Intuitive art is a funny thing.  I love the adventure and surprise.  You never know exactly where you’re going.  Magdalena is a perfect example of this.

When I sat down to paint this canvas, I envisioned a sweet girl in rain boots holding a bouquet of wild flowers.  I pictured soft pinks, gold, a warm ivory.  Hearts.  Stripes.  Very girly. In fact, here’s the color and pattern palette I’d picked out to get started. 

I collaged the canvas top to bottom in those colors.  There’s the shape of a girl filling most of the canvas, actually.  But as things progressed, I kept listening to the calls.

Put some green at the bottom. 

That turquoise blue belongs up there at the top. 

Some scribbles in the grass.  Now stamp foliage in the green….  Keep going… I’ve learned to listen and trust the calls.  Sometimes fear will rise and I’ll worry about covering up a beautiful part.  What if I mess up the whole thing?  But the Spirit in me whispers, “trust me.”  And I am reminded that no matter what beautiful thing is covered…  No matter what perfect parts are lost… what is meant to be will take it’s place.  And that is ultimately so much better.  I turned the whole canvas upside down and things started to become a little more clear.  I painted in the little dear girl and just kept listening to the calls.   This was not at all what I had planned.

Now I see it.  That’s water not sky.  Still in my mind I’m thinking a city park.  I don’t know what the red is there for.  I just felt called to add some red.

Finishing the story

These dear girls write their own stories.  I wait and listen or search for their meaning and sometimes I’m completely blown away by the way they show up.  Often I’ll sit with a girl and study the painting.  It feels as fresh and foreign to me as any stranger sometimes.  Who is this person?  What are they here for?  Who do they belong to?  What is it they want to say?  As I studied Magdalena I realized she looks like a little angel.  The white dots above her shoulders look like wings and she’s so ghostly white.  And here she is in this gritty, nasty, dirty city – seemingly happy to be here.  And that’s when it all started to come together.  Here is the caption I wrote for Magdalena.

Don’t be afraid to get your halo dirty.  Life is hard.  We need each other.  Sometimes being your best requires looking your worst.  Sometimes being a friend means jumping into a hot mess.  Don’t worry.  There is a fountain…

It was about twenty minutes later that I realized the significance of the red.

Before I started collaging I snapped one quick pic. 

Sometimes I feel called to write a note on the canvas first.  A special gift just for the eyes of myself and the one who purchases the painting.

Magdalena is available for purchase  $75.00  6”x12” canvas  1.5” deep wrapped and finished in black – mixed media collage art

Adventure – up close

I’ve included some close up stills here so you can see the layers and textures better. 

I hope to do more of these videos.  If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it.   Also, if you have suggestions for new paintings, please share! 

Hello, hello!  I have an exciting announcement to make… I am up and running on ETSY!!!  Yaaaaay!  After some soul searching and serious discussion, we took the plunge and purchased professional equipment to produce prints of my mixed media paintings.  We decided it would be best to make our prints “in-house”. This gives us full control over quality and availability.  Man, it was a bit stressful learning all about the technical requirements, researching machinery, and then putting it all together.  It’s been a good deal of hard work but so worth it.  We now have beautiful, high quality prints that we are very proud to offer.

A little about the prints…

As I said before, we make our prints right here “in-house” using high resolutions images from our studio scanner.  The prints are made with archival inks on ultra premium photo paper with a luster finish and are smudge, scratch, water, and fade resistant.  So far, we have prints available in sizes 8” x 10” and 11” x 14”.   We hope to add more sizes in the future. 

Matted & Signed…

Because we already had a source for high quality framing goods for our mid-century maps, we are offering our prints with a ready-to-frame option.  The 8” x 10” prints can be purchased matted and signed to fit an 11” x 14” frame.  The matted 11” x 14” prints will fit a 14” x 18” frame. 

Original Paintings Also Available

As an artist, we can’t afford to build another room yet I realize the need to let some pieces go, so I have made available several for purchase.  Most of the original artwork in shop right now are paper pieces.  These are affordable and relatively easy to ship.  =)  

You can check out all the art for sale at www.sarajaneart.com

This week was mostly collage painting and studying for me.  My studies these days consist of lots of reading in between the painting.  I’m reading three books currently – one in print by Kelly Rae Roberts, one in ebook format by Kelly Rae Roberts, and the audiobook of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.   I’ll get to where that all has led a little later but first I want to share my newest painting with you.

