Oceans of Emotion: DIY Paper Doll Tag that Captures the Emotions of Summer

This Youtube episode of the Paper Doll Chronicles is part of a series about making mixed media paper doll tags for your art journal practice.

Theme: Oceans of Emotion

Today we tap into all of the many emotions that summer may evoke for you. Let me know in the comments below what this practice brings up for you.

Paper Doll Idea

The Tidewalker / The Sea Listener / The Emotive Alchemist

Journal Prompts

• What emotions rise to the surface for me in summer?
• What feelings have I been carrying that are ready to be released or expressed?
• How do I alchemize my emotions into creative gold?

Suggested supplies

You might choose to do this with old photos or found magazine images - use what you have on hand. 

• A manila tag
• cardstock or recycled manila folder
• Glue stick
• Matte medium Gesso
• Acrylic paint
• Magazine images or old photos Brushes
• water
• paper towels
• Craft dryer
• Stencils, stamps and other mark making tools
• A collection of words cut from magazines
• paper fasteners

Transcript

Video title: Oceans of Emotion: DIY Paper Doll Tag that Captures the Emotions of Summer
    
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pPXjODrPcY
    
Video language: English (auto-generated)
    
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[0:00] : Good morning, my creative friends, and welcome to Painting in Your PJs with
[0:06] : Manette. I'm Dr. Manette Ryarden. Super excited to be here with all of you for our fourth in our series of paper doll
[0:15] : tags to add to an art journal. And I have this vision in my head today
[0:22] : for what I want to create of kind of a spinning wheel of faces that express
[0:28] : different emotions. And in typical Manette fashion, I'm just going to dive right in, give it a try, and see what
[0:36] : happens because I have an idea, but I don't know how to pull it off yet. And
[0:41] : to me, that's the magic and the beauty of painting in your PJs with Manette.
[0:46] : And apologies, I'm having summer allergies, so my voice is a little funky. Good morning, Lorraine,
[0:54] : this morning. Painting in your PJs is all about how do we use art as a tool for healing, for
[1:02] : self-discovery, for personal growth, for acknowledging all the different parts and aspects of ourselves that make up
[1:09] : the beautiful whole of who we are. And all year long, we have been playing with
[1:15] : paper dolls. I'm calling this my year of paper dolls and the paper doll chronicles. And this month we have
[1:22] : worked on these wonderful tags that I have had fun making and the ones
[1:30] : that other people have shared with me. I've loved seeing all the different versions of these dolls. And today I
[1:38] : want to do something a little bit different. And then in August we're going to take a mini break from paper
[1:47] : dolls. And I probably won't be here. I know the last week of August, I'll be attending
[1:53] : someone else's art retreat for my own renewal and fulfillment. And um I'm
[2:00] : going to talk about making painty papers for backgrounds and making clothes for our paper dolls using our own
[2:07] : handdesigned papers and a variety of different materials. I'm thinking will
[2:13] : focus on maybe uh a few different media and it's still coming clear in my head.
[2:20] : But before I get ahead of myself and focus on August,
[2:25] : I want to dive in here to today's prompt. So today's prompt is called
[2:32] : Oceans of Emotion. And this is all about honoring all the
[2:38] : different feelings that you might have about summer. Our theme this month has been summer. And yesterday to my Paperd
[2:46] : Doll Chronicles email list, I sent out some new faces. I sent out a big variety
[2:51] : of faces this month. If you're not on the email list, the link to get on that list is in the description of the video
[2:59] : below. And I started thinking about how our
[3:05] : feelings around summer and nostalgia can evoke a lot of different emotions. And I
[3:13] : chose I sat last night in front of the TV and I colored this whole page of
[3:19] : faces. And when I think about childhood emotions related to summer, there was
[3:24] : joy and delight. There was, and none of these are super super happy. There was,
[3:30] : "Yay, school's out and we're on vacation." There was, "Boo! I have to go
[3:35] : back to school at the end of summer." And for some of us, summer meant work or
[3:42] : babysitting. I did a lot of babysitting, especially in high school. Maybe it meant going to camp. Maybe it
[3:50] : meant family reunions. So, lots of different things might come
[3:55] : up for us. As thinking about summer and children, as a 60-year-old woman with no
[4:02] : kids, I still kind of lean into it's summer. I should be taking time off and
[4:09] : maybe getting, you know, annoyed that I don't get as much time off. I loved this
[4:15] : page of faces and um these really tickled me. They
[4:20] : were very quirky. I also thought about just
