Bread of Life!

mixed media collage~j N-L

The theme for this past week's creative play day was, "your favorite food".

Clearly this piece takes a bit of explaining!

So here goes....

One of the spiritual disciplines which I have begun practicing recently is that of fasting. I decided to try this discipline for a variety of reasons. The first and primary reason, is that I desire to grow closer to God. Over the years, and in many ways, food has replaced God in my life. I have reached a place in my life's journey where I deeply desire for God to be my center. I want to hunger for Him and Him alone!

At any rate, last week when I began my weekly fast, the scripture I meditated upon that morning was from John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son. Generous inside and out, true from start to finish." (The Message)

It was then that I decided to depict my favorite food, by drawing a neighborhood, that features a home where the Holy Bible is the door.

That house is my house, it symbolizes both my body and my place in the world.

Don't you see?

Like Christ, I want to be bread for the world. I want to nourish, and to affirm life within my neighborhood!

When I hunger, I want to hunger for Him! When others hunger, it is my prayer that I am able to feed them as Christ our Lord has fed me!

Does that make any sense at all?

Oh well, whether it makes sense or not, here's how I created the piece!

First I took a four inch by four inch piece of foam core board. I taped the four edges with aluminum repair tape. I used Crayola crayons to color the center. I then used gel medium to adhere two layers of a sheer, lacy white paper (it's so sheer, that it reminds me of gauze) onto the foam core board.

On a seperate piece of paper, I used the crayons to draw some little houses. I gave the houses a wash with yellow ochre watercolor. I cut them out and glued them on to the foam core board.

I adhered yet another layer of the sheer paper around the houses. (Oh man! I had a grand old time trying to cut that gauzy paper out around those little houses!) I used a little Lumiere paint to add dimension and sparkle to the background...

The edges were painted using crimson and bronze acrylic and then sealed with a clear fixative.

Voila!

The bread of life!

Another girl at play!

"The key to happiness is having dreams and the key to success is making them come true."

If you dream of financially supporting yourself through your art, let me just assure you that this is not only possible, but that it is possible for you!

Don't believe me?

Check out "Another Girl At Play"!

The women on this website are all successfully self employed with their business based on their artistic talents.

They did it!

...and so can you!

Tuesday's Play Day!

The theme for this week's artistic play day was "stars".

I wish I could have snapped a picture that captured the true colors of this project.

When you look at the picture above and the one below, think rich purple and bronzy reds, with gorgeous greens and topaz!



Ahhh well, this piece was done on a piece of 4 x 4 inch studio wrapped canvas. I painted the canvas with a mixture of crimsom and bronze acrylic, followed by a wash of purple Lumiere paint.

I then painted the watercolor background and the christmas tree on watercolor paper. The tree has been accented with gel medium mixed with Lumiere paint.

Thanks to my trusty ole heat gun, I was able to speed the drying process....

I used gel medium to attach the bone star to the top of my tree and proceeded to glue the hand torn tree onto a piece of gorgeous, royal, deep purple card stock.

The entire tree ensemble, was then collaged onto the canvas.

My final addition was the small antiqued copper tag that reads "Believe", which I placed underneath the watercolor tree.

It's a sweet little piece!

If only the pictures did my little "Tree Au Naturale" justice!

Tuesday's Play Day!

Beeswax collage on foam core board~j.n-l

I belong to a mixed media art group and we have decided to make every Tuesday an artistic play day.

Each week a new theme will be announced and each artist has the day to complete and upload an image of their work of art. The only "rules" are that each artist must incorporate the theme into a 4 inch by 4 inch art piece. This kind of piggy backs on the whole "art squared" concept that is very hot in the mixed media world right now.

The theme for this week was, "candle(s)".

Normally, I would do some "light of the world" kind of thing; but yesterday was my youngest son's birthday. Sooooo, I did a little birthday tribute for him instead!

This 4 X 4 collage was made with using foam core board (I covered the core board with a water color background), beeswax, recycled birthday candles, a metal rimmed slide mount and a photo of my son when he was younger. I printed the quote, "Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven." on tissue paper and collaged it to the foam core board.

This little piece of art squared can sit in a small easel, or hang on the wall!

Ok, so the collage itself isn't all that fancy...but, it was fun to create and my son loves it!

In fact, he was so impressed that he is going to take it for "show and tell" at school this week.

You know you've hit a grand slam when your child wants to take your art to show and tell!

LOL!

Ahhhhh children! You just gotta love them, don't you?