Finale

Finally, layer 3 - and this little work is finished.

I've had a cold that knocked me for a loop for two weeks.

I'm fascinated with painting flowers and particularly sunflowers.  I'm starting to play with watercolor, and it might be fun to try sunflowers in that medium.  I just don't think it's very forgiving.  How about you?  Do you have a favorite medium?  Do you stretch yourself to get out of your comfort zone?  I tend to stick with what is comfortable, but how will I learn and grow if I don't do something uncomfortable.  Its the old inner critic saying 
"You know you can't do it, so why try?" Time to get out of comfort zone. I just may not want to put it on my blog.  
But then again this is a journal of my work.  Stay tuned.

The Middle

From time to time I will write about my Arizona adventure.  After living in one place for so many years, it's interesting to note the differences and at the same time the similarities.  I love that in California we call it the DMV (Dept of Motor Vehicles) and in Arizona it's called the MVD (Motor Vehicle Dept).  California's Transportation Dept. is called CalTrans.  Here in AZ  I kept wondering what the signs were that read ADOT.  Finally figured out it was Arizona Dept of Transportation.  Minor details but fun to note.  In Gilbert, the city where we live just outside of Phoenix, trash is put into one bin, and it must be bagged.  The second bin (blue) is for recycled material.  They are very specific what can be put in the Recycle bin - no plastic film bags as they clog their machines.  I find myself collecting them and taking to the grocery store recycle bins for that purpose.  At Home Depot we get the 15 gallon white trash can liner bags and have the pretty stainless can in our kitchen.  Just pull out the bag, close the ties, and voila - the trash is bagged. 

 Okay, this is the second layer of my sunflowers.  I added leaves, background and blue table top. 

I checked out the art group in my little community here.  They meet  two days a week and we can pretty much bring our own work and work independently.  Although they do have TV monitors, can play instructional DVD's etc. Sometimes they work collaboratively.  It seems like a pretty active group, so I will take my art journal and supplies next Tuesday. 

Have a great one!

Believe

     

The Beginning

Starting the new year with a painting.  I dearly love sunflowers.  This is the first layer.  

What does your first layer look like?

BELIEVE

Faces, Faces, Faces

It's a beautiful day in sunny Southern California 75 degrees and lots of sunshine.  Would love these temps all summer.  
Dina Wakley says to get better at faces draw 100 of them.  I haven't been consistent but below are some of my attempts.  Almost all of them are drawn with Stabillo All.  I like this pencil because it interacts with water.  I usually start with gesso (that way I can use a baby wipe to "erase" if I don't like a line).  However, I try to be spontaneous and not worry about the lines being perfect.

I wipe my brushes (from painting) on these pages that have been gessoed, coming back later to draw on  them.  Some are easier to see than others.  

I like the Stabile pencils because they react with water, so I can darken my lines after the drawing.  I can also paint the faces in if I wish.

The ones I like best are the gestural sketches

I've done about 30 of them and still trying to find a style unique to me.  I seem to be all over the place but I guess that's what Dina means.  Maybe after 100 I'll have nailed down a style.  And then who knows?  It will probably change.

~

~ Create ~

Starting to Paint Again

I lost my muse a few months ago.   I don't think I've ever gone so long.  I wondered where my inspiration was hiding and if it would ever return.  I just didn't feel creative either with photography or painting/drawing. Has this happened to you?  If so what do you do?  Hopefully I have found my muse once more.  I kept looking at other artists' work. I continued to work on Kim Klassen's classes.  I mean if I can't get inspired while watching her videos, then I am in real trouble.  I'm starting to paint again.  I thought it appropriate to photograph a few supplies and a couple base layer paintings.  I don't want to get too serious here just yet.

My favorite paints are Golden.  I have others - Liquitex is good too, but there is something about Golden.  I particularly like their fluid acrylics.  Sometimes I use specialty paints like Jacquard or Stuart Gill's "Byzantine".   The Byzantine line  is metallic and very beautiful.

Hope you all have a great day!

~ Create ~ 

Digital Fun

I can't believe it has been almost a month since I've posted.  Certainly not intentional.  Life just got in the way.

My low back has been giving me fits - arthritis says the doc.  Whatever, it was so painful to sit up in bed to get up in the morning I just dreaded it.  It has improved vastly and I'm starting physical therapy this upcoming week.   I sort of lost my muse during this time of physical stress plus the holidays, plus blah, blah, blah.  You know…..

I finally got back on the computer a couple days ago.  Tip toeing through some of my favorite blogs, I found this tip on Michelle Ward's site.  Layer one image over another (in this case I layered one painted background over a painting).  Select the eraser tool and pick a brush.  Use it as you would a regular brush.  It will erase the top layer in the shape of the brush.  I love it….so simple but has unlimited possibilities.

More playing around….

Then consider using a regular brush over the "eraser" images. The pink below is the regular brush.

