Going Into June

 June is upon us so I have my calendar pages ready to go:

 The first page is a deli paper gelli print background on which I glued images from a magazine and outlined them with charcoal. The numbered page on the left of it looks like the one in the second photo. For those pages each month I use Peerless watercolors. The second page is an acrylic painting. I'll share a bigger photo below.

 Breaking news from the nest!!!

In this photo there are 3 babies- and only hours old. I now know that the 4th egg has hatched but I held off disturbing the basket with my camera. I'll share a new pic next post. So exciting to see!

It was a quiet holiday weekend for us and the weather was very mixed so I got to play in my journal, make cards, and postcards. This time I worked on a desk in a bedroom:

 This is one of the completed postcards:

 Darkroom Door Coffee Time stamp set-coffee mug, beans, coffee stain;  sentiment was a freebie download which sadly I forget from where:(  Joining Elizabeth and friends for T Stands For Tuesday!

 I was also playing with my poppy stamp and made two cards:

 The first one is for the Simon Monday Challenge with the theme this week of "We're going around in circles". These were quick and easy to put together. The poppies were colored with alcohol markers and highlighted with a white gel pen. The top one was done on Neenah Classic Crest 110lb. paper, the second with 140 lb. watercolor paper. I much prefer the Neenah paper when using the alcohol markers!

Products: patterned note cards- DCWV La Creme; poppy stamp - Magenta; sentiment - Papertrey Ink; Spectrum Noir alcohol markers; white gel pen; black card stock; Neenah Classic Crest 110lb. paper; Archival Jet Black ink; stitched circles dies - Our Daily Bread Designs. 

 And here is the impressionist page I painted in my calendar journal for the second half of June:

 Todd saw it and said- "of course you had to have the ocean in it" ;). This is the first time I used a base coat of acrylic in a soft cream and yellow ochre before painting the scene and I like the subtle effect under the layers of added paint. It's also the first time I did something like this with only a few colors and lots of layering and mixing and was very pleased with the results so I'm aiming to do more! Great tips and inspiration from the book Bold Expressive Painting by Annie O'Brien Gonzales!

 Also joining in with Paint Party Friday this week. A bientôt!

          " Find a way to express what moves you."    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi