Blast from the past: Mixed Emotions

 Mixed Emotions workshop by

Marit Barendsen and Michelle Rydell 2013

This art course was all about creating art journal pages about emotions and was given by Marit Barentsen van Marit’s Paperworld and Michelle Rydell

Below you will find my original blogposts only slightly edited to fit my new website format. The original blogpost are no longer on my website. Want to know why read this intro post

Mixed Emotions lesson 1 February 6, 2013

Monday started the workshop Mixed Emotions given by Marit from Holland and Michelle from the US. The workshop is about making art journal pages about emotions and the first emotion was COURAGE. My zodiac sign is Lion so I should be courageous but I’m more like the lion in The Wizard of Oz, a chicken.

The assignement was to write about Courage and make a page with it.  I started with  a page with yellow and oranje thought this would fit the word. For my writing I used a page with index out of my atlas I am altering. Put some acrylpaint on this to give it a little bit of color.
This page went on top of the yellow oranje and with a red sharpie pen I wrote my text about COURAGE and Michelle’s lion (a page with pictures to be used was in the lessons) wanted to be present on the page
I put some more color over the writing. For this I used  what is called kindertoververf (=childrens magic paint, was sold by a warehouse V&D that doesn't exist anymore, an acrylic paint which mixes more slowly and is more transparent)
I used the white “toververf” directly from the bottle to make the big letters with the word COURAGE over the page. That together with some color accents gave this result

The white lines are still wet, when there dry they will be more flattened
COURAGE
Be yourself
Have Courage
People don’t bite  (lions do  )

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 2 February 12, 2013

The second lesson of the Mixed Emotions Workshop has the subject: LONELINESS

I like being alone and need to be alone sometimes or I get crazy. So real loneliness I usely only feel when I’m in a crowd or group of people and they leave me alone,  ignore me or don’t speak to me. And somehow even though I am feeling very unhappy at this moment this page turned out very happy and all together not like loneliness

I started this page with tissue paper with dylusions stains on it, sticked them to the page with bookbindersglue this time (usely I would use gelmedium). Put some more dylusions onto it
Then took two photo’s one from the collage sheet of lesson 1 with the bicyclist and the other from the collage sheet of lesson 2 with the bench. Smeared gel medium over it and put it upside down on the page like this and left it to dry overnight
Then I began to rub off the paper (using a small amount of water) from the back of the pictures added a die cut tree.
I didn’t want to rub anymore because I was loosing bits. Then I added a peace of paper (with dylusions stained edges) wrote some text onto it, glued it to the page. Gave the background some acrylic green for the tree and the bottom at the right side for added color. Put a big text on the page and made some lines and dots with india ink

My representation of LONELINESS

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 3 February 14, 2013 |

This third lesson is about the emotion Joy. Well I am not feeling very joyeus lately. So what should I do with this lesson. Since I took a few days off work I spent the whole day working at this because it also involved weaving. You need more time for a page  when you are weaving

I have done weaving in the past, the real stuff with treads and also weaving with peaces of paper. Like the rug in this fairytale page

princess on the pea

For my Joy page I started with fluorescent yellow and orange. Should make me happy. Squeezed it out of the bottle onto a peace of paper and spread it around
Then I sprayed a figure onto a peace of atlas paper (this paper I ripped out of my journaling atlas, should loose some pages anyway otherwise it will get to thick) using dylusions and an old acrylic sheet with a figure cut out
Covered the figure (with the cutout part) and put some acrylic paint over the paper
I painted another piece of paper with a music score on it also with some acrylic paint
Both papers were cut to ribbons and weaved. And then glued to the page

I liked the page at this point, but I had to put in the text papers. And also added a whole lot of other stuff and it turned out like this, way to much I thought.
Well  it is happy and there is definitely a lot to see. What do you think??

