Exploring Oil Pastel Sealers

Oil pastel on mixed media paper.  I still seem to be making those rock cairns from Sedona. I love them as an image.  They bring a sense of peace to me. I have discovered that doing all these heavy il pastels in my art journal has resulted in a problem.  How to seal them so they don't bleed on to the next page.  The internet menions 2 ways to seal, gloss/varnish and a spray on sealer.  I have tried both.  The gloss varnish leaves a glossy look an brush marks, The spray is better but it still put a sheen on it and it smells.  I really like it without, so one I could just leave the page next to it blank.  Then I would not need to worry about it contaminating another page. On my next one I will try hair spray and see what result that gives.

I ordered some of Alisa Burke's stamps and they came today.  I cut them out and stamped them all   on some scrap papers.  I love them, they are going to be so much fun to use in backgrounds.

Today I have had the post nano blues.  I spent most of the day cleaning, first my bedroom and then my office/writing room. Went out to lunch with a friend, spent some time with my daughter on the phone, wrapped some Christmas gifts, dug out some new projects to work on but can't seem to settle on anything.  When you are involved in something so intense as Nano is, its hard to change gears. Its hard not to feel a little bit sad that its over.

I Made It

A Sketch In TIme

I believe all art is just a moment in time. I made this little sketch yesterday afternoon. I added a few words about what was I feeling at the time.  All a moment in time of this artist. What have your moments in time been like lately?  Do you capture them in Art?

Raven Makes Me Smile

I was feeling a little down yesterday and then I saw Connie's post about crows and thought maybe I need to paint one of my own,  I had this blue/green background in my art journal that I didn't know what to do with it. I picked up a black oil pastel and drew this raven. I like the idea of keeping him partially blue/green.  It was a satisfying little drawing and then I felt uplifted.  I love how raven does that for me.

Nanowrimo is winding down.  I'm just a couple days from finishing and that feels good.  I am going to my last write-in with my peeps tonight.  We'll write and cheer each other on. I so love the community we have created.

More Art Journaling

Art Journaling seems to be all the art I do lately. I know that isn't a bad thing but soon I hope to be able to share something else. The writing is going good. That will be over by the end of the week.

Art continues to help me cope with life.  My dog had another seizure last night.  He seems to recover just fine but it is not a fun thing to have to witness.  I am taking him to the vet again tomorrow.

I decided to put the oil pastel aside and work on a different type of page. This page used  spray inks and lots of layers of stamping.  It was fun to keep adding things. to the page in the same color scheme. I find it fun to mix things up a bit.

Here are some Pieces I have done for DEEP, they are created with oil pastels.

I continue to enjoy the intuitive painting process and love seeing where it takes me. Sometimes it just shapes and other times distinct images seem to take form. It is an amazing process.

Turning To Art

Its been quite a week. First I had to put Lucky to sleep and then Flynn has had 2 seizures today. The first at 2 am was pretty bad but the second around noon was short. He seems to be recovering but it is still pretty scary. It been hard to focus on writing so i have turned to art. Here is what I have been doing this week.

In DEEP the course I am taking from Connie Hozvicka; we are playing with oil pastels. This was created on charcoal paper and has layered colors and scraping with a stylus. The entire background became her hair.  This was fun to do.

I have been missing my kitty so last night I drew this little kitty to represent her. You know I really felt a whole lot better after doing this piece. It was like I put all my feelings into all the scribbling.  I used Portfolio oil pastels for these first two pieces

These next two are in my Canson mixed media journal. They both had scrapings from my palette as a starting point.  I added gelatos oil pastels for all the color in the background.  I also used some liquid acrylic. This is so vibrant in person. It annoys me that I can't take a good picture of this to share her.

This second one is created with the same materials.  Early on is started to look like an Abalone shell so tried to go with that. It is more vibrant in person.  Both of these pieces were very organic in their creation.

This last one was fun. Ink has seeped through from another page. So I started adding Portfoilio oil pastels. I had these 2 orange circles so I kept adding color and then I thought that looks like a mother and a baby, so I drew simple faces and kept going.  I am loving working with oil pastels this way.

Saying Goodbye

We are saying goodbye today.  This is Lucky. Sixteen years ago I found her in the ditch across the street.  She was cold and really young.  She didn't know how to eat, so I fed her with an eye dropper. She survived and grew up. We called her Lucky because she was lucky we heard her cries and could rescue her. When her mother was killed by a car and her other sibling was found dead by a neighbor then you know she was truly lucky.

She was a good mouser in her youth. Our relationship was not always cordial especially when she would pee in the house. I would put her outside when she really didn't want to go.  She became more my husbands cat. She'd hang out on the back of his chair and then we'd call her the Parrot Cat. When friends came over for a weekend she would hide the whole time. The last year or so as she got old she wanted to sit on my lap a lot. She'd let me pet her and groom her since she didn't do a great job any more.  She had the most beautiful eyes.  Really intense blue with flecks of color. I am going to miss her. She had a great life with us.

