Sunday Sketches June30

Its the last Sunday Sketches for June. I have two sketches to share today.

I am doing some sketching for the chakra journal I plan to start soon.  Both of these sketches are ideas for the first page.

I thought I would try out ideas in the sketchbook before committing to paint. I think that is what a sketchbook is for, to try out ideas.  I can't resist adding words though.


Be sure to check on all the other sketchers at Sophia's blog.

Link Love June 28

Tissue Tape Tutorial with Darcy at Paper Artsy

Tag Tuesday - there are some wonderful small works of art here

Gelli arts shows how to make a texture plate using molding paste and then using the texture plate for gelli plate printing.  You can get some really interesting effects.

Pixie Campbell is teaching this amazing art/spirituality course and she has a giveaway in this post.

This post will show ou how to make your own portable art case. What a great idea.

Don't forget to check out other links at Crafty Pod

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.

More Collage

Yes you are right I couldn't stop doing collage just yet.  These two [ages had been gessoed and I loved the green scraps on my desk against the black background.  So out came the gel medium again.

The woman in the pic is someone I met when I did the Thread Project.  She gave me embroidery thread that her mother bought in the 1930's.  I thought that was pretty awesome.  To learn more about the Thread Project click on the weaving tab at the top of the page.

I love taking small micro shots of collages.  I may print this out and use it in another collage.

This is a face I created late one night.  The background is a wash of inktense blocks and the face is made using Sennelier oil pastels.

Sunday Sketches June 23

It's time for Sunday Sketches again. I don't seem to be able to do this every week but still have fun participating when I can.

Make sure to see what other sketchers are doing today over at Sophia's blog

Link Love June 21

I wasn't going to do Link Love this week.  Usually I have come across sites all week so when Friday comes I am just about finished.  Not so this week. I had to write the post on Wednesday because of a routine outpatient thing I am doing on Thursday. Didn't know if I wanted to spend the time, but I am glad I did. I found some fun things I know I want to try out.

So you might wonder how I find people. I belong to several art groups on Facebook and sometimes I get links there.  I also go through blog rolls on blogs I follow looking for good links. Or I search out Twitter or Youtube and use their recommendations or search on a subject. The fun thing about all this is I get to find things I like too, that I didn't know about. It is sort of an adventure, a treasure hunt to see what people are doing on the net.  I hope you enjoy looking at these.

This weeks links are

http://www.lantier.org/  Eric Maisel is a guest in this post, and talks about his new book, Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals.

I love the idea of repurposing things especially junk mail. Here is a tutorial on making washi tape with old catalogs and packing tape. http://youtu.be/zuTOApvVXw4

http://www.erinfaithallen.com/  Erin runs wonderful retreats in Glastonbury, England.  I loved looking at some of her art.

Andy Skinner http://youtu.be/J7hUJrJZfhY has a tutorial on making alcohol ink backgrounds.  Its very easy to do and you can get stunning results.  I can't wait to try this one.

Angelia's post is all about making poetry tiles to use in your art journals.  I love this idea.  angeliasartjournals.

Make sure to check out other links at craftypod.com.

Color Exploration Continues

The collage and color explorations continue. I thought I would go around the color wheel and at least do some of the basics. This project really was fun but I think I'll be taking a break from collage for awhile. At least until I get my studio cleaned up again.

Yellow- this is a color that I do not have that much of but with collage you only need small amounts.

I really had fun with the orange one. I don't know about you but when I start doing collage I can keep going and going and going.  I guess that means I have a lot of paper and images.

Reds are always fun, the colors are so rich and fun to work with.

The pink one seemed to want to have girls on board. I love both of these images. Such sweet faces.

I have done all the basic colors so I headed to black and white and some gold too.

The last one I did was all browns. The sheep are a card I got from Schacht Spindle Co.  I used to be a dealer for their equipment.  I have always loved their logo. I really enjoyed making all these collages. I did 2 pages of each color for a total of eighteen pages. It was a learning experience in the fact that Often what I thought would look good did not. The interplay of shades and tints of a particular color is a fascinating thing to explore. Why don't you try your own color studies? If you try this I love to hear about it.

Explorations in Color

I was feeling a little down so instead of going further down that road I decided to do a collage. I started with the plate image and then kept adding anything purple I could find.  It was so much fun.

So then I thought I'll do another color and chose blue and followed the same pattern. ANything blue was fair game.  At this point I decided to do all the colors and see where I end up.

