Final Life Book Theme: Celebration

Tamara LaPorte’s Life Book course has been amazing.  52 fabulous arty, creative, inspiring weeks! I can hardly believe how much I have learned, how much encouragement the other participants have given me, and how much I have grown personally due to Tamara and the other incredibly talented artists.

October: Celebration & Earth/Life

Week 41 – Celebrating Earth with Tamara Laporte

Tamara talked about our connection with the earth and the cultures and natural beings in it; we should express our gratitude to the earth.  She used a gelli plate to create her background, but I don’t have one of those, so instead I used a stencil as a mask.  I painted the stencil, placed it face-down on the page, and rolled over it with a brayer, then added a bit of owl stamping on top.

Week 42 – Celebrating with Washi Tape and More with Aimee Myers Dolich

I love Aimee so much for her spunky fun attitude and doodles in her Artsyville shop.  She taught the inky collage project in week 16 too.  This time, she offered several project options and I chose “Me in Bloom,” symbolizing everything I’ve brought into my life this year… learning, places, changes, friendships, etc.  Of course, I used Aimee’s washi tape line for this too.

Week 43 – Nature As Art with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Julie used leaves, flowers, and even sticks to stamp her page and then a gelli plate.  She drew a face over her background and journaled on it, but I chose to keep it very simple and just did some stamping with leaves and sticks.

Week 44 – Favorite Words with Monica Zuniga

November: Celebration & Inspiration

Week 45 – Inspiration – A Graphite Feather with Tamara Laporte

This lesson was about celebrating what inspires us.  Tam drew a feather, helping us to focus on bringing a graphite drawing to life.  I learned so much about lead sizes and softness from this lesson.

Week 46 – An Artist Interview with Christy Tomlinson

I love Christy.  She brings such passion and authenticity into her work, which I hugely identify with and admire.  I learned the reason behind her faceless girls (allowing the background to speak rather than put her own emotion into the painting.  Her father had just passed away and the artwork was for her sisters and their healing.)  She said, “When we insert ourselves and our emotion into our work, it is truly one of a kind.”

4500 people have taken her She Art workshop and she gets such joy from teaching.  She believes we are all born artists and creative beings. Creating has healed her from so many things.

Week 47 – Celebrating Colour with Jane Davies

Jane taught us to create harmonious color schemes by mixing all our colors with common “mother color.” I used this week’s lesson to create a background for the next lesson.

Week 48 – Your Beautiful Word Chemistry with Melody Ross & Brave Girls Club

I loved Melody’s “Soul Restoration” course and was thrilled to see her on our November syllabus.  We created a cool collage describing ourselves with words she gave us.

How you put the adverbs and words shows a lot about how you see yourself.  Here are the choices and what I came up with.

You are a recipe with different ingredients than anyone else who ever lived; making art is a way to show your soul you’re listening, get in touch with yourself, and make transitions in your life.

December: Celebration & Gratitude

Week 49 – Binding Your Life Book with Tamara Laporte

SEPARATE POST on this for sure.  🙂

Week 50 – A Page Of Celebration and Gratitude with Jeanette Maisy House

A festive mixed media page reflective of the season and offering a heartfelt song of gratitude to the universe.  The dripped ink on this page took DAYS to dry.

Week 51 – A Layered Page with Dina Wakley

With this fun page of layered stamping and stenciling, we were celebrating the creativity within.

I am binding my book as you read this and will share with you asap.  You can view other LifeBook posts here.