About 2 weeks ago, as I pondered all the magical things happening in my life, I found myself thinking, “If God put a song in your heart it is because He wants you to sing it.”  I loved it right away and knew the phrase would have to become a painting.  It just so happened that I spoke with a dear friend that afternoon about some of this magic, some of her own magic, and I shared with her the phrase in the painting.  She seemed smitten with it and I knew that phrase had come to me for her.  So when I got home I started right away on finding it’s canvas.

You may remember seeing this canvas last year when I went to CKC-St. Louis.  It was a mixed media project started in a class with Melissa Frances.  It came home with me unfinished and a little blah.  I stuck it on the wall and thought I’d chew on it for a while before I finished it.  Well here we are, basically a year later, and I finally found its purpose.  Plucked from the wall, it worked up pretty quickly (other than all the drying time between layers).  The dear girl’s birthday was last week so this is a belated gift of sorts.

Something big is coming…

There’s lots going on in our busy little lives these days.  I’m still chanting the mantra “be joyful in the mess.”  Friends, it is MESS-EE here right now.  In so many ways.  Pray for us!  Some big things are coming and it feels like we’re on that slow deliberate climb at the beginning of a rollercoaster ride.  Can you relate?  You know what’s coming.  You know it’s going to be SO FUN. But you’re still scared to death.  That’s me, right now.  Stay tuned for the details.  I’m eager to share, but it will be just a little bit longer.  If you want to make sure you don’t miss it, sign up for the newsletter.  Subscribers always get the latest info first.  =)

I’ve done limited art journaling this past couple weeks.  For week 9 of Wanderlust I completed two lessons, actually, though one of them wasn’t art journaling.  It did involve making something fun!

The actual art journaling lesson was completed in two sittings that took place about a week apart.  Life got busy and you know the rest.

If you can’t tell yet, words are a very big part of my art journaling.  Quotes, text, prose, lyrics, scripture… when I want to convey a specific feeling or emotion, I will used words.  Abstract art is my love and passion because the viewer determines what the painting conveys.  Sometimes, especially when I’m journaling, there’s something specific I want to say. 

Soldering

The second project I’m sharing today from Wanderlust is a soldering project.  This was my first time ever soldering and I enjoyed it tremendously.  I can see how it will come in very handy for mixed media projects.  Lucky for me, I have a great friend to personally teach me how to do it and walk me through step by step.  Jamie Avery did a fantastic job explaining it all in the Wanderlust class, but there’s something about having a live breathing person to guide you through a new task.  I am so grateful for both of their help. 

My soldering skills aren’t quite stellar but for a greenie, I think I did okay.

Art Journaling for me

Last Friday I had a wonderful afternoon with some time to art journal just for the fun of it.  I’ve been doing lots of self-reflection lately and digging into some of the dusty parts of myself I’ve let fall to the wayside.  “Fearless” is my theme this year so I’ve been trying to really honor that in tangible ways.  Being fearless in art has been a big thing for me this year and, honestly, the practice has resulted in feelings and changes I didn’t expect.  More peace, more joy, more confidence.  Less hating myself.  The funny thing about courage is that when you find the courage in one thing, it makes it easier to find courage for other things.  I really like that.  So this is where my heart has been lately and I think it pours out in my art journal and on canvas.

This page contains the lyrics from a Tori Amos song called “Crucify.”  I’ve listened to this song a million times but I’d never paid any attention to this line before.  While I was working in my journal the song came on and for the first time ever my ears caught the words, “You’re just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird.”  Woah.  They kinda stopped me in my tracks. What a powerful statement.  From there, the rest of the page practically painted itself. 

I love all the texture on this page.  You can feel the grit of the sand and I think it fits perfectly with the theme.

This next page was experimental play with some india inks, Dr. PH Martin’s.  I added the quote because it was something I want to remind myself often. It says, “With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble.  Courage is the foundation of integrity.”

