Soul Food Treasure Hunt and Taped Pages

I had a lot of fun with this page, treasure hunting for images. That’s the Mona Lisa Smile in the top left hand corner, followed by Something Beautiful – a full blown rose. On the second line, a traffic light is my Something Red (No Left Turn – probably something deep and meaningful here), some nice stones for Something Blue, a very comfortable looking cat for the prompt `Comfortable’ and a Lotus perfume label for Something Exotic.

Line three starts with Something I Want – this house looks like my second favourite John Williamson song `A home among the gum tees’ (the first is Cootamundra Wattle), followed by Something I Own -I am a believer in impermanence, the only thing I really own is my past – the line ends with something that smells nice -lavender!

Line four stars with Something That Tastes Good – a golden plum- yum! Then I had to find eyes like my own. Mine are green. The circle, the hand and the butterfly are self explanatory, and the letters we had to find cunningly spell ART.

As I am using a large book,everything fit on the one page. We had doodle on the page after, but I used way more than eight words. Just can’t shut up once I get started.

This was fun too – we had to chuck tape all over the pages,sand it off then finish with a colour we hadn’t used before. I chose a mix of green and gold – yes, I’ve used gold before, but I loved it here, blending into the green. Besides, the Olympics start soon, and it seemed the patriotic thing to do.

Soul Journal – Pages 1 + 2

Believe it or not this is my name page!  I was reluctant to do this – I am not sure why, but once I got started I had such fun – what a great experience – I spent hours, doodling, colouring, sticking, playing.  It really loosened me up.  I am thinking that in all future journals, and where I have space in those I have already done or started I shall make room or tip-in a name page – it is well worth it and definitely shows who owns the book.

I am with Gail in that I don’t do armour either.  This is a drawn copy of an image I created some fifteen years ago – she is one emanation of several protector-teachers that I have – at the time of her creation (she is a stitched tapestry on canvas) She named herself Raven Mother – quite apt eh .  The mirror at the centre of her chest is to deflect and reflect negativity, the spiral shield I have placed at her crown as it represents for me both internal and external negative criticism and put-downs…the spiral transforming/transmuting these or just spiraling them away from me.  The red stone on the left depicts heat/energy and nature both nurturing and inspiring aspects of life.

Jill

http://meanderingmuse.wordpress.com

My Soul Journal pages

The Claiming my Book page turned out to be quite hard, as other journalers have found – in my case, I have never found my name to be terribly inspiring anyway. But I struggled on and then realized I had a chance to use my new glittery gel pens and practice some calligraphy – so that’s what I did.

The Protecting Our Creative Souls page also stumped me for a bit. I really had to think about how I do this, because I have never imagined myself with a suit of armour, or any other protective gear – then it struck me. I have always protected myself with the guise of a clown – long ago, when I was growing up as a traveller and performer, I wore clown clothes to hide myself from the audience – I was shy and didn’t really like performing. When I need to protect myself, I do it with laughter, I turn the situation into a joke – I still wear the mask of a clown. After that, it was easy – there is a small suit of armour inside, but it’s the clown who still shields me. I found a paper Columbine doll that I had been keeping for something special and painted a white clown face on her. The background is red and gold paint mixed together – real circus colors.

new soul journal pages

I’m all caught up now and here are my pages to date….

don’t forget that you can play too….. just visit Caspiana and she’ll tell you the rules!

xoxo Samm

soul journal journey

I’ve been following a soul journal journey via another blog

Sarah started this journey 10 days ago and I thought I’d start my own and post here at SFC so that anyone else interested could join in the fun.  I’m adding my own bits and pieces to the journey (as one does!) so I’ll post my pages here as they get done and will let you know if I use any alternative techniques to those on Sarah’s blog as I go……

page one

page two

Sarah calls page two the “soul armour” page, signifying strength and fortification when it comes to our creativity.  I chose not to use the images that she suggested (despite the fact that I loved them!) as the image of doors and buildings seemed to have more significance to me at this point.

For this page, I have used two techniques that I use regularly in my art work.  I transferred the image of the door using a gel medium transfer technique and the surrounding “brickwork” is creating using a gouache resist technique, both are favourites that I teach in my workshops.

If you decide to have a go at this journal, make sure to post the pictures here.  We’d love to see them.

xo Samm

colour does the soul good…

on my return from a weekend artists retreat, exhausted and not really sure which way was up, i needed a little bit of cheering up. i pulled out a collection of papers, a couple of favourite collage books and tubes and tubes of bright paints…… ta dah!

and bound into 8 individual signatures, the following a particular favourite, has become my journal of the weekend retreat’s thoughts and photos….

there’s more here

xoxo

Samm

the door to Lemuria

The door is always open here at Soul Food Cafe, and that’s what I love about this place.

Sometimes (ok, alot of the time), I am lost, hidden behind the high fortress walls and fortified doors but at least I know that Lemuria is just behind those doors, waiting for me, always.

This one’s a new technique I’m working on – a combination of a few that I have slowly but surely been making my own. It’s not a finished piece, just a snapshot of the larger picture that I’ll post sometime when it’s done.

Samm

www.hoardersdaughter.wordpress.com

xo

Bookmarks for the Bahamas

I made these 3 bookmarks in response to a request posted in another group for bookmarks. Each person was asked to make 3 bookmarks which will be sent to a school in the Bahamas which was destroyed by a recent hurricane. Apparently the children love books and these bookmarks may bring a spot of happiness to their lives. If anyone wants more details of this project please contact me privately.

The base supports are ordinary luggage labels covered with handmade paper on which I have glued postage stamps. The tags are old Pokemon gaming counters which have been given a new lease of life.

Twisted Tuesday – fish out of water

A new challenge blog started up this week, called Fluffy Flatbottom’s Twisted Tuesday and the first challenge was to make a postcard sized piece of art on the theme of Fish out of Water.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the hair of the fashionable world in England soared to new heights and some truly preposterous hair-do’s were seen out and about. This is my tongue-in-cheek version of an aquarian-themed hairdo.

Carol’s magic garden ATCs