Lots of flower drawings

This past week I wanted to try and make some of my own little labels and things for journaling like "to do" lists, top 10, inspiration, and more.  Plus small labels where I can add the date or a title. It was a lot of fun, I love drawing flowers on everything.... Mostly roses as you can tell :)

Sketchbook Page

I just started a new sketchbook this weekend and I hope to work in it at least once a week...on this first page I drew a couple of pansies and some groundcover and then used colored pencils to add the color. I switch back and forth between watercolors and colored pencils, and sometimes I think that colored pencils are definately my favorite medium to use.

Making Lists in my Art Journal



List Journal Prompts

 

I found this project a couple of weeks ago on ihanna's blog and now I am trying to catch up on the lists. I thought the journal I have been using right now would be perfect because its small and just right for a list of a few words. It's a journal where I've already done the background collages and as it turns out a lot of them suited the list ideas perfectly like this one on Dream Places to Travel  which already had a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

 

My list of 5: Paris, the Cotswolds in England, Cornwall England, Maine(which is the one place on this list that I've been, but I just love it, so I included it) and Hawaii. 

 

The next prompt is Favorite Fruits  and my list includes:Cherries, Peaches, Raspberries, Canteloupe, and Strawberries

 

Art Journal Pages

These pages ended up being all about food....on the left side, with Fall coming on it makes me want comfort food:

Cupcakes, Pasta, Potatoes, and Mac and Cheese, not healthy I know, but I just love them.

 

On the right side inspirations for food and Afternoon Tea:

little tea sandwiches, cookies, and Spiced Tea



 

 

 



Pages from my 'illustrated discovery journal'

I love putting together collages of things that inspire me. I find images in magazines and print things from my favorite blogs and Pinterest. Then I add little labels and bits of decorative paper to add writing and descriptions. It's a very relaxing way to spend and hour, especially with a cup of tea to sip on, while I cut and paste....I think I'll do another one today. It's a good way to spend a saturday. 

 

 



Sketching this weekend

Over the long holiday weekend I spent some of the time doing drawings and watercolors and I finished my sketchbook, so now I will be starting a new one.....

 

 Some of the objects on my desk, a rose and lettering practice

 

Drawings of my desk and my art cabinet holding all of my supplies.

 

This last page of the book is a pressed rose with washi tape holding the stem.

 

It is fun to complete a project because I haven't always been good about finishing ideas once I start. A lot of the time I abandon the idea and start something new, but I'm getting better at it, and it's just really nice to finish this sketchbook before I move on to the next one.

 

 

 

 

August Break 6

Art Journaling "Live well and document along the way..."

The right side of the spread is about some of my favorite yoga poses, inspiration so I will do yoga more often...

susannah conway

August Break 5



Art Journal page...JOY

"We're here to feel joy and absorb all of life's beauty we can."

Melody Beattie

Some of my favorite things:

visiting The McGill Rose Garden

nature walks

painting

afternoon tea

art journals

reading a good book

 

CHERISH JOY

 

 

 

Susannah Conway



August Break-4

More current Art Journals including the cover of a new one that I just started with painted backgrounds. On the left page is inspiration for Fall since it feels right around the corner....



Lit candles

comfy and cozy

snuggling in with a good book

 

a crisp fall morning

chunky sweaters

fleece-lined boots

 

a walk in the country-

fall flowers and leaves.

 

 

susannah conway

 

August Break - 3

Art Journals...



Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Naomi nominated me this week for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award and I was just thrilled! It's really fun to be a part of this...

THE RULES:

1.Display the award logo on your blog

2. Link back to the person who nominated you

3.State 7 things about yourself

4.Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them

5.Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award's requirements

I know a lot of people might be too busy this summer to do this so thats definately ok

7 THINGS ABOUT ME:

1. I love ROSES...

2. My favorite food is Italian

3. My favorite season is Autumn

4. I love and am a little obsessed with all kinds of journals: scrapbooks, mini journals, smashbooks, sketchbooks, notebooks and all kinds of ART JOURNALS...

5. I love the countryside of England and would love to someday go there. I love the cottages and all the flowers and the rolling hills.

6 .I love to to read all kinds of books: novels, memoirs, travel, the classics, crafting, inspiration, some poetry, art and more

7. NATURE is my biggest inspiration...

THE BLOGS THAT INSPIRE ME SO MUCH THAT I WOULD LIKE TO NOMINATE FOR THIS AWARD ARE:

1.giggling in the rain

2.Mindy Tsonas

3.i hanna

4.Tranqulity du jour -Kimberly Wilson

5.blinks.of.life

6.Elisa loves

7.Leonie Dawson

8.Living Bliss

9.ann marie loves paper

10.Jamie Ridler Studios

11.The creative place

12.Jenni Horne

13.Liz Lamoreux

14.Besottment

15.The White Bench



Each of these blogs inspire me for different reasons, but the thing they all have in common is they are all very happy places to visit.

