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If you’ve been reading me for some time, you know how obsessed I’ve been with Lindy Stamp Gang‘s products for a few years now. Most of their products are two-tone shimmered (meaning the base is one color, the shimmer is another one). In this painting, I used their Starburst Sprays, shots and a Magical Mica (it is a two-tone mica powder, that you can use with a waterbrush, or any medium).
I am the newest addition to their Design Team and could not dream of a happiest news this week 🙂

Comfort zone. I love getting out of mine. Yes, despite the unexpeted it tends to bring because well, it causes discomfort (logical my dear Watson !). My challenge was to use mostly blue, white and red. I use all the three colors, but rarely together though (even if I love teal and red together).

I am falling in love with using watercolor paper as my surface (and it is easier to ship to you if you buy the painting, yaaay). I wanted to see how well (or not) it supported heavy gel, so I tried using super heavy gesso with a stencil.

You can find what I used in the list at the end of the post.

Original painting for sale in the shop (with more on her backstory).

I started my first layer with ripped pages from The Da Vinci Code book (we have it, and I bought this edition from our public library for almost nothing). I wanted the text to still show through the next layers here and there. The title of the painting was found within the sentences of the book pages, these three words just made sense to me and I knew I wanted to keep them.

The products from Lindy Stamp Gang are so insanely colorful and shimmery, it kind of counter the sadness in this Nixie’s eyes…

The Spirit of the Rabbit has been showing up to me for a month or so, it was at its Zenith while in Port Townsend where I could not help be see Him emerge in my paintings.
The Rabbit does not only symbolizes fertility, but also embodies gentleness.

This Nixie is anxious by nature, but when she puts her Rabbit suit on, everything falls into places.

I am trying to find my way in my «old» shading process for my faces, and all the goodness I learned during Sugar & Spice from Danielle, Mindy and Juliette. AND I am taking this fantastic online class by Micki Wilde, called Paint Happy, and she teaches plenty of techniques to shade the faces.
I love experimenting, so I am drawing lots of faces in my Art Journal, and play with different processes to find what makes my heart sing (and my mind content with the look). I’m getting there !

Texture, texture… texture. The tools created by Catalyst are the bomb, I use their Blades to apply my media and create shapes, the Wedges are wider, and I’ve just discovered their new Contour tool that is a lot smaller, so are the edges. It makes it easy yet fun for me when I create. Using wet paint to then add designs in it, this is my happy place…

If you have suggestions for this new Animal Spirits serie, please feel free to share them with me 🙂

I hope you enjoy watching me paint:

Here are the supplies I used for this painting:

Watercolor Paper Soft Gel Catalyst Blade #6 Spectra Deluxe Art Tissue Afternoon Delight Denim Peony Scarlet Red- Spray Haunted Halloween Hottie Patottie- Magical Mica Jamaican Jungle Blick Matte Acrylics Golden Fluid Acrylic Catalyst Wedge 02 Catalyst Contour tool Stabilo All pencil Black Neocolor II

Happily happening in my world currently:

Listening to Mom and Cheridoo talking about Religion and Spirituality and Philosophy.

Seeing the red shoes Grenouille is proudly wearing.

Knowing that we deeply love one another for who we are.

Feeling like my life is going where it’s supposed to go.

Appreciating the week-end family adventure.

Loving the cuddles from Koala.

What’s happening in your own world today?

Gratitude Friday is a weekly ritual I started in order to focus on all the small and big positive things that happened during my week. I invite you to join me, you’ll see how much being thankful can change your life. If you want to know more about it, read my introduction post.

Happy Friday !

*sigh of happiness*
Sometimes, we really need very little to be happy (and on the contrary, we sometimes also need very little to be upset).

I am filled with Gratitude, more and more. And I really hope that this little ritual of mind will encourage you to pause for an instant and reflect on what makes you happy.

This week, I am thankful for:

• Technology, it allows me to connect with my friends that are (very) far away.
• The bags Mom sewn for the girls.
• Losing weight.
• Journaling again and feeling free to write when I want.
• The new direction my art seems to be taking.
• Cocktails night. We had lots of fun with Nancy & David and enjoyed the cocktails happily made by my Chéri.
• Embracing all that I am.
• Learning music again.
• Music.
• The tv show «Criminal mind». Our public library has all the seasons in DVDs, perfect !
• Dreams.
• Sharing. My paintings. My experiences. My process. My joy.
• New doors opening.
• My girls’ creativity *that has many unexpected faces*.
• My Husband and my Mom.
• It’s Beltaine today (the Summer Solstice), will find a way to celebrate.

I will send the next Inner Whispers (newsletter) very soon. You can sign up in the sidebar if you want to receive it —-»

If you wrote your Gratitude Friday on your blog, don’t forget to enter your NAME and URL below so I’m notified and can come to read you (you can also join by commenting this post):
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For our final day, our group was with Juliette. It actually was the class that made me the more nervous. But I’ve always been curious about how Juliette works on her paintings, I was eager to see the «behind the scenes» in more in details.

Juliette is sweet, it is the first word that comes in mind when I think of her (and she is so beautiful). When she is the room, everything felt calmer. Like it all fell into places just because she was there.

Passionate about sharing her stories, Juliette is also a writer. This is a common thread between the three artists that we had the chance to learn from at Sugar & Spice: the stories are told through their paintings. Each of them has her own way to convey her stories, but it is always there.

I hope that people will see that Juliette is SO MUCH MORE than her owls. I love seeing where her art is going, I see a great evolution and appreciate all the «in progress» pictures she shares.

Some of the things I learned from Juliette’s class:

• Every layer has its own meaning.
• Keep pushing until you love what is going on on your canvas.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment.
• There is a story behind each of her paintings.
• Not being afraid of covering it all up.
• Love the supplies you use.
• Simple can become complex.
• Don’t like this paint ? Use in to create painted papers. It’ll be covered up eventually !
• Use and abuse this paper you love, it’s okay to have it in every painting you currently create.
• It’s okay to see my art evolving, just go with it.
• Animals are fun to see emerging.

It was so nice to end up this amazing experience with Juliette. It was the calm needed to take everything in.

I am so happy to finally share a new video with you. It seems like forever since the last ones (a few weeks, actually). I think I really made the habit of recording and publishing a video once a week, and I am loving it for lots of reasons.

Since I came back from Port Townsend, my Mom tells me how my Nixies’ faces have changed. The shading is better. FINALLY *putting my arms high up in the air in a sign of victory* !!! I am not where I want to be with my faces yet, but I love the evolution I see, in such a short period of time. Growth spurt 🙂

I wanted to use this watercolor paper pad I bought a while back. I really enjoyed working on paper almost exclusively (until I gave in and found a store that was selling canvas boards) during Sugar & Spice, and wanted to keep that great feeling.

I collaged papers as a first layer: scrapbooking paper, Gelli plate printed deli paper (can’t get enough play with this ! so many possibilities), book page. I used Collage Pauge for the first time, to see what the fuss is about and why people love it. You’ll see in the video that the consistency of this glue is quite liquidy, and so I put a bit too much; however, that ended up ok as I used it to cover all the paper with eventually.

The three drops show up in every of my paintings. Maybe I will someday share with you were they come from and what they mean to me. But for now, I let you add a meaning to them if you want. The arrows… well, I love them.

I tried to incorporate some of the things I’ve learned recently for the shading. I still have a long way to go to find my own voice in the way I shade my faces, but I have no doubt that I will get there more sooner than later. 

This Nixie is for sale in the shop.

Here is the video, I hope you’ll enjoy (if you have any question, please feel free to ask me):