Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd

I had two spreads left in my journal so I decided to finish it off by making a synthesis spread for the solar and the lunar aspects of my year. I tried to incorporate as many of the techniques that we did this year into each spread.

This is it, friends, we made it to the last month of the year. The wheel has turned and we are back to the start…what a feeling! I think it will come as no surprise to anyone that the main festival for December is Yule / Christmas. December marks the winter solstice, a moment to celebrate the fact that the light is starting to return and the darkest days are behind us. It is a moment to come together, share a meal and gifts, say goodbye to the year past and turn to the new one starting. So take a moment to reflect on the last year, on what you uncovered in this class, about yourself, about your art and then rifle through your ephemera and see what calls to you. This is also a good moment to purge said ephemera pile before the end of the year.

It’s incredible but here we are in November, the penultimate month of the year. The time we have spent together has been nothing short of magical for me and I am so grateful for your presence.

October is my favorite month. In Canada, it is when the Fall foliage is at its best. It’s the month when I met my husband and when I gave birth to my firstborn. It is when the veil is at its thinnest and we celebrate the dead.

September brings along the official shift in the seasons and the Fall equinox.This gives us a chance to examine our goals and decide what is up for renewal and what can be let go of.

This month’s theme is harvest. In North America, the intense harvesting season is slightly later in the year but many crops come to fruition in August.

Welcome to the second part of our height of summer arc: in July we will be exploring the theme of Spirit.

With the month of June we enter into a summer arc that will carry us over the next two months. Summer is upon us (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the Earth is alive and vibrant with color and perfume.

Welcome to the glorious month of May and the promise of summer. This month we carry on with the garden theme developed in April and appreciate the growth of our flowers.

The month of April and the promise of Spring is here. This month we will celebrate our secret gardens by exploring the theme of fertility. We start with the notions of seeds and seeing what we will plant in our gardens and what weeds we will remove. The technique is a deceptively easy one: collage layers. Collage is great because it keeps our hands busy and our minds focused on the process, so join us this month as we create our fertility gardens.

Welcome March! This month we will be exploring and defining the idea of balance. It can be a fine line to navigate in our busy lives. This is why Rituals became so important to me. Finding the time for art is a big part of my own balance. Our technique this month might push some of you out of your comfort zone but I promise that the reward is worth it: this month we are diving into intuitive painting.

The theme we will be exploring, which will come as no surprise, is love. But our approach to the theme of love is – in total Rituals fashion – a very personal and different one.

A new year, a fresh start. We are at the beginning of the wheel of the year, before us is a clean slate.

Welcome to the class!

The wheel of the year is an eight-segment pie chart which represents the seasons and festivals that people in the past used to mark the passing of time.

3.4 The Monster WithinOne of the biggest realisations I had about my own heroine’s journey is that it is impossible to only blame others or external factors for what is happening. Each of us has a part in this dynamic, in the confrontation with the Boss Monster;...

3.1 In the Dark ForestNow that our heroine has crossed the threshold and followed the passage into the Unknown World, we will mark her arrival. We will start by creating flaps that open up into this new landscape. We will also bring in a visual reminder of our...

4.5 rEBIRTHAfter letting go of what no longer serves, our heroine is reborn. She is reshaped into a new way of being, of seeing, of doing. This is a grand moment that deserves two spreads! In the first video, we add an interactive element to our page using a brad,...

6.2 Through the Happy ForestOur heroine now walks freely through the Underground Forest - it no longer feels oppressive or intimidating. To show this we will be using collage to fill the background and then using a pop-up pull tab to show our heroine walking through...

1.5 Mapping Out the JourneyBefore she leaves for her journey, the heroine needs a map! The one I put in my spread is a compendium of a few Heroine’s Journeys, which you can see and download below.Feel free to use the same steps as the ones I did in the following video...

When our heroine comes face to face with the monster within herself, after having walked through the road of trials, it creates a big shift within her. This lesson feels like a pause in the whole journey, but there is a lot of inner work happening here. The Descent...

5.2 The Divine WithinThe goddess doesn’t necessarily have to be an actual entity, she can also be part of the heroine herself. This was how I came to integrate this part of the journey: the divine within the self. We will make a dimensional collage with pieces that...

Congratulations, our heroine has made it out of the Unknown World and nas returned home, which is to say she has returned to herself. Congratulations, you have come so far! This journey is almost done. It won’t be the last journey that our heroine will undertake and...

2.2 The Call to ActionThe call to action happens when the heroine has integrated the message from the catalyst. When she realises that life can’t just go back to normal or to how it was before. That is when the heroine comes to grips with the fact that she has to...

4.3 sHIFTBefore we delve into what shifts for our heroine, I go down a little tangent and invite you to carve your own stamps. This technique is one that you probably know already but in case you have never carved your own stamps, I wanted to show you an easy way to...

Our heroine has come to terms with some pretty fundamental changes and now it is time to leave the Underground Forest and return to the Known World, armed with her new knowledge. Healing the Split When you are whole, you heal. When all parts of you are integrated, you...

7.3 Signing offAs a very final gesture, I invite you to add your name to the end of your journal. I used a photo and some little bits that represent me at the end of this particular journey to complete this very moving art journal.

1.3 Coat of ArmsAs a way of illustrating our heroine’s values and ideals, we will make a coat of arms for her. Like the symbols we used in the title page, this is a way of reminding our heroine of what is important to her and what will help carry her through this...

2.5 The ThresholdNow the heroine sets off and she has to cross from the Known World into the Unknown one. This is a big deal and she has to cross a threshold, to leave behind the world that has always made sense to her into one that needs to be explored to be...

3.2 Meeting MonstersNow that our heroine is really in the thick of her journey, she embarks on the road of trials. This road is full of obstacles and monsters. To illustrate these encounters, we will be creating a series of pages with a circular cutout in the middle....

Our heroine has gone through a literal life-changing transformation. She has fought monsters, she has come to some difficult realisations, she has died and has been reborn. So, basically, nothing else can surprise her right? Ah, but there is another big moment coming...

6.3 The Clear PathIt is time for the heroine to get to the place where she will be able to go back through the threshold. As she walks down the clear path, she is surrounded by flowers and symbols that support her feelings of joy and triumph. This spread will be our...

Now that our heroine is known to us and we have an idea of what journey we will embark on, it’s time to get started! This lesson needs a little bit of hindsight. As I mentioned before, we don’t always embark on these big altering adventures of our own accord. So we...

4.1 sPIRITUAL aRIDITYThis first spread addresses the void that appears within the heroine herself during this crisis. She feels that she has lost her way, lost the tools that were helping her and that nothing is set to replace that hole at first. Luckily for her - and...

5.3 AlliesEven though the Heroine’s Journey is a personal one, our heroine is never truly alone. She has allies that support her along the way. As I mentioned, if these are not actual people, the allies can also be personality traits of the heroine or even...

7.1 The Return to self This art spread is a celebration of the heroine’s return home, the return to feeling whole and happy. We will be using tissue paper to create a multi-layered spread. If you have some, try to use printed tissue paper that recalls some of  your...