List Making And Where it Will Take You

I love lists, I like making them and then crossing each item off.  I will even add items later just so I can cross them off the list.  Often I will use different colors to cross things off just cause its fun.

Todays list led me to organizing my studio. No it not an item on the list. I was vacuuming my office/sewing room and looked at a storage container. It was half empty and I thought I would switch it out with some containers from the art room.

Now its in the art room and holds all my paints, spray ink,etc. I think its going to work great having it all in one place. I need to add some labels but its pretty functional right now. I won't show the rest of the room since its still in disaster mode.

I have always loved stencils and am just a bit annoyed that no one around here carries the good ones. So I have taken matters into my own hands and did some online shopping. I bought a whole slew of stencils by Crafters Workshop, Primarily Balzer designs.  Julie Fei fan Balzer has fantastic style and great stencils.  Check some of them out here.  I ordered from Blue Moon Scrapbooking.  They are fabulous to work with and got me my supplies fast. The pic is of a few that I purchased.

This is my first play with the stencils. I am still adding things to this background.   I do love to keep adding layer after layer.

I think this side may be the reverse of the stencil. when using spray ink I turn the stencil over and get the background too.  It gives different and interesting marks.

I am also doing a fairy swap with some friends on line.  This was my first try, I think she is a little chubby for a fairy. I am trying out a few poses to see which one I would like to use. Doing swaps is always a fun thing for me.  Trying to do something you have never done before helps you grow and stretch as an artist.

Have you done anything out of your comfort zone lately?

There Be Fairies Here

I have this book on drawing fairies and decided it was time I explored it a little bit.

This is pretty much a copy of a pose in the book. I used WC crayons, fluid acrylics and twinkling h2o's in  a moleskin WC sketchbook.  It was fun I want to do more now.

Then I played with some of the wings styles in the book.  These were drawn in pencil, then I lined it in Pitt artist pen, erased the pencils and colored it in with Twinkling H2O's which are little watercolors that have a shimmer effect to them,

Then I tried a another fairy, I modeled it after one the fairies in the book but with more of my style.  I am really enjoying doing these little drawings.  She was created with Derwent and Caran d' Ache watercolor pencils and Neocolor II watercolor crayons and Faber-Casteel Pitt Markers.

This moleskine water color journal I have been using is probably my least favorite journal.  The paper is really thin.  I have compensated by using it for collage and other layered techniques.  I can see now it is ideal for drawings like these. So now that the journal is almost used up I found a use for it.  I would have loved to fill this whole journal with these fairy experiments but alas I only have a couple pages left. Has that every happened to you?

If I didn't have enough irons in the fire I decided to add another class.  I have just become enamored with Jane Davenport.  I have seen her work before but it was not until I saw her interview with Tam as a part of Life Book that I really got to know her a little better. So I checked out her website and all the video's she has on her site. What a fun person she is.

Remember the other day when I was talking about using all my pencils, well Jane is teaching a course called Supplies Me, where she really takes you on a journey with your supplies.  There are weeks with colored pencils, watercolor, pastels and pens and markers and acrylics.  Since she is know as the Queen of Art supplies I know I'll be learning new techniques and really be able to feel like I am getting my moneys worth out of all the things I have bought. I have all these markers that I rarely use so it is going to be great to learn how to use them in new ways.  The class is just started but its ongoing so you can step in at any time.  To learn more about Supplies Me you can go here. And yes you can be certain I will be sharing all the fun work I'll be doing in this class.