As a watercolor artist, I am always thrilled to find books with watercolor as the focal point, ready to learn, find insightful tips and travels in the wonderful world of this vibrant and fun medium. So when I ran across Watercolor From the Heart by Barbara Nechis, I thought it would be a great read...and it was!
The title drew me in with a focus on the Heart since I know from personal experience how valuable expressing yourself from the heart can be. (You can view my Refresh Daily Rewind Video on this subject.) In Watercolor from the Heart, Barbara shares her thoughts on her watercolor journey, including her past teachers, the rules she learned and finding her authentic watercolor path. I really enjoyed diving into her past experiences and into what she thought was valuable experience for her as an artist. She also shares about the watercolor techniques she found fascinating that enabled her to find her signature style of sorts: using water to create shapes and edges that are the foundation of her fabulous layered paintings, which often feature soft edges of flowers, landscapes and still lifes. Many images she takes for reference are also highlighted as she talks about the importance of observing and taking photos of places and things that fascinate and fill the creative well. She touches a bit on using other media with watercolor, such as gouache, crayon and pencil and offers some fascinating design elements as well. There are step by step examples of her watercolor techniques and also ways to take advantage of watercolor issues that arise and make the best of challenges. I really enjoyed the journey with Barbara and I admire her authentic path as a watercolor artist. Copyright 2015 by Dawn Herring Copyright 2015 Header by Dawn Herring
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Here is a new installation from my Refresh Daily Rewind video Series with the topic, Inner Expectations, where I share what mine are and how we can appreciate our current creative output and still challenge ourselves at the same time, all with the goal of Getting Back to the Basics of Activating Our Creative Centers!
My youngest daughter, Hannah, recently had her 21st Birthday; so it gave me pause as to how I would celebrate with her creating a visual like I've done for the past 11 years. But I found that my circumstances had changed a bit since I did the last one (no color printer and not as much time to prepare). Over the years as I've created these birthday collages (you can read more about The Birthday Wall here) the approach has morphed and changed to reflect their age, their interests and my approach to my presentation. What started with a glorified birthday banner (which you can read about in my e-book, The Birthday Wall: Create a Collage to Celebrate Your Child), moved into a full 3 foot by 3 foot space on their bedroom wall to showcase their interests and their personality in full color; then I got a bit more creative. Last year I used a manila file folder, covered in gesso primer, and then created a layered collage that looked similar to my art journaling process for my eldest daughter, Sarah's 23rd birthday. Then I decided to use a binder notebook for Hannah's birthday last year when she turned 20, which I share about here. Many pages with layered colored construction paper and images later, she had her Birthday Binder. But this year, I decided I didn't want to use any past approaches, since I am also dabbling with some super FUN art forms, including doodling, which is essentially playing around with black pen, Winsor Newton Watercolor Markers and creating illustrated designs with words, phrases and objects. So after thinking on it a bit, I decided to create what I eventually called an Illustrated Birthday Doodle. I used one sheet of acid-free card stock paper in a neutral color and a waterproof black Uniball pen and Winsor Newton Watercolor Markers. I decided on a layout that would work with her name, Hannah Joy, her new age of 21, plus various favorites from song lyrics to foods to hobbies. I also included important memberships to organizations, her college related info and her website, byhannahjoy.com, which is The Stressed Out College Student's Destination. I must say that I had a lot of fun creating this gift for Hannah; I love drawing and creating illustrations without too much planning ahead of time; the entire process was intuitive and I just went with the flow. Hannah considers it a grown-up version of The Birthday Wall, so that's makes it the perfect gift for her right now.
And that leaves me content and satisfied as we celebrate Hannah's 21st birthday and her year ahead. Copyright 2015 by Dawn Herring Copyright 2015 Birthday Images by Dawn Herring Ah, it's back to school time...whether it's next week where we live in Texas or in the days ahead (after Labor Day) in other places.