And the final page I have to share from my art journal is another song lyrics page.  Music plays a big role in my life so expect to see lots of lyrics in my journal.  This is a song I’ve only recently learned by the band, Joseph.  The second I heard it, it clicked with me and it’s now one of my favorites.  Kind of an anthem sort of song.  I love it.  It’s called “White Flag” and you can find it on Youtube  right here.  So go listen to it but make sure you come back here.  =)

You can see the theme of my journaling that day.  It was loads of fun and a very good afternoon. 

Hello Soul, Hello Mantras

I’ve been taking Kelly Rae Roberts’ class called Hello Soul, Hello Mantras.  She had a big sale and something in me said, “jump.”  I’m trying to listen to myself more and not be so apprehensive.  So I took the class and last weekend I started about 4 canvases to work on.  No big plan.  Just get some layers on the canvases and enjoy the journey.  Stay unattached.  No conscious choices.  Just go with whatever brings me joy and don’t question it.  Lots of great off-the-canvas work in there too.  Learning to trust myself.  Listen to myself… So here’s the progression over the last week.

Then a little self-talk…

More layers.  And Tali decided she would like to paint to so she took one of my starters and worked on it.  Hers is the one with the owl.

Next layer….

My little artist…

Another layer of paint

An #ussie after a fun afternoon of painting

Another collage layer…

Canvas #1

At this point, I continued on with my canvases while my little artist took a break.  Layers were starting to come together and some of the paintings started to show themselves, so to speak.  This one in particular seemed ready to be finished so I kept working at it and started to reel it in.

It wasn’t long before it was all done and I’m pretty happy with the end result.

It says, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”  This world is filled with rules and “norms” (whatever that means) and supposed to’s… it’s easy to lose your sense of self, joy, and peace trying to live up to the standards of society.  Without even realizing it, we adopt the guiding light of the world as our own and forge ahead with the masses, losing our focus of becoming what we really are meant to be.  Every person has a purpose.  Rarely do people seem to find it.  I’m so thankful to Kelly Rae for all I’ve learned in her class.  It was more of a soul-searching experience than anything and I don’t think I could’ve gotten here without her.  Finding my purpose is a very important thing to me and I think I’m well on my way now. 

Canvas #2

Again, the canvas just sort of called to me and said, “this is what I want to be.”  Making conscious choices quickly(TRUSTing myself), I worked on this canvas and the pieces seemed to fall into place.  In no time at all it was over and done as quickly as it started. 

Y’all, I can’t even tell you how applicable to my life this is right now.  So much of life seems to be a big mess.  I mean, it’s good and productive but, Lord, what a mess!  Like pulling everything out of your closet so you can clean and purge and put things in order. (which I did literally this week too!)  This is life in our home right now.  My poor husband is probably going crazy, to tell the truth.  He is a very orderly human being.  I don’t think he had a clue what he was doing when he married me.  But I love him fiercely and I know this is a season and I know when we make it past all this mess (figurative and literal!) things will be awesome.  So until we have a sense of order in our house, I will be repeating the mantra, “be joyful in the mess!”

So there you have it.  Lots of art going on here.  Lots of soul-searching.  Lots of mess-making.  =)

Hope you are having a good week.

We did a bit of traveling in February so my art journaling time was limited.  Instead, I made some Traveler’s Notebook inserts to take along with me and I sketched and painted in those.  I love using TN inserts for traveling.   It’s a perfect place to document a trip with journaling and sketches together in one place.  Hooray for travel sketching!

Travel with friends

Last year we traveled to Savannah, Georgia with some friends of ours to attend a wedding.  It was one of the best trips my husband and I have taken together and I made my first ever TN to take along for journaling.  Here’s a sketch of Paula Dean’s restaurant where we had lunch one afternoon.

In February we went to Nashville with some of the same friends so I decided I would just add to that same journal instead of making another.  We toured the Ryman while we were there and I sketched a little bit of the auditorium.

