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 Journal Pages

Yes I am finally back to blogging. After a 12 day hiatus I have a few things to share. Today I thought I would bring out some of the journal pages that I made while on my trip.

I played with a ziploc bag of collage items that I carry with me when I go on a trip. Its always fun to see what can be arranged.



This is a  journal I received as a gift from one of the retreat participants. It is one of two journals that were gifts.

It was filled with lovely Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper. Its the best paper and really can take a lot of abuse and still look wonderful.

This page shows the Louise Hay Inspirational card that came with the journal. I taped it down so you could flip it and read both sides.



This is the flip side and what the right hand page looks like with it moved.

I started with an image of the stone door and played with the idea of stones and all the places I have seen them.

This one was inspired by my travels. I saw lots of red rock and many petroglyphs. The background was made using gelatos. I am loving this little journal, I will be sad when all the lovely paper is used up.

Next time I'll share all the art supply goodies I found on my trip.

Headed to Sedona

In the morning I will put those last few things in my car and head south. I am going to Connie Hozvicka's   Total Alignment - A Fearless Painting Retreat  in Sedona, Arizona.  Four days with 11 other women from all over the world. It should be fabulous.  To be able to head back to Sedona, the place I met my beloved Glitter Sisters is a big plus.  After the retreat I am heading to Phoenix to see Glitter Sister Gemma and my real sister Marianne. I will also get to see long time friend Nancy and my daughters college roommate Brenna.  Lots of people I know have settled in Phoenix. It should be lots of fun.  I'll be post on Facebook and Twitter but not sure I'll have the time to blog.  I'll catch up with all of you when I return.

All About Pencils

I found this fabulous history of pencils on Facebook from my friend Palma. Getting to know your pencils

Face 28 was created with gouache watercolors on watercolor paper. After this I tried a face in wax but it was a disaster. So I moved on to something else.

With this last face I made a tag out of watercolor paper. I took my Dr.PH Martin liquid watercolors and attempted  to mix a skin color.  My friend Jolene had told me which colors she uses and I gave it a try.  It came out way too pink so I tried toning it down with colored pencil. I didn't like her lips, she looks a little pouty to me.  I made it, I made 29 faces in September. I am looking forward to doing something else now.

Our remodel is still going on.  I feel like we are in an episode of This Old House, you know where the host comes to the owner and says "We have a Problem". First when we started to pull up the subfloor we had a big area that was not level. It took Dave all last week to fix it.  Now we have discovered the people who built the house in the 60's never put any support under the fireplace. So now Dave has to go into the crawlspace and create some support and add floor jacks. He has to work lying down amongst the dirt. Not a fun job. I hope this is the last of the problems. He still has half the subfloor to replace.  I sure hope that side of the room is level.

My spinning friends from Salt Lake are coming down for the weekend, so the construction will stop for a few days at least. I am looking forward to a fun relaxing weekend with good friends.

Writing Wednesdays - Pinterest for Writers

Pinterest is a familiar application for a lot of us. In my first look at Pinterest I thought of it as a way to collect the things you like that you find the net. I did not use it a lot at first. Then I saw how people are using it to market their products. There are seminars on how to use Pinterest this way. Then there are the Artists who are using it, Some use it to show off their work and others create boards of inspiration. This can really be fun to do.

Now how can writers use Pinterest? There are several ways I use Pinterest for my writing. First the simplest way is to create a board about your Work in Progress. There are a lot of writers doing this. Its nice to have a visual of what your characters might look like, or the setting or of the events that will happen in your story.  I like to look at my board to keep me into the story, to keep me motivated. Motivation for writers is always a good thing.  But how else can you use it? I have boards for possible future characters, favorite scenery, costuming ideas, Words of wisdom, and more. The ideas are only limited by your imagination.

I print out pictures and put them in my notebook when working on my outline. Sometimes I create screen savers of all the pictures for my novel. I did that for NaNoWriMo last year and it worked great. Pinterest is a fun tool for writers but its easy to get sucked into spending hours on it.  So you may have to work on limiting your time on the site.  You can follow my boards here  If you have a unique way of using Pinterest tell me in the comments.

More Faces to Share

This is face number 26 so far this month.  I created her in my mixed media paper journal using Shiva Paintsticks.  These are oil paint in a stick.I use my finger to blend them and a q-tip when I needed smaller details. This did not turn out anything like I had planned.

This one was a quick sketch with soft pastels, those cheap kids ones. They smear so easily whether you want them to or not.  I did find I could pull off unwanted smears with a rag. I only have 2 more faces to make to my goal which is great. Its been fun but I am ready to focus on something else for awhile. You are probably tired of seeing them too.

Sunday Sketches

Doing double duty today.  This is sketch no 25 for the 29 Faces September challenge and my sketch for Sunday Sketches.  I went back to my favorite graphite woodless pencils to create this woman. You can see all my faces for the month on my flickr page.

Also check out Sophia's blog to see what other sketchers are up to.

A More Interesting Face

Face 23 was created with Neocolor II watercolor crayons. I had major problems with this, I may have to try the image again on different paper. I had too much water on the page and almost got a hole in it. Very frustrating.

Next I wanted to do a more interesting face.  I got out the Sennelier oil pastels, oh I love these tools. I first heard about them from Mystele and she told me how she loved their creaminess. She is so right they are wonderful and blend so well.  I am slowly building up a collection of colors.  I really wanted paynes grey today but didn't have it so that goes on the list.

I think of her as a wise peasant woman, I would like to do more faces with character. All the magazine images I use for inspiration show young women.  I think its time I started to portray another kind. I can see a new Pinterest board in the making.