This page is all green.   I am loving sticking to one color and I never know where that color will take me.  Soon I'll move on to yellow red and orange.  Those will be shown another day. If you need a jump start for art this always works for me. I love the idea of exploring color. Why don't you explore along with me.

Link Love June 14

This week, some history, old favorites and some new.  Enjoy.

A brief history of Paper  http://www.messiejessieblog.co.uk/a-brief-history-of-paper/ I found this to be really fascinating.

Mini Flesh tone tutorial http://jennibelliestudio.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/new-journal-page-with-video-and-mini.html  I love watching and listening to her, love an accent and she is so fun.

http://www.juliegibbons.com/2013/06/01/a-creative-challenge-to-start-the-day/  Julie Gibbons is doing the icad challenge put on by Tammy Garcia in this post.  She has a little vine video to share.

My friend Lisa over in the UK is someone I met when I was doing Wreck this Journal with Jamie Ridler. She paints wonderful faces and has the best sense of humor.  If you don't know her you will have a blast discovering her blog.  http://all-the-wright-stuff.blogspot.com/

Kristina http://www.studio81.biz/ is more of a fine art painter.  I found her showing the stages of a portrait fascinating and perhaps you will too. She does beautiful figurative work.

To see what other participants are linking to go here: http://www.craftypod.com/

Evolution of a Face

I have been working on this face for several days now.  I used my friend Annie's paintings for inspiration. It started with an acrylic background. Being too lazy to get up and get my paints i grabbed the first art supply near me.  These are Neo ColorII watercolor crayons.

I keep adding more color and changing things each time I think I am done.  Taking pictures along the way.






















I didn't like the mottled background so I added crayon all over the background.  I think it makes her face pop more. Each time I look at it I want to add or take off colors, blend them more. Its hard to let this one go, to say its done but sometimes we just have to realize its time to move on and start work on your next one.

Do you ever have this problem?

There Be Crows and Ravens Here

 I found these videos online and loved them.  First you learn how to draw a crow and then to paint one in watercolor.






So I had to go and try this out. I so love crows and ravens so this tutorials were great for me. I have drawn and painted them before but they have not been very realistic.

 



 Here is my drawing I did while watching the video. It is pretty easy if you follow his directions.

 


 This is the painting, now there are a ton of things wrong with it but I like it anyways.  In fact it is the best bird I have ever done. So what has this exercise taught me? Well I think for one how to draw a bird and the courage to paint it in watercolor. Now I want to do some in paint. It was quite fun.

When I was in Oregon I saw these flags In a book store.  They were not selling them but they gave me the artists website.  So I looked up the artist and after some emails I was able to find a place to buy these. Cindy Shake from Alaska does some fantastic stuff. I may have to order some of her raven inspired fabrics.

These flags are all different and have been silkscreened onto cotton fabric.  I haven't figured out where I will hang them yet. So I just draped them to get some pictures.

I love how each one is different, they all have their own personalities. Have you ever seen something and knew you had to have it?  There was no question that I would have these, no matter what they cost. Things can be funny that way. These little flags give me such pleasure to look at them.

Sunday Sketches - June 9

I haven't done Sunday sketches for awhile. Time to remedy that. Attempting a great horned owl again.  I used a 4B pencil.

To see more sketchers go here to Sophia's blog.  Why don't yoin  join us this week?

Link Love June 7

Laini Taylor is on of my favorite authors and I have followed her blog for many years. She did this post on making airline packages for a friend.  I thought it was such a wonderful idea that I am pointing you to that specific post.  http://www.lainitaylor.com/2013/05/paris-is-always-good-idea.html

Danny Gregory  https://vimeo.com/67086331# This is a video by the wonderful Danny Gregory where he teaches you how to draw something complex. In this case it is a dollar bill.

Palma Rea http://athena-myfirstbloggy.blogspot.com/ Palma is someone I know from many Facebook groups.  She is a wonderful artist living in Rome.

http://www.denthe.blogspot.com/  I love her collages and bold use of color.  There are some yummy pages here.

Now lets travel to Italy where Caterina shows you how to make a photo album from recycled envelopes. I also loved looking at her drawings of vases, such a simple beauty to them.  http://caterinaedintorni.blogspot.it/

The link page is going to hosted by Diane from Crafty Pod for the next couple months. So check them out there if you'd like.  Have a great weekend.

