Art Snacks

Its been a little more than 24 hours since I went under the knife to have a bad root canal fixed. The results were not good. In other words my tooth is cracked, I now either need an implant or a bridge. Discussions about that will be done on Friday. So the whole procedure was for nothing. I had been sedated because the last time with this tooth novocain did not work. I wasn't going through that pain. So weird to have all this time go by and I do not remember anything. Plus having to go through all of this only to discover that it didn't work and they now have to do something else doesn't make me to happy.

Art Snacks

I found out about ArtSnacks just last month. They take unique high quality art supplies and deliver them to your door stop on a monthly basis. What a fun way to try out  new things. Although I have a lot of art supplies I still thought I would give it a try.

This is what I got in the mail.

A Generals sketch and wash pencil
1 Goldenedge watercolor brush size 2 round by Grumbacher
A Zig Kurecolor alcohol based dual tipped marker
1 14 ml tube of Grumbacher Permanent Green watercolor paint
a bookmark explaining all the supplies
a sticker
a snack

What a fun way to try out new supplies.  They also have an online forum to share what you made with the supplies. Sometimes new supplies are a great way to spark up your art. I think I'll try it for a couple months and see how it goes. You can check it out here.

Gardening

One of the focus areas I chose to work on this year involved gardening. I can't do too much as its winter time.  I can come up with plans and ideas though.

The other day I had some time to kill so I checked out the garden section in a favorite store. They had their garden gloves on sale so I got 2 pairs. One heavy weight and the other light weight. I am determined to get my flower garden in shape after totalling neglecting it last year. The gloves seemed a good start. I have short fingers so I find it hard to find gloves that fit. They had them in sizes so I found some that fit great. Of course I got the purple ones.

What new goal have you decided to work on this year?

Kate

My Art Journal This Week

Oil pastel playing, these are water-soluble but I didn't use water.

I used the Permapaque marker on this. The background was made with oil pastel and water.

I was dealing with fear yesterday, I had to put it in its place. The paper on top was a gelli print done on tyvek. I just cut up the pieces and played.  I used the scarlet lime pen on this.

Another page using layers of oil pastel, and some stenciling.

I had paint from my palette on the page in oranges and turquoise.  First I thought it looked like Sedona and then it seemed like a map. So I tried to turn it into Ireland.  Its not to scale or very accurate but it was still fun.  It should really be green and not orange but oh well.

This has everything under the sun on it.  Paint, oil pastel, spray ink, markers.  I thnk the top looks sort of planetary looking.

New Supplies

I learned about both of these new supplies from Julie Fei Fan Balzer.

I love this new pen. Its from Christy Tomlinson's shop Scarlet Lime and its the only place you can buy it. The story is she loved the pen and the manufacturer decided to drop it. So she had it produced and now sells it. I think that is pretty cool.

This is a new marker I heard about and it writes over anything.  It has a double tip and even works over oil pastel.

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Everyday.

Insomnia Art

Early morning insomnia led to creating this page.  I started with a circle to make a mandala and just kept on going.  This was fun although it felt limiting with the rectangular page.  The center is oil pastel and the outer is acrylic paint.

I don't know about you but I am constantly reorganizing my art supplies/ Always looking for a storage solution that will work the best.  I found these great plastic containers the other day at TJ Maxx. They are made in New Zealand and they are great for storing art supplies. The plastic pieces fold down and the cover comes off.  Just the right size for water color crayons or oil pastels.  I bought 4 of them which was all they had.  Now I am on the search for more.  I ordered some from Amazon thinking they were a similar size but I was way off.  So I sent them back, now I will just see if I can find them at another store. The top one is thin and a really good size for the kind of things I want to store.  I hope I find some more soon. They are really great.

Looms, Markers and Miscellany

I was reading this great story late last night when I realized I forgot to do a blog post.  I didn't even have an idea for one.  It was already too late to work on so I left it for this morning.

I had no art to share, I have been working on my loom and with it all tore apart it doesn't make a pretty picture.  I can always show art supplies, I thought to myself, everyone loves looking at them.

So here are some gratuitous  art supply pictures.  We have Neocolor II crayons, Inktense blocks, Gelatos and Sennelier oil pastels.

This is what's on my desk today.  A blank journal full of possibility.  I plan to use it to do some art exploring the chakras like Julie Gibbons is doing.  Instructions on making this journal out of one sheet of Watercolor paper can be found here .  I got the idea of using this small journal as a theme journal from Michelle at  Lost coast post

 I thought I would throw in a snippet of a intuitive painting I've started. Lots of swirls and color and not much else.

And here is the messy loom. I have the beater and front beams out.  There are some major threading errors in the middle of the warp.  This lets me get closer to the problem and hopefully fixing it won't be so hard. Well hopefully all my miscellany was entertaining at least.

Doodling After Midnight

Recently I used my tax return to get a couple things from Dick Blick. I tend to make wish lists on that site and when I have the money I go through the list of wants and I choose something.

After taking Misty's Face to Face class I really felt like I needed a drawing board for my easel.  I had tried cardboard and foam core board but both were unsatisfactory. This was the one she recommended. Considering it is made of wood, it is really light.

I added a few new colors to the InkTense pencil set I have.

Then I wanted to try some of these new Catalyst Polytip Brushes that I heard about on Julie Balzer's blog. They are supposed to take a lot of abuse and my smaller brushes are quite a mess. I have debated just tossing them. These new ones look like plastic but I haven't tried them out yet.

