LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 3 ~ Mixed Media Envelope

The last part of Week 3 with Carla Sonheim, we had to make a mixed media envelope to house all our little exercises we did. It took me a little bit to decide how I wanted to do this. I ended up buying a 11x15 paper and decided I wanted to do it in a landscape format. When I watched the first lesson I realized they were working in a 9x12 portrait format.  I just decided to keep going in the landscape format and my envelope is quite big.

I decided to glue down the fox and the flying dog because they were my favorites of all the exercises.

I now realize I am a week behind in my LifeBook lessons. I have thought about what I want to do with Week 4, so I just have to create everything and come up with how I want to put it together. We have to pick 3 things that we love and make a page with that. A new lesson is posted tomorrow so hopefully I will be able to catch up this week and get back on track.

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 3 ~ Creative Exercises 4-7

I finally got around to finishing up the exercises by Carla Sonheim for my LifeBook Class Week 3. Although I am still not completely done with Week 3, I still need to complete the mixed media envelope for all of my little exercises to fit into. I am hoping to work on that tomorrow night.

These last 4 exercises were extremely tough but fun all at the same time.

Exercise 4: Imaginary Flowers - She had us take 2 pieces of scrap paper, glue them down, and then make flowers out of them.

Exercise 5: Animals in Tape - She had us throw down some washi tape and then look at them and try and make animals out of it. I got a dog, penguin, and a dancing bear.

Exercise 6: Found Poetry - She gave us a paragraph and we had to come up with 3 poems. I am normally very good at these kind of things but I surprised myself and came up with 4 poems. Also these inspired ideas for painting for the future.

Exercise 7: Blob Animals - She had us take some paint and just make blobs with it. Then we had to create animals from the blobs. So these came out so cute. The top one is a fairy dog, I saw this and then thought of the movie Coraline. The bottom left is a squirrel playing bagpipes. Then a fox on the bottom right. I think he is my favorite, and I saw him right away.

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 3 ~ Creative Exercises 1-3

This week the Teacher was Carla Sonheim. She took us through 7 creative exercises to loosen up while drawing and creating. Then at the end she did an envelope to house all our little exercises. I completed 3 of the 7 exercises so far and thought I would share them with you. Some of them came out pretty funny.

Exercise 1: One Liners (Drawing with one continuous line without picking up the pen). She had us do 2 each of the prompts she provided. These are my favorites of the 5 prompts.

Exercise 2: Drawing a zebra with eyes closed. These were very interesting to get through.

Exercise 3: Pick 3 knick knacks and draw them with your non-dominant hand. I really struggle making straight lines with my left hand.

I love working on these exercises even though I struggled with them. They are great creative exercises.

Little World Social Studies Cover Designs

I designed these covers for a series of books we did at my job called Little World Social Studies. These books are for Grades K-3 and teach about growing up in America. They focus on different cultures, regions of the United States, and the government.

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 2 ~ A Happy Affirmation

This week's class was led by Micki Wilde! She wanted us to come up with an affirmation of what we want to draw into our lives more. She then showed us some quick techniques for art journaling.

While she was going through finishing her page the first word that popped in my head was Shine. Then I started thinking about Stars and Space. This is what came out of that:

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 1 ~ Inner Artist Guardian Angel

The main lesson for Week 1 of my LifeBook Course is to create your Inner Artist Guardian Angel. We were led through a meditation to find our Inner Artist Guardian Angel, our word for the year, and a color to use in our painting. When the meditation first started, I pictured myself at the beach. I think this has something to do with just being in the Bahamas and how beautiful the water was.  Then she guided us to an inner sanctuary. I pictured a little yellow cottage. When I went in the cottage the first thing I saw was my Mom as a fairy. She has always supported me in my art and told me I was my own worst critic. She has always been my biggest fan when it came to my art. All though I used Tamara's way of drawing the face, she comes across a bit younger, but my Mom has always been young at heart. I am very proud of the way this turned out.