Going With The Flow In Your Art Journal

We have all heard that old adage "going with the flow", sometimes we know what it means and other times we do not. How does that relate to Art Journaling? Does it means to just follow your intuition? What happens when we are stuck?  Its hard to go with the flow then. All we can think of is not flowing. I think it has a lot to do with letting go of expectations and to just keep at it.  If a page is frustrating just let it be for awhile.  That is how both of these pages came to be.

In this particular page the beginning of what the page was is shown in her dress, everything else is covered in layers of paint. They were all the result of leftover colors on my palette. They were not particularly lovely colors either. I kept layering new colors whenever I had them. Then I saw the figure in the background and brought her to life. I painted over the entire background once more.     When we add layers its like excavation in reverse, instead of digging through them we are laying them down. That makes the content richer.  That is something I need to remember when I get stuck on a particular page.

This background was created the same, it was black with all these brown and pinks and I really hated it. It only took covering the whole thing up, to adding stamps for texture to make me happy with it. I haven't done very many self portraits lately and really do like adding them to journal pages.  I took this one the other day to show my new curls. My hair is as straight as it can be. Always thought I would go and get a perm when it is long like this. I finally did it and I am really liking the look.

Remember when I shared the link about the woman who does post on benches.  Her new post on for Worlds Ocean Day is up and features this photo I took in Cannon Beach, Oregon last year. Its a fun post.

Has Fear Stalled Your Creative Dream

Today am posting another article on Creativity.  I'll be doing these once a month from now on. If you missed the first one "What if you don't want to dream big" you can see it here.

Has Fear Stalled Your Creative Dream

So you have this great idea , you have broken it down it into small steps and things are moving a long at a good pace and then Boom you hit a wall.  All of sudden the idea you had doesn't seem so exciting anymore.  You are stuck, you don’t know what to do next. Maybe the next step brings up some big fears. One thing that most of us don’t know about the creative process is that everyone goes through the same things. We all procrastinate, deal with perfectionism, self sabotage, face fears, fall into creative chaos, have resistance and more.  Today I’ll be talking about fear.

Just last week I had to face a big fear of mine.  My writing group was  doing what we called Speed Critique Sessions.  It was based on speed dating, you are paired with a person, you read each others work and then you have a conversation about it.  Then you switch to another person.

I have let some people read my work before but here was a group of people who’ve become friends the last few years. I had fears about letting them read my work.  Now these fears were not rational, but I still felt them.   In my case my fear brought up some issues from my past.  Issue with self esteem, not being good enough, wondering if people will still like me afterwards and more.

In my case the fear of not ever improving was stronger than my fear of this exercise. I went to the meeting not really stressed, but wishing it was over with.  I thought my three pages of writing were really awful. Felt like I needed more time with them. So throw in a little perfectionism anxiety along with the fear. Was I scared, yes I was. I had to remember how much fun I have reading other peoples work and realize they will feel the same way about mine. 

So what did I learn when I faced the fear and let others read my writing.  I learned that there were some parts that everyone liked. There were some things I had done really well, and others that were not as clear as I thought. Having this many opinions was eye opening and the suggestions were great.  I realized that this is how you become a better writer. The other thing I learned is that none of the things I worried about happened.  That is the way it is with fear most of the time.

Often when we are in fear we feel stuck or frozen. We don’t know what to do next so often we do nothing.  We find numerous ways to avoid our project.  This could be TV or the Internet, or saying we have no time. We may even start new projects to avoid getting to the sticky parts. 

So you realize you are in a fear stage, what can we do about it.  

    * Write down your fears - knowing what they are is helpful.

    * Try writing to your future self. Write about how you felt after   

      accomplishing the task.

    * Act as if you are your favorite author, how would they deal with the 

      situation.

    * Focus on having a positive outcome. 

    * Break down your fear into small steps.   If you are afraid to take your 

      writing to a critique group, then give it to one person first, someone you

      trust to be kind and gentle.

    * Instead of dreading a task, think of it in terms of  “I get to” do that task.

    * Come up with ways to make the task more fun.  

    * Recall what you’ve done around fear in the past. Try that technique 

      again.

Remember that to experience fear is a normal part of the creative process.  We all go through it, even those of us who have been at it for a long time. Try some of these techniques when you are in fear and soon you’ll work you way to the other side and be excited an enthused about your project.

Did you know that you can have me as your very own coach. In addition to full packages I have options for those on a budget.  These include email, a one time brainstorming session and pay as you go. Details can be found on my website