[4:26] : as adults recognizing how we were never really taught to deal with our own
[4:32] : emotions, how to name our emotions, how to safely express our emotions. So
[4:38] : sometimes when we think about this idea of oceans of emotion, it can feel
[4:43] : completely overwhelming. and when you feel overwhelmed by
[4:50] : emotions. Oh, Anna, hello. I love that you're Lorraine's sister and that you're
[4:55] : here together. Do you guys live close to each other or do you live far apart and
[5:01] : you're just both joining from your own um places in the world? So beautiful.
[5:06] : Thank you both for being here and learning to just acknowledge our
[5:14] : emotions without getting completely lost and drowned in those emotions. Good
[5:20] : morning, Ivonne. Oh, I love that you get to live close to your sister. That's awesome. We don't want to get, you know,
[5:27] : so caught up in our emotions that we feel like we can't get back out again.
[5:33] : And so, the thing about using aggressive arts art as play and process is that it
[5:41] : helps to give us a little distance. So most of us of my generation, it was not
[5:47] : okay to express anger or frustration. It was okay to cry and get sad, but you
[5:55] : know, uh, girls weren't really supposed to get angry. Boys weren't supposed to cry, but it was okay for them to get
[6:01] : angry, right? But the truth is we were never taught to manage our emotions
[6:07] : effectively. In fact, most of us were taught to stuff those emotions. And when that happens, it can come back to haunt
[6:13] : us in a lot of ways. Mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
[6:19] : And so to me, it's really important to find healthy and creative expressions
[6:27] : of our emotions, start to feel them, to name them, to express them. So, when I
[6:34] : thought about this tag today and what I wanted to create, get this wire off of
[6:41] : here, I started thinking about how could I express not just one emotion, but
[6:48] : multiple emotions, when I think about my own emotions, when
[6:55] : I think about summer, right, it's it's mixed emotions. It's not a singular
[7:01] : emotion. And I grabbed some painty papers. And I'm not sure I want to use
[7:08] : any of them. So, I think the background needs to express this idea of the oceans
[7:15] : of emotions. And so, I think I'm going to paint this up with some blue swirls
[7:22] : and waves and some different shades of blue. But when I thought about how do I
[7:27] : express some of these different ideas? So, what's in my head is I want to create some kind of a a wheel that I can
[7:37] : use a brad and attach all of the different faces to the brad. So, it come
[7:43] : becomes kind of this spinning wheel that in any moment might express these
[7:49] : different emotions. And um uh it is a 4 by8 tag, but you could use
[7:56] : any size tag, Anna. So the ones I have are 4 by8. They're the extra large ones,
[8:03] : but the you can use any size tag. And you can make your own tags out of card
[8:08] : stock, mixed media paper, or even old recycled manila folders. And so I want
[8:15] : to pick uh some of these faces and cut them out and see what can I do to create
[8:22] : this sort of layered idea of how can you know in any moment I want to be able to
[8:30] : express how I'm feeling and name how I'm feeling. So I'm going to start with the the the boring part to watch. So my
[8:38] : apologies for that. This is a nice little piece of So, I printed these on
[8:44] : my printer on a nice heavyduty Bristol illustration paper that I had.
[8:57] : And I will take the time to fussy cut these later. So, I love this one. She
[9:05] : looks sort of peaceful and calm. So, I like this one. I love She looks Well,
[9:12] : both of these look This one maybe is worried. This one maybe is a little bit sad.
[9:24] : And I like this one's, you know, this one feels
[9:30] : like she's showing compassion and empathy. This one feels like kind of
[9:35] : neutral or perhaps even like I'm not showing my emotions. So, you may attach
[9:43] : different meanings to some of these. This one looks like really sad.
[9:52] : And so I'm thinking about, you know, her and what this looks like.
[10:02] : And I'm not going to use all of these, but I want to kind of just flip through
[10:08] : them. And I might even write on the the back, you know, what these emotions
[10:14] : symbolize. And I think I want six of them to fit around my
[10:21] : wheel feels. These two maybe feel too close together.
[10:29] : And these kind of feel close together. So, I think I'm going to go with these
[10:35] : six and I'm going to think about So, again, there's sort of this calm,
[10:43] : maybe worried, compassionate, sad. This could be frustrated or even angry.
[10:51] : It's not exactly right. And this one is happy, but it's not outrageously
[10:57] : happy either. So, I liked the size of these faces.
[11:02] : That's why I'm working with these more youthful faces. But these would be super
[11:07] : fun um to work with it as well. But I think I would want to reduce them and
