My First Blog Award – The Versatile Blogger

I have been blogging since 2002 when I started my first blog The Raven in the Rose Garden so imagine my surprise the other day when I opened my emails to find that Nicole Cody of Cauldrons & Cupcakes had nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. I had been thinking that I had not blogged in some time and that I should make more of an effort in 2012, so this was the perfect opportunity to get back to it.

The Rules for the Versatile Blogger Award are:

1. Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass this award along to 15 recently discovered blogs you enjoy reading.
4. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award.

So here goes!  Seven things about me:

1. I love photography – I was given my first camera – a polaroid – for my 10th birthday

2. My favourite colour is pink

3. I would love to have a raven as a pet.

4. I live in Esperance which has the best beaches in the world

5. I am a self-taught artist

6. Writing and art journaling are among my favourite activities

7. Heather Blakey from Soul Food Cafe first introduced me to blogging.

11 recently discovered (and some not so recently discovered) blogs – in no particular order – I couldn’t come up with 15 and these 11 are important to me :

1. Collage Diva - the blog of my dear friend Kathryn Antyr; writer, artist and connector

2. Susanna’s Sketchbook – creator of the public art project Winged Messengers

3. Spiritual Evolution of the Bean - Mandala Artist Stephanie Smith

4. Provenance – The genealogical search for her family and its history

5. Sarah Salway - Writer and Canterbury Laureate

6. The Midnight Orange – sculpture artist

7. CarlyMarie Project Heal - Healing after Pregnancy & Infant Loss

8. Zentangle - creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns

9. Susannah Conway - Photographer, writer and workshop creator

10. Soul Food Cafe - where 10 years ago I started blogging.

11. On and Off the Page - Writing, Life, Art, Photography & Journaling by Lynn Fisher

More from the watercolour journal…

I’ve been journaling away in this little journal – not too many more pages and it will be time to start a new journal, and I have some ideas for creating that new one – but more of that later.

Here are some of the pages that I have been working on recently:

I have been drawing mandalas.

I was inspired by Karin’s post regarding her hand surgery – so I traced my hand in my journal – and created this healing hand for Karin.

Mandala month – a mandala a day.

In January last year when I started the 101 things in 1001 days - Number 76  was to keep a Mandala Journal and create a mandala a day for a month. Last year I created a mandala a day for the month, I thought it was about time to revisit that project, and decided that June would be Mandala month. Little did I realise at the time that it was June last year that I created the mandalas for a month.I will post the mandalas once a week during the month – so here are this weeks mandalas.

white uniball signo

Mandalas – Colour Added

Since so many people have asked if I was going to colour in my mandalas, I thought I would make some photocopies of my mandalas and see what they would look like coloured in.

These two mandalas are among my favourites so far for the month.

They were coloured with prismacolor pencils. They do look good – if I do say so myself.

While I was searching the web looking for mandala inspiration I came across Stephanie’s blog  – Spiritual Evolution of the Bean - she is an Artist, Writer, Musician and All round Creative. Check out her blog to see her mandalas.

This weeks mandalas

I’m still trying to create a mandala a day – this week I only missed one night -  the band that Ken is in was playing on Friday night and it was after one in the morning when we got home, so I drew two on Saturday to make up for it.

This mandala was inspired by Kara – Mother Henna’s blog post for The Next Chapter book group – Wreck This Journal – I’ve started wrecking my journal – I have to take some photos – I’ll keep that for another post.

These two mandalas were inspired by henna designs from the book Rangoli that you can download from The Henna Page

More Mandalas

These are the remaining mandalas that I have created this week. My favourite is the last one, that I created last night – the flower. Kathryn asked if I was going to do any of these mandalas in colour – the answer: I’m not sure. I’m enjoying creating them in pen. Each one is created with a copic multiliner sp pen. I might make copies of the ones I like and try adding colour or maybe even add them to my collages.

Doreen – who found me via the Mandala Oasis Yahoo Group is following along the Mandala-a-Day too you can see her mandalas here. If you decide to join us let me know and I’ll post a link to your blog.

Mandala-A-Day

Last year I started a journal and created a mandala each day for about 6 weeks. I enjoyed the process so much that I thought I would  do it again. I misplaced my compass recently and I purchased a new one.

Starting on the 1st of June I created a new journal with my Zutter Bind it All and each night I have created a mandala, usually before bed. The journal measures 4″ square.

New Mandala

My latest mandala – it is a christmas gift – approximately 5 x 7″

Mandala completed

zentangle mandala – update

I have been working away steadily on my large zentangle mandala. Doing little bits here and there. Today it is 30 degrees (although it feels warmer!) and they are forecasting 35 degrees tomorrow. Sounds like it will be a great weekend to stay indoors in the airconditioning and create art.