Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Art Journal: just BE yourself (in Love and Friendship) by Cheetarah



Hi Stencil Lover: it's Cheetarah here again and I hope you all had a wonderful start in the new year so far.
With the holidays last month I've taken some time to spend with friends and family & deepen the bond we have during this time of festivities and renewal. My hope is that you did the same.


On the StencilGirl® blog we are extending the focus on love and friendship as a theme this month and I wanted to share this art journal page I made while contemplating this theme. It's an intuitive art journal page for which I used minimal products and a few wonderful ATC format stencils from StencilGirl® Products which also are the perfect size for pocket-sized journals which I like to use.


The journal I am working in is actually a "Junk Journal" in which a lot of pages are made from otherwise trashed papers, like envelopes, junk mail, flyers, leftover strips of papers etc. It's wonderful to have a journal like this to play in as it loosens up the creative muscle to focus on process rather than perfection because of the fact the journal is less "precious" to "mess up". If you ever stared at a blank journal page in a beautiful notebook, you know exactly what I am talking about.


The page already had some paint and texture from leftover scrapings of modeling paste through a stencil and I just built up layers with a few contrasting colors and black and white. You can see the layering technique and the start of the process in the video below.



Sadly the last bit as I finish the page off wasn't recorded as the camera ran out of battery, but you can see from the finished project that I added mark makings on the edge and some doodles on the pages with the black and white paint pens.


In the center I wrote "Just Be" which is flanked between numbers and the word "seek"and they came to mind when I was thinking about the theme. In friendship there is this duality - on one had we might want to seek out more friends to hang out with socially, but on the other hand there are only a few people whom you can confide in and call them your closest friends. I think it's definitely necessary have to both of these types of relationships with people in life.



I was also thinking about how I wanted to be there for my friends and loved ones in this new year and onward. And how I wanted our relationships to develop. People I care about are always on my mind and while we often have different relationships with different people one thing can remain a constant and that is yourself. I don't seek to alter the people I call my close friends. So being there for the people I care about by just being myself and listening to them, even though I might not agree with their opinions but showing mutual respect, is how I value my relationships.


Stencils Used:
ATC Mixup Carriker Stencil designed by Pam Carriker

ATC Mixup Apter Stencil designed by Seth Apter

ATC Mixup 1 Stencil by Mary Beth Shaw

123 Stencil by Seth Apter

Hope this post made you think about Love and Friendship and what it means to you. If you feel like playing along with the theme and share your creations, check out StencilGirl® Instagram for the details. Have an awesome day and talk to you again soon.



p.s. Click the pic if you want to be part of our Instagram Contest!


4 comments:

  1. Love this! Thanks for sharing your technique! Where did you get that tiny brayer??

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  2. Your artwork is always amazing, Good to hear about your diet journey-thank you

    Hope T Day went well

    Love Chrissie xx

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  3. Love the juxtaposition of the mask and the stencil! Your videos are so much fun to watch.

    ReplyDelete

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