Mermaid Madness!

I am thrilled to be part of Stencil Girl Products celebration of "Mermaid Madness!"  

Did you ever play mermaid when you were a kid?  I did.  My hair was really long, and I used to try to swim with my legs together like a long tail, while swishing my hair around in the water.  I'm not sure why mermaids have such an allure, but they do!

Here is a box I made with the stencil I designed, called Mermaids and Masks, to memorialize that playful time in my life. 

And a handmade journal I created using the mermaids and elements from the stencil to pull the different pages together.

I filmed part of my process for this journal.  I hope it gives you some inspiration!

You can also watch Making a Mermaid Journal on YouTube here.     You'll see that I also used the "Women Will Heal the World" stencil in this video.  You still have a few days to be eligible to win that stencil by commenting on the June Blog Hop post, here.

I can't wait to see what the other artists, who also designed Mermaid themed stencils, have created! It's all on the Stencil Girl Blog!

Just keep swimming!

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!

How To: See the Divine in Everything

Stencil Girl recently released seven new designs of mine! Over the next few weeks, I will be showing you how I used them.

Today, I'm sharing the Love is for Everyone Script, and See the Divine in Everything stencils, that were inspired by insights I've had in meditation.

I designed them so that you could mix and match the words to make different phrases, besides the obvious, such as:

everything is Divine

I am Divine

I see the Divine

Love is Divine

Love is meant to lift us up

lift up out of the darkness

see Love in the darkness

I am in Love 

Love is everything

lift up the Divine in everything

Love everyone and everything

lift everyone up in Love

You get the idea! I am sure there are many more!

Of course, you can also use each stencil on its own, like this:

You can also watch "Divine in everything" on YouTube here.  

I hope my videos and tutorials spark your creativity. If you use any of my stencils or stamps, or are inspired by techniques I share, please let me know so I can feature you!

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Five (More) Reasons to Participate in Online Challenges and Bloghop Winner

About a year ago, I posted:  Five Reasons to Participate in Online Art Challenges, Video and Giveaway.   That post described some of the valuable takeaways from  Mindy Lacefield's #365Faces challenge on Instagram, as well as a video fast forward of one of my faces.  

I've been participating in the #100daychallenge on Instagram.  My theme this year is #100daysofresistanceart.  

I'm challenging myself to not only do a piece of art a day around this theme, but to incorporate creative lettering.  This is something I don't feel confident about.  But with each effort, I gain a little more confidence.  

Here are five more reasons to participate in online challenges (or any kind of challenges).

 1. If you never try something new, you'll never know what you're capable of.  

It's super comfortable to keep doing something I already feel I've mastered and am good at. But if I don´t challenge myself and try new things, I'll never know my potential.  My advice:  choose one thing you´d like to try but are afraid to do wrong, and go for it!

2. Challenges help us grow.

I know that in my life, challenging situations -- even very unpleasant ones -- have helped me grow personally as well as professionally.  Have you experienced this?  Sometimes we have to experience failure, pain, and even near-destruction to grow and realize our true potential.  My advice:  Do something you didn't know you were capable of, and observe whether you become more confident, knowledgeable and skilled.  You'll never grow by just thinking about trying something new. 

3. Challenge breeds creative thinking.

When I challenge myself to do something new and scary, it prompts realizations, new ideas, and new inspiration in ways I never even imagined.  My advice:  do something you feel you don't have the skills for and just see where it takes you, and how you find solutions you didn't even know were up your sleeve.  

4. Challenges make you more aware and in the moment.

When I keep doing things that are in my comfort zone, I get mentally lazy and tired. When I challenge myself, I am much more focused and engaged.  My advice:  Do something out of your comfort zone and be aware of everything about it -- even how it makes you scared or tense or insecure.  And then watch how those feelings change as you make progress.

5. Challenging yourself will help you outside of your artwork, when life throws you curve balls.

One of the reasons to practice difficult poses in yoga is to watch how your mind reacts to the challenge.  We practice maintaining an even breath and holding our calm and peace, even when we are wobbling or throbbing.  The idea is to take that practice off the mat and into the world.  If you challenge yourself in your art by learning a new technique, and practice being kind to yourself as you practice, you will see the value in every experience whether it is good or bad.  As a result, you will be that much more calm and  resourceful when faced with challenging and unexpected events outside your studio.  My advice:  do something new and scary, and know that every time you persevere, you are taking an important step to realize the possibilities that life has in store for you. 

Why did I choose the theme of Resistance Art?  Because I have decided to be involved, on a daily basis, in what is going on in our country.  

We recently celebrated the holidays of Passover and Easter - both of which involve themes of rebirth and renewal.  In addition, in the Passover seder, we recite the reminder: Never turn your back on a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.  

It is an imperative to be an up stander - not a bystander - to injustice whenever you see it.  ONWARD!






AND - THE WINNER OF LAST TUESDAY'S BLOG HOP IS:

Jill commented on all three blogs, and I pulled this comment out of the hat!  Jill - please email me your snail mail address - jessicasporndesigns at gmail dot com.  

Thanks all!

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!

Create Your Own Art Journal Pages Inspired by Love

"Love yourself. It is important to stay positive because beauty comes from the inside out." 

Jenn Proske  

Maybe I'm waxing nostalgic, but I came across one of my older posts and, even after so much time has passed, this post couldn't be more true.  Over the coming weeks, watch for my throwback posts where we'll revisit some of my favorites to inspire us today.

Lately, a particular girl has been popping up in my art journaling....

She was seen "Longing for Love" in this post:  

http://jessicasporn.blogspot.com/2014/03/art-journal-page-longing-for-love.html

"Making a Wish:"

http://jessicasporn.blogspot.com/2014/03/make-wish.html

and Finding Calm:

http://jessicasporn.blogspot.com/2014/03/one-little-word-calm-and-dream-tutorial.html

She's definitely been searching, doing a lot of thinking and exploring both her inner and outer worlds.   She took quite a journey in my most recent art journal page.  It started out with gesso over Terri Stegmiller's Curvy Stems stencil in my altered book journal.  For a while I thought this page would be about this goose, which was the photo over which I gessoed!

Even after I wiped green and yellow fluid acrylics over it, I still though it might be about the goose.  But then, I came home from a wonderful yoga class and post yoga tea and chat with Marcie Wallace, feeling so open to receiving the love in the universe, and so able to radiate that love right back out.  (Yoga can do that to you!)

So I quickly sketched this:

Then stencils came into play.  I used Six Point Starry Night to add stars to the sky, and Judy's Trees to add foliage to the earth.  I painted in a big yellow moon.

 

I used Michelle Ward's Circle Rays stencil to show the energy coming out of her heart.  (I mixed Zinc White fluid acrylic and aztec gold mica powder to make the rays very sheer.)  I wanted hearts coming to, and going from, her heart, and I had left on my table some motifs from my Flowers, Pomegranates and Leaves  project from Stencil Girl's newest release, which I posted about here.   (No scrap left behind!)

Some journaling..."I will open my arms wide and collect all the love the universe has to offer me and hug it into my heart and then offer it right back."

I hope you have a beautiful week and that this inspires you to love YOU and see yourself the way your loved ones see you.

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.