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 4 February 17, 2013 |

The mixed emotions lesson 4 was about FEAR. I don’t think that I have really great fears. I discussed it all when I dealed with the first lesson Courage. One of the bigger fears is my fear of heights. Not sitting on a chairlift going up or down a mountain, cause then I like to move around and take pictures. No only walking on my own two feet, going down a mountain or a staircase or that first step onto the escalator

For my page I started with dark green, blue and braun colors from dylusions, ink and blue bister (badly dissolved in alcohol so you get blue and braun speckels). What else did I used for this page, for a start a picture of a mountain as my high spot. I also had saved the rubbings from the second lesson. They were colored by the dylusions that where under the picture. These I used to make a nice sort of grass spot on the left corner. Stuck all of it to the paper using gel medium and when it dried it was colored again

And then I was so accupied with working at this page that I forgot to make pictures. I made some clouds with left over pieces of a black page covered with blue tissuepaper, added some flowers and butterflies cut out of atlas paper. A stickerpeace painted with matching colors and the word FEAR onto it with white acryl paint
Made a banner with the bister (bit thicker layer) and wrote my text onto this with a white gel writer

Do you see my fear standing on top of the mountain?

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 5 February 20, 2013 |

Already lesson 5 from the workshop mixed emotions and the emotion LOVE. And a challenge to make the page with wax crayon or oil pastel resist. This means to you use a white oil pastel or wax crayon to draw and this will prevent the watercolor to stick to the page. Looks easy but turned out to be a little harder. In contrast to what Michelle wrote I could perfectly see where I was drawing. (maybe I should have done it blindfolded, hihi)

First I made a drawing, because of the thickness of my oil pastel I drew something simple. Flowers, a sun, the word Love with oil pastel. Then I added some hearts and some filling in the word and the flowers with a white color pencil, just to see what happened. Then I took aquarelpaint and started painting, the oil pastel turned yellow from my first color choice and the pencil was just painted over. Then I made some new hearts with oil pastel over the background color and colored it again
I was not very happy with the result and put in some dots and lines with markers.

Great painting voor a six year old isn’t it?? Too bad I’m a little bit older. Maybe later I will add some things, because to me there is something missing.

I started again and took a small piece of paper (normal printerpaper this time) and wrote with the oil pastel
Then I took another paper and put some hearts to it and painted it blue. Added some more oil pastel in the center of the hearts when the paper was still wet with some rubbing and tearing effect, hmmm
At this point I got a bit carried away and forgot to make in between pictures, but after glueing the love word onto the page and painting and writing and painting and….
Also not really a nice peace I thought, but some parts of it I liked and I also liked playing with the resist technique. Maybe someday combine it with an other technique

Tomorrow there will be another lesson waiting in the mail……..?????????? what will that bring

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 6 February 26, 2013 |

Already lesson 6 of the mixed emotions Workshop and yes there is already a lesson 7.  I haven’t started with,  so a little behind. But here my lesson 6 and the emotion HATE. Hate is a word you sometimes use when there is something you dislike very much but real hate I don’t have. I got an idea and decided to make a page over what hate can do to you. I started with the tearing of paper like Marit suggested in her lesson.

Then I also found a picture with a person and water. I glued my paper strips to a white sheet of paper with gel medium and gave it a gesso layer. Used a papertowel to dry  the gesso a little and it left some nice marks at the paper.
I gave the whole page a blue watercolor paint layer

Then I got carried away again, because I forgot to make pictures. But I put in my two pictures (the lazy man and the wave). Put in a warning (word from a sheet accompanying clear stamps). Made some wavy lines with gesso. And put words on this with a paper paint pen which gives some dimension. O yes I also colored the man a bit, he was so paperish

WARNING: HATE CAN ENGULF YOU

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 7 March 9, 2013

Lesson 7 of the mixed emotions workshop is about SADNESS. At the workshop I read very sad heartbreaking stories from the other students. I am a very emotional person with direct emotions for present day life issues but what to do with this SADNESS lesson. Fortunately you do not have to make a sad page
The idea is to make a mandala which can be healing. I liked the idea of making a mandala again for I haven’t done this lately. In Michelle’s example she used a bird in the center

When I drove home from work a week ago I saw a fox splashed over the pavement with only the head still recognizable and thought so SAD,  because of some spring days the animals get more active and more run over also. At the same time I came across an article in a magazine about foxes, so decided to use this animal on my page

