The Documented Life Project - Week 2

Well, this is Easter weekend after all and I have to make the most of all this free time - 3 hours until the dog needs to be walked again!

So, let's move to Week 2 - Incorporate a Selfie

I took a picture of myself and wasn't too happy with it, then I had a look through Picasa. Here is the result:

• First I had a look through the People section in Picasa
• Second I selected about twenty pictures of me that I liked
• Third I picked Collage - but the Collage option didn't take my chosen photos - it incorporated all the pictures of me in People - and I loved the resulting texture
• Fourth I glued it to a blank page 
• Fifth I added little dots around it to frame it 
• Sixth I drew lines and wrote words that describe me in one way or another
• Seventh I scribbled over those words with Neocolor II water-soluble pencils and applied water to bring out the colours
• Eighth  I applied some Reeves acrylic paint (gold) to brighten it and hide the words
• Ninth I called it done

The Documented Life Project - Week 1

I recently discovered this art project called The Documented Life Project. And now I feel the need to abandon all other art projects I had in mind to pursue, and maybe some day catch up with, this group of artists.

The whole idea is to use a weekly planner and to incorporate art into it every week, with a theme chosen by the 5 ladies who set up this project.

Well this is April already, and I'm not going to go and buy a 2014 planner now, plus I don't think I'd find a shop that would sell me one. But that's not going to stop me from enjoying this. And I'm not good with weekly deadlines anymore - where is the project manager in me? Gone out the door the day we got a dog!

So here is my effort for Week 1 - to photograph, sketch, paint or incorporate your front door:

• First I took a photo (obviously)
• Second I decided to jazz up the colours in Picassa
• Third I chose a pre-painted page in one of my journals - colours left over from one of my Gelli prints
• Fourth I glued the photos on the facing pages
• Fifth I wrote a few words
• Sixth I applied my lovely alphabet stickers (from Art&Hobby shop), just in case you couldn't read my writing
• Seventh I doodled a small little bit
• Eighth I stamped little hearts with my own stamp
• Nineth I called it done

Running out of time

I got a delivery from Boden a few days ago, and my parcel was wrapped in their signature polka-dot tissue paper. I knew then I had found what I needed to complete this page! It's still busy, but I think it's done now.

And the facing page - the columns on the sides are wide sellotape applied to a dry Gelli plate to lift the remaining paint (check out the technique here):

Running out of time

Work in progress - gelli print scraps printed on tissue paper and glued to journal page (prepped with brayer cleaning); silhouette from a magazine printed with gelli plate; sticker alphabet from Art&Hobby shop, clock stamps from Urban Stamps.

I think I might add an acrylic glaze to unify the lot - it's a bit bitty right now, don't you think?

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Voodoo at Baros, Maldives

Very small video, I know, but given this was filmed on an iPhone and I wasn't right by the stage, that's not too bad. And it's the sound that matters. These guys are so good - Voodoo - once a week at Baros, Maldives

Travel Sketches - 9

Palm trees are very sketchable

and watercolourable 

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Walking Donuts and A Chain of Donuts

Gelli printing is completely addictive! (PS - gold acrylic paint doesn't show on these scans, unfortunately)

Travel Sketches - 8

At this stage, I'd say you're getting the idea - beach, sea, palm trees, ...

The band whose name I wrote down there, Voodoo, is a Maldivian band that played on Baros once a week. They played a lot of Pink Floyd, and also some reggae. I've never been a Pink Floyd fan, unlike my other half, but these guys were very good. We even asked them to play "Girl you'll be a woman soon", a Neil Diamond classic, and their bass player knew it and sang it alone with a  guitar - the other band members were probably horrified!

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Donuts x4

This is a great design for greeting cards! The bronze colour is Reeves' Acrylic Fine Artist Quality from the Art&Hobby shop

Sundowners

Mine was a lime juice - a cup of green tea is not quite the same!

Beating heart

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

This might not be quite finished, but I was so pleased with it I wanted to share it with you. I was inspired by a Facebook post by a lady called Jenny MacRunnel. She had cut out little dress patterns out of gelli prints. It was so pretty I had to try it too.

So I found a pretty paper doll dress on www.sweetlyscrappedart.blogspot.com,  cut it out and traced it  on a gelli print that "hadn't quite worked out". It was so much fun, I had to cut a few. The shape of the dresses reminded me of the Sound of Music (in case you were wondering about the title of this post).

