****May Art Journal Muse Prize Winner**** Congratulations to @caapmun You are the winner of the $5 off coupon for May. ************************************ Hello everyone and welcome to May's Monthly Muse! This month we are exploring the various landscapes found in this beautiful world of ours and how we react to them deep within our own souls. We are all diverse so it comes as no surprise to learn that each of us will react to different landscapes in different ways. A “landscape” can be defined as being a part of the Earth's surface, viewed at one time from one place. A natural landscape is made up of a collection of various landforms, such as mountains, plains, lakes, streams to name a few, with their own natural vegetation that is unique to those landforms. The word, commune, perfectly defines what happens when we still ourselves long enough to connect to the natural world around us - we enter into a state of communion. When we are in the presence of a landscape that is special to us, our inner space grows quiet as we observe light, color, shape, and shadow. There is an exchange that takes place between us and the land. You may notice your breathing slows and the noise that once filled your inner world is replaced with birdsong, the babbling of the nearby stream, or the wind through the trees. Your thoughts, once preoccupied with your own inner musings, turn outwards and now ponder the shape of clouds, the starkness of the mountains, the curl of the waves or how the light and shadow play on the landscape before you. Different landscapes will however appeal more strongly to each of us, more so than others and that is what makes us all so unique and important, and that is what we will explore this month. For our challenge this month I would like us all to look inside ourselves and discover what emotions or feelings come to mind when we look at various landscapes. Each week I will post a group of similar landscapes along with some quotes, keywords, a colour palette and an inspiration board. Use any of these tools to springboard your own thoughts. Each week think about: What makes this type of landscape special (or not) to you. What feelings does it invoke? Is there a favourite place of your own within this type of landscape? one where you like to go to when you can? Expresses what you love about this sort of landscape (or dislike) through your art. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Week 4 - Forests | Woodlands | Rainforest (woodland, timberland, jungle, wildwood, woods, stand, grove) Quotes about treescapes: Let's take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magical whisper of old trees. (Pinterest) There is always music amongst the trees, and in the garden, but our hearts must be still to hear it. - Minnie Aumonier I am at home among the trees. - J R R Tolkien. Today my forest is dark. The trees are sad and all the butterflies have broken wings. (Pinterest) All the trees are losing their leaves, and not one of them is worried. - Donald Miller And there I marveled at the forest's trees; my soul rooted to its deep verdant sea. I could no more leave it, than it could walk from me. - Angie Weiland-Crosby Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. - Kahil Gibran. Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forces change yet the essence remains the same. - Rumi Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. - Mikhail Gorbachev Seek out a tree and let it teach you stillness. - Eckhart Tolle He that plants trees loves others besides himself. - Dr Thomas Fuller Inspiration board created with images from Pinterest: Color palette: About this month's challenge: And so we come to the last week of the challenge and as you can see we have ended up in the verdant magical place of trees. Looking at the images above you can see a variety of treescapes, from the rain-soaked leafy tropics, to the bare limbed trees in winter, with the moss covered old growth trees and tall redwoods reaching to the sky. Treescapes can call to many souls different ways, which do you prefer? Do you have a special place you like to go to look at trees? Are there some types of treescapes that you are not fond of? Come and join me to create some art and share what you feel about certain types of treescapes. My layout: The photo I used formy own layout is of a treescape on a property we used to live on when we first moved down to Tasmania, in a little seaside village called Sisters Beach. I fell in love with this magical little stand of old banksia and gum trees when I found it. The trees leaning over the little path seemed to form a lovely arch to walk under, and what you can't see, is a large rock beyond them that I used to sit on to just listen to the wind sighing through the brances and hear the birds chatting amongst themselves up in the canopy. All I could see around me was the green of the trees and the bracken ferns at their bases. I loved that spot and I remember walking up there on our last day to say goodbye to the trees when we moved into town, I really miss that little special place of mine! Credits are in the gallery. Challenge for Week 4 This week's challenge is to create a layout about treescape and how it affects you, does it do anything for you? or not?. You can create any type of page ie. clean and simple, artsy, pocket style etc,. Your page can be all digital or hybrid. Wherever the inspiration takes you as long as you include TLP products on your page. Please post your layout to the Art Journaling Gallery HERE prior to Midnight EST May 31, 2023 and then post it in this thread by copying the code (at the right of your gallery image) from the box under "Share BB Code". We will draw a winner at the beginning of next month for a coupon!! Every layout you create is equal to one entry in the random draw. So if you create 1 layout you are entered once, if you create 4 layouts you are entered 4 times. You can use any products in the Lilypad store or retired products from current Lilypad designers, (just make sure you follow our gallery guidelines). Looking forward to seeing your treescape layouts and I want to also thank everyone that has joined me during the month, as always your layouts have been truly wonderful!
Thank you for this months challenges, I really enjoyed it . This is the same place as the pond in week 3. So peaceful
A BIG thank you to everyone that played along for the May AJ challenges, so happy to hear that a lot of you enjoyed the themes!! The May AJ Muse Winner is announced in the first post.