Just to give some background on my Mom. She had a ruptured brain aneurysm back in 2011. She is now living in a nursing facility and is in a minimal state. She has just started responding a bit recently. My Mom is the biggest influence on the way I live my life.

The word that came to me is Intuition. The biggest thing I want to learn from this LifeBook Course is to learn to paint more intuitively and to learn to let go with my painting. The color that came to me was purple.

LifeBook2014 ~ Week 1 ~ Warm Up Exercise

Today is the first day of my LifeBook online Art Journaling Course. First there was an introductory to what to expect for LifeBook. Then we did a meditation to find our Guardian Angel and our Word for the year. The word that came up for me was Intuition. The one thing I really want to gain from this course is learning to paint more intuitively and just let go. After the meditation there is a warm up exercise for people who have blank page anxiety. This is my page from that exercise.

The next exercise is creating your Artist Guardian Angel.

Happy New Years 2014

First I thought I would start off with a Review of 2013 and then I will discuss my goals and plans for 2014...

Here are all the paintings I finished in 2013:

I had set a goal to read 30 books in the year but I fell short on that challenge and only read 16:

A couple other things I am proud of myself for accomplishing. The 13 Drawings I did for Halloween. I was able to do a little traveling this past year, with my trip to Salem with my Sister, and the Bahamas with the Boyfriend. I haven't done any kind of traveling like this in years and haven't been very many places in my life. Another thing that I am happy about and that has been working out great is the relationship I have with the Boyfriend, we got back together back in March.

Some things that didn't work out as planned. I wanted to run in a 5K Race and I fell short on the training. I let my procrastination and laziness take over. Also I wanted to try and blog more often in 2013 but I feel I let other things get in the way. I wanted to share more of my Graphic Design from work but didn't get a chance to do much of that either. There are things I wanted to get done around the house that I didn't get to. I am still dealing with my Mom being in a nursing facility, being in a minimal state (she doesn't talk at all or move very much). I go visit her every other saturday, because she is 2 hours away, and sometimes I feel guilty that I am not with her more. Well those are few things that didn't work out so well in the past year, and I am hoping to work on them in the New Year.

All together 2013 wasn't to bad!

My goals for the New Year 2014:

I started an online class call LifeBook 2014. It is a year long art journaling class focused on art through healing. I am really looking forward to starting this today!

I am going to try and finish some of the other paintings I have on my to do list along with doing LifeBook for the year.

I am going to set my reading goal at 30 books again and try my hardest to reach this goal this year. Which means no more mindless TV watching for me!

I want to pick up writing on the blog more often and sharing my Graphic Designs at least once a week.

I would like to start at least running 2 times a week to start out, working my way up to the full 5K (3 miles). I got to just about 2 miles when I gave up last time. I found out that Disney does a Halloween 5K run around the park, so my goal is to work up to run in that.

My niece is Graduating this year and I plan on traveling to see her graduate. Along with this my Sister and I are planning another sister trip. We are going to explore some things in her state of Tennessee that she hasn't had a chance to check out yet. I think we are planning on visiting Nashville mostly. We are still discussing this.

I want to plan another short trip with the Boyfriend this year.

The Boyfriend turns the big 40 this year. I am trying to figure out what to do to make it a big deal for him. He isn't the type to get overly excited about things but I want to make it big for him.

I want to go to the Zoo this year! I haven't been to a zoo since I was a kid and there is a Zoo about an hour away that I have been wanting to check out.

There are things I have been wanting to get done around my house. This year my goals with the house is to get the porch re-screened, and finally paint the walls inside.

My financial goals are to pay down some debt so that I can get my Master Bathroom redone in 2015. Also of course to save more money.

My career goals is to just keep pushing myself outside the box to be more creative at my job. I want to also get more items in my Etsy Store.

I bought a workbook planner for the year and plan to write all my goals in it. I plan to make myself a to do list every week and try my hardest to get those things done within the week.

I am sure there will be more, and things can change but those are my main goals for the year.

I hope everybody has a wonderful 2014!!!