I still have some things I want to add to the journal so maybe I’ll do a flip-through when I finish it.  But hopefully that will be after a trip to Memphis.  =)

Sketching at the ocean

The same week we came home from Nashville, we packed up again and headed to Panama City Beach.  The first day of that trip was quite eventful and long but everything smoothed out after that.  The ocean is my most favorite place to be.  I love the smells, the sounds, the views… I just feel home when I’m at the water.  This was probably my favorite trip yet, too.  It was so relaxing and we did just about nothing.  Lots of days at the beach.  We ate dinner out a few times, but mostly we just enjoyed being at the ocean.  Of course I spent some time sketching in the sand.  It was wonderful.

Art Journaling in Wanderlust

Abstract Floral – Week 7

I have to back up and add week 7 of Wanderlust!  Sorry I missed it in  the last update.  Claire Bremner taught a wonderful class on abstract floral painting. Her artwork is gorgeous.  I love everything about it.  There’s a mid century folk arty quality that makes me so happy.  I knew I would enjoy this class.  Doodling and watercolor are two of my favorite things!  I’m pretty sure this is one style I will be playing with quite a bit.   As you can see, I need lots of practice! lol

Here’s a couple pages of practice from that class.  I like to keep that kind of thing in a traveler’s notebook.

Interested in Wanderlust?  I highly recommend it!  You can find out more at Everything Art.

This update comes a little bit late as we spent a couple weeks traveling in February so I had to play catch-up to get my art lessons done.  Luckily, I did do a little bit of sketching and journaling while I was on the road.   I’m still working on getting caught up in my Wanderlust class but I have a couple things to share.  Let’s get to it!

Release – Week 4

Week 4 of my art journaling class didn’t actually have a class.  There were some prompts for us to use in creating some pages one of which was “I’m ready for…”

Composition – Week 5

This week we talked about composition and unfinished pages.  I started several pages but the goal was to only start them so I decided to not include any pics yet here.

Love Letter – Week 6

This class was led by Amanda Grace.  The process was super fun and I really wish I had taken process photos or made a video because I enjoyed the in-between bits so much.  Note to self for future art journaling… This was my first attempt at doing a photo transfer.  It was super easy and worked well with my inkjet printer.  I think I’ll be doing that more in my journals.  It was also great fun to break out my oblique and bottle of ink.

Better an oops than a what if  – Week 8

This weeks prompt had to do with quotes.  Don’t think too much, just journal it.

Let the Paint Speak class

My painting class has wrapped up but I haven’t finished my paintings yet.  I have a couple more to go.  Actually, I started a painting of a girl with pigtails.  Love the colors.  It was coming along nicely and then it just got bad.  I got upset with her and painted over her.

She’s been put aside for now.

Junk Journal trinkets

I mentioned in my last post that I still had to add charms to my latest junk journal.  Well I am happy to report that I actually did get around to doing that! lol  *all the moms understand…  Here’s the end result:

I think that’s enough for now.  Be on the lookout for a post about my travel sketches soon!

Notes – A junk journal

I have been wanting to make a junk journal For. Ever.  But with 5 kids to homeschool and an online business to run, I just never found the time until now.  BUT!  Finally!  Finally, I sat down and put this thing together. 

My stash of chipboard is borderline hoarding so I knew I’d just make the cover myself.  This gave me the advantage of customizing the size of the journal to the papers I had chosen to work with.  The paper has a vintage look and went great with the tons of stuff I coffee-stained years ago.  (seriously, I’ve been planning to do this for a loooong time)

You can check out a slideshow of the project on my YouTube channel or flip through all the pics at your own speed on my Facebook page. 

I’ve already started adding in photos and memories from my Instagram photo stash.  The only thing left to do is make some trinkets and charms for the tails.  I’ll post some pics when I get those attached. 

This was super fun and I can’t wait to make more!  I have stacks and stacks of old books, adorable paper pads,  and ephemera to make a bazillion journals too.  Anybody wanna come join me?  I’m always up for a craft day!

Making Flowers

“Some days it storms, some days it shines.  This is how flowers grow.” 

  I started the page with a super thin layer of gesso.  Wilna suggests this and applied it with card like a putty knife, spreading it thinly and cleaning up the edges.  I like the way the watercolors laid on the paper without soaking in. 

For my “Let the Paint Speak” class, I have two projects to share. 

Shine

The process for this particular painting was a little different for me.  After just the first “round” of laying down paint and getting the basic face, I was in love. 