For my mandala I used a silhouette of a fox in the middle and the drawing made with aqua markers, derwent inktense pensils blended with a water brush and some added lines with a black marker (most of my old mandala’s are made with normal coloring pencils). Made on white paper and cut out to put on paper painted black with acrylic paint

My total page is not square and I added some extra elements
Made the word sadness from scraps of paper using the same colors aqua markers. Added it all together with a road made of chalk another fox picture and an addaption of the text

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

(for those who don’t know this, this line is used for displaying fonts, because it contains all the letters in the alphabet)

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed emotions lesson 8 March 13, 2013 |

Lesson 8 is about Inspiration and making a mind map about it

From Wikipedia:  A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information. A mind map is often created around a single word or text, placed in the center, to which associated ideas, words and concepts are added. Major categories radiate from a central node, and lesser categories are sub-branches of larger branches.[1] Categories can represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items related to a central key word or idea. is something to organize your thoughts with the subject in the middle en lines going from there

There are different ways of creating a mindmap. If your are interested look for examples on the internet

I started with a background of  dylusions in a blue/purple color scheme. I am totally into dylusions at this moment. Purple is for me the color of the brain, so a “brain” map would fit in this color. The funny thing about dylusions is that if you wet it with water.

Just take a brush and water and make a mark. Dry using paper towels (you can reuse the paper towels by glueing them onto pages) and you have a lighter spot.
I made a lot of light spots, filled them with words using markers, added some flowers en lines

And the result is just a fun page with some of my inspirations and not a totally complete one. (so if you don’t see your name, that doesn’t mean you were not an inspiration).

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 9 March 15, 2013 |

Lesson 9 of mixed emotions is about ANGER. A lesson with messing with paint with your fingers, dropping paint and being angry at the paper

I played with paint. The pictures are not in chronological order, I will show you my second made page with green paint. But the process was the same

A: started with squeezing paint onto the paper and spreading it with my fingers
B: dropped white fluid acrylic paint onto it
C: used a mister to wet it with water and dried it with a heatgun
D: did the same with balck fluid acrylic paint onto it
E+F: zoomed in view of some drops (the acrylic paint broke a little onto the background

mixed emotions

I used this green page later. Now the “real” page. Used two colors acrylic paint to color the page with my fingers. Dropped black fluid acrylic paint onto this and misted it with water. Then dried it with the heatgun.
Then I used a red dylusions ink to color the rest of the white paper. Which also made the spots a little less interesting, I found. Well can not do anything about that anymore.
I used the green paper, to cut out letters. Glued the letters together with a picture of the collage sheet from the lesson to the red background
Added some lines, another quote, some faces in the letters, some lines with markers, some drops with fluid acrylic paint. Oh I almost forgot, I did some transfering with gelmedium also. And….punched holes from the back of the paper to the front

And: Is this an angry page??

mixed emotions
mixed emotions
mixed emotions

Mixed Emotions lesson 10 March 24, 2013

The last emotions of the workshop mixed emotions is Confidence. The first thing that came into my head was the song from the sound of music. So I was singing it all day, but the making of this page was another story, which took me quite a while to accomplish. One rule I have: Never start over again and finish it so I did my best to make something out of  something I was not very happy with. Read down here what I thought of this page

Well here are all my steps.
A draw me onto the paper using a photograph of myself
B painted the background
C started filling in the pieces with magazine paper, strange hair piece (looks like a bathing cap onto a bold head) and that neck piece totally weird
D used page from my atlas lying painted with green colors and decided to use these for the clothing. Now I look like a big bold guy with a weird toupet
E then I filled up the face (okay now I look like the invisible man with bandages) and found a hand and had an idea
F I painted the face to make it more even, and painted the glasses, gave me an arm and a sign (good riddance with the neckpiece) and painted a swirl.

mixed emotions

At this time I still looked like a bold guy with a toupet. I painted my hair and made it longer, no more bold guy toupet. Gave me a flower in the hair (not that I do that often, but it looks better) filled the swirl and the sign with the lyrics of the sound of music song

It isn’t me at all,  but I like the end result

mixed emotions

And that was the end of this ecourse about Emotions

Leave a Comment