[11:13] : make them a little bit smaller. Like this is kind of like wildeyed and crazy.
[11:19] : This one she looks a little bit stunned. This one is annoyed. you know, this
[11:25] : these are both kind of happy or maybe mischievous, right? And then we've got these look
[11:31] : like angry teachers down here. This could also be frustration or this is
[11:36] : that mom looking at you over the corner of her shoulders. So, there's a lot of different faces to play with this week
[11:44] : or create your own that represent different aspects
[11:51] : of yourself and your different emotions. Um, neither. I on these I just use
[11:59] : colored pencil. Lorraine, I had a lot of fun getting my colored pencils out and
[12:05] : used a lot of layers of colored pencils to get that look. I'm going to cut the
[12:10] : necks out because that's the part that I want to is going to get attached to the wheel and then I can fussy cut the rest
[12:19] : later because I want to see if I can get this sort of spinner idea to work. Thank
[12:26] : you. I really love working with colored pencil and I actually really loved the
[12:34] : pencil on this Bristol paper.
[12:40] : I had never really worked with this paper before. This is just the Michaels
[12:46] : brand and I bought it on sale and it's probably actually made for like alcohol
[12:53] : markers or other types of markers, but I really loved it for the colored pencil
[13:01] : as well. Now, because it's an illustration pad, I don't know how well
[13:06] : it would take wet media or if it would buckle or not, but it was a fun um
[13:12] : experiment to try.
[13:20] : So, I'm going to quickly get these cut out.
[13:35] : So bear with me for just a second. Some of these aren't as long as others.
[13:48] : I meant to do some of the cutting ahead of time this morning, but I'm trying to finish a
[13:55] : painting of a mountain lion that I'm working on and I'm very close to the
[14:01] : end. And I was telling my husband when I get close to the end, I tend to get a little obsessive and I don't want to
[14:08] : stop painting. So, I found myself, you know, working up until the the very last
[14:14] : minute this morning on that painting and then having to rush a little bit to get
[14:21] : ready over here. I had the vision in my head. Okay. So, here I have my stack of
[14:27] : faces. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to cut a wheel
[14:33] : that I want to kind of fit on this on this tag. So, I don't want it to be
[14:40] : wider than this tag. And where's my So, you could just use a lid of a jar.
[14:46] : That's what this is. It's the lid of my water jar. Um, I've got a candle here that I could
[14:53] : use. A lid of a candle. I also have my most favorite circle drawing tool. I use
[15:00] : this a lot to um create circles or do mandala design work. It's called a
[15:06] : helix. H E L IIX tool and they're available at nicer art stores and
[15:12] : they're almost always sold out on Amazon, but um I have a few of these and
[15:18] : they don't last forever. The plastic does crack. So I've also been through um
[15:23] : a few of them. So I'm going to take just a second and see.
[15:31] : So, I don't need all of the faces to be, you know, showing all at once, but I do
[15:38] : want to make sure that I can fit them all on
[15:43] : this wheel. I have a sense of having them all be stacked. And I'm thinking
[15:49] : that circle feels a little big for the length that I have. So, I'm going to use this lid.
[15:57] : Lids are easy. And I have just a piece of actually is
[16:02] : this one. Okay, this is a piece of that Bristol paper which is pretty stiff. It feels really similar here to this
[16:11] : manila folder or manila tag. And I am going to trace around this
[16:22] : and cut this out. We're going to see if this idea is going
[16:28] : to work. So, just like I did with all the other dolls, I'm going to make an abstract, you know, dress or body, if
[16:36] : you will, for the doll, but there'll just be one. And then I
[16:43] : want the faces to be able to change.
[16:57] : So, I'm going to take an all, but you could use anything pointy that you have.
[17:03] : And I'm gonna think So, do I want them to be able to go? No, I think I want
[17:08] : them all to
[17:15] : thinking thinking. No, I think I'm I'm going to want the wheel to spin. So, I'm
[17:20] : going to want them to be attached around the wheel for sure.
[17:33] : So, I'm kind of just going to mark where those necks are so I can remember where to poke the holes.
[17:41] : Might want them a little bit closer together.
[17:55] : This is one of my, you know, kind of mad experiments here. And if you have been
[18:01] : around the Paperd Doll Chronicles for a while, you know that I will often try
[18:07] : things that I haven't tried before because I want you to see me experiment
[18:12] : and mess up, right? And see how not everything comes out perfectly.
[18:23] : all the time. Okay, close enough. So, we're gonna
[18:30] : get some Actually, let's do this. Well, now I didn't keep them in order. Silly me. I don't know if it matters.
