing my heart ... rooting darkness out of my heart, so that there will be more room for Him.

Aspire to Ascend ...

I'm posting another page I did a few months ago.  I recently learned I am a high-functioning autistic.  I was not ready to learn this ... perhaps I never would be.  There was a minute of hope where all my social challenges suddenly made sense ... and I felt a sense of freedom in knowing I didn't have to pretend to be normal any longer.  But my hope quickly disintegrated, as I realized God had placed me in some communities that would require me to step beyond my autistic abilities; He put me in a place of dependence on Him.  Actually, I've always depended on Him in social situations, but this was the first time that dependence became my reality.

I am slowly ascending out of a pit of despair and back toward hope.  It is a slow, but steady journey.

Whisper ...

The word whisper seems to resonate with me this year ... not sure why.  Maybe because I feel like I have to strain sometimes to hear the direction my Lord has for my life.  I did this page earlier this year.  I've since added some journaling, but never rephotographed.  This page looks like the new me perhaps, but definitely not the old me.  I usually have at least 190 things competing for attention on the page.

Everything is meant to be used ...

I don't really date my work, so not when I made this page, but it was several months ago.  Many life-altering things have happened since I did this journal page and I can now hear the gentle whisper of God's encouragement, as He tried to prepare me for so much of what was to come.

"Everything is meant to be used," He whispers ... and so I can have peace in the knowing that nothing is too broken to be of use to God.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me ... and He can use all things for His good purpose.

Journal -- Framed!

Recently I found an old art journal I started several years ago in a class with artist Kelly Kilmer.  Each page has a frame cut nad I will be making works of art to insert in each window.  I decided to try collaging across some of the windows, glue on some extensions, etc ... just to shake things up a bit.

I didn't have any real design for the cover, but just felt like adding a starfish and painting.  I like the look, but it may take some additional work to keep it from looking like an ocean-themed book.

Bird Journal

These are pages and the journal I made for a holiday/season themed altered book round robin.  I wanted really eclectic looking pages with stitching ...

Egyptian Fragment

I have always been drawn to Egyptian art.  I did this page a few months ago while I was taking a Kelly Kilmer class.  I was actually working in a journal I made in her class the year before ... the Reclaimed Artist Book.  This book has been my favorite book ever!  If you get a chance to take that class, please do! I just loved the fragmented look of this face.

Pages for Funky Fusion

Still working on that book title LOL
Here are some pages I did for the inside. My favorite is the geisha picture. I've had that image for a long time. She was on a pink background, which I loved -- but I do have to say I like my background even more LOL

Fabric Book

Wish I had more to show, but all I have really is a cover -- except for a few background pages inside. I suspect it will be a long while before I get any work done in this. This was a fabric covered art journal I made in a Kelly Kilmer worskshop. She just has the best book classes ever!

Chameleon's Breath

I started this page quite a long time ago, but it is a Picasso-like self-portrait. The drawing was pretty quick and easy, but I set it aside for a while and just completed the journaling to go along with it. This style of drawing was a stretch for me -- but so were the colors. I tend to do really complicated backgrounds, so lots of solid colors was waaaaay outside my comfort zone LOL


This also goes along with the GPP Street Team prompt this month on adding words to your art journal pages. I started out adding very little text and am slowly learning how to blend the journaling with the art. This was an unusual style for me, so it took a while for the words to come. I used to use rub-ons and rubberstamps for lettering, but have been getting braver about writing my own.

There is no grand meaning in what I wrote on this page. Sometimes I like to just write things that evoke a certain feeling or require imagination to visualize it. For this one I brainstormed a few words that popped into my mind based on my portrait and spun them into sentences afterward.

Birds of a Feather Blog Party

Welcome to my blog for the Soul Journal Birds of a Feather blog party!! I loved the unique twist of birds on Valentines Kathryn came up with!

I am going to college full-time plus working full-time, so I couldn't get as prolific as I wanted with the hearts --- and I looooove making hearts!!

Here is an older journal page I did centered around the heart -- most tend to focus on dark hearts, but this is one is definitely on the lighter side for me.

And finally my new feathered friends page for my Heart Speak Journal ... I was in a bit of tropical mood -- longing for warmer days LOL

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

Heart Page

Admittedly, I was suppsoed to be doing my homwork -- but I felt utterly compeleled to make a journal page -- so I did LOL I was feeling guilty that my treasured Heart Speak book had been abandoned for so long, so I did a page.

I learned something though -- it seems I am driven to create from the bottom up -- meaning I do a base layer and that layer drives the rest of the page. I tried to do my heart and embellishments and then figure out the background, but it won't really work that way for me.