Time to shop for school supplies, clothing and shoes, and getting back to a "school schedule." It's all about getting ready to learn and grow and discover the world around you, whether you're a young student, in college, or maybe you just want to learn something new as a Pupil of...Life! To me, going Back to School is really about immersion in the things I want to learn about that help keep me Aligned with Who I Am. Whether it was my avid interest in drawing as a child which eventually morphed into doing portraits for many years, or my seeking out writing-related resources, including books and magazines from the library and some purchased for my personal in-house space as I delved deep into fiction and then non-fiction/memoir. Then I moved into learning all I could (and can) about my favorite art medium, Watercolor, as well as mixed media in the fun world of art journaling and collage. I'm always eager to discover new techniques and find inspiration from other artist's and their authentic artistic paths. Back to school can really be about listening carefully to those intuitive nudges that can push us into uncharted territory to discover more of Who We Are...perhaps in a place we didn't know existed. My discovery of watercolor came to me late in life...just 4+ years ago even though I've been a lifelong artist. You can never know when you're going to delve into something that brings you to life and activates your creative center like nothing else has. It's important to be open to such possibilities...it could even change your life! Journaling Prompt: What does Back to School mean to you right now? Make a list of all the possibilities of learning for further exploration that are drawing you right now and pick one to investigate with all of your delicious curiosity, as if you're a small child discovering something delightful for the first time. Revel in this new something and record all of your delight on the page. Art Journal Prompt: Honor the School Person in you by creating a page of all of your favorite school supplies, whether in image or doodle/illustration with your favorite pens. You may even use some crayons to color in areas on your spread, focusing on the primaries to take you back to your younger days. Copyright 2015 by Dawn Herring Copyright 2015 Graphic Header by Dawn Herring Here is my next Refresh Daily Rewind installation with my new video series for Getting Back to the Basics of Activating Your Creative Center with the topic, Life Practices, where I talk about how they can make a difference in our daily lives.
This new video installment of Refresh Daily Rewind focuses on Small Steps and the benefits of using this strategy for creative expression.
I find art journaling to be a process..a good process, of course! I'm always interested in what I learn as I create and listen. This particular spread was one of those where I had something in mind; and you know what's funny? Every time I approach my art journal with something in mind, I often find that I struggle with it. I mean, art journals are a GREAT place to Experiment and I love experimenting! But experimenting always comes with challenges, since experiments often mean, you've never done this before, right? So for this experiment, I had Boxes in mind. Over the 4 1/2 years that I've kept an art journal, I have run across many examples of boxes in an art journal spread. Some of them have featured boxes across the entire page, each with something original to fill it. And this is sort of what I had in mind. But what came out is not quite what I envisioned, but isn't that typical, right? What we see in our mind's eye is not often what we actually get. And That's OKAY. But one thing I learned through this box making business is..you can work with what you've got. So I started out with 4 boxes on the left side of the spread and the other side I considered one big box with borders on the time and bottom. I used stencils to create the borders, in blue, green, orange and red. As soon as I put down the stencils and had the borders, I didn't like it. Oh, it's colorful, but it simply felt TOO Boxy for me, like I should've made the boxes around whatever I put on the page instead of creating boxes first. I think that's what threw me. I knew right away I'd have to go "outside the box" for me to feel satisfied with this spread, and that's exactly what I did! I decided to cut out circles of all kinds (using some magazine collage pieces) and added some textured circles made from home-made Modeling paste (baking soda mixed with gesso) which represented Moments of Time for me. What was really fun for me what cutting out Tall long letters from colored construction paper for spell out the words The, Time and Truth. I didn't use a stencil for these letters. I just cut them free hand from scraps I had stored. I also enjoyed embellishing the letters with white Uniball gel pen. I used alpha stamps for the other words using watercolor paint. I used a watch stamp several times and a eye exam letter stamp for visual interest, and I added a dotted line between all the circles to tie them together as one big time connection. I realized that as time passes, we often discover what the truth is about our life experience. Illusions fall away when you really look at what IS rather than what might have been or what we thought we would have. So the message for me with this was that the passage of time reveals truth, and what we DO with that truth can make all the difference in creating the most authentic path possible to Honor Who We Are and Our Purpose.
Journaling Prompt: When you look back in time, even if it's just a few months back, what truth comes to your understanding? Do you recognize any illusions that you realize are not true about what you have experienced? See this as a positive a-ha moment and determine any positive change that might result from this realization. *Remember to be gentle with yourself when dealing with truth vs. illusion. It does take courage to create positive change.* Art Journal Prompt: Whatever Moment of Truth you've experienced, use that truth to create the most honoring art journal post you can. Your process should include at least one of your favorite art journal techniques, if not more. Sometimes when we do what we love, it makes recognizing that truth a bit easier. And Empowering! Copyright 2015 By Dawn Herring Copyright 2015 Art Journal Images by Dawn Herring Here is my newest installation of Refresh Daily Rewind, where we get back to the basics of activating our creative center. In this video, our topic turns to the Heart. From my sincerely refreshed heart to yours!