[18:42] : That was that super long one. And I'm going to poke the the hole, you
[18:49] : know, towards the the bottom of the neck, not up super close so that it stays put together. And I just poked a
[18:56] : hole right through both of them. And I had pulled out these bigger brads, but I
[19:01] : think those are too big. So, I'm going to get some of these smaller ones. And
[19:07] : this is a set of gosh, I don't know how many bazillion of these little tiny
[19:12] : brads in different colors. I found them on Amazon. You can also find, you know,
[19:18] : cute little flowery ones. Uh I know the Michael's Recollections brand, they have
[19:25] : a lot of them as well.
[19:30] : And I will probably take these all back off later to do that little bit of fussy
[19:36] : cutting left on them to finish up.
[19:44] : I'm going to do all the brads the same color. And if you've never worked with brads
[19:51] : before in your artwork, they are such a fun tool for art journaling and doll
[20:00] : making because it makes things, you know, very movable, right?
[20:12] : Definitely seeing how, you know, the longer necks are better and making sure
[20:20] : again I'm not getting those brads tucked in too
[20:26] : close to the edge
[20:33] : and I'm experimenting and this is just paper,
[20:40] : right? So if the idea doesn't work,
[20:45] : it doesn't matter, right? I'm not wasting anything. You know, it's not I can still use all of these faces.
[20:55] : And sometimes the vision in our head doesn't always translate to whatever it
[21:02] : is that we're working on. And we can get really frustrated
[21:08] : or intimidated and never try. But it's so important to play and experiment to
[21:15] : use what you have on hand to try different things and see
[21:21] : what you can come up with. This is how excuse me new ideas and innovations
[21:29] : are created is from experimentation and play, right? Like you know the most
[21:36] : famous example of that is Edison and how many what you might say were failed
[21:44] : attempts to create the light bulb. I think there he you know the saying goes there were over 5,000 attempts and he
[21:52] : didn't see any of them as failures just my fingernails are too long um just
[22:00] : opportunities to learn what didn't work and I feel that way about art that the
[22:05] : more that we can give ourselves permission to just play and experiment
[22:11] : and try things we learn what we like we learn what works we learn what doesn't work. Put the lids on those before I
[22:18] : knock them over and spill them everywhere. So, here I have this beautiful wheel of faces that express
[22:28] : all the the different emotions, right? And it might be that I can pick one emotion at a time.
[22:38] : And if I put this behind, right, then I have that opportunity to
[22:45] : periodically come in and change up
[22:51] : that wheel of emotions to express how I'm feeling in the moment. So, putting
[22:58] : it behind works. Maybe even putting it up a little bit. No. So, a little bit
[23:05] : higher. And then I can just put another brad
[23:12] : right through here. I love when they stand up from the tag. I never feel like, you know, things need
[23:19] : to be contained or constrained inside the tag necessarily.
[23:28] : Or maybe I want that to be a little bit more up there.
[23:34] : Or I might even trim the edge of the circle. Although it does kind of look like shoulders up there.
[23:40] : So that's going to work well. Worked better than I thought it would for first effort. So I'm going to do
[23:48] : just like I've done with the other ones. And if that's her shoulders,
[23:54] : we're gonna use this scrappy bit of paper here and make a dress. So the the
[24:00] : bottom of my tag is way down at the bottom here, right?
[24:06] : This is the the length of my tag. And maybe this one she's going to be
[24:12] : standing in water or maybe she'll even have some legs. That feels way too long
[24:18] : for a dress.
[24:26] : And I'm going to just fold this in half
[24:34] : because I do want the the shoulders and the two sides to be even.
[24:41] : Oh, and maybe she needs a little flare and flow to her dress.
[24:51] : And I imagine, you know, when people first started to sew and make clothes,
[24:57] : they didn't have patterns, right? You know, they were finagling
[25:02] : as they went along. So, the dress feels like it needs to be
[25:10] : maybe a little bit neutral, right? because you know or maybe the dress also
[25:17] : gets attached with a brad so that there might be a different
[25:25] : dress for different days. Right? So, the
[25:30] : dress that she's wearing might be a little bit different
[25:42] : than the dress of a different day. Let's get her.
[25:49] : So, she's rounded up.
[25:54] : The faces are a little fuzzy, but I think I really like
[26:06] : not sure I understand, but would love to see your version of that. So, I'm pretty
[26:11] : happy with this version of it at the moment.
[26:17] : It's hard to describe what's in your head sometimes as well.
