VanGoghChica Studio

How to live with my disabilities as an artist.

Here you can View my YouTube video that is a check in which focuses on my art journal pages. Here are pictures of my art journal pages that I show in the video.

This card is a far cry from the multilayered roses in a Victorian garden card I made two posts ago. Granted, a skeletal human spine and brain are not usual thank you card images. Does it clarify things if I tell you this is a thank you card that I plan on giving my neurosurgeon(s) at my next appointment.? Thought so. Within this last year, I had two serious spinal neurosurgeries. They were both myelopathy emergencies and I was quite ill by the time I was taken to surgery. The good news is that I have regained abilities with my hands for the most part and my doctors arrested the spinal compression that was causing me to lose my balance and that would eventually paralyze, then kill me.  I am still trying to walk and hope the end of the year will see me getting around without a wheelchair or walker. But even if I stay as I am now, I am so very, very grateful to the neurosurgery department of Cleveland Clinic Hospital in Florida for saving my life and giving me back much of my abilitie...

I am in the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP). It has three levels and little ole me is on the first class (All About Layering 3), in the first level. There are ten classes per level.  My first class really inspired me to see how many different effects are easily possible when crafting cards. I used to only stamp an image in one color; if I was being fancy, I hand colored other elements. Now, I see how to produce images that look more cohesive and complicated. I learned how to layer colors using stamps and stencils. And I practiced cutting dies.  For this class' homework, I chose to make a card featuring two women, lost in thought, day dreaming. I can picture myself writing my reflections inside and sending it off to a dear friend. Yes, several of my friends enjoy written correspondences and we have been pen pals for decades. It is so fun getting mail and handwritten notes! Supplies used:     Altenew white cardstock Altenew pigment ink, permanent bla...