Ready or Not Here I Come Journal Pages

I finished these journal pages this morning.  It's represents me playing hide-and-go-seek with teach art journaling workshops.  I'm moving forward on this adventure, not knowing how it will go.  I'm trusting God to be with me and direct me.  Now I have to not be a control freak and go with the flow.  I can't get discouraged when I hear no's.  Eventually I will hear a yes.  :)

Take Flight or Stay Still Art Journal Pages

I finished these art journal pages last night.  I had been working on them over the past week.  On the left, there is a note I wrote.  Year ago, I was listening to the Bible on my ipod as I was going to sleep.  I heard "Cover the earth".  I knew God was telling me something.  The next day my husband was prompted about promoting and moving to Idaho.  I thought "cover the earth" meant we were suppose to move.  We went with it for a while.  It killed me because I didn't want to move.  I kept praying about what God meant by "cover the earth".  While praying one day, I saw a sign ... literally a sign and a sign.  ;)  It was the Sherwin-Williams sign.  It had a picture of a paint bucket pouring red paint over the earth.  It read "Cover the Earth" on the paint poured over the earth.  I thought maybe God wanted me to talk to someone who worked at Sherwin-Williams.  Now I'm wondering if I'm suppose to paint or teach others to paint.  I have a choice to take flight or stay still.  The choice is mine.

Get Out of the Boat Art Journal Page

This is "Get Out of the Boat".  I drew and painted it remembering a book I once read called "If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get out of the Boat".  The book is about the diciples when Jesus walks on water.  All stayed in the boat, but Peter got out of the boat to walk to Jesus.  Peter started to sink when he began to see his fears and took his eyes off of Jesus.  I have so many fears about moving forward with teaching art journaling and using it in a ministry.  I'm trying to not look at my fears and instead keep my eyes on Jesus.

King of Dreams Journal Pages

I started these journal pages with my new Golden Fluid Acrylics.  I love how vibrant the colors are.  I made these pages last weekend.  It's about my art dreams.  I'm giving them to God to see where He leads me.  That's why the phrase says "Let the King of your dreams give them wings".  We will see where this journey goes.  Last weekend, after making King of Dreams journal pages, I took lots of pictures.  I put lots of my artwork pictures together to use for inquiring about teaching art jounraling workshops. 

Smile Art Journal Page

This art journal page I made last week.  It's about some things that make me smile.  There is an M&M and a Skittle with arrows pointing toward each other.  The story about the M&M and Skittle is my husband invaded the kids candy from Easter.  They mixed M&M's, Skittles, and jelly beans all together in a baggie.  My husband didn't know and ate an M&M and Skittle at the same time.  His reaction keeps me giggling!  :)  There is a paint brush for obvious reasons.  I drew my cell phone with a couple texts from my husband when I was having a rough night ... they made me smile.  I drew a foot with arrows pointing to a big toe.  It's a game my boys and I learned.  The object of the game is to ask a question and the person you ask has to answer "grandma's big fat toe" without laughing.  For instance, I would ask my kids what they brush their teeth with and they have to answer "grandma's big fat toe" and they can't laugh.  It's gets fun!  I was upset one time ... I was crying.  My son said "mommy, I know what would make you feel better".  I asked "what?"  He said "Grandma's big fat toe."  He was right ... it did make me feel better.  :)

Sweet Angel Mixed Media

This is "Sweet Angel".  She is currently for sale on Etsy.com right now.  It is made with acrylic paint, patterned paper, stamped paper, and oil pastels.  It's on stretched canvas.  

Precious Love Mixed Media Angel

This is an art piece I worked on for a coworker who had a friend who lost their mom to breast cancer.  This is probably one of my favorite angels so far.  She has short hair like her friend's mom.  I added pearls for earrings and a necklace.

Roaring Bear Art Journal Pages

Three weeks ago I was feeling very grumpy.  I tried to take a nap, but I couldn't sleep.  I finally went down to my studio and decided to work in my art journal.  I picked up some bright colors of paint, that I thought wouldn't make a pretty page...my mood wasn't pretty.  After I applied all the crazy paint colors with an old credit card, I found a picture of a bear in a magazine.  I added him to one of the pages.  I felt like a grumpy bear.  I took some foam stamp letters and spelled out roar.  I felt like I was roaring at others.  I painted more details to the word.  Next I took a cloud stamp I picked up the day before, and filled it in with some paint.  I added others stamps too.  While doing all this I kept praying, asking why I was in this mood.  My answer came while expressing all my emotions on the pages.  Grumpiness has other causes....anger does.  There is always a different emotion causing the anger.  There was an underlying issue that I was able to answer before art journaling.  I was upset.  I want to teach art journaling.  I have dreams of helping others through art.  I had negative feelings of my dream never coming true.  After I finished art journal pages, I felt so much better.  I had so much fun figuring out why I was upset.  The photo above is that day's art journaling.  I hope you give it a try the next time you feel like you are in a funk.

Art Journaling

Art journaling is something I've been playing with for awhile.  I love it! I art journal pretty much everyday.  I have one journal that I use at home and I have one I take with me everywhere.  I use many different kinds of media.  I use acrylic, collage, stamping, watercolor, PITT pens and more.  There is no wrong way to art in a journal.  It's all about being free and experimenting.  It can be a private place to express yourself.

I'm hoping to teach workshops on art journaling soon.  I do hope to use art journaling in a ministry too.  I want to help others in healing, in seeing their identity in Christ, for connecting with God and for their spiritual walk.  An example would be when I was 3 to 6 I was terribly scared of storms. We moved when I was 5 and I met an older girl who lived across the street.  I remember she was hanging out with me in the hallway of our apartment complex and it was storming.  I told her how scared I was.  She told me that when it thunders that the angels were bowling or God was moving furniture.  From that day I wasn't so scared of storms.  So with art journaling I can use paint, other visuals and words to make a page of how I was scared, but God made a way to comfort me.  I even have a picture of the girl that I will put on that page.  It's neat flipping through the pages of my art journal seeing what I was struggling with or seeing encouragement for when my feelings try to get the best of me.  I want to help people see things differently.  I want them to see the good things in all the bad things. I want them to know how people will let us down and not meet our needs, but God loves us so much and will help us get our needs met one way or another.  I want to help others forgive others who don't know how to meet our needs, or are going through things and can't, or are selfish and won't help our needs.  I want them to trust God to change that person and if they don't change, for God to give them the consequences for it.  He's better at it anyway!  I want to help others see God active in their life, even before they really knew Him.  Those are just some ideas.  I'll keep praying and see where God leads me.  :)