I've been tagged! and some art

Yeah I have been tagged!

Lovely Bev has tagged me to list 6 things which bring bliss into my life.
Well, they are the simple things in life.........

1. when my daughter falls asleep on my lap



2. slow Sunday mornings when I'm cooking pancakes and the girls are playing outside and we are all listening to Jack Johnson singing in the background



3. walking barefoot on the beach



4. celebrations with friends and family and food is spread out, people talking and laughing and lots of noise



5. quietly sitting in the warm morning sun with a cup of tea and a good book/magazine undisturbed



6. our dinner ritual, every night we all sit together to have dinner and catch up on the days events

So here they are, as you can see nothing too out of the ordinary, but definately bring me joy to know that I have opportunities in daily life to appreciate what I have.

I have no idea who to tag next but if I do come up with someone I will list who they are.

This week I have been finishing off work.
This acrylic painting has been done on brown paper, then with a black marker outlined and textured with some chalk pastels. I did write some words in it but the photo shot hasn't got
enough detail. (click on image to see more detail)The messages are:

"Reach for the stars"

"Create"

"Love Yourself"

They are meant to be like affirmations, to help the viewer achieve the positive thoughts.
The middle picture is a doodle painting, sort of like doodling with a pen except I used a small brush with paints.
What do you think of the idea? I would like to incorporate more of these doodle paintings in my work, once I have figured out which way I am going with my art. I have no style of my own and am feeling a little lost as to what to create sometimes.
But experimenting has been good too, it's allowed me to let go of, no expectations, freeing me up, as Leah in Creative Every Day has said to allow yourself to create ugly work, so I give myself permission to just create, and when the time is right my muse will guide me in the right direction. I feel like I am now gathering the tools, the experiences, to then go forth and create with more of my spirit/identity/personality (not sure what to call it?).

And here is some of my experimenting I did with inks. Love them but not so good with handling them. The first one is an ink blowing exercise , I used burnt umber acrylic ink,which you are meant to make the inks flow into a tree figure then with a brush and some water make some leaves on the branches, to go with the "Nature" theme. I did these on watercolour paper and I think it soaked the inks too quickly and I feel it didn't work.


The other two were just playing around, trying to blend two colours together, and an oil pastel using three different colours, brushed blue ink on top. Once dry I scratched different patterns out.

I had fun playing around with inks, might use them in some drawings in the future, or even in my journalling.

Last week went to an art shop and bought myself a journal, still sitting there looking at me. Once I get started I will be O.K. the ball will start rolling as such, but at the moment the journal in empty, how does one start a brand new journal? What do I put in my first page?Do I do an intro of my self, my goals, the journals purpose? How have you started your journal?

Angie ox