Yesterday was a frustrating day so I found myself doodling late at night with my Lamy Safari Fountain Pen.  I am really loving that pen.  I am thinking I might have to get another one, this time with an extra fine nib. When I got it I made a big mistake of putting India Ink in it.  It ruined it and I ended up sending it in for repair.  I am using Noodlers Brand Ink with it and it works fabulous now.

Art Supply Shopping

I know you all want to see what goodies I found. It was my anniversary while I was gone so my sweet hubby gave me 100.00 to spend while I was away. How fantastic is that. Let me tell you when I added that to what I had already I was in art supply buying heaven.

I was so excited to find these, I have never even seen them online, just in Youtube video's. So I got 10 colors. I can't wait to play with them. They are the dylusion spray inks designed by Dyan Reaveley for Ranger. Remember this video I shared awhile back. I found these at Hobby lobby in Phoenix.

Then I found these liquid acrylics by Daler Rowney and they are awesome.  People in my class were using them. So I had to head down to Sedona Art Supply and get me some of my own. The color supply was limited but I still managed to find some I liked.
















Then there are always miscellaneous crafty things to pick up.  A new gel pen to try, tiny tiles and discs for jewelry making and a glue stick. A girl can never have too many glue sticks.

In Phoenix my sister dragged me to a quilt store called Quiltz, where I got these 2 fat quarters.

In Sedona I found another wonderful quilt store and found this little pattern for a small quilt/wall hanging. I had seen rock art the day before so this felt like a great way to have memory of that.

I found these 3 orange fat quarters to use for the pattern. I figured I had enough in my stash for the other colors needed.

My last piece was this petroglyph piece that will be great as the main panel in a tote bag. I sure had fun buying all these things and I am sure using them will be a blast.

New pencils

It all started with needing some new pitt pens.  Then I started looking at what else was on the shelf.

Then I found all sorts of different pencils and some had to come home with me. These pencils are called Gioconda and they are made by Koh I Noor.  There were only about 5 shades and I came home with three as they were expensive.  They are peach and brownish tones.  The felt a little like pastel pencils but I am not sure what they are.

These pencils by the same company are called Progresso. They are woodless graphite pencils with a very soft lead. They were inexpensive at 1.35 each so I thought I would give them a try too.

Here is today's face. She was rendered with the Gioconda pencils and then some Carb Othello pastel pencils that I already own. They were fun to use. Tomorrow I may try the woodless graphite ones.

A Peek Into My Studio

I signed up to take BIG with Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio. One of things we will be doing is journaling. So I got a simple composition book, but I had to art it up a little. It was black speckled so I got out my stash of black and white tapes and decorated the cover. It was also an opportunity to use my set of big foam stamps.

When my daughter left home for good a few weeks ago my plan was to take over the bedroom and make it into my office and sewing room.  This gave me the opportunity to take the sewing stuff out of the art room and have more room for art.  Besides the sewing machine and table and fabrics and such out went books too.  This container above used to hold colored pencils and markers and then I found a better solution for them, so it sat idle.  In my redecoration I pulled it out and thought to put it on its side so I could use it for markers. Then I started adding more stuff.  Its all a part of having my supplies so I can see them and hence use them more often.

I took the Neocolor II watercolor crayons out of their tin.  I love looking at all the colors just sitting in this jar.

The Faber-castel gelatos were in a tin on a shelf but now I can see all their pretty goodness.

The Shiva Paintstick's have a place too.  I think I will use them more often now.

I have had the pencils in this little carousel for awhile now but now I have the colors and types separate and controlled with rubber bands.

I only have a few of the Sennelier oil pastels but they look yummy don't they.  Now every time I sit at the desk I see this riot of color and am inspired to begin.

Sometimes just moving things around in your studio makes everything look new and inviting and you can't wait to play.

Art supply goodness

This year for my birthday I asked for money for art supplies.  There were things I wanted that I had to buy online so this is what I got. It doesn't look like much but I had to order from three separate places which meant paying for shipping 3 times, I hate that. These were items I really wanted so I was willing to put up with the shipping.

Gel pens, I really love the Uniball Signo Broad Gel pens.  They come in tons of colors but I really like the black and white















Ahh some golden fluids, may favorites.  The cobalt and raw umber are refills but the others are new colors for me.  I do have the Manganese blue and Indian Yellow Hue in their heavy bodied versions. They are both fab colors so I wanted them in the fluid versions too. The Burnt umber light is a new brown to try.

These are dauber caps, the screw on to craft paint bottles. This way you can use your own favorite colors or mix new ones.  Ranger sells their paint with the caps already there but I want to make some of my own with goldens and folk art paints.

I wanted to try some of the new Strathmore journals.  Since I have 2 of the Canson Mixed media ones I went for a watercolor journal.  The interesting thing is that the cover is paper that you just tear off. The real cover is thick and is a brown alligator like surface.  It was shiny so it didn't photograph well. I am looking forward to trying this out.

Don't forget to enter my give away. I am giving away a space in my online class and Pam Carriker's Book Art at the Speed of life.  You can enter at this post

Art supply Bonanza

I was out shopping today and stopped at Michaels and got all these.  Th good news is that the prices were incredible.  The bad news it looks like they are fazing out their Golden line so after its gone I will have to buy online.  The jars of paint were 1.99 and 4.99 and they usually go for around 20.00 or more.  I got the gesso and gel medium for 7.99 which is also incredible as it is usually 21.99.  I am stocking up on colors I use.

When I was at the other stores I picked up a few pieces of paper, some fabric for a tote bag and the deep cut blade for the Cricut.  I am going to try making some stamps this weekend.  I will show my results hopefully tomorrow or the next day.  In fact I was going to show the things we are making in the class I am taking but I think that I will wait and do them all together. I hope you are having an Art filled day.