Play with this and see what possibilities you can dream up.

~ Give ~

Weeks 16, 18 and 20

I keep trying to catch up and let's face it, things just take me a while.  I realize this is a journal, but I have to please myself.  Seems some pages sit on my workspace far too long,  but it's because I haven't found the sweet spot yet.  I know I could just post something, but I'm sure you all feel as I do…..I don't care if it's not perfect…. I do care if it doesn't please me!

Week 16 involved adding a piece of cardboard from a food box.  

I just really wanted to use this Meyer Lemon Cookie Thins box because I l-o-v-e them so much.  They are dangerous for me.  But I didn't have a spread I felt I wanted to put it on.  I had drawn the face, so I added it as a tip-in to this page that had a dictionary page glued to it.  Since the previous spread below was very colorful and reminded me of crows, I thought I could just sketch some crows.  Ha!  I need a bit more practice.  The page looked boring with not a lot of visual interest so I decided to add my cat stamp as a border, thus fulfilling week 20's theme of using a rubber stamp in an unusual way.  I don't know how unusual this border is, but I loved the cats with the birds.

Now doesn't this look a little like an abstract crow?  Anyway…..this is the other side of the tip-in with an inspirational quote (requested for week 18).  It's a bit hard to read but says "Art is music frozen in time" followed by "Music creates order out of chaos", a quote by Yehudi Menuhin.  I've always liked this quote.

Art Adventures Part 1

OMG, I've had a terrific week - two whole days with like-minded people.  

Linda of our Eastside Art Group was the teacher/host this month.  I've been waiting patiently - no, really impatiently,  for her to teach us this technique…..plaster over various substrates such as wood, cradle boards, masonite, with acrylic wash and then beeswax.  While we were waxing we could add various items.  Actually we could have added these items by embedding in the plaster too.  We used various tools to punch, gouge and otherwise grunge up the surface.  

This second image is a better exposure photo-wise.

I was so preoccupied with my own work, I forgot to take pictures of everyone else's.  There were some fantastic pieces.  You can see Jacki's post here.   She has a couple pics of Libby's work in this post too. I had so much fun, I ordered a beeswax/UTEE melting pot and beeswax beads.  

Thank you, Linda for a really fun workshop!

~ Calm ~

More Credit Card Faces

This credit card face thing is very addictive.  They don't always come out a "work of art" but sometimes it's fun just to see how they do come out.  It's just so difficult to control the marks the credit card makes.

I'm now wondering if I should have switched the captions on

these two…

 

The one below might be a better "Bad Hair Day" but that's what Photoshop is for .

Actually none of their hair looks like a good hair day.

I'm thinking these might be good for a calendar.

~ Calm ~

Sassy Girls

I'm still learning to paint faces with a credit card.  I call this my Sassy Girl Series.

It is not easy for me to paint/draw with a credit card.  I want the results to look like something.  It's a great exercise for loosening up because you have very little control.  I'm all about control so this is a good thing!

My good friend Jacki is a master at this, so I enrolled in her class to spark up my face practice.

She had a box full of papers….tissue papers worked really well.  We were given different substrates….paper of different thicknesses and thin boards.  Some were larger, some were really small like the redhead above….maybe 3"x3".

 We used glue stick and matte medium to affix the torn papers to the substrate and then started painting.  I think I'm better at charging with a credit card than painting, but I'm getting better.  I love my final image below.  She just has a sweet expression.  I did the top image and her in my journal, so I didn't use torn paper….just paint.  

I have promised myself to practice more of these on a regular basis so I can just whip them out.  I think they would make cute cards.

DLP Week 3

Week 3 calls for adding an envelope to a page.  I'm making mine a tip-in.  I haven't done tip-ins but it's time for me to try it.  I'm using a piece of junk mail.

I'm so far behind on my Documented Life Project, that I'm going to combine Week 3 and Week 4 which calls for adding a border around a spread.  

I've been looking at this spread just like this for two weeks because I've been stuck.  So here is the beginning of this spread.  I threw my ink dyed hands in so you can all see how much fun ink sprays are.

I'll post my image again as soon as I've added the tip-in.  

I placed an envelope in the lower right corner, but I think we are supposed to repurpose a piece of junk mail for this challenge.

~ Peace ~  

 

Disaster Strikes!!

Oh, friends, I've been absent because we have been dealing with a slab leak.  The past two weeks have simply been crazy.  The insurance company dragged their feet and as a result we had a mold issue which has been remedied.  However, I have one bathroom which has to be completely redone and the other bathroom that backs up to it has some restoration that needs to be done as well.  We have been living at a nearby hotel until we have a usable bathroom.  The two dogs have been so good through all of this.

In desperation I looked back in my journal and found this to post.  I don't believe I had posted it prior.  This is one of the first daily journaling attempts to get me started with journaling again.  

