The Arful Journey - day 27, too tired.

work in a random scribbles journal, nothing to write home about...


and something yummy from christy's work, her stuff gives me hope.

another tired artist post...the move is almost over..and I will be back...I cant wait to be 'back'
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey - drawing, drawing drawing.

I spent the morning out and about alone today. Was a lovely change, I walked around slowly, got a few things bought for a swap partner, bought myself a moleskine sketchbook just to do some paper comparisons...bought my sister a gift before I leave on the weekend.

and I had lunch alone for the first time in a very long time, while I ate...I arted. Working on the last page in my journal, before I can go on, once this journal is finished, it's off to the library for a display cabinet of my work. (kind of surreal lol)

here is where I'm at with the spread.
I sat at my sister's adding inky flowers while we chatted, we are having dinner there tonight, as a good bye dinner, although I know she doesn't want it labelled like that... I'll miss her, I hope she knows that.



so I'm getting my blog in early, so that when I come home I can work more on the canvas, small bursts of art on that thing, sitting on the floor is hard! I'm no spring chicken now! hehe

see you tomorrow with more art! the countdown is on!!!
xx Courtney.

the artful journey - day 25 almost there

it's almost time to open up the door to my new art journal, just a few more tidbits to go in the current one! I'm excited...
after the little ones were in bed, and the man has driven home, nothing left to do but sit on my bedroom floor and work on my canvas for a while.


and on the subject of little humans...here they are at breakfast this morning..


sleep well, I know I will...
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey day 24 - pencils in the bed.

a little art in bed while watching project runway, and since I hadn't done any art for the day I started colouring in the last double page in my journal..almost another journal finished with one ready to be started!!


I think I'll do a little watercolour on her tomorrow if I get time.
all my stuff has been moved from the house and once the last of the furniture has gone it will be cleaning time..then I am done in ye ole Inverell.

thats all from me today, back to snuggling and tv watching.
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey - day 23 ..the Dreamed journal

So I'm exhausted, I've sat down after a big day of packing and more packing and my eyes and my body say no more of anything...so I'm listening. The other day Christy linked a video on her facebook profile, and it struck a cord..so much so I've watched the youtube vid more times than I'd like to say...its inspiring. So even though I may not have arted as such...art is still in my day..very much so..if only i could snapshop what gets created in my mind when I have other things to do!

so sit back, and enjoy a Dreamed Journal...because they are stunning...


I'm off to bed to wait for my man to walk through the door at like 1am...
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey day 21 - shade me slowly

Well I've been having a little fun late last night and during lunch time today...yesterday in the world of Jane, was blending day... to create a face from just shading no definite lines. So I sat and followed the video watching Jane add so much beautiful colour to her girls face.

these are my first two attempts at blending without having a face drawn first..and i must say I am in lurveee, I think from now on.. I'll work in colour...and just go with it.
I feel that I'm growing more and more each day within my art... I don't feel like a one trick pony anymore



I hope to fill my sketchbooks with leaps and bounds just like this one...for they make it all worth it, I'll always be a student of art..there will never be a moment where I go..I have grown all I can grow..this is my limit...art is limitless.
xXx Courtney

The Artful Journey - Day 20, Simple Things

from the teacher to the art-journal to the canvas, this is basically what's happening at the present moment. A prompt from Christy's course, translated down into my little canvas clad art journal, and now, it's being blown up onto a canvas as a birthday present.



impromptu mixing palette, my acrylic block for stamping... yes my mum was horrified as well it's ok.



and slowly the layers of paint get put down, yellows...gesso...white paint wash yellow..and so forth..till I get that the exactly level of tone... who knows when that will happen...I'm still working on the same one flower..and its day two.

Pitt Pen for the outline, then I'm going to use my dip pen and some india ink to do the smaller more intricate detailing of the petals and stems...all in between the chaos that is my 90% boxed up house.