August Break-2

My sketchbooks and a teacup filled with summer flowers

Susannah Conway's August Break



August Break-1

The covers of my Inner Excavate journals

susannah conways august break



Sketchbook and Art Journaling

On Sunday I spent the day doing some sketches on the patio, Roses and Zinnias. I had been using the sketchbook at an 8x8" size but I find for me I enjoy working in a smaller sketchbook so I cut it down to a 6x6" size and rebound it. Now I find myself sketching in it more often...

This is the cover with a painted label and a little garland on the bottom with rhinestones.

I did sketches of Roses and Zinnias and wrote in a poem from an old book I have called Nature in Verse. The poem is called O Lark of the Summer Morning..   From the Japanese

I love to lie in the clover,

with the lark like a speck in the sky,

while it's small sweet throat runneth over

with praise it sendeth on high.

O lark of the summer morning,

teach, teach me the song that you sing,

I would learn without lightness or scorning,

to give praise for every good thing.

O lark of the summer morning!

give, give me of praying the key,

and I'll learn without lightness or scorning

as I did at my own mother's knee.



 I also added some journaling to my latest art journal, a weekly to do list and peaceful things to remember like...

Cherish Moments of Solitude

Laugh Often

Make Time To Play

and Open Up To Lifes Magic

from a Melody Beattie book





Nature Walk

This weeks nature walk...
These photos were from a nearby lake and nature preserve, a really peaceful place especially with the cool breezes. I found a few little wildflowers to draw and took photos of the daylilies and large pink flowers by the water's edge. I'm not sure what type of flower the pink ones are, they are about 7" around and such an intense color.

Sketchbook page from nature walk



Elisa Loves Nature Walk

A few sewing projects

This week I bought the new magazine 'Tilda's Homemade Ideas'. It came with the materials and instructions to make the little floral and polka dot purse with a lining inside. I haven't ever done a lot of sewing but the templates and instructions were so good and made it easy to understand, so when I completed that project I made the pencil case that was in the magazine, I just had to buy the fabric this time. It was a little harder especially adding the zipper, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I've been wanting a pencil case for awhile now so I was really excited to find the instructions for it in the magazine.
I also sewed together a paper journal with little bits of paper and images sewn in, and then I bound it together with a simple binding.

A spread in the journal with part of an envelope,(I will add things in that later)a picture of a pretty fabric heart and other bits of paper

Upclose shot of the pencil case with a heart pendant that I added to the zipper

Inner Excavate Along-week 5

This weeks prompt--I look closer
I found a picture of me that I never really liked very much and decided to embrace it instead and use it in a mixed media piece. I sewed bits of fabric onto paper, added embroidered flowers and some words from a book..."When we can't do anything about the world around us, when we can't even seem to do much about ourselves, we can always, always love ourselves"-Melody Beattie

Part of inner excavation is creating an altar, and the altar I've used for about a year is a portable altar that I created out of a box, I collaged it with images that felt peaceful to me and inside I have a candle, some stones and trinkets, creative journaling and inspiration card decks and a box of matches to light the candle.

 "The Whole World Is A Single Flower"

Inner Excavate Along

Working on my Inner Excavate Journal

This week I'm posting about my Inner Excavate Along journal, I'm a few weeks behind and doing my best to get caught up. I put together a long narrow journal with watercolor paper and I cropped old photos into 2" squares using photos of things I love, my favorite places and people ,my favorite activities. On the front part of the journal I used larger photos for the self portrait images and then added in other pretty things and words like "on my journey", "Welcome to my Garden", "making art in my studio", and "books".

I used K&Company chipboard letters for an impromptu title "inner excavate"

This photo shows almost the full length of the journal when its open with a layout of 4 photos on each page. The first couple of pages have more current photos of things I love right now like pansies, butterflies, art journaling, paintbrushes in a pretty pitcher, my favorite coffee cup and more.

This is me holding a pansy which has always been one of my favorite flowers and  'symbols'.

There was also a paragraph  that I liked this week from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From the Sea

"And then to work, behind closed doors neither of us would want to invade. What release to write so that one forgets oneself, forgets one's companion, forgets where one is or what one is going to do next-to be drenched on work as one is drenched in sleep or in the sea. Pencils and pads and curling blue sheets alive with letters heap up on the desk. And then, pricked by hinger, we rise at last in a daze, for a late lunch. Reeling a little form our intense absorbtion, we come back with relief to the small chores of getting lunch, as if they were lifelines to reality- as if we had indeed almost drowned in the sea of intelectual work and welcomed the form ground of physical action under our feet."

Liz Lamoreaux-inner excavate