[26:26] : Yep. It feels like she's going to want um a body where, you know, the other ones didn't necessarily
[26:32] : have a body. So, feels like there's going to be some arms and some legs
[26:38] : added to this one. And again, just keeping everything as simple as
[26:45] : possible.
[26:59] : I'm just going to do a little rounded foot.
[27:09] : Let me just turn those opposite ways. And now she has some nice long skinny
[27:16] : legs on here. And she's going to need some arms.
[27:36] : And when you think about it, your arms come about halfway down, you know, your
[27:43] : thigh. So her arms are actually pretty long.
[27:50] : If you reach down and kind of touch where your arms reach down your leg, you
[27:55] : can kind of see. Oh, maybe her dress needs sleeves and hands. That's kind of
[28:01] : cute.
[28:09] : And her hands can be also just super super simple.
[28:21] : Just a very simple hand shape almost like a little tiny mitten
[28:32] : and our thumbs face inward. Right? So all of a sudden we have a a
[28:38] : complete body coming together here. So, I liked this shape of this sleeve.
[28:50] : I have to clean up all the little scrappy bits or I get overwhelmed and
[28:56] : feel like there's too much going on and I can't find anything. And then even I'm
[29:02] : not someone who saves. I know so many mixed media artists who save every
[29:08] : single little scrap of paper and fabric.
[29:13] : I just can't. I get completely overwhelmed.
[29:26] : And we're going to flip that one over the other direction.
[29:34] : And I'm going to round out those shoulders there. But I think I'm going to connect all of this together first.
[29:42] : So I have this, you know, interesting figure coming together. And I think the
[29:49] : figure will stay the same, but she might have a couple of different outfits to
[29:56] : represent the the different ways that she's feeling.
[30:02] : Grab a glue stick here.
[30:10] : I don't know what's going to go on the dress. I'm going to probably paint up the the
[30:18] : hands and the legs. So, I cut the legs extra long so that I would have plenty
[30:25] : of room to attach them to the dress.
[30:39] : I don't want them to be attached to my tag because I still want to paint my
[30:47] : tag.
[30:56] : That looks good. And then this one,
[31:02] : we're just going to get that one little corner edge glued on there.
[31:16] : And that one little
[31:24] : glued on there. Then I'm just going to
[31:29] : take that sharp edge off.
[31:36] : For those of you that sew or make clothes, you probably have simpler ways
[31:42] : of creating patterns, but I think I've always loved puzzles. So for me, there's
[31:47] : something fun about the sort of puzzling out of putting it all together.
[31:58] : And it's totally fine to let it
[32:03] : lay over the edges.
[32:09] : Glue those little hands in there. And I might wish that I had made the hands a
[32:15] : little bit longer, but I can always put some tape on the back as well to hold
[32:20] : those down.
[32:36] : Working with these little fussy pieces is challenging.
[32:44] : Okay. So, my vision is starting to come together here. Now we have the body.
[33:04] : And I think I understand what you're saying about the um arch. Lorraine. I'm
[33:10] : such a visual person. Um, but I kind of like that her shoulders
[33:18] : are sticking out a little bit there and that each one will just be a little bit
[33:24] : different. So, it's all coming together. It's interesting because the the body
[33:30] : looks very large for one of the faces. So, if I were to, you know, just have
[33:37] : one of these singular faces here,
[33:43] : and sometimes that's how our emotions feel, right? Like they're too much,
[33:52] : too much, too much. So it feels almost good that there's you know how do we hold on to this ocean of emotion within
[34:01] : whether that's too much joy and enthusiasm whether it's a welling up of
[34:06] : grief and sadness whether it's that you know um young being angry at your
[34:12] : parents for not letting you do what you wanted right there's so many different expressions being angry as an adult you
[34:21] : know with a spouse or a kiddo of your own or a somebody at
[34:29] : your place of work, right? Like emotions feel overwhelming and we often feel like
[34:35] : we want to cover them up. So, it's okay with me that this body feels a little
[34:42] : bit large today. And I'm going to decide
[34:50] : which one. Something about this sweet, compassionate one here
[34:57] : is really speaking to me today.
[35:05] : And I'm kind of loving some of those
[35:11] : colors of the pinks as well.
[35:18] : And yeah, her arms are just feeling like it's just feeling a little too
[35:24] : puffy. So, you know, I'm just going to mess with it. And if it doesn't work, I'm
[35:31] : going to do it again. Like her shoulders are just too wide.
[35:41] : Feels
[35:52] : like those 80s days of the power suits with the giant um shoulder pads in them.
