What are you feeling? {vol. 5}

So here we are, once again we meet to talk about our feelings.
Are you ready for the next challenge? :)

This month we'd like you to creatively express the feeling of... Jealousy!

When choosing the theme for our next challenge, we had some really interesting discussions.
We finally decided on Jealousy for our next emotion - some of us don't know that feeling at all, some others admit to feeling envious. The green-eyed monster - sounds familiar? However, it doesn't always have to be a negative feeling... ;)
Artist envy, sibling rivalry, lovers worries...
Before we ask you to create with us, take a look at what our Design Team has to say...

Jealousy is a sneaky monster. It shows up unexpectedly and surprises us with its force.

I've been wondering for a long time how to get rid of it. And when I start to think that I won, it defeats me yet again.

Creating these pages was very simple. I apllied thick gesso through a stencil and when it dried, I painted it with Pan Pastels. Then I used a fixative and scribbled with crayons, adding splashes of black ink and watered down acrylic paint.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I have to tell you - this emotional challenge was a little bit hard for me. From the begining I was sure I'll use lyrics from a "Green Eyes"song by Erykah Badu as an inspiration. And then... I spent a lot of time thinking about jealousy. I don't envy other people their material stuff or accomplishments. But when it comes to love... well - my eyes are actually green. ;) And it's not an easy thing to search deep into your soul for this kind of emotion...

I think that a bit of jealousy in a relationship is normal - it's a part of love and caring about the other person. Unfortunately. the great passion and great intuition can lead to a jealousy which tears your heart apart.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

Jelousy wasn't a difficult subject for me. Unfortunately, I fight with this emotion quite often but it always comes from love. A small dose of jelousy isn't wrong in my opinion. When you know how to control it it cannot destroy true and real affection. In fact maybe it's not so bad to be a little jelous?

This emotion can sometimes help me wake up and reminds me that we must constantly care about each other and don't let our love wilt.

I didn't use any difficult techniques on my page. Just some brush strokes, few pieces of papers, sketching and splattering with acrylic paint.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I don’t feel jealousy is an emotion I’m confronted with.

Envy, yes, sometimes, I am human, you know. But not jealousy. So it wasn’t easy to make an art journal spread on the subject.

I focused on the words of The Dalai Lama who says that jealousy, like any other negative emotion, is a feeling you can abandon. As long as you choose to do so.

PS: For me, the main difference between envy and jealousy is that envy is an emotion related to coveting what someone else has, while jealousy is the emotion related to fear that something you have will be taken away by someone else.

France also prepared a video tutorial for us so you can follow her wonderful creative process:



Materials from Mixed Media place:

I would like to think I'm not an envious or jealous person, but I know there have been times when I have wished for something that someone else has, maybe something like good fortune or success.
I think the emotion of jealousy belongs  more to small children and teenagers and of course siblings will often be jealous of each other.
As we get older we become more accepting of what comes our way; be it good or bad fortune and often you have no control over it.

When I think of a jealous person, consumed by only wanting what another has, I see them as loosing their Joy in life, their  Gratitude for what they have and becoming grey or colourless and growing a very black heart.

I have used lots of Distress Inks on this page for all of the colour work.
Firstly, I stamped and embossed in clear onto white cardstock, (difficult to see but it is there on the background behind the figures) then sponged on different colours of Distress Inks, misted these with water then heat set. Sponging Distress Ink onto a textured card stock and then lightly misting it can create beautiful soft backgrounds.

I added some stamping over this with Stazon and some free-hand drawing with Pitt artists pens. Dabbing the Distress Ink pad onto a mat then applying water with a paint brush to it you can create beautiful water colour washes and this is what is used on the figures and over the checker-board texture.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

This emotion was a hard one for me. I'm not a typical jealous person, so I really had to look for some inspiration for this one. When searching the internet for the emotion there where some images that brought me a feeling I could work with.

I've already prepared a page with paper strips and gesso so I only had to find the proper text for the page. I found the text at Friend of Type, so the only thing I did was printing it on Vintage music paper and adding some black marker at the end to make it pop out.

I decided to only use the color green and started of with Ecoline watercolor 600, 657 and 666, then I added some Wild vine Primary Elements. I made sure to dry each layer of color, that way they didn't mix as much as if they where all wet. Then I added some green Silks and LuminArte.

When everything was dry I used a marker for the text and a pencil to add some shadow on the page.

I used some 3rd Eye stamps to add some extra elements to the page.

Please remember: Don't let jealousy fool you, it's just another name for insecurity.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I found this cute photo on the Internet and I knew that it was perfect for this challenge.

I wanted to express a little bit of humor as Jealousy can be a very destructive emotion.

But sometimes it can help us to move forward… sometimes it's just innocent… sometimes you are jealous but at the same time happy for the other… Yes Jealousy is a special feeling…

I used the Nature Walk collection which is perfect for the vintage atmosphere I wanted to achieve. I added some crackle paste to my background with a stencil on top of a layer of gesso. Then, I used my Twinklings to color the paper and the crackle paste. I finished with splatters of Burnt Umber Twinkling and black gesso.

I used the same colors of Twinkling to color the chipboard. The greenery, die cut in a black paper, has been colored with the Burnt Umber Twinkling. The flowers were colored with the same colors as the background.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

When we got this theme, I browsed through quotes for inspiration. Most of them were one way or the other negative, but a quote by Nicky Minaj stuck with me:

"True confidence leaves no room for jealousy. 

When you know you are great, you have no need to hate."

I used this quote as my jumping off point and made an art journal spread using the idea.

The circular shapes behind the girl mimic a mandala depicting her confidence and inner peace.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

Jealousy is a totally strange feeling to me. :)
But when I think of a jealous person, I always think that someone needs to feel more unique and to have more self-esteem.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:


And now it's time to reveal who won our previous Emotional Challenge which was: Curiosity.
Yet again, you sent us so many stunning pieces... And as always they were not only visually beautiful but very often followed by an intersting story or thoughts.
It was a close fight and a very difficult choice (we really need to think of handing out more than just one prize ;) ).
Thank you so much for joining us in our emotional mixed media adventure... ♥
And the winner of the Curiosity challenge is...

...March...

with this beautiful piece:

Please contact us to claim your prizes: store(at)mixedmediaplace.com

Are you feeling inspired?

If so, please join us in this month's Emotional Challenge about Jealousy.
It's just enough to add a link to your work using the inlinkz tool below.
We'll be waiting until May 19th.

Then, one work chosen by our DT will be awarded a prize (a coupon to be used in Mixed Media Place store).