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As I told you a few weeks ago, I signed up for Art House “Sketchbook Project 2011” and today, look at what the postman put in my mailbox:

I love the stamp on the enveloppe 😀

YES, the paper of the sketchbook is like cigarette paper: really really thin. It’s good for pencils, but markers will bleed through and it won’t hold paint/collages.
So I will have to take the pages out (and i’ll make another sketchbook for myself with it, no waste) and put some heavier paper in there. The thing is, I am not a binder. I want to, I am learning, but it’s still unfamiliar for me. It’s a simple binding, as you can see (click to enlarge… it was hard to picture, sorry if it’s still kind of blurry).

I take any help you can give to me about the re-binding (and I know it will help a lot of others who also want to do so without knowing exactly how).

Oh, and the theme I decided to work on is “FIGURING YOU OUT“. It may lead to something intersting 😀

I want also to add: don’t be afraid to join. I was. I still am. It’s huge for me, like now I can tell my Gremlins “see, I am an artist”, people will see it, I won’t keep it all for myself. You can too, and you’ll feel great when you’ll send it back for the tour and then the permanent exhibition.

It’s one of the project I do in my “being BIG & FEARLESS path”.

EDIT: question for those who participate => do you know if it’s allowed to rebind the sketchbook differently than with stiches ? for example thanks to something like the Bind-it-all ? (thanks to Kyra for bringing this up)

Do you know Zentangles ? I’m pasting what is said on the official Zentangle website:

Zentangle is an easy to learn method of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns. It is a fascinating new art form that is fun and relaxing. It increases focus and creativity. Zentangle provides artistic satisfaction and an increased sense of personal well being. Zentangle is enjoyed by a wide range of skills and ages and is used in many fields of interest.

It’s beautiful pieces of patterns put together.

I’m not a patient woman and I don’t like taking too much time on tiny little details… and because of it, when I first tried Zentangles (after seing Milliande’s videos on Youtube), i nearly threw away my journal of anger. Oops.

But this week, I received so many signs about Zentangles that I couldn’t just ignore it and that’s why I decided to give it another try.
Thanks to Kerri on Twitter, I found some amazing patterns ! It really helps to have a kind of “patterns bank” somewhere when you don’t feel inspired, when you don’t know what to add and/or how to do it.

Click to enlarge

I started by tracing a 7×7 square on my journal page, and then with the biggest pen of my PittPens set I traced intuitive shape. When finished, I thought it looked like a kind of weird lotus flower, which I loved. And that is where the magic happened: I took every space alone and worked in it, not thinking about what will come next, what if I mess it up, just enjoying the repetition of the pattern in the area. And I filled it entirely, I didn’t give up, I liked it.
I love the fact that it taught me to be patient and calm with myself and with what I create. And that it was good not to stay on a bad experience.

Some useful links about Zentangles:
Zentangle.com
tanglepatterns.com

PS: I am starting to fill my FlickR photostream so come and have a look if you want; it’s there => http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolwennp/

Hello !

I hope you all had a wonderful week-end.

Today, I am going to share something that is very important to me, you may be okay with it. Or not. It’s alright if you’re not.

Since my early teenage years, I am a huge believer. I don’t call it “God” or “Allah”, it’s not a “He” or a “She”, sometimes I call it in French “Les P’tits Vieux” which I don’t find an appropriate term in English. For me, and it’s my personal point of view, It is both Feminine & Masculine, Dark & Light, Positive & Negative… the ambivalence in everything, everywhere. But most of the time, I simply refer to this Life Force as “the Universe“.

Before I discovered Art Journaling, I was an avid writer in diaries (since I was something like 7 years old) in which I glued and doodled sometimes. So the writing part is kind of important in my Art Journalin process; even just a word or a short sentence make me feel like it’s more complete.
I love writing unsent letters. Do you know this ? It’s simple: you write a letter to someone you have something to say (usually, it’s something painful you can’t tell directly to the person, but it can be anything you need), and when you are finished, you symbolically destroy it. What I do is that I safely burn it, visualizing all the negative feelings associated with it vanishing away; but you can burry it, tear the paper and flush it in a river: be creative, it can be absolutely anything (just be careful, ok ?) ! The major positive thing about it is because it stays “unsent” you don’t have to censure yourself and you can expose everything you feel, every word that needs to get out of you.