[35:59] : Okay, that feels a little better. And then maybe we'll just come in and give her a little bit more
[36:09] : of a shape. This one is not wanting to be as
[36:15] : abstract as the other ones. It's interesting that, you know, all the other ones were just really simple
[36:23] : shapes that held the different figures,
[36:29] : right? But somehow, love all her sparkly bits. Um, but somehow this one is
[36:36] : wanting to be a little more specific. And again, just that noticing,
[36:42] : letting your art speak to you, letting the dolls speak to you,
[36:49] : not judging or questioning, but just staying in that place of curiosity.
[36:55] : Thank you, Avon. Yeah. And I'm sure there's different and better ways than
[37:01] : mine to uh create that wheel, but create
[37:07] : something that works for you. All right, that feels better. She has a little bit
[37:12] : more little bit more of a girly shape there.
[37:18] : Doesn't feel quite as
[37:27] : And they all have different lengths on their necks, but it's almost like I want her to stand up a little bit more. So,
[37:35] : there might be one more iteration of that wheel to come, but for now, this
[37:41] : feels good. And I want to get my tag painted up,
[37:47] : my glue stick put away, my lid put away.
[37:52] : Let's see. And I have not gessoed
[37:58] : this tag. So, and I do not have any. That's like
[38:04] : shocking. I don't have any gesso right here in front of me
[38:11] : that I can see. So, I'm just going to put a little matte medium on that tag
[38:18] : mixed with just a little bit of white paint to just kind of seal that surface in. Normally I would do that with gesso,
[38:25] : but who knows where my tube of gesso ended up
[38:30] : in between these. These should be plenty strong enough. Oh, and look at that. There's one from last week that I
[38:37] : already painted up with some blue from some extra paint. And then I'm gonna
[38:43] : take my scraper here
[38:50] : and I just want to seal this surface so that it will hold the wet media better
[38:55] : and not buckle quite so much
[39:01] : when I get ready to put the the color on the page.
[39:10] : I can't wait to see what you create, Lorraine. I always love when you email me your pictures of your
[39:18] : dolls that you make. So, I'll look forward to seeing your version of the wheel. And I had a bunch of that white
[39:26] : paint and matte medium
[39:34] : left on here. So, I'm just going to layer it up on this tag so that can get used as
[39:41] : something else.
[39:46] : And I'm going to paint right on top of this. I'm not even going to wait for this to dry too much. We'll give it a
[39:54] : little bit of a wave.
[39:59] : And for some of you, you might want to try the wheel. And for some of you, summer might be such a beautiful time
[40:05] : of, you know, joy and nostalgia from your own childhood or from your
[40:12] : children's childhood and how you spent your summers, right? That one face might
[40:18] : really express that. So, don't feel like you have to do what I did with all the
[40:23] : faces. Remember that you can very simply come in and have fun with just one face
[40:33] : that represents that idea of the oceans of emotion for summer. And for me, the
[40:38] : ocean has always been a place of deep joy and calm and peace. And there's a
[40:46] : lot of nostalgia around the ocean for me when I was a girl after my
[40:53] : well so even before my parents got divorced when I was about eight
[41:00] : years old but um we always loved the coast. My dad always loves surf fishing.
[41:07] : I had an aunt, a aunt and an uncle that had a house in Porteranis, Texas. And we
[41:14] : would go as a big family or just the four of us. And then after my
[41:21] : parents split up, I have really fond memories of my dad taking my brother and
[41:26] : I to the beach for a vacation. So, I'm just getting a bunch of different blues
[41:33] : on here. and a little more white.
[41:42] : So, when you think back to summer and when I think about summers with my own
[41:47] : kids, I often think about our amazing summer trips. My husband's family has
[41:55] : cottages on the coast of Nova Scotia that are very near and dear to all of
[42:02] : our hearts.
[42:13] : And it feels like, you know how you get water going in whirlpools and swirls of
[42:20] : currents. And that's how emotions can feel. We're taught caught up in that
[42:25] : sort of tide or pull of emotions.
[42:36] : And it can feel like we can get sucked into that whirlpool
[42:42] : and never want to come out or find it challenging to get back out again.
[42:55] : I'm not even feeling like I need to cover this whole thing in paint, but just to capture a little bit of the idea
[43:06] : of this ocean of emotion.
[43:22] : All right, I'm going to let that sit aside for a few minutes to dry. And I
[43:28] : still have all this blue paint here, so we don't want to waste anything.
[43:36] : This is a little bit, you know, a hint of how I might just start making some
[43:42] : painty papers and layering up the color on a tag or old
