Monday, September 10, 2012

Peerless Pains

I can't seem to be content with my water color pallet.  So here I have redone it to match Jane's new printable pallet and I think I'm finally happy. Just one page and 52 colors with a mixing pallet on the middle.
And this is my cat Auburn Peanut Butter. Ever since my surgery she stays put on my shoulders when she gets the chance.




Pin It

Saturday, September 8, 2012

I've Been Busy Today!

This morning I woke up after about 6 hours of sleep...which was good since I haven't been sleeping at all. I was feeling excited with these classes I'm taking with Jane Davenport and this book I am working through. I am working a little out of order but this was the first home work challenge. I am not finished with it. Right now it is just a gessoed page in my composition journal with torn tissue paper.


The homework challenge is simply gesso and texture with recording the process. I have the gesso and a bit of texture down but I am still not 100% sure what I want to do. Jane used one stencil with a bunch of different medias to see how each one reacted to the paper and gesso and then drew a face over the top of that with a quick little quote. I am more indecisive then she, so I haven't quite gotten down what I want to do.

I began the second week for colored pencils and I was surprised to see that Jane had included drawing faces and her secret technique to drawing bodies! Watching her videos, and watching her work, I kept thinking, "I'm going to try...but I doubt that I am going to get my work any where close to how amazing Jane is." Once the videos were done, I took a deep breathe and drew. My first face following Jane...


Even I was impressed! I mean, it isn't perfect, but nothing really is. And if know me, you know that I have been wanting to draw like none other but I have never really had the confidence to challenge and concur. Comparing my first face drawing to this drawing from Jane's class...I am so excited that I enrolled!!

First Face Drawing - No Pencil, No Erases.


I have also been working through a book called, "You Can Draw in 30 Days," by Mark Kistler. I am not really trying to learn in a certain period of time but flipping through the book in the store, I could tell that it was already better then most books I have encountered. It is also a lot more reader friendly. Each subject is broken up into "lessons" and the author isn't a drone. Very easy read. I have already completed the first two lessons. This picture is just the second lesson.


Again, not perfect, but it's a start. And it is a better start then what I originally had in mind.

I feel like I am well on my way!!

Happy Journaling!!


Pin It

Friday, September 7, 2012

Supplies Me!

I have been down and out for the last two weeks, and as stated in my previous post, even when I could hardly stand up for more then 10 minutes, I was still trying to do a few things in my art journal. I just couldn't help it! Well, I had a lot of complications with the side effects from my surgery, including having to miss the first week and a half of school. With great struggle, I decided to drop my classes just for this semester, so I can allow myself time to heal without having to push things.This came with a huge let down because I was looking forward to taking art and piano.

While healing, I had a lot of time to search the internet and of course, find ways to spend money. I have know about Jane Davenport for a while now, through 21 secrets. I always loved her art work but everything on her blog, from classes to supplies, seemed very overly priced to me. (This is from the beginning of my love affair with mixed media.) But this go around, I decided to ask some of my friends in my mixed media groups what their opinions were. Everyone raved about her. So I bit.

And I am so happy I did. I am so excited about the prospects, she is amazing. Just her personality alone raises my spirits! And I haven't even been doing her class for 24 hours!

I could not find a blog badge so here is a picture...


I think you should check her out!!

Pin It

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

A Few Projects

I've been out of the game for the last two weeks because I had to get my gallbladder out. I itched to get back in, and in fact, the face page I did a very small few minutes at a time.
Anuways, these are done in composition notebook.
Happy journaling!!




Pin It

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Empire State Building

My first attempt at drawing a building from the city that I love.

: b

Happy journaling!


Pin It

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Melt Down Maybe Fixed?

Here's what I came up with. SOMEONE give me some ideas. It's in need of help. Lol


Pin It

Monday, August 6, 2012

First Time Using My New ZIGs.

Well a few weeks ago Joanne's had a massive sale and I got a pack of 48 ZIG markers for somewhere around 25 bucks. Today was the first time I decided to use them.

I just started a new class called A Whole New Doodle and the teacher gives you a few print outs for you to color on. I printed one out and decided to draw it into my journal instead of just coloring. I actually think I found the picture on her blog somewhere. Her name is Stephanie Ackerman and she is a doll. Anyways, here is my pencil drawing and then pen.





I tried to use all of my colors - which I couldn't but that's why there are so many random colors. I even messed up on one flower. I am not sure if I am going to add any writing but for right now, I am finished.



Pin It

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Little Bird - BIG Problems.

I found this cute little birdy on Geninne's Art Blog and I thought I would try to re-create him. Of course, I can not do as well at Geninne but I thought that would just try. I washed the back ground out with a light purple. 






I've never really drawn a bird but I think I did okay. 