My Inner Pink

One of things I have been doing for this years Nano is having fun.  One of the tools of Kaizen-Muse coaching is to act as if we were someone who is doing or being what we want to be. So I am acting like one of my favorite authors.  I got myself a pink wig so I look lik Laini Taylor. I am really exploring my inner pink this year .  What do you think, is it the real me? The color is even brighter than this shows.  Its been fun.  My friend Adam called me Laffy Taffy last night. He siad my hair reminded him of the pink version of the candy.

We have been having lots of fun in our group this year, I know I will miss it when the month is over.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Hey you still have an opportunity to help out with my fundraiser I am doing for the Nanorwrimo. The proceeds go to fund the Young Writers Program. Which is a very worthy cause. Just click on the button below. Any amount is helpful.

Today's sketch

I drew this sketch today. It turned out nothing like I had intended.  So I wrote about my frustrations on her clothes.  When I look at it now I think oh its not that bad its just does not look like the picture I was using at all.  When I am trying to create something I like to resemble it a little bit. I am finding this in my writing too. I have some visuals of my characters but I am having trouble bringing them to life the way I invision.

Do you have trouble bringing your visions to the life?

Drawing Again

I needed a break before writing today.  She is an idea for a character from one of my pinterest boards. She was fun to draw. I may want to paint her someday.

Being Creative in Different Ways

The latest page in my journal.  The background was made with spray inks. This time I remembered that  I couldn't paint over spray inks. So I added a paper for the face shape and used gelatos as the medium. I  used my fingers to spread the color and highlighted that with colored pencil.

My friend Janet commented the other day that she was amazed that I was still doing art while writing my 1,667 words a day. I thought I'd share how and why that is happening this year.  Well first I couldn't go without making art for a month if I tried. Its just not possible. Secondly I think both writing and art are creative endeavors and they both serve the same purpose. When I am stuck writing I find that doing some art takes the pressure off, it makes me relax so I can then go back to the writing with new eyes. I think it really helps to different kinds of creative things, it helps getting stuck in any one space. Even within the art world I do different things. Sometimes its a journal page and others a painting or a tag or postcards etc. Or I may be writing a blog post or a novel or content for my website. Its all creative and fuels me in different ways.

Tell me do you do more than one creative thing?

All Day Write In

I have been at an all day write-in today for Nanowrimo.  There was a lot of great food and conversation and boosting of word counts.  What more could you want.  It was a perfect day but I am pretty tired now. Thought I'd show my latest  journal page.  I have been doing a little art every day. Some is just a background and some I do try and make something with.

I hadn't intended to do a page on Frida. I created this wonderful background and tried doing a face. I always forget you can't do something like that over spray inks. Then I tried to fix it and the paper started to disintegrate so collage was the next step. This scrap of Salma Hayek as Frida seemed to fit the space very well, I am always amazed by the courage she had to live her life.

Sedona In My Art

This journal page was fun. After playing with the background I saw her face and shoulder and then the rest of her cam out.  I was going to just outline her shape and then paint her but I like the way the gel pen looked so I kept going. The raven in flight was a stencil I cut a few years back. I just colored it in with a brush pen.  the background colors remind me of the rocks in Sedona. I can't seem to get away from Sedona, it keeps popping up in my art.

We finally got our wood floor installed but now there are tons of little things to do before we can move everything back into the room. I do love the way it looks though. I'll show pictures soon.

This is a pic of my daughter with author Laini Taylor.  I know a lot of you know her from her novels or her Laini's Ladies line of art. I introduced Sarah to her work and she became her favorite author.  She was just thrilled to be able to meet her. I can't wait to get my copy of her new book. Sarah got me a copy and had it signed for me. I am lucky to have such an awesome daughter.

A Happy Accident

I had a happy accident in the studio last week.  On day one I cleaned off my pallette on some pages in one of my journals.  First I added orange.  The next day some green and the third day some blue. When it dried on the third day I looked at it quite surprised.

I had created what looked like a map.  How cool is that.

Then I outlined all the continents and bodies of water with a fine pitt artist pen.



















I love how I have all these little islands and rivers and lakes and some pretty interesting looking continents.  I think it would be fun to create a story to go with this world.

Speaking of stories I am a few days into Nanowrimo and things are going well. This page is a homage to that journey. I think every year I forget how hard this task really is.

Don't these colors look yummy. Its funny that I ordered similar colors in different mediums.

This page came about when I tried out my new Panapastel colors on it. I just drew shapes over all those luscious colors.  What fun. Its sort of like a cityscape with nothing particular in mind.

Have you had any surprises in your journal lately?

A Mermaid Arrives

This is the mermaid I painted for DEEP it is very tall, it actually goes from the ceiling to the floor in my studio.  I think the dimensions are about 24 x 90 but that is just a guess. The painting was a lot of fun.

NaNoWriMo started and we are off and running.  I won't be posting as much as a result.  I'd love it if you could support me by donating a small amount the the wonderful organization that puts this even on.  Check on my sidebar to donate or click on this link.