Calendars and Making Marks

This my November Calendar, I know its only October but I needed to finish it early. November is the time I write a novel so there will not be much time to do much else. The days are books, the background was a fearless painting that I cut up.  I used a silver pitt pen for all the lettering.

In my class with Pauline we are concentrating on mark making this week. First the charcoal and now in paint.  I love how this one turned out. All the while I was making it I kept thinking that I was doing it wrong but I told that inner voice to keep quiet.  Eventually I got to a place where I loved it! It really looks different if you turn it around.

I think everyone of these versions looks pretty cool. This was the orientation of the paper as I painted it.

Its like the marks take on a different shape.

Which one do you like best?

I am linking with Paint Party Friday today, so check out others here

September Calender

Here is my September calendar. I took one of my gelli printed papers and cut it in two and used as a background.  The squares were cut out of a bronze colored metallic paper to symbolize leaves.  I stamped acorns, leaves and pinecones on random days. I stamped leaves and sunflowers into the background.

Here are a couple more faces for the 29 Faces challenge.

I used sennelier oil pastels to make this face. The background is acrylic.

This one is made with watercolor. The background was painted tissue paper. After doing these I decided to come up with a plan for the challenge. To try and paint faces that have different view. The first of them was in yesterday's post. I think for a challenge to be worthwhile to me I need to stretch. I need to try something new. So hopefully by the end of the month I will feel real progress.

How do you make progress in your art?  How do you push yourself?  I'd love to know, tell me your stories in the comments.

August Calendar

For Paint Party Friday I thought I'd show the Art Journal Calendar I made for August.   I couldn't get the whole thing on my scanner, so this is a photo.

Some close ups.  The scanner seems to make the colors more vibrant. The I made bigger squares this month so there is little of the background showing through. I use portfolio oil pastels and stamps in the background.

I just wrote the letters on this time.  Last months calendar can be seen here. There is a tutorial here if you want to join in the fun.

To check out what others are posting for Paint Party Friday go here

Art Journaling Calendar Challenge

I was on twitter the other day and followed one of their recommendations and found Kate Crane.  She is over in the UK and has a wonderful blog.  She runs this calendar challenge that I thought was such fun.  So I dove in and made the pages in my new journal. Did I tell you that I love this journal?  Well I do, the paper is fabulous.

First I painted the pages in acrylic, then added spray inks and stencils. then I used a 2" punch to make all the squares. I think I would like a bigger punch but I may do that next month. These small squares do not leave much room to write.

Here is the second half of the calendar. With such small squares most of my number stamps were too big. I remembered I have this magnetic set that is pretty small. I used them to put the numbers on the days.  I will now go back and add some details on the days that have passed.  I think this is a great way to highlight your month.

If you want to join in you can see a tutorial here.  There is a flickr  group and a Facebook group that you can check out to see all the different calendar's that people are making.