Wine Corks and Stamped Flowers

I brought my usual mixed media collection of art supplies to Mexico for a week of mission followed by a week of R&R. During the mission week I taught a workshop on the integration of mixed media art with thoughtful reflection (AKA Artsy Theology). I decided to leave my stencils and stamps for the group there to continue using as there are super limited art supply options in Los Cabos, Mexico. During my second week-when I actually had time to do my own art journaling-I had to improvise with materials since I had left most of them for the mission church to use. It was a creative challenge to improvise for an alternative tool or material after I'd reach for a favorite tool only to remember I didn't have it after all.

These beautiful yellow flowers edged the pool at the resort where we stayed for our week of R&R. After looking at them for several days I couldn't resist adding them to my art journal, so I made a stamp out of a wine cork (I'd given all my stamps away) and used watercolors to "ink" the stamp (I'd given away my acrylics and stamp pads). The combination made a lovely, soft rendering of this beautiful flower.

One end of the cork is a small circle for the center of the flower.

One end of the cork is the petal shape.

Subtracting Text Provides Focal Point for Reflection

Subtracting text from the printed page of an altered book is a focal point for intentional, thoughtful reflection. I start from a random page-chosen for no particular reason-and then slowly read and re-read and look for words that jump out at me; marking through all the excess words. I don't go into the reading with anything special in mind to "think about," but remain open and fluid to what the words bring to my mind.

 Somewhere in the middle of the repeated readings a theme emerges in my thought process-connecting the readings with what is going on in my life. I string together a selection of the remaining words into the message that has been jumping off the page and into my spirit. In this example the background is sponge painted watercolor on white gesso. I used stencils and marker pens to letter the words on the right page, and I added a collage of colorful papers as a visual doodle.