I then glued them to a journal page, prepped with acrylic paint rolled with my brayer (that's how I clean my brayer after applying paint to my gelli plate - I hate wasting paint, and it's so much easier to start a journal page when you already have a colourful background to inspire you)

A few dots and details applied with a Letraset metallic marker and a white pen (my favourite is the Uni-Ball Signo). And a bit of shadowing with a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen (cold grey)


I might stamp a few words - my handwriting is so appalling apparently!

Donuts

I was on a roll - I've decided to call them donuts - (a few more to come):

And here is the polaroid view from Picasa, which I'm always quite fond of:

Spring colours

A really simple Gelli print: turquoise blue background, with an imprint from an Ikea drawer liner. Then a fairly transparent yellow-orange layer, with areas masked by hand-cut wobbly circles (I used a gyro-cut tool to cut plain paper. I find that after a few applications of acrylic, the paper is strong enough to withstand repeated prints). The paint I chose is Reeves' Acrylic Fine Artist Quality from the Art&Hobby shops. They have some really bright and happy colours in the range - I do like their gold and silver paints a lot.

Travel Sketches - 7

I told you I was trying to sketch more!

I also use my little black moleskin book to take notes of anything that catches my attention or that I want to remember, since my grey cells are not what they used to be. So, in case you're wondering, Huvafenfushi is the name of another island in the Maldives. I had difficulty remembering its name so I wrote it down! It used to be called Nakatchafushi and it was really laid back. Now it's all posh and expensive and it had to have a matching name. But do have a look at their website - it's wow. Even an underwater spa! That said, my memory is that the reef in Nakatchafushi wasn't as good as Baros.  Well, maybe that's changed too.

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Travel Sketches - 6

Travel Sketches - 5

Another beach view

And a little fun with Picasa

Black-tip reef shark, Baros, Maldives

We love the sharks. So hard to photograph them, though. And they look bigger in the water. These guys are no more than a meter long. We must look really big to them.

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Eagle Ray, Baros, Maldives

I think Eagle Rays are my favourites. This clip was filmed by Shuhaina (known by all as Sugar), the expert snorkeler from the Marine Center at Baros, Maldives. She took us on a day snorkel and two night snorkels. Wonderful memories! She's got a eye for spotting fish and other creatures that I would swim right past, and of course she takes great pictures!

The currents on the house reef were quite strong when we were there, so you would glide past at quite a speed without having to kick at all. And when we'd get to the end, Sugar would ask "Do you want to go again?" Yes!

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Yoga on the beach

Well, not quite on the beach, but pretty close.

I enjoyed my yoga sessions with Abimanhyu, the yoga teacher at Baros, Maldives.

I'm not quite as flexible as I thought I was!

Travel Sketches - 4

Quality will only come after quantity - that's a lesson I learned from my current favourite book on drawing and sketching. In other words, practise practise practise. What you sketch may not be very good at first, but you will only get better if you keep practising!

So, yes, this one definitely falls in the category of quantity rather than quality.

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Travel Sketches - 3

A detail from a bush on the beach

Yoga, Baros Maldives

Great teacher! Loved the yoga at Baros, Maldives

Hawksbill Turtle - Baros, Maldives

Yes, that's me swimming with a turtle! I'm the luckiest girl in the world!

Hermit Crab

The Wildlife of the Maldives - Lizard

Isn't he a beauty?

Baros - panorama

A panoramic view of the sea and sky at Baros, Maldives :

Travel Sketches - 2

I was on a roll! Second sketch of the day - the plane's engine!

Travel sketches - 1

On this holiday, I finally found the secret to sketching regularly: it is to have a very small notebook that I could carry with me the whole time and whip up without being noticed. 

I'm not a confident sketcher - I would not be able to cope with people wanting to have a look at what I'm drawing. (I can hear you say "but you have no problem sharing these same sketches on the web" - I know; it makes no sense) So having a small Moleskine made a big difference for me. I carried it in my handbag or in my hand everywhere we went (except in the water, where a Lumix camera was my tool of choice) and I did little drawings of things that caught my eye. Like the light fixture and light patterns on the wall in the DAA lounge in Dublin airport.

Anemone and anemone fish

From Baros's coral nursery.

Discover all the activities offered by the Marine Biologist and her team at Baros. They do amazing work.