[43:49] : book pages. Or if I wanted to test a particular
[43:56] : paper, I might come in and use whatever
[44:02] : scraps of paper I had around. I think I might pull out a sheet of that
[44:10] : illustration paper and see how it holds the
[44:16] : wet paint. So now I have actually two fun painty blue ones that kind of
[44:22] : represent, you know, my emotions are just a a drop in the ocean or thinking
[44:30] : about the ripple effect of how our emotions can spread and impact others as
[44:37] : well. So lots of different ways to think about this. was looking to see if maybe
[44:43] : I had some book pages here.
[44:53] : And when I'm thinking about making painty papers for use in collage, I
[45:00] : would use a much thinner paper than this thick illustration paper. This makes a
[45:07] : great substrate and not necessarily uh a collage layer
[45:13] : because it's too thick. Used to bury your Barbies in the sand and was always surprised when you
[45:19] : couldn't find them again. Oh, Evan, I love that. That's so sweet.
[45:24] : All right. So, one of my favorite things is just to paint swirls.
[45:39] : So relaxing and calming. And these little bits and pieces make
[45:47] : beautiful collage papers. And I'm noticing the paper is staying very flat.
[45:53] : It's uh has an interesting reaction to the paint that I'm kind of liking.
[46:04] : It's not necessarily a paper I would have thought about.
[46:10] : This would be beautiful paper to draw on or to add Zenangle marks to. So, I've
[46:19] : got a very green blue and then a more red blue. So, bringing in these
[46:26] : different shades of blue also really helps me to see differences in color.
[46:35] : All right, so this will get snagged up and saved for some
[46:42] : other project along the way. The first layer or substrate of something
[46:49] : My brother and I, I remember us getting in trouble for having sand fights with other kids and throwing
[46:57] : sand on the beach.
[47:04] : Okay. Love that page of spirals again. Interesting. Like I'm just
[47:10] : looking at what I sort of naturally chose to paint here today with these
[47:17] : different blues. So I have droplets. I have kind of whirlpools. I have a swirl.
[47:24] : If I were to, you know, describe emotions and how they feel in my body,
[47:29] : that's how they might all feel as I continue to play and work with them. All
[47:38] : right. So, now I want to think about some clothes for these girls. And
[47:49] : going to just grab my Karinda Ash and give her hands and legs some color.
[48:05] : She may need some shoes later on, but this just kind of is that little bit of
[48:11] : a place to start. When I think about summer,
[48:20] : wherever I was, either as a kid or as an adult, you know, I think about getting tan. Yeah, I love beach days. Me, too.
[48:32] : And I would get very tan as a kid in the summer after a week at the beach. You know, little brown bear running around,
[48:49] : long before the days when we knew it was dangerous to run around
[48:56] : in the sand. All right. So now she has a little bit more character. One thing
[49:02] : you'll notice, there's some glue stick here on these
[49:09] : pieces of paper where I glued her. The car ash does not like it doesn't want to
[49:15] : stick to the where there was glue there. So that color is messy right there. Once
[49:22] : this is dry, I can just put a layer of matte medium over it and try again. So,
[49:29] : the glue stick does not absorb paper very well. Now, I need to decide if I
[49:35] : want to paint her, collage her. I pulled this out this morning and was very drawn
[49:42] : to these bright summer flowers, which I think make a
[49:48] : interesting contradiction to some of the emotions. And look at
[49:57] : that. It's just the right size. So, this
[50:02] : was a technique I learned from another artist where I just printed out some of
[50:09] : my own flower photos and painted on top of them to get these abstract flowers.
[50:17] : That was very fun. She was using it for a completely different process.
[50:28] : So, I'm just going to Let's see. Didn't quite get her
[50:40] : whole dress on there. It's okay. I'm going to go with it because I want all these flowers down
[50:46] : here.
[50:56] : And I'm just lightly tracing everything. I'm not being overly precise.
[51:03] : I just want to get that dress shape down on the paper.
[51:18] : What's up,
[51:41] : And it's always interesting to see what something looks like when you cut it
[51:46] : away from an entirety of a pattern. It might surprise you. You might like it
[51:51] : better or not.
[51:57] : Like I'm noticing, oh, might want something else up here on the top.
[52:07] : Can always come back and bring back maybe a few more bits of
[52:16] : those flowers. And same on the bottom.
[52:22] : Does it really want to break some of that green up?
[52:30] : Nope. I'm okay with the green down there,
[52:40] : but that feels like it needs that little bit more pink up there at the top.
[52:49] : And it feels like her dress really wants to be pretty simple.
