Creative Summer Camp: Playing with Bubbles

To prevent falling is a creative gap during the summer, I have signed up for Marit's Creative Summer Camp. It is an online group where the participants can work on easy and fun assignments during the summer without being obligated. I haven't done as much as I hoped to, but I have had much fun with a simple technique for creating backgrounds. And all you need is ink and soap, basically :)

These are a few of the backgrounds I made which I used to make several things. I also used this technique to make the background for my July calendar pages. I totally did something different this time around regarding the calendar, and it takes me a bit of getting used to since I drew free form instead of cutting shapes for my calendar like I usually do. And while I see room for improvement, I am glad I dared to experiment. This is the result:

For more calendar pages, please visit The Kathryn Wheel :) I will also share a bookmark that I made and a page that I filled for the Round Robin Project. I used a Jip and Janneke card which I found very fitting for the background.

I really loved playing with bubbles and it will be a technique that I will be using more often. I like it especially for the bookmarks. Luckily I made a few backgrounds in one go, so I have more to experiment with :) I hope I tickled your curiosity with this and if you want to participate in the Summer Camp, it is open till the 15th of August, so come and play ;)

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Art Calendar Challenge 2011 - June

It is that time of the month again where I show off my Calendar Pages. I am still keeping up :)
Here are the finished May pages:

I just can't believe how busy I was in May. I had so much to do! My final school day for the year if only 2 weeks away and I have to finish everything up. Next to that I am so busy with various appointments, that it even surprised me I had still time to make the pages for June:

The pages can use some more decorations but I will add them during the month. I choose circles for this page to represent the sun since in June it will become Summer and the sun will be most powerful. I want to add more red, yellow and orange flowers to the pages :)

For the ones participating in the Calendar Challenge: do you work with a theme for the pages, or do you just go with the flow? Don't forget to check out the pages of others that are participating. Linky list at the Kathryn Wheel.

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Art Calendar Challenge 2011 - May

So it is time for another update on the calendar pages from the challenge I am doing hosted by Kate from The Kathryn Wheel.

This is what my finished April pages look like:

It turned out to be a birds page all the way :) The pages look really cheerful but to be honest, it was a rough month for me. Hopefully things will be better again in May :)

For May I have a Beltane theme going on. Beltane is celebrated on May first and is mostly about fertility and passion. It is a very cheerful and outgoing celebration. Typical Beltane colors are reds and whites. I used hearts on this page, strawberries, ladybugs and flowers :)

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Art Calendar Challenge 2011 - April

And since it is the end of the month again, it is time for an update on my art calendar for the challenge at the Kathryn Wheel :)

Here are the completed pages from March. Only today is still empty ;) These were focussed on Ostara, the change of seasons from winter to spring and the symbols have very much in common with Easter. So it looks like I was a month early, but I am not ;)

Since there is no Sabbat in April, I made a colorful spring page for April with blue and yellow inks. I mixed the colors on the paper with a brush. Sometimes I added some water for softer shades as well. I used a flower shaped cookie cutter for tracing to make the calendar days and I pasted them a bit over eachother to make it look like bunches. I bought the glittery green letter stickers a few days ago and decorated this page with birds :) I enjoyed making these pages and I hope for those also participating in the challenge that you did as well :) As usual, they will fill up more during the month.

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Art Calendar Challenge 2011 - March

For the Art Calendar Challenge at the Kathryn Wheel, I finished my calendar page for March just in time! February was a rough month for me. There was a lot going on in the household and on top of that I have been sick off and on for about half of the month. I hope that with Spring in sight, things will start to look up again!

For the March page I focussed on Ostara, the spring Sabbat that is celebrated on March 21st. It has a lot of the same elements as Easter does, like the eggs and bunnies. It is to celebrate that Spring has started and that the earth is fertile again (where eggs and hares are a fertility symbol). I also have added chicks and spring flowers to my page. And I used eggs instead of circles this time. I made a background in pastels (green, yellow, pink and white) with acrylics. I did this yesterday and today I pasted the elements on the page. So I barely made it in time ;) I love the cute bunny from fabric in the upper left corner :)

My finished February page :) I am glad I was able to find some lambs for the page and decorated it with some flowers to symbolise the first spring flowers I already spotted this month.

I love to use stickers to add some cheerfulness to a page. I am still enjoying making and using the calendar pages. It helps me to remember what I did when. It also reminds me how many days I was sick or tired and while this isn't really fun, it is helpful. I am already thinking what theme to choose for the April page. So far I am a bit clueless. So suggestions are welcome :)

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Art Calendar Challenge 2011 - February

The Art Calendar Challenge is hosted by Kate at the Kathryn Wheel. You make a calendar page each month and every day you write something on it to reflect that day.

I have the base of my February page ready! My theme is Imbolc, the sabbat that is celebrated on February 2nd in some of the pagan beliefs. The page still looks barren now. I wanted to do a lamb theme since that is one of the aspects of Imbolc and lambs are cute! However it seems that I didn't have much lambs laying around. I couldn't print some as well since the printer is acting weird and my BF haven't found the time to fix it yet. So I will present this page to you barren, and it will come alive as the month passes by. This too fits the theme of Imbolc.

This time I did the background with gouage. I didn't use a brush but a sponge. I mixed this shade of green using basic green, with yellow and white. The letters are stamped. It are Sophie Caps stamps by the Paper Studio and the numbers are from the same Sophie font but the lower case set.

Here is my finished January page :) It looks much more colorful then the new page. This is also because I used colored ink there, but my book didn't like that so much and I also need the book for my school assignments. I do not mind that the book is being used, but this did quite some damage to the underlying pages. Besides, it is fun to see the effect from different kind of paints. It helps me with expanding my knowledge on how different paints react :)

If you want to see more calendar pages, please visit the flickr group :)

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Art Calendar Challenge 2011

Next to my homework I have been working on something in the past days. I saw this challenge a few days ago at the Kathryn Wheel and I wanted to join in because I thought it would be fun. It is the Art Calendar challenge and it took me 3 days in total to make my January page.

First I made the background. I used the A4 sized dummy I also use for school. It is the only A4 dummy I own and since it is all a creative process, it fits in nicely. Too bad that the paint ruined the pages before and after the calendar. I guess the paper isn't really meant for this. Oh well.

Since it is the January page, I wanted to give it a little winter theme. I am not very original in that because if you look at the flickr page, you see this trend everywhere ;)

I gave it a polar animals theme, mainly penguins but there are seals and polar bears as well. The stickers I used are glossy so they don't photograph well. The cute penguins & snowflakes are actually free printable gift tags from nothing but Penguins. Some close ups from the calendar:

Now I have to write a note on it each day and if I keep it up, I have an overview of the year :) I will probably start on the February page somewhere in the near future since I don't want to rush it like I did this time ;) If you do like a calendar but you think this is too much work, you can always download and assemble this cute 3D Yeti calendar for January to decorate your desk from curiosity group!

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