Honoring Mother Nature (including video tutorial!) by Cheetarah Cheda

Hi everyone! It's Cheetarah here and I'm so excited to share with you my first post ever for StencilGirl® Talk as part of the creative team! This month we let ourselves be inspired by a theme which is "In honor of" and I have made a watercolor Art Journal page inspired by Mother Nature and honoring her. We as women can have a really strong connection to mother nature, the moon phases and all that comes with it. When we honor our goddess within that connects to it all, we serve mother nature as well. This sentiment has inspired me to make the above art journal page and I have recorded it for your viewing pleasure! 

It's about 20 minutes long and sped up (but you can adjust the speed at the settings) and I'm showing you the process of this page. So get a drink/snack and watch the tutorial at your leisure :)

Most of my art journals are intuitive, so there was no real plan in the beginning. I was mostly experimenting and all I knew was that I wanted to use the gorgeous Celestial Grove Stencil and waterproof inks mixed with watercolor and create some kind of forest setting for my goddess. I have to tell you, and you will see this in the video, I really struggled with the leaves to get them just right! Perhaps it's because I used the gorgeous Art Deco Peacock Feather as a leaf base and I just kept thinking "but this is a feather! not leaf!" LOL! But it was also good to push yourself to use the stencils in other ways than designed for, right? In the end I did get the leaves to look the way I wanted! Though - and oops here-  I forgot to press record when I added finishing touches on the page - but no worries, in the video I explain what I have done to get to the end result. And if you have any questions on the process or materials I used, feel absolutely free to ask, here or on YT  and I'll do my best to answer them.

Here are a couple of process shots for you:

The waterproof ink seeped through my stencil, but that just gives it a lush forest look and the whimsy of nature! The Magical shaker colors are super saturated colors so a little goes a long way to make the colors just pop! 


After I traced the feminine images from the Sacred Feminine stencil with the waterproof ink in my Pilot Parallell pen, I then added a light layer of grey waterproof ink mixed with a bit of water. The sheer effect you get is just awesome!


Added some white highlights/accents with a gel pen. 


In the end I added bolder accents with a semi waterproof black lettering marker (the Saruka pigment marker- semi waterproof because when it's wet you can move it a little bit with water. When dried it's completely waterproof.) and the Jane Davenport white paint over pen. 


Did the same for the lettering in the sentiment and added little highlight dots with the sakura gelly roll white gel pen. 


After trimming the piece I used double sided tape to adhere it in my mixed media letter sized art journal. This picture was made during sunset and somehow the color variation and shimmer at the bottom just popped in that light :) In the video you can see the shimmer and under layers a lot better. 

The StencilGirl® Stencils I used: 

Celestial Grove by Kae Pea


Sacred Feminine by Carol Wiebe


Art Deco Peacock Feather by Gwen LaFleur

Other materials I used: 

The watercolors were decanted in pans, which you will see in the video. The distress ink and blending tool I used to edge the piece after trimming so it blended the stark white edges to a softer grey. Oh, and on top is the Tombow eraser which I erased the pencil sketch lines with. 



Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you liked watching the process of this art journal page. Have a wonderful creative day and catch you on the next blog post!

Carol Wiebe has 5 new stencils: Sacred Feminine and Stitched!

Express yourself with Designer Carol Wiebe's stencils 

and let your stories manifest. 

Enjoy are Carol's stencil stories:

The Sacred Feminine and Being Stitched

We like to say when we find something hilarious, that it has us in stitches. Humor and our most profound feelings are intimately related. We need depth to entertain both.

The sacred feminine stencils were created out of a need to express the feminine in a way that honored it, and which offered a few symbols that might be applied to a page to further such an expression. Every woman has her own beliefs in what is sacred—it is a supremely personal expression.  The moon, birds, spirals, and triangles (in this case forming diamonds and a goddess’ eye (more traditionally called a god’s eye, but I do not feel obligated to represent what is traditional).

Let me tell you how I feel about the Stitched Stencils:

First, women have a LONG history of stitch work: quilting, embroidery, mending.

Second, to elaborate on mending, we can mend socks, but we can also mend our own hearts and minds, both with stitch and as we stitch.

Third, when someone is injured they go to get stitches, to get stitched up. There is that healing aspect again.

Fourth, many are adding stitching to their journals and mixed media work. I love the earthy sound of the word stitch. It is short and to the point. It rhymes with a word every woman has probably been called sometime in her life. 

In other words, I love the title "Stitched." And these stencils come from work I have now stitched on, literally, for hundreds of hours! It represents the many little fabric shapes I have stitched together. I call it NYTE work (Not Your Traditional Embroidery)

     

  

I warmed up with all these stencils by applying them to some of the backgrounds I had painted in an art journal.

Here, There and Everywhere Art Journal

Sacred Feminine Stencil, S539

Something I have started doing lately is printing out my digital art and collaging it into my art journals. You can see examples of that in some of these pages. Also take note of how I started putting bits of the featured stencils here, there and everywhere. Can you find them on these pages? Think “Finding Waldo.”

Casting Light

Transformation

Diamonds in the Sky

Double Spiral (cloth page)

Energetic Beings

Birds Love the Sky

Miraculous (cloth page)

Goddess Parts (cloth page)

In the following pages, the goddess figures are prominent.

Gods Eyes

Energy Lines

Toll

Good Eggs

Accordion Book

Sacred Feminine Winged Figure Stencil, S538

The accordion book, Sacred Elements, depicts the elements of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air within the skirts of the goddess, with a more ephemeral goddess representing Spirit in the middle. I have used the Stitched stencils in the backgrounds of these figures.

Bruised Goddess: Sacred Cards and Box

I painted a box, and the card faces, in the colors of bruises. We all bear our bruises in life, our wounds, and I wanted to show that the sacred feminine offers understanding and healing to us.

Here is the box, and a few of the cards.

I hope you have enjoyed this reveal and the number of ways I have played with these stencils to illustrate my artistic processes. I now pass the baton on to you, and assure you that I will be looking for your results, should you do me the honor of choosing some of these stencils to use within your own work.

May the sacred feminine be with you, and may you stitch your wounds as you practice your own creativity.

Carol Wiebe
Silverspring Studio