Welcome back to my art journal pages! This particular spread, Forge Ahead, is unique for several reasons. First of all, it took a total of six weeks to complete due to delays, blocks and lack of energy/inspiration. With the recent changes I made to my studio (which I detail here in A Creative Experiment), the energy wasn't flowing quite as well as usual. And I'm still working out the logistics of where everything should go as far as my three work spaces, but at least I made progress! I had no idea that this spread was open on my desk for so long. I looked at the date of my previous spread and was very surprised at this discovery. I thought it was at most, three weeks. Another way this spread, Forge Ahead, is unique is the way I started it. Usually I put down color first, but this time, I started with the words, Forge Ahead, stamping out the letters with a new ink pad I recently purchased, another new approach. I usually stamp with watercolor. So with two new approaches to this spread, the words and falling letters stayed that way for a while. I had to think out what would come next. Collage is always a welcome addition to my journal spreads, but the first time I thought about it, I wasn't sure what colors I wanted to use so I put it off for a bit. Eventually I did come back to it and chose earthy tones from my magazine stash. I started with the darkest hue, then on to orange and then the skin tones. I liked the way the color scheme came together. (I also had a later thought when this spread was complete that the lightest colored collage pieces reminded me of sustaining bread when you're in need of nourishment during hard times.) The other way this Forge Ahead spread is unique is it includes my first attempt at working with a homemade modeling paste using gesso and...baby powder? ;) It did do the job as you can see below with the close up of using a stencil in between the letters, but I must say that I won't plan to use baby powder for this job again. The smell from the talc was too overpowering to make it workable. (I did look up other possibilities and plan to try baking soda next time.) Once I had the modeling paste installed, it was time to decorate with color. The thought that came to mind was Forge being a source of Fire, so the color scheme between the letters and around the collage pieces is associated with fire. Once I added watercolor as fire based hues, I also added a bit of oil pastel to give it a bit more texture. Once I had this done, I really took a good look at the texture from the modeling paste and the long thin shape of the stencil, and realized it reminded me of bones. When that came to mind, I was like, Yikes! Bones? Yes, bones. And with the color scheme of fire, it could appear to be like a war zone. I found this to be somewhat disturbing. (This is what I often refer to as the subconscious coming to the fore!) So I began to think about Forging Ahead and what that can sometimes look like. Life is not all sweetness and roses. As a matter of fact, it can sometimes be downright difficult! Like you're in a war zone.
We don't often like to think about the challenges and difficulties of life but sometimes there's a time and a place for it; and for me, with this spread, it was a time and place. When I forge ahead, do I sometimes feel like I'm wounded from various life experiences? If so, what kind? That really got me to thinking and journaling too! Journaling Prompt**: When have you recently found yourself feeling "bloody" or wounded by a life experience? Has this situation happened before, just in a different context? Honor that experience by validating whatever you have felt and may still be feeling from this. You may want to use a fire colored pen or marker or crayon (red, orange, yellow) to express your deepest feelings. Art Journal Prompt**: Using the colors of fire, Red, orange and yellow, using wet media, oil pastel, or using collage materials, create an art journal spread to express any woundings you have experienced, whether recently or from a memory that comes to the fore. Using the word Forge, do a mind map, writing down any associative words or phrases that come to mind. See if any repeating words/phrases show up and use them in an art journal spread. When we honor our life experiences by either writing about them or create visuals to commemorate them, we give space to validate how we feel and how we would like these wounding experiences to be resolved. By the way, as an end note on this Forge Ahead Spread, I wanted to share that I did not find this particular spread to be visually attractive. I wasn't even sure if I would share it publicly, but I decided to share this experience with you all so we can see the benefits of working in our art journal and listening to our hearts. <3 Copyright 2015 by Dawn Herring Copyright 2015 Art Images by Dawn Herring **This prompt is not meant to be a substitute for counseling. |
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Dawn HerringDawn engages in many roles: As Writer/Blogger and Artist/Creative and Founder of Refresh with Dawn Herring: Where Art and JOY Align, She enjoys sharing from her vast experience as award-winning, life-long artist and leader in the field of written journaling, offering encouragement and proven tips to other journal keepers. Dawn's focus is on written journal keeping, artistic expression and finding your Creative Voice, and positive change that leads personal empowerment, encouraging you to leave your authentic and positive mark in the world. Dawn is a Commercial artist, hand letterer/illustrator and writer/blogger and enjoys sharing insights, humor, and encouragement as she shares from her life experiences as a woman, wife, mother of two grown daughters and as a Grandparent to a special needs grandson. She enjoys keeping a journal and reading spiritual texts to help keep the light on. May JOY Align with Your Creative Heart. Archives
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