[52:56] : Like I, you know, I love to layer things up and add lots of detail
[53:04] : to them, but maybe because this one wants to be interchangeable.
[53:20] : It does feel like it needs um this has such a dramatic
[53:27] : white line around it that I think we're going to just come in and maybe break up
[53:33] : some of that green just a little bit.
[53:50] : And maybe give her a little pretty ruffle here on the edge
[53:55] : of her sleeves. Just taking that simple piece of
[54:03] : painty paper and adding these little extra touches of personality just really
[54:10] : helps to again personalize your art.
[54:32] : Very
[54:44] : fun. That feels like a dress that I would wear with all those fun colorful
[54:50] : flowers on it.
[54:58] : I know, right, Anna? I want that dress for myself, too. Totally. Okay. So, rather than gluing
[55:06] : this down, I am going to use a couple of
[55:11] : brads on here almost like they're little buttons. And I if I had my little flower
[55:19] : brads, I might even use those. But so maybe I'm gonna give her a couple of
[55:24] : buttons so that if I want at some point to
[55:30] : change out her dress, I can.
[55:36] : Little more effective than the old school way of just, you know, making paper tabs on things.
[55:54] : And I like the little So I used little shiny brads for this part.
[56:07] : And I'm probably gonna have one of these brads go right straight through the center of my Actually, before I do that,
[56:15] : let's do this through the tag as well. So, she sticks to the tag. I don't know
[56:23] : if any of these are dry enough yet. And this one, there's not enough
[56:31] : contrast. Like, there's this is way too busy for the dress. And I want the dress
[56:37] : to really stand out. So I might have That one's a little bit better.
[56:48] : I still want to have all that blue on there, but I'm thinking it actually needs to be perhaps a solid color blue.
[56:58] : So, I won't finish putting this completely together because I've got some definitely some things here that
[57:05] : need to dry, but I'm going to come in here with just that.
[57:11] : So, hard to get just a little bit of paint out of these. I need one more of those brads. I'm
[57:18] : going to take this tag. And my blue paint is still white. I know that. So,
[57:23] : this might just make a mess.
[57:36] : And I'm okay with that. So, I know what painting is there underneath, right? I
[57:42] : know there's that whole swirly emotion going on. So, I've still got the nice
[57:49] : swirly look, but now when I put her on there, she's going to stand out quite a
[57:55] : bit more. And I can imagine that this is perhaps a swimsuit cover up that she's
[58:02] : wearing. And then I'm gonna come back over here to
[58:08] : my wheel and I'm going to go ahead and cut her
[58:14] : out because I want to
[58:19] : get a sense of what they're going to look like when they don't have all that extra.
[58:25] : I think the the fussy cutting of the all the faces is like the most challenging
[58:31] : part.
[58:41] : And I'm going to trim that next so it's not popping up
[58:47] : out above. So once it's dry and put together,
[58:57] : it's going to look something like that, right? It's going to look something like
[59:03] : that, which makes me really happy. It's kind of hard to see her on top of all of
[59:10] : that messy paint. So, there she is on a white background.
[59:18] : So, it's coming together. perhaps not quite finished or quite complete, but
[59:24] : you kind of get that idea of where I'm going with this, you know, multitude of
[59:31] : faces and emotions. And I'm really happy
[59:36] : with this kind of, you know, idea of this where we're going to get to play
[59:43] : now. They kind of look like they're headless. It's kind of creepy looking at them that way. Um, but just noticing
[59:49] : right like that I get this I get to choose my emotions. I get to name my emotions. I get to honor all of my
[59:59] : emotions on my journey. And I can also go back
[1:00:04] : and really, you know, give some love to that inner child part of me who perhaps
[1:00:12] : wasn't allowed or taught um how to
[1:00:20] : express my emotions in a healthy way. So, she's not quite finished, but what a
[1:00:26] : fun month it's been of sort of bringing all of these different parts of self
[1:00:34] : together in such a fun variety of different ways. As always, my friends,
[1:00:41] : thank you for joining me. I appreciate you being here live. I appreciate those
[1:00:47] : of you that stopped by to join me.
[1:00:52] : also on the replay. I love it when you leave me comments. Hit that like button.
[1:00:59] : Let me know what you thought about the video. And uh thanks for joining me this
[1:01:04] : month. And I'll be back next month with a month of painty papers, which is one of my favorite favorite things to do.
[1:01:12] : And then we'll use those painty papers to create some more paper dolls. So,
[1:01:19] : have a beautiful rest of your day, a rest of your week, and I'll see you guys all next week. Bye, everybody.