Then the painting began, and apparently I can not control my water colors. I messed up a little and then a little turned into a lot. 


For those of you who don't know me, I am a perfectionist. It is already a huge feat for me to draw and it not be perfect but to just got with the flow - but to paint, and mess up like I did - I had to fight every bone in my body to know crumble this little birdy up and make him into a paper air plane. None the less - I confided in some of my art journal buddies - who gave me some great ideas - and marched on. I finished painting him and I used a bit of gesso to cover up the purple. That didn't turn out so well...and to make matters worse I got water on the rear end and smeared those colors.


EPIC DISASTER. I wanted to stop right then! But...I decided to try a sky blue acrylic wash. That was a fail in and of its self.


Then a light bulb came on - I can cut him out! Silly that I didn't think of that to begin with. So I tore the page out (which I hate to do in journals) and carefully cut my colorful birdy out. I then used some other watercolors besides my Peerless and did a color combination. (While playing with the epic disaster page, I figured out that bleach works really well with my Peerless Watercolors.) I also added a paint swatch that I got from Wal-Mart. 


While gluing and cutting I devised a quote. I knew what I wanted to write but I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to word it....I used my "cursive" and then I traced over and made the letters thicker - which is a trick I learned in my Letter Loving Class by Joanne Sharpe. 


I was upset because I wanted to use a flower, and I have all of these cute little felt flowers but I didn't want it to be a color - I wanted it to be white. Well, while I was playing in bleach - I just threw a little flower in there and what do you know? A white flower. I traced it and put a black spot in the middle and I think that it pulls the entire page together!

Here is a close up of my bird:


He isn't perfect, but I think I've done well for my first almost disaster and bird drawing. :)

Happy Journaling! 
Pin It

Knitted Baby Blanket

I had a blast making this baby blanket but I will think harder the next time I want to knit a blanket. Scarves are a piece of cake but the blankets are a bit harder!


Of course the picture is just a portion of the blanket. It is smaller then I would have liked it, but it's for a new born.

Pin It

Monday, July 30, 2012

Crayon Melting Melt-Down.

Everyone on Pinterest is talking about the crayon melting on a canvas. I thought I would try something different and try to melt over a quote on the canvas. My idea was to pick out a really nice quote, and I took my time picking out the size of the canvas and the colors that I wanted to use.







The quote that I found was beautiful; "Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or to usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky," by Rabindranath Tagore. I shortened it up a bit to, "Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." I added a few clouds and the color would be the melted crayons. I PAINSTAKINGLY cut out each letter and cloud in some clear masking tape and I STRATEGICALLY laid them on the canvas - mind you every time I moved a letter sometimes they ripped and tore and I had to REDO them. Several times. 

Non the less I kept pushing through, excited for the final product. 


Once completely on the canvas, I got the crayons ready to be melted. This part was fun because I am in loved with all colors. Me and Crayola go WAY back. I used a Exact-o knife to cut the wrappers off the crayons so I could use them for a later project - I have to do something with them I can't just throw them away. That and, I love the names that they pick out for each color. My favorite growing up is Robin's Egg Blue - and I remember my first pack that had it in the 96 count tin cans.

ANYWAYS, I decided to use a hot glue gun to melt them instead of gluing and a hair dryer. Crayon wax is not as hot as regular wax but it still stings non the same. And it is messy and difficult to get through with out the crayons breaking or the crayon moving through on it's own. My fingers and palm were quite sore. 







This project is messy but on my coffee table the dried crayon wax just came right up. I tried to keep everything on a page but it didn't work. I was very irritated at the end of the crayon melting but I did it. When the wax dried I couldn't really see where the tape underneath it was. When I found it, THAT tore and broke the wax and it did NOT come up the way I wanted it to.

I got one cloud off and tried to get the C off but it didn't work. I didn't even take pictures of it I was so disgusted. What I think that I am going to do is use a hair dryer to re-melt the wax and see if I can get the tape up any easier.

Pray for me.










Pin It

Forever Young.


I found a few cute little cut outs from a magazine I had and a clip of an advertisement caught my eye. "Focus on forever young." This seemed very fitting because I have been wound up in the fact that I am getting older and I am still single and I feel like I haven't really gone anywhere in my life. Anyways, I cut out the girl and the flower from some other add and the windows reminded me of New York so I cut them out. I ended up not using them, however.


Since I was at work, I used only my Peerless Watercolors, a quarter, one of my Pigma 0.4mm pens and of course my mini mister and some clear gesso. I didn't really have an idea of what I wanted but it seems that I always drift to blues and greens. I threw in a shade of purple to off-set the blue & green. 








