What are you feeling? {vol.7 and last!}

Before we take off with our new challenge, there's a piece of news we'd like to share...

This is our last in the series of Emotional Challenges. In July we came up with something completely new and - we can promise you that - it will be very exciting! :)

As for today, here's the last Emotion that serves as our inspiration this month... not an easy one but familiar to each and every one of us - Stress...

Take a look at these amazing inspirations from our Design Team to spark off your imaginations. :)

This emotional challenge was very important for me.

Stress was actually something that changed my life a lot. It takes a lot of effort for me to be cool and calm and warm and positive... but there was a time when I was young and naive and stress related to work and other stupid stuff was killing me. I care... I care a lot. Even if it doesn't show.

That's also part of why creativity is so important for me - it takes me to my happy place and helps me to keep calm.

I was thinking about this piece for like a month. ;) And I was actually creating it for about 4 hours.

I have to tell you - this:

was a pretty stressful moment. :)
But I'm very pleased how it turned out! Exactly how I wanted.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I was trying to be a bit different and interpreted “stress” physically rather than the obvious mental or emotional stress but I found they are all connected anyway.

I was thinking about how we place physical stress on our bodies, like dancers, athletes or by the type of physical work we do; then if something goes wrong, like an injury, then that in turn puts us under mental and emotional stress, so it’s all related.

The concentric circles, the lines and arrows are representative of not just how “physically” we can be pulled every which way, but also mentally and emotionally.

Beautiful “Lost Letter” paper from Cold Country collection is the background for this page. I also used “Vintage Coal” - one of the new Color Bloom spray mists. Lots of stamping, texture paste and Distress Stains.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

This time I really had to think before I decided what to do with the feeling stressed.

Instead of showing how I feel when I'm stressed, I want to tell you what I do when it happens.

When stressed, I like to paint. Either on a blank canvas or in my Art Journal. Just letting the paintbrush or brayer move up and down on a page, makes the stress ease off.

When I started I had no idea of the result, neither did I have any plan. I thought I wanted to use some relaxing colors.

Happy colors could also work. For me,  blue/green is a relaxing and happy colors at the moment are yellow, pink and orange.

I used both brush and brayer to paint vertical movements on the first layer. When I stopped with the first layer, I took some masking tape and removed some paint. Then, when almost dry I started to brush horizontal strokes. 

Then, I repeated the routine until I felt I was done.

To give the painting some dimension and light, I added some white strokes in the wet paint. I then took a picture to document the process and when looking at the pictures I saw a silouette face in the painting and that was a signal for me to stop.

This is the 3rd time I covered this canvas with gesso and started a new painting. Who knows what will appear next time I paint on it...?

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

June is the month of exams here in  France: high school level, competitive examination etc...

It's a stressful period for our childrens and for us, parents. It's the reason I chose this photo.

The original photo, found on the Internet, was obviously red. However, I decide to modify the color to something more soothing.

Even if a situation is stressful, we need to remain calm to get through a difficult period.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I wanted to express this emotion in a positive way. I'm no stranger to stress and it can really help to overcome challenging situations, but I didn't want to do a project about anxiety or busyness or deadlines.

So I used a saying I'd seen over the internet somewhere: "Stressed spelled backwards is desserts".

I used acrylic paints to make the background and paper napkins for the cake bases that I iced with modelling paste and Liquid pearls.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

Stress always can be motivating or demotivating.

Every time I am under stress, I try to make it work for me, not against me. :)

In my art journal page I have used some sprays, gesso, gelatos and wonderful white Sharpie combined with Pitt Pens from Faber-Castell.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:



Feeling inspired yet?

Do you need to let go some of the stress in your lives? Nothing works better than grabbing some great mixed media supplies and pouring it all out on paper or canvas...

Before we invite you to share your art in the links below, let us announce who is the winner of our previous Emotional Challenge about Tenderness.

It was so inspiring to visit all the participants and not only see some amazing artworks but also read the thoughts behind them! We highly recommend you doing the same...

And our winner this month is...

... Lisa from Paper Attic...

with this beautiful and touching layout:

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

So, are you ready to tell us how you deal with stress? ;)

Or perhaps share the works that made it disappear just for a while...?

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

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