There is still apart of me that wishes I’d stopped right here.  I love the lightness of her face and the flowers crowning her head.  But alas, I continued on…

Here I added the wings and the girl started taking more form.  I also added a tree to the right.  A little more work after all this and something was missing.

I decided to add the words and she felt complete.  I like the way her face turned out after all.  There was a bit of experimenting in her hair.  I had a beautiful dark brown Color Bloom Spray and I used that to add texture to her hair.  I just sprayed the ink into a tray and painted it on.  It looked so nice I ended up using it in several places.

Sail

My biggest painting yet, Sail was created on a piece of watercolor paper, 22” x 30”.  It just barely fit on my table top easel. 

I’ve definitely settled on some favorite colors during this series of classes and the top few are shades of blue.  Continually, I reach for the same few colors over and over again.  This painting has lots of blues in it.

Tim Holtz Distress Crayons for the win!

I experimented with Tim Holtz distress crayons on the face and they created some beautiful colors and shading.  Not sure why I haven’t used these before since I love pretty much everything Timmie.  The other day, I caught a Facebook Live demo where he talked all about their properties and how he uses them and I thought to myself, “that’s exactly what I need!”  So, I gave them a go and the results were so wonderful.  Here’s a closer look.

These definitely call for some more play and experimentation.  So far, I love the results I’m getting.

She Threw Her Fear in the Sea of No Cares

At this point, I knew exactly where this little girl was going and what she was up to.  Her creation was inspired by a song from one of my all time favorite bands, Great Big Sea.  This whole art journey is about tossing fear overboard and learning to go with the tide, as the song says, so I thought it was only appropriate that she be out in the boisterous sea unloading her fears. 

This little girl is so big that I didn’t quite know what to do with her.  Rolling up the paper wasn’t an option so luckily I got a 60% off coupon from Michael’s and got her a cheap frame. 

Not the fanciest get-up around, but at least she’s protected.  And she’s the first one to get a frame.  (not counting that landscape I painted back in grade school)

This is a fun journey.  Challenging, frustrating sometimes, but lots of fun and joyful.  Til next time…

Sweets and Lola

In my “Let the Paint Speak” class, I worked on a canvas board about 16”x20” I think.  This one was a little bit of a challenge and I’m still not sure it’s done.  The background was coming along nicely.

I’m really drawn to these blues and greys.  The brayer really pulled things together for me. 

I love the iridescent gold deep paint by Golden.  It’s such a gorgeous, rich color.  She’s starting to appear here but I’m not really happy with her yet. 

This is where “Sweets and Lola” are now.  We’ve decided to just hang out together for a while.  I think we need to spend a little more time together before deciding where this is going. 

Sallymandala #1

In my Wanderlust class, I met for the first time ever a delightful soul named Mary Ann Wangerin.  She shared with us a very inspiring and challenging lesson in making “magic”.  One of my most difficult challenges in art is learning to acknowledge and enjoy the process.  So many times I get stuck on trying to preserve the bits I love that it hinders the process of creating. 

There were so many times watching Mary create that I would say to myself, “no! don’t cover that part!”  She taught me to enjoy the beauty as it comes.  And let it go, if it needs to be covered.  It’s not wasted.  I saw it.  It was beautiful and brought me happiness.  

From an early age, I have loved rocks.  My art table is often littered with crystals and minerals of all shapes and sizes.  They make the energy lighter and more free.  I was waiting for some paint to dry and had a little play at gridding the mandala.  I totally forgot about the paint drying and some of my rocks came away with a little “decoration”.  Oops!

Mary’s lesson really helped me in not thinking too much about my choices and just doing what felt right.  For instance, I really hate the color red.  I have no idea why but I’m rarely drawn to it at all and I don’t use it that much.  But I found myself using it in the mandala circle and, normally, I would have stopped myself and chosen another color.   It was very satisfying to just let things happen. 

Let Your faith be bigger than your fear

Something I’m endeavoring to learn about art this year, so it seemed appropriate for this lesson.  So much in life is about letting go and putting faith in someone – yourself or another.  Allowing life to happen – not forcing things or hiding from others.  Here’s to learning a few things this year!