I had more plans for this, but I got such an ethereal look with the Leonardo image -- I couldn't bear to add anything else. I am also posting this for an impromptu prompt (catchy phrase LOL) on The Altered Heart -- just so people don't think I completely abandoned the site LOL I haven't done much heart work lately -- but I'll try to get back into my hearts a bit more ... especially with Valentine's looming!

Also -- this is a bot of a stretch to call it fabric art, but I layered some neat cheesecloth paper I got from my friend Nancy and stitched it on. I love this cheesecloth paper and I see all kinds of potential for it!

Unmasking ME!!

Wow -- It feels like forever since I have psoted! I've had a mountain of homework, but also got caught up in the whole self-portrait thing going around LOL I'm not one to stick with just a drawing, so mine is incorporated into my journal page. I drew my image by looking in the mirror without looking at the paper -- mostly without looking at the paper LOL I was supposed to do without lifting the pencil, but I did cheat a but and lift the pencil.

My brother didn't care for the fact that I did'nt finish the eyes, but it seemed importatnt to keep them hollow and let the background show through. I couldn't figure it out until I sectioned off my page and started journaling, but it seems to represent a mask.

I am going to call this my face book LOL Every page will have a large face -- or maybe a collection of faces -- not sure there yet. Last year I saw this supersize wooden photo album at the thrift store that looked like it was straight out of the 70s; I couldn't pass it up. I want to get a few pages done before I figure out what I want to do to the cover. This had those magnetic film pages with cardbaord inserts. I peeled all the film off and am using the cardboard pages as my bases. They are large -- almost 12X14". I meant for my faces to cover the whole page almost, but so far they are ending up a bit smaller than I anticipated -- so I improvised with all the writing. This is new for me too. Almnsot almy journaling has been in one font mor or less -- so I tried mixing up some styles here.

This is also inspired by the "Taking Flight" book. I am so loving the whole patchwork paper background thing -- although I ended up covering a lot of it up here ...

Discontent at the North Pole

Well this is a little dysfunctional LOL This was inspired by one of the collage sheets from Collage Play with Crowabout. This man immediately reminded me of misfit elf Hermey from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special I used to watchwithout fail every year. I wonder if Hermey/Herbie ever found happiness LOL

I'm cheating by amending this, so I can include Wednesday Stamper LOL This week's theme is shoes. This is a bit of a stretch, but I do have a line of text about Prancer's shoes in this LOL

Also ... a bit of trivia about this piece. I started to write somnething about mrs C buying shoes for Blitzen and Prancer ... but then I started thinking about Mr Claus golfing while she was working and before you know it, I wrote that she had got blitzed instead LOL This is also another entry in my funky junk mail journal -- love that book!

Christmas Doodle Page

I was determined to get these doodle apges finishe I've been working on for while. I was really tired when I drew the first elf and I realized he was upside down the next morning LOL -- so he is now dangling from the top tangled in some Xmas lites LOL

I used souffle pens and a black gelly roll pen to do my doodling.

Halloween Doodle

This is a doodle page I did in response to a Soul Journaling prompt. I didn't set out with the intention of doing a Halloween page, but I couldn't shake the Halloween feeling with my orange background LOL I wish I could take credit for thinking up the skinny man ... but I used an image from Dover clip-art for my inspiration. My section dividers are pieces of embossed wallpaper.

The nervous prompt on Inspire Me Thursday seemed appropriate for Halloween too, so I also worked that in. This wasn't the most soulful journaling, but it was way fun ... and I needed easy after the crazy schedule I signed up for at school LOL

Junk Mail Journal

I altered a little 3-ring binder to store my junk mail journal pages. I had lots of leftover images from previous collage sheets from the Collage Play with Crowabout group, so I used those on my cover.

This is also an anything-goes entry for the Rainbow Lady's Challenge.

Sublime Junk Mail

Ha ha! I started a new journal using junk mail. I never knew what fun backgrounds they could make. I got tired of the inundation of Obama and McCain flyers and postcards in my mailbox ... so I made some into art LOL This one had some nice big words, so I sanded to distress and added a gesso wash before adding some color.

This is my entry for the week for Collage Play with Crowabout. There were some fun images to play with and I got to use one of my new Marie Antoinette stamps from CatherineMoore ... although Marie lost her head :)

This is also a color combo using brown, so it works for my Wednesday Stamper entry too. I'm a little fuzzy on what colors I combined ... Deep Turqouise and Vandyke Red Hue I think. The Vandyle red is my favorite color right now; it has a brownish tinge.