It is a very powerful way to keep going on your life without being hold back by old feelings. Give it a try 🙂

Click to enlarge

In this Art Journal page, I wrote a letter to The Universe to express my Gratitude regarding all the beautiful Souls that are coming into my life lately, and I ask for some guidance (You see, no need to be in pain to write an unsent letter). Gratitude is an important part of my life, that’s why I began the weekly ritual I call “Gratitude Friday“, you can read more about it there.
Then, I simply let the paint go on the page, trying not to overthink but to just enjoy the process.
I used my Silhouette to cut the stencils.
It’s not perfect at all. I made a glitch when i wanted to stencil the round thing in the left corner, using black fluid acrylic: bad idea, too liquide, it resulted in a huge black spot on the page. Not a problem, i just incorporated it and add some more texture with the bubble wrap while it was still wet. Before, I would have litterally panicked and the Gremlins would have been feroce with me “look at what you just did, you blew all your page, it’s ugly, boooooooo”. Not this time. So I notice a change in the way I see my Art Journal process and I am glad.
My girls wanted to participate and added the stars and butterfly. Pretty pretty.

And here is my first Art Journal video !! I want to deeply thanks all of you who told me they liked my first one about being BIG & FEARLESS, and for sharing it around you, I’m so blessed to have you, thank you !
I hope you’ll enjoy this one as well:

If you follow me on Twitter, you have noticed that I was close to throw my computer away yesterday… and nearly reached a state of nervous breakdown because of my video not uploading on YouTube. After 4 failed attempt and nealry 24 hours lost, I uploaded it on Vimeo (I don’t give up on YouTube but now it can wait) !

As you may know, my World lately turn around a few things, and the BIG eclass is one of them. We are at the end of the second weak together and I already feel like I belong with them. It’s something I realize I was unconsciously seeking.

Yes, you may think that I am totally obsessed with this class but Connie was right when she told me “I feel it’s what you need and it will change you” (not exactly with these words but the essence is there); and YES I am obsessed. I dream BIG, I wake up thinking on the next step, I feel BIGger and accept it easily.
Being BIG is not only about painting BIG. It is about (for me) accepting that you can do whatever your heart is calling, you can be whoever you wanna be. You deserve it. You are enough. You are worthy. You are beautiful the way you are.

So I wanted to really become fearless. I am a young woman that let fears guide her too many time. I take control now but I still feel overwhelmed by these doubts and fears and “what if…”.
I was willing to film videos of me making my Art Journal, Painting etc for something like a year, but the fear always kept me from it (“your voice is awful” “how would you do as people read your blog in French and others read you in English” “you are fat and ugly and not pleasant to watch”……).
I went through that and just set my camera so you don’t see my face and that’s it. After all, it’s what most of art journalers do on their videos. Mine is simple: it was the first one EVER. But I really really enjoyed the process, and the editing with my husband who helped me a lot. I want to do more 😉

So… here it is. I am going BIG and FEARLESS:

Here is what it looks like:

PS: I finally succeeded in uploading it on YouTube, in the power of letting go I trust 😉

During the last five weeks, my Mum was with us on vacations from France, here in Vancouver. She left yesterday…

My mum is a woman who always was very creative and has this capacity to create something wonderful from scratch. It was good to be reminded how a creative child I was, I tend to forget this point. And how I love making things with her.

We went to Centennial Beach with two friends on a windy week-end day for celebrating our first barbecue of the season (and we had plenty more since !), and we took this chance to grab some goodies Mother Natures left for us on our way: driftwood, beautiful seashells, pine cones etc.

One drifwood piece caught my eye and look what we immediatly saw in it: a DRAGON ! It was obvious to us that this piece of wood was a pure treasure we had to transform 😉

Click pour agrandir

Creativity really can be EVERYWHERE ! and is not only about painting 😉