I will admit, its nice having something to work on between the moments...to sort of ground you again...


I'm off to re watch Miss Jane's blending videos with my pencils in hand to follow on..maybe I'll have something different to show you besides the white ladies in grand size.
sleep well my dears.
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey day 19 - Tinkering.

In between the mess and the chaos I set up the dinning room table with a plastic tablecloth and what supplies I have left out, and played...pack boxes,get some at done. I'm currently running myself into the ground and rather sick, but I didn't let that stop me...I just had some wonky drawings through the coughing fits heheh.


The colours I packed in my art tote...were a tad crazy but I tried my best to make it work. with a quick lay down of paint, and a sketch I was on my way to getting back on track.


another project in the works is a birthday gift for a dear family friend...a big canvas of the lillie's journal page I did in Christy's course. It seems these flowers are a family favourite, this is by far one of my biggest works. So I sat in the afternoon sun, layering down three colours, two shades of yellow and white paint till I get the perfect look I want.



so that's my day, I'm rather tired, but I'm proud of myself for making a little art time for myself, and taking the time to photograph it, my images lately are as lack luster as how much sleep I'm getting... (hardly any)

enjoy your evening, I'm going to tape some more boxes together and keep the packing going so its not so frantic on saturday when the Removal guys rock up.

take care my dears!

The Artful Journey - Day 18 - new beginnings.

Can you tell I'm tired? when I use instagram as my way of taking my photos, it means I have no energy left to photograph my stuff. So tonight after I packed all day with some dear friends who have made me less stressed, they worked like trojans, getting almost everything packed up for the removalists this Saturday.

I have gessoed a canvas ready for me to start sketching onto it in the coming days....I am nuts can you tell? I'm moving house but I sit and gesso a huge canvas like nothing is happening in my life.

tomorrow I will photograph my easel in its true form..because it needs to be reconized for what it is..amazing.. My dad made me a custom easel, I was sick of leaning big canvases against my desk bookshelf. My darling dad has made me the most beautiful thing ever...complete with flourishes etched into the wood and with love from dad up the top..its one of my very cherished possessions.



and on the art journal front, I started working on my mixed media homework for Jane's class since it was the simplest thing I could cope with tonight after such a day... I gessoed the pages and started sketching but I'm not happy with it, so I think I'll rub it out and start again either tonight or tomorrow sometime during the day in between the last of the packing.
I'm going to curl up in my empty bed (first time without my man in two weeks and read until I know hes home.
pop over to traci's blog to see what shes creating for her get your art on.
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey - Pages in Progress

since I have alot on today, I decided to post my 'pages in progress' things that haven't been finished yet, and havent made it onto the blog because of it.

I'm still sketching for jane, just backs and butt's till we move on to something else! I'm so enjoying learning, one girl described it as - feeling like an arty sponge, trying to soak it all up..and it was a perfect description of how I feel.
on the Christy front, a page about using outside materials, like magazine pages and other things to create hidey holes in our journal.. like french doors almost.. I chose images of the same woman in a photobooth over the course of her life...


so interesting..she seemed so unhappy though lol.
and the leaf prompt Im still pluggin away at, maybe when I get back home, there will be more real life leaves to play with than here in sydney


so I'm off back to Inverell tonight, which is why my post is so early, need to get it done before I walk out the door in under two hours.
I shall see you tired and dirty from packing tomorrow..wonder what art I'll fit in lol.
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey - Junk in the Trunk

Evening my dears, quick blog post, as I've spent the entire day on my feet chasing little ones, doing almost no art at all!!!

I did however arrange my prismas into colour families and a set of my portrait colours.. Jane's course has giving me urges to put things in colour co-ordination!!



Today's lesson in janes course was all I got done today as it was portable, tomorrow in between packing I'm going to catch up on my Christy class!! that requires alot more supplies and a heap of arty mess!

so bodies! back's and butt's were todays lesson and gosh so much fun, and such quick tricks, I adore them lots more to draw to get it right.
so thats me done for today! I'm tired and sore from being action mumma all day!
see you tomorrow...with of course..more art.

