Assemblage and Art Journal Pages

Work has been so crummy lately that only the following things are keeping me sane:  my Huband, my Friends, my art, and my martial arts.  I've been creating a lot of things lately, mostly as a way to decompress.  Truth be told though, Art and Soul really left me feeling inspired as well.  It's like I just can't get in enough art time lately.  :)

While at Art and Soul I picked up the Zentangle book I've been wanting for forever.  I did my first Zentangle in my art journal here:

The background is nothing special, just a way to eliminate the whiteness of the page.  But I did enjoy doing the zentange....very relaxing and stimulating as a way to warm up creative thought processes.

This art journal page was done with papers and images I had left over, and was a very intuitive collage-type work.

This little guy is an image transfer (contact paper method) of a sketch I did years ago from a drawing tutorial book.  I did the image transfer and then attached it to scrapbook paper and finished him off with buttons at the appropriate areas.

I also completed a day of the dead inspired assemblage last weekend.  Here is the beginning materials:

And since I needed some metal from one of my metal cigar tins, I got my Husband to help me deconstruct it:

And here are a few shots of the finished product:

The church is a modified bird house, the base is the top of an old cigar box.  There are various bits of metal from a metal cigar tin, and the garland on the church is made from wire, beads, and string.  I found the day of the dead figures at a local antique mall.  It's a very simple assemblage but was a lot of fun to make. 

I'm off to do a landscape painting from a tutorial I've been looking forward to all week.  I hope to share the results a little later.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

-Joy