I just wanted a few dots and I colored those in with a yellow orange. I then turned the dots into flowers. I also used the "salt method" for the first time. For those of you who don't know, it's when you sprinkle some salt onto a wet page and let it sit for a bit. The salt soaks up the moister around each flake and it gives it an almost a ripely look.



I glued and pasted and here is my final product:

I like my choices and I might add some doodles or something but for now I love it. 

Also, I redid my Peerless Watercolor pallet since I added all of the original colors.
These are bad pictures but I love this new set up. In time I will go back and put a name beside each color.







                                            
                 




                                       

Pin It

Monday, July 16, 2012

First Attempt At People.

I have been wanting to be able to draw for a very long time.

I thought that I couldn't draw "correctly" if I didn't have ALL the supplies. Now that I have ALL the supplies, I can't draw because I don't have the right atmosphere. The other day I just had to tell myself to STOP IT. If drawing is something that I want to do, I need to bite the bullet and do it. 


SO, I was browsing blogs and I came across a very simple drawing of a girl smelling a flower. Here is the blog I got this picture from as well as the picture. Living Creatively.

This is the drawing from Living Creatively.

I absolutely loved this drawing. It is so simple yet speaks volumes of what I have been feeling lately. Everything seems to be rushing past me and I panic. I rarely sit down and just relax and take my surroundings in. So, I drew and painted and stamped and taped and this is the final product. The quote is actually from an episode from True Blood. Anyways, here she is - my first attempt!


Happy Journaling!


Pin It

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Canvas Re-Do!

I just didn't like the way the letters came out so I went through with a black Sharpie paint pen (my hero for the day!) and traced over the letters. I think the outcome was much better with the way the letters came out then before. 



Happy Journaling!

Pin It

Screaming All Week


I have been trying to use more magazine clippings in my art journals. I find all these really interesting and beautiful pieces, but I always forget to use them while I am doodling away. Today, I changed all that. 

I started with a pink from my Peerless Watercolors batch. I sprayed the page with my mini mister and spread the color first with a brush and then mostly with my fingers. That is the thing with Peerless is a very little bit goes a REALLY long way. 






I then dribbled some blue to make it drip to the bottom of the page. For the yellow I wet my clear stamping block and put a little yellow on my brush. After the color was saturated on the block I just stamped it on the paper. I didn't really know what I was aiming for, but I loved the outcome. 










I added my picture, then some black neo color crayon around the outside. I smeared the crayon with my finger and a little water. The black birds on wires is paper tape from Michael's.














This is the finished product - the quote says, "There aren't just days that I feel like screaming, there are weeks. I added some white scallops to the top and didn't really like them so I went over it with a yellow neo-crayon. I added more tape to the top to fill in the space. Also, I didn't like the way my cursive LIKE looked so I cut out some magazine letters. All in all, I love this page.


I was having a hard time deciding a quote to write and the girls in my 21 Secrets group on Facebook told me to write what I was feeling - so I did. It was amazing how exhilarated I felt after I wrote exactly what I was feeling. There was no particular reason for me to be screaming, but I just saw the picture and I knew that is what I wanted to write.




                        Molly was clearly bored with all of my art decisions.


Happy Journaling!
Pin It

Peerless Watercolors Are Amazing!

I found these wonderful Watercolors through Jane Davenport's blog. This amazing artist was able to open my eyes to an all new type of watercolors. You can look up the history of the Peerless Watercolors, and it is truly fascinating.


These colors are sold in little card like paper and on the paper is a concentration of water colors. Jane showed how she cut strips of each color, then arranged them in order according to shade, and used some double sided tape to put together a small pallet of these colors. These colors are so VIBRANT and rich. And the best part is they last forever! I don't understand the science behind it all, but these things are well worth the money.






I did a bit of browsing around on the internet to find the best prices and I found that they were actually cheaper on the Peerless website, even with shipping, then my favorite store Amazon. I found that a store in New York sold them, and it ended up being one about 10-15 blocks from my hotel. So, as soon as I got to the hotel room I hit the ground running.


This store was everything I ever wanted in a store - if there was such thing as a "dream" store this would be it! The Ink Pad is AMAZING. This store had everything - stamps, stickers, stencils, ink pads, books, post cards, wax, paper tape, paper, markers, pens, colored pencils - just on and on. And it was all over the place, no specific order really other then stamps being in one section, stencils in another, etc. Just a plethora of everything. The owner was there when I came and she was such a sweetheart. She was very helpful and I walked out spending over 200 dollars - but that is okay because it is one of the reasons I wanted to go.

 So I, naturally, love all these yummy colors and I cant get enough. WELL worth the money you put into them - no drying out, they last a long time and they are easy to use. Here they are all folded up and in my traveling art case.




Have a great day, you guys!

Pin It