Thursday Ramblings

Here is the page I did on my art date with my friend Jolene.  I had started it using some of the techniques in that Robin Marie Smith video and I had added too much water, the paper buckled.  I ironed it but that did not help. I then sprayed the back of it and put it under a book over night.  When I got to Jolene's I thought I would tackle it again.  This page has glimmer mist, colorwash sprays, stenciling, distress stain, liquid watercolor, gesso, stamping and journaling.  There were times when I really disliked it but I just kept working on it.  I love all its layers of color  now.






















I did this lettering in the early hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep.  Not the best ide as I made many mistakes. I am  not a good judge if a word is going to fit or not and then sometimes I forgot what font I had decided to do. Doing these in pencil is bound to be easier but then I never seem to take the easy way out. I am chalking this one up to experience. I have been building up my very small collection of copic markers.  With a Michaels coupon I can get them for 5.00. I'd like to have maybe 10 colors so I have to do it a little bit at a time. I just love how they work for bold colors. I am finding my other markers like the Zig Writers work nice for outlining and embellishing. I love that I can use all I have without going out and buying a whole ton of new supplies. The one big thing I ave learned about lettering is having the right tool makes all the difference.

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.

Postcard Challenge 2012 - Israel

The country this week is Israel, so at a loss of what to do I went the easy way and did the flag. Someone remind me next time just how hard it is to do a flag.

As we can see Louise is gong to take the plunge and travel.  Should the two of them meet or should they be like ships passing in the night.



I got bored the other day so I signed up for a class on lettering. I have always admired the great lettering that other artists do. I am loving it so far. Joanne Sharpe is doing an awesome job. This is called a whimsy grid.  It was drawn first and then color was added using PanPastels. I really don't have the right markers for lettering but I am just going to use what I have for  now. It appears the chisel markers are the best choice and I only have a few of them.  This little page was pretty fun to do.  I am using Strathmore's mixed media journal and I do love the paper. This class has 29 lessons for a great price.  I hope to be better at lettering by the time all the lessons are done.

I was out on twitter this morning and saw the link to this video.  It is by Roben-Marie Smith. Its quite a bit of fun watching her process.  It sure made me want to go play in my journal too.  Enjoy...

Under the Weather

We have a little stomach flu going around here so I have not accomplished much this week. Its one of those low grade things where half the time you feel ok and the other half you are pretty miserable.

I wanted to let you all know since I removed the captcha requirement from the commentsI have had some spam issues. I hate that new captcha, half the time I can't read what they are asking me to type in so it is so annoying to me that I did not want to put you dear readers through that.  So I am going to have cut off anonymus commenters.  The best choice seemed to set this up for google accounts.  So if you don't have a google account you won't be able to comment.  I am sorry if that inconveniences anyone but it was the easiest solution to the problem.

We need a little art in the post so here is an exercise from BIG, on shape.  Circles are one of my favorite shapes.  I am off to a Gyno appointment today and a book discussion on a Wrinkle in Time by Madelaine L'Engle.  It should be a good day as long the stomach chooses to cooperate.  Do you have any fun plans today?

Postcard Challenge 2012- Netherlands

Ok yes I cheated on this one.  I so love this painting I wanted to include it since we are in the Netherlands.  At first I thought I would do my own rendition  and then gave up that idea because it would truly be an insult to Vermeer so I just copied it off the internet and glued it down on my cards.  Vermeer was truly a master.

Now the correspondence continues. Will Nicolai manage to get Louise to travel or not. Will we find out more about her past and his too and what their future holds I guess you'll have to stay tuned.

I broke down and got me one of these. Its a Lamy safari fountain pen.  I really wanted the turquoise one but they were sold out everywhere so I went with basic black. It is rated one of the best fountain pens under 100.00. Its hard to believe there are pens that cost more but there are.  At 26.00 its a bargain. I have heard other artists on line talk about these and rave and now I know why.   I love this pen.  The ink flows out of it effortlessly.  Its is great for writing but also for doodling and zentangles and sketching.  It comes with blue ink but I can't wait for that to run out so I can add some black and take it to town.  There are replacement cartridges or you can buy a converter so you can add your own ink, that is what I did. I got the fine nib but there are several sizes and they are easily interchangeable.

