Art Date

Friday night I had an Art date at my house with my friend Jolene and new friend Sharon. Jolene has gone back to school and Susan is one of her instructors. They were both delighted to find out that they both loved art journaling. So I set up a place for all three of to work. It was so much fun to create art with others. We three had a blast sharing our work and making new art.

This is Susan, my new art journaling friend. She is trying out some Neocolor II watercolor crayons.

Here is Jolene working hard on her poppies page.

Here I am working on the finishing touches in my journal

Here is just a couple of the many mono prints we made.

These are the 2 pages I finished.  The backgrounds were made with spray ink and stencils.

I loved this image of and older woman with beautiful grey hair.  I added words an ideas that I want to cultivate my entire life.

Getting together with other artists to make art is so fun and rewarding.  Do you have art friends you meet with regularly?

Inspiration is Everywhere

I am finding inspiration everywhere this week. In new books, nature and just letting go. I am finding a  burst of creativity coming out of me and the feeling is awesome.  Early this week Connie Hozvicka gave the lesson on Life Book.  She had us dancing with our paintbrushes.

So I started a few backgrounds, they are all works in progress. I started with the dancing paintbrush and kept adding layers. Of course I couldn't contain myself to just one page.

I am still playing with this one. I have been using some of the techniques in this book. I love painting with my fingers.

It really goes along with what I have learned in BIG and the whole idea of Fearless Painting. Its what I am really resonating with lately. You just follow your intuition and paint what you are called to. Just let go, its only a painting after all.

Then last night my friend Jolene came over for an Art evening. Would you believe we painted till midnight.

This is what she worker on. Fine delicate and beautiful work.

This idea started earlier in the day.  I was cleaning my studio for Jolene's visit and saw the masking tape I use to put big pieces of paper on my painting wall.  I usually throw it away but got a brilliant insight.  I will just put it in my art journal. So this is how it looked at the start.

This is after I added all the paint. I just love it now. Can you see the face hidden in there? I think I will be saving all that tape from now on.

There are lots of layers here. I ended up working in three different journals. Its hard waiting for things to dry so I just moved to the next journal.  That worked really great.

There is just one layer and then I added the chevrons from one Jolene's stencils. I imagine when I am done it will look nothing like this.  I really like Flora's idea of using cool colors, letting them dry and then adding warm colors and on and on.

I saw a figure in the background and will expand on this some more. I like to add some warm colors now.  Maroon reds are calling to me here. I ended up painting with brushes, chopsticks, fingers rags, sponges and other pointy tools.

There are a few pieces of tape underneath, more on the circle theme.

This one is only 2 layers so far. I love how it glows in that one side.

The one thing I took away from last night is how important it is to have art friends.  Someone you can get together with and play.  Besides all the painting we shared book ideas, boards on Pinterest we loved, ideas we had seen on the net and more.  Thanks Jolene for such a fabulous time.

This got me to thinking about having a google+ hangout with virtual art friends.  I have done this with writers but not artists.  We could all be in own studios sharing as we work.  I may have to try it with one friend and see how it works.  I'll keep you posted.

Tell me what is inspiring you this week?

Hunger Games

I am off to my friend Jolene's this afternoon for an Art date.  The best kind of fun if you ask me.

Here she is showing off a page in progress the last time we met which was in January, yikes that was too long ago.

Dave and I went to see Hunger Games yesterday, there were a few things i would have preferred they did differently but all in all a great job.  If you go see this movie pay attention to the sound. This is one of the best sound editing jobs I recall hearing.  Sound editing you may wonder, what is that, or who pays attention to that. After watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy so many times I began to appreciate movies in a different way.  I notice the costumes, the art direction, the sound and more.  It really makes for a rich visual experience when you notice all parts of the movie.

In Hunger Games I expected the costumes to be more outlandish so that was a bit of a disappointment. In this movie the sound flowed so beautifully from high drama to the softer moments. It was beautiful.  I had read the books a couple years ago so my memory isn't as great as it could have been. Cinna was one of my favorite characters and I was pleased that Lenny Kravitz was playing him but disappointed that he had so little air time. Then I think ,was he more prominent in the second book or the third book?  I guess I will have to re-read them to know for sure. Plus they consolidated some characters, I understand why they do it but I wish they wouldn't. I also think they didn't go far enough in their portrayal of the horror of it all but once again they wanted to keep a certain rating.

I also liked that we have a strong female character written by a woman made into a successful movie. Anyways I am digressing a little bit here. My recommendation is go see the movie and pay attention to the sound, it is amazing.

Fearless Painting pt 2

Fearless Painting number 2.  This one is all about balance.  We did yoga exercises before painting it and I liked how that got my body ready for the process. I had fun with her. This fearless painting is really freeing me up to paint green hair if I want.  I really can see how it opens you up to all sorts of possibilites.

This afternoon I am off to visit my friend Jolene for an Art date.  She has new art supplies for me to try and I have some for her too.  Its bound to be an amazing fun afternoon.

We Finally Had an Art Date

My friend Jolene and I have not managed to get together for an art date in over a year. Sure we tried but several times those dates had to be cancelled for one reason or another. We finally did it though, we met on Wednesday night and I forgot to take any pictures.

We exchanged books and magazines so we now both have something new to read. She showed me how to make transfers. Every time I have tried before its been less than satisfactory but this time got perfect results. I am so excited about finally being able to do this. I showed her how to make stamps with craft foam and she had fun with that. She worked on a journal page and so did I.

Here is mine along with a found art portrait, even the castles came from the background. I like how that happens.

Tomorrow we are headed out on a small vacation to northern Idaho. I'll have my computer but am not sure if I will run into any internet access. So blogging will be sparse or non-existent. I probably won't get 30 portraits done this month since I am now going on a vacation but I will still continue to do them when I can.

Art Date

I had an art date with my friend Jolene the other day. This piece was on her wall. I think it is an amazing reminder of who we are. She has a friend who scanned an Art Journal page of hers, had it printed on canvas and then stretched over a frame. I think the idea is awesome. I think I am going to have to paint my own Art affirmation canvas for my own studio.

All the work we did that day is in stages so I will post it at another time. She had her Aunt Ilene come over too. She was just introduced to mixed media and Art Journaling so we were giving her all sorts of ideas. I hope we didn't overwhelm her too much.

Jolene introduced me to to a new kind of charcoal that I really like. You don't sharpen the pencil what you do is tear paper off like a china marker. I can't seem to find a picture online but I got mine at Michaels. I think they are made by Generals and come in a pack with 2 pencils and a small kneaded eraser. I love how charcoal can really make images pop.

Last night I had the family help me move my Art supplies back downstairs to my studio.  It was getting to the point I had the entire table full of supplies and no room to work.  I am doing better with stairs now so I think it will be ok.  I organized it a little but I am thinking that the studio may need an overhaul. It feels so good to be back in my studio again.  Sure I could create Art upstairs but there is just something about the studio that just feels right.