The Artful Journey Day 14 - the quiet arting.

A quiet Wednesday night, just the tea and the pencils and the drawings. This week is coloured pencil week over on Jane's course, and we are all getting into the swing of it with faces and happy images using our pencils.



I'm enjoying drawing with a different style to my own, trying to bend it to my own style..whatever that may be. I still feel I'm chasing my own style, trying to grasp it and call it my own..one day I'll just know..that's my work and my work alone.






the little teacups, had fun today with some big brushes and some small piles of paint..I do however have little painty footprints outside my back verandah now heheh kinda cute!

Miss Lily..is happiest lately when shes arting..much like her mumma.
that's me for the night. I have so much to catch up on, few pages of Christy's course and more face practice, but tomorrow I'm off to the boy's parents place for the day, I think I'll take my sketch book and my pencils and get a little art done.

pop on over to Traci's blog to see what shes creating for Get Your Art On.
xx Courtney

The Artful Journey - Day 12..Magical Forests.

A puddle forest she called it, and its this beautiful pooling of colour that transform into trees with just a little black ink! I had so much fun doing this prompt on Christy's course, that I'm considering doing a long canvas for lily's room once we move, in all fairy type colours. They are a little bit whimsy and a touch of magical.

I chose three colours and they moved into many little light and shades of those colours.

I can see many more of these purely to calm me down...and release a little arty frustration.


The fruits of my background page...now the question is..what to do on it. I shall think on it while I sleep dreaming of inky forests and pretty pooling colours.

pop on over to Traci's blog and see what arty adventures shes on for her 30 days of Get your Art on.

take care...give your art journal a little love..
xx Courtney

Artful Journal day 7

Today I was lazy, it seems that when I finally get caught up I get slack! so I havent finished my page for today but I have done the ground work, and thats better than nothing right!?

todays page in Christy's course was about nature and using actual leaves from our backyards and surrounds. This be the part I'm not up to yet!
but I did lay down the background ground work. I stayed with a page that was a stencil offcast. I needed to use the last of the ink.
I used my neo colour crayons smooshed them around, sprays, paints and the trusty brayer with some hot pink and bight yellow paint.



it looks a bit like clown vommit but the spring goddess inside of me is very happy with how this background turned out.
I might do a bit more white to sort of break up the crazy!

and for my Wednesday images, nothing fancy just a simple day and evening at home.




pop on over to traci's blog to see her art for the day for Get Your Art On.
I shall now curl up in the boys arms and watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
xox Courtney

The Artful Journey - day 6 The White Ladies.

It's all flowers and bright bold colours today in my art journal! I finally caught up on my pages for gulfsprites course! *puffs out chest* so I am now back on track, and wont be trying to frantically stay in the game. Today was something different, flowers, big bright flowers, things I don't seem to draw at all! I'm loving the shift in what I'm working on its so refreshing.




some paints, watercolours, a ballpoint pen and a copic marker and this page was a done deal..although it took me half the day to get the balance between the yellow and the white.



next were the abstract petal flowers, where each thing was created individually on sheets of scrapbook paper. This was a stress free easy page to create, bit of paint, some spraying some outlining and glueing down and I was the proud owner of a bright and very spring looking journal layout.


and now onto my day in photos- today was about two things, food and art, if I wasnt arting, I was cooking or feeding a teacup human, or feeding the boy or myself! so these pictures are centered around that...first image top left...is the amazing 7 draw trolley the boy bought me as an early xmas present, so now I have all my supplies (that are in sydney atm) at my fingertips and I can move it with ease out of little fingers touching way.so thats my day and my art for this Tuesday.
tomorrow I will embark on a new journal page, and snap a few more photographs.
take care my dears
xx pop over to Traci's blog for her day of art for get your art on.