Finsihed Journal

I finished up the last 2 pages in the altered book journal I started last September.  Both of this pages were found art.  The images were in the background and I just brought them to life.  Now onto focusing on another journal. Its funny that these are the last pages to be finished and yet they are the first pages you see when you open the book. I don't know why I skipped pages when I started the journal in the first place. I tend to skip all around and sometimes I find blank pages or backgrounds done in parts of the book I thought were already completed. Creativity is  not a linear process and that is surely evident in the way I do my journals.

With the finishing pf this journal I came to a conclusion that you might find sort of silly but our minds work that way sometimes.  You will rarely see hands in my journal pages.  Now there is a reason for that and its because I don't draw them well. So I don't know what I was thinking, I know to do anything well you need to practice and if I never draw them I never will be comfortable doing them.  So I am going to challenge myself to do those thing in art that I am avoiding. They include ears and hands.

Do you have anything in your art that you avoid doing?

Art From a Friend

I got this lovely piece of art for my birthday from my friend Janet. How cool is that. It was painted on an old book cover. Its going to hang in my studio.

I have been finishing up a journal, just a few more pages to go.

I just love this image, its all starlight and sparkles.

She seemed very sure of herself.

I could use some luxury time in the pool.


I ordered some things from Dick Blick and they came a couple days early.  Now that is exciting.



















I can't wait to plat with these. I saw Jane Davenport doing some video's with these markers and they look amazing and quite fun.  My other purchases were a couple of PanPastel colors and some colored pencils.

I recently got some of these babies and oh they are so much fun.  I'd love to have the whole set of colors but that is probably not going to happen any time soon.

This is one of my exercises in BIG, I loved working with these colors.

Hoot Hoot, The Owls Are Back

We have been having some beautiful weather so we headed out to a favorite haunt to see if the owl's were nesting yet.

 


















This is the mom, I didn't have my big camera with me so the pictures are not the best but you should still be able to see those pointy ears.

The Dad always seems to be around so we kept looking until we found him too. Great Horned Owls are the most amazing birds.

This is one of those pages I really could not write over.  I need to order some new white gel pens.  I like the Uni-ball Signo broad pens the best. It looks like an order to jetpens.com is coming up. Its a dangerous place, I always spend too much there just so I can get free shipping.

I used some different colors in her face and it was an interesting exercise.  I often use burnt sienna but this time I used red oxide which is more orange in color. She seems pretty stern to me. Its interesting to watch other artists faces over time.  Some paint the same face over and and over again while other are very different but still see to have the same style. I don't think I have ever painted the same look twice although people often tell me my faces look like me. Sometimes I see it and other times I don't. I think the first face I showed on this post looks very young while the second looks older and more mature. The odd thing is I don't know how or why that happened.  I just go with the flow and whatever happens is what I end up with.  Art truly is a journey.

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.

The Winner Is

Today is the day to announce the winner of my Birthday giveaway. So without further ado the winner is.....

JOLENE

Congratulations Jolene. I will be contacting you shortly to set up your appointments.

Postcard Challenge 2012 - Switzerland

I am so late in getting my card done., I went with a simple map of the country in question.



I am not sure if Louise can placate Nicolai with her explanation but I don't want to reveal quite who she is just yet. To see other participants go here.

Sunday Sketches

Todays sketch is rendered in graphite and Derwent Grafitint pencils. It was interesting trying to do a face with these pencils.  The colors I had were more suited for landscapes. I did enjoy adding just a little bit of color to a graphite drawing.

To see what other sketchers are doing today check out Sophia's blog

Right Brainers in Business Summit

I sketched this lady in one of the many doctors offices I have been in the last week and a half.  With Dave's eyesight problems I have been driving him everywhere. I also tried a colored pencil one but it really didn't turn out good enough to post.  Its hard when you never have any time alone.  Its kind of strange that I want some alone time so I am off in a cafe writing and working on various projects.  So it not like I am alone at all but in some ways I am.  Just not being at home is feeling so good right now.

All week I have been attending the Right Brainers in Business Summit.  Its free and you can still attend next weeks events by going here.  There are upgrades to get all the content from this week too.  This summit has been so amazing.  I thought last years was good but this year has far surpassed it in content, connection and camaraderie. Today's session with Hiro Boga was so fabulous and you can see her video free for the next 48 hours.  I wouldn't miss it, even if you are not in business just her grounding exercise is worth going through.  Jennifer Lee has created an amazing summit.