I got away from it because I thought I just didn't have the time to do it and my photo editing.  I'm convinced though that even ten minutes per day makes a difference.  This is an example of that 10 minutes.

I will be posting again really soon….just have to finish up with contractors, insurance companies etc.

Peace!

Photoshop Technique

I'm way behind on my Photoshop Artistry workshop, but just have needed to do some nitty gritty get the hands dirty art.  Today, though, I practiced on a technique Sebastian calls "pasting in".  I scanned an image of my hand painted fabric art piece and then embedded my selfie.  I added a stroke outline and used the pencil in PS to doodle in and around the selfie. 

I also played with this image of Starbucks with its unusual signage.  Sebastian has suggested we look for things that are out of character or incongruent.  I think this qualifies.

New Love

I have a new addiction….stencils!!  I always seem to be a bit behind the curve.  They are certainly not new, and many artists have been using them forever.  It seems that there are so many really pretty designs out there now.  I just ordered six from Stencil Girls.  

And…then I found Tim Holtz' stencils which I think are the perfect size for journaling.  You can find them on Amazon.  You can find his entire line at Scrapbook dot com.

I had a few of my own and played in my journal this week.

At the same time I'm working in my tiny journal I call "Bits and Pieces".  I started this journal several years ago and it's mainly for paper collage of bits and pieces.  

It's a small but fat sample book from Marco's Papers. I guess we can call it a repurposed book.  I plan to add stamps and stencils to paper collaged pages.  I covered front and back today 

using a photocopy of a collage I did in Traci Bautista's class.  As Traci says, "always leverage your art".  She photocopies everything and uses over and over.

Here's to a glorious 2014!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Grand #1 is a sophomore in college - in the school's nursing program.  She is preparing a report for an assignment.  It's pretty much on the order of doing an intake for a patient entering the hospital.  The info is to be on a senior person.  So of course she called me.  We decided to have breakfast and I would supply all the answers to her questions.  Quite extensive I must say.  Another piece of the assignment was to do some sort of art/craft project with the person.  She also has to submit a log 

of the individual's (my) food intake for a day.  Yikes!! 

My art group was hosted by Jacki this month, and she gave us all journals to play in.  She had us do a couple exercises, one of which was drawing a face.  The only tool we could use with the acrylic paints was a credit card.  

So I suggested we do a credit card painting for Kiana's project.  She did one too but left with it before I could scan it :(

Blessings and joy to you all on this day of Thanksgiving.

I'm Still Here

Yes, I am still here.  This drawing thing does take some time.  Even though these are not portrait drawings, I still take a long time.  Plus I'm trying to use various art mediums.  Let me catch you up to date. 

I drew my lovely "Lavender Girl" and collaged a paper napkin around her. 

Her hair was done with watercolor ink which did not do well over the glue that I collaged with.  What to do??? I decided to gesso over her hair and I actually liked the lighter color.  I added a flower over her ear.

I took these photos in different locations.  I apologize for the poor quality but she was too big to fit my scanner.  

I love her little face.  The hair is not my fave but for now I'm satisfied.  Jane Davenport's class is all about having fun and drawing faces more stylistically.  I think mine will be going to "Mermaid School".  She has that look.  I know I will be able to turn these out faster with practice.  I do love drawing them so I don't really care that it takes so much time....it's really rather meditative.  I got lost in "Lavender Girl".

On another note, I worked on my sunflower painting.  Erin taught me a few tricks for "fixing" what I might not like.

I think I like it much better now.

I'm wishing you all a beautiful July 4th and all the friends and family and FOOD that goes with it!!

I really have been busy

I don't know what happened to the time.  It has flown by and I haven't posted for a week or so.

I really have been busy with so many things.....like researching for my kitchen redo.  Between the internet and asking friends I had so much info, it was  "analysis paralysis"!

I finally have made my decisions and I promise to post before and after pics.  I'm really only getting a new countertop, but you know how that goes......then I have to have a new sink and 

a new faucet.  While we're at it, might as well replace that garbage disposal which was never powerful enough.  1/2 hp just

doesn't cut it.  Yes, I meant the pun.

Okay so here's what else I've been up to.  

Our hostess for the Eastside Art group I'm in gave us a lesson in painting.  Most all the painting I've done is abstract.  This pic shows the beginning stage of the painting.

And......the finished product below

A big thank you to Jacki for taking the pics and sending to me.

A really big thank you to Erin for sharing her knowledge

with us and for such a fun day!!

Now for some pics of my face practice.  I'm loving Jane Davenport's "Supplies Me" online class.

The above was an exercise in drawing spheres and ovals.  I just filled in with faces.  Who cares if the eyes are a little wonky or the lips aren't quite right?  It's just practice  Below I drew a face over a journal page. 

Jane makes it so fun.......no pressure.  Her videos are fun and inspiring.

Have a great week-end everyone.