Visionary Night

Blessed Beltane!  I hope everyone is having an awesome day.  I thought I'd share an idea with you for pages you can create in your journal to celebrate this time of year or any time of year.  It's amazing how we're halfway through the wheel of the year since I started Visionary Night.  I feel like I haven't quite accomplished what I thought I would by now, but I'm happy with how far I've come and with where this blog is going. It may be cliche, but this time of year makes me think of flowers.  In May, the magnolias are blooming.  It's really the best time to see them and most other flowers before the heat of summer causes them to practically rot.  My mom gave me some beautiful stickers by Mrs. Grossman's.  The name of the sticker sheet is "Spring Stems."  The stickers, along with the crazy weather we have in April and May, really inspired the art journal page I painted (see the photo below). The basic idea behind this page is to combin...

Depending on what time zone you're in, today may or may not be Ostara (or Mabon in the Southern hemisphere).   Where I am, the spring equinox started at 11:30 pm last night according to  archaeoastronomy , only a few hours after I finished the journal spread in the photo below. Around the equinoxes each year, I feel a strong connection to the plant spirits, since they are either emerging from the earth in a riot of color (spring) or going out in a blaze of glory (autumn) only to repeat the cycle again.   I often feel a strong desire to paint them.  This year, it wasn't a local tree or flower that captured my attention, but bamboo, a tree found on the other side of the world.  I was curious as to why I suddenly felt such a strong connection to bamboo when I hadn't really thought about it before (or realized it's actually a tree).  I did a general internet search to learn more about its symbolism and characteristics.  I was so inspired by what I le...

If you've been following the blog posts so far this year, you probably know that I've been sick for the last 2 months or so.  It was very unexpected.  I didn't think it would be so hard to keep up with the blog posts, but I really needed that time to recuperate.  Thank you so much for your understanding. Today, I have three projects to share that you can use in your journal to document your spiritual life.  These aren't tutorials.  Unfortunately, I was still not feeling 100% when I created these pages, but I had to document the moment.  I thought I'd share some suggestions for things you can do in your journal in between the tutorials I post. »»»Page One: Expressive Trees: The page above was actually meant to be a tutorial for Imbolc that never happened.  It was inspired by a  YouTube video about expressive watercolor trees .  I figured that if a water brush can be used for this technique, then the brush tip of a Copic marker would...

Welcome to part three of the tutorial!  Today, I'm going to show you ways to finish your journal page.  There are lots of techniques you can use in your journal, and I'll be sure to show you some others in the future.  Right now, we're going to focus on how I completed this art journal spread.  I really enjoyed bringing my ancestor to life in my journal.  I hope you do too.  It feels like a great tribute to one's heritage. »Waning Crescent Moon, The Steps: ***Materials and Substitutions:  You'll need a paintbrush, palette knife or old credit card in addition to a black Stabilo Marks All pencil, a Faber-Castell Pitt marker in warm grey 4, a white Prismacolor Premier colored pencil, and matte gel medium mixed with Liquid Pearls in silver pearl.  If you don't have a black Stabilo pencil, then use a black marker instead of the grey Pitt marker. Faber-Castell Pitt marker substitutes: any black or grey permanent marker, black paint, ...

This art journal spread is taking longer than I expected.  Today, I'll show you how to paint the skin and eyes of the focal image.  In part three, I'll show you a fun way to add texture to the hair, how to add glazes to the background, and how to add interesting finishing touches to your spread. Drawing the Facial Features: I used a black Stabilo Marks All pencil to draw the face and redefine the hairline in some areas.  I wanted to make sure that the drawing would show up in the picture.  Normally, I would have used my delft blue Cretacolor Aqua Monolith watercolor pencil, since it blends in well with the colors I use for shading.  I would suggest using a watercolor pencil if you have it, but use whatever you have.  When I draw, I don't use a lot of guidelines.  I divide the face in half vertically and horizontally.  Other than that, I draw the features where they look good to me.  You can use my drawing as a guide to draw your own f...

According to archaeoastronomy, today is the actual crossquarter day for Samhain.  I originally didn't plan to do a journaling project for Samhain this year, since I already posted the tutorials about customizing a journal.  I was so inspired by the experience I had when I did the  Gathering of Ancestors visualization  that I had to art journal about it.  Since I art journal, the tutorial below will be about what I did to create the background and start the focal on my art journal page in my Moleskine sketchbook.  I will include suggestions for other types of journaling towards the bottom of this post.  As always, these are meant to inspire your creativity.  You don't have to do exactly what I did.  You can do your own thing. Background steps: 1. Using a watercolor pencil, Stabilo Marks All, or other water soluble media that is lighter than the colors you want to use for the base layer of your background, write out the message you rece...

In the last post, I showed an easy way to add pockets to any notebook or journal.  In this post, I'll discuss how to make a book blessing card to put in the front pocket of your journal. A book blessing is used to dedicate a journal for a particular purpose, usually spiritual or magickal in nature. Whether you're eclectic pagan like me or believe differently, you can write your own blessing that incorporates your spirituality.  A book blessing could be a prayer, a poem, a charm or spell, or some prose that describes your feelings regarding the purpose of this journal and how its contents are to be protected. This is the first time I've ever really felt the need to create a book blessing or dedication.  I personally think it's necessary, since any kind of transformative work involves some vulnerability.  I looked up book blessings online and while most of the websites that came up in the search were pagan or Wiccan, there were some common themes that could be inte...

Welcome to our first project, creating the journal for the next year and a simple but pretty beaded bookmark for it.  I thought I'd start with a fairly easy project that invites you to play with whatever supplies you have.  I'll suggest substitutions for the supplies I used whenever I think of them. We're going to decorate a store bought art journal of whatever type you'd like to use and customize it so it works for this class.  I would suggest a hardcover journal, but use whatever you like.  For my journal, I'm using a small Moleskine sketchbook, but you can use a watercolor journal, art journal, visual journal, sketchbook, writing journal, composition book, etc.  Next year, I'll show you how to create a handmade, hand bound journal. Before I describe how I decorated the cover, I want to discuss the nature of smooth and slippery hardcover journals and notebooks and how difficult they make it for your paint to stick.  I learned a little trick awhile ...