Hat Redone

Laure suggested I add more shading to my hat to make the contours show up better. I did just that and like it much better. I reposted the old pic with the new so you can see the difference. Thanks Laure!

And remember everyone, Laure teaches watercolor with her Imaginary Trips where we learn to not only dive into watercolor, that scary medium, but learn to do things like shade objects better, sketch out our ideas and more. Any class of hers will only help you as you have fun while learning. Click on the Imaginary Trips button on the right side of my blog for more info. I'm just finishing another class with her and will be posting pics soon.

Christmas Card Done

All done! I took the majority votes and used this version for my cards for this year. I didn't end up cutting windows out of colored card but went into Photoshop Elements instead and blurred out the edges, added the Merry Christmas and my writing for the inside. The hardest part for me (besides remembering how to do anything in PSE) is writing something that goes with the card front and fits the season and how I feel about it. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I thought about adding a thin border around the outer edges of the card but couldn't figure out how to do that. I need more lessons on PSE for sure! I meant to get them addressed yesterday but forgot about them since I had them under a pile of books to make the folded edge of the card permanent. We go to town today but this week we will also go on Wednesday and that won't be too late to get the cards out by.

Want to Sketch?

Have you wanted to sketch but didn't know what to draw? Didn't think you were good enough of a drawer? There is a new challenge starting up in January where some artists got together and will be posting an idea to sketch each month. They will have pointers for us, share what they draw and even have some give-aways. Sound interesting? Check it out by clicking on the Sketchbook Challenge button on the right or going to it righ here. I am going to follow along; hope to see you doing it also.

My Hat

My Hat
Originally uploaded by TimareeC

I'm taking another class with Laure Ferlita and the subject right now is hats. That reminded me of how my granddaughter enjoyed warming up by wearing my hat when they were here at Thanksgiving so I made a journal page out of it. It's a very fuzzy, shiny hat.

Free Calendar

Robin Kohli (E-junkie) and Adi C (Fish & Web) have developed an art calendar with owl pictures submitted by many different people. You get to pick the pics you want and for which month. Then you can download and save it for printing. Check it out by clicking here or on the owl to the right on the sidebar. Just a little something for fun!

O Christmas Tree and About That Ornament!

The first picture here is how I used all the advice given on my last post. I put my oval template over it for the scan to help show what it will be like in a card. I'm still debating adding some lines of white "snow" or glitter to the ornament as a couple suggested. It just isn't thrilling me though and then today I decided to sketch a tiny tree I bought the other day.

This tree is so tiny it won't hold hardly any ornaments. I strung some beads (the larger ones are a lightweight plastic) on a thread and wrapped the tree with them. Then I strung a few sequins to be the ornaments. I liked it so sketched it this morning. I should have scanned it in before writing on the watercolor paper as it dawned on me that I like this better than the ornament for Christmas cards. Now I will have to try to remember how to get rid of the writing in Photoshop Elements so I can use it. Maybe I can figure out how to put a poll on my blog as to which one to use for my cards this year.

Thanks everyone for all the advice given. So many offered and I think that is a wonderful thing. It's good to have people willing to say more than just "I like/love it" as we get to grow and improve getting the feedback with ideas on improvement. You are all wonderful!

I got the poll up on my sidebar. I'd love it if you'd give me your opinion!

Suggestions Please!

This is meant to be an oval inset into my Christmas cards. I figure the cards will be a color, probably red but maybe something else. The greenery got too top heavy and now it looks unbalanced. Does anyone have any suggestions for improving the balance? Or any other suggestions to make it better even "start over"?

Thanksgiving is Gone Already!

Thanksgiving arrived and now it's gone! Wow. The time sure flies. I cooked and cooked, did dishes and played many games of Trivial Pursuit.

My daughter and her family came in on Monday night. We went to town the next day for a buffet lunch but other than that, I cooked! Before anyone arrived I had made:

• banana bread, both plain and with walnuts
• 4 batches of caramel corn, one with peanuts (should have done two with peanuts)
• 3 batches of my version of chex mix
• chili and beans
• pot roast
• shortbread cookies

The next day our son came in and from there on I cooked:

• tacos, both meat and lentil versions, and tostadas
• sausage, bacon and eggs, both fried and scrambled
• turkey with stuffing, relish tray, mashed potatoes, corn and gravy
• an acorn squash stuffed with apple, pear, pecans, dried cranberries, cinnamon and real maple syrup for my vegan son
• 3 pumpkin pies, one apple pie and one blackberry-raspberry pie
• batch after batch of popcorn
• Thai fresh green curried butternut squash
• french toast and sausage
• salad bar with too many items to mention
• southern style sweet potatoes

It was a food filled time but we managed to play a couple of games of Around-the-World on the drawn-in-the-dirt basketball court in the cold wind and multiple games of Trivial Pursuit. The old team (my husband and I) won at least half!

My grandkids fed the goats and dogs, took out the trash, set the table and decorated it for Thanksgiving dinner, ate plenty of junk food but didn't ask for soda till the day before they left. They played the old Atari computer games and the new games on their i-pods, colored pictures and played paper dolls. The two youngest peeled potatoes, sweet potatoes and cucumbers plus chopped whatever needed chopping.

In spite of the help, I am taking a day to rest now that everyone has gone home! I painted some of the decorations the kids made and that made up my journal entry for the holiday. I should have left more room for writing!

Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful too.

Tea Bag Challenge

Yesterday Laure Ferlita posted a painting of a tea bag on her blog. Some of the commenters including myself wondered if we could do a painting like that. Laure came back telling us to try it so I did. This is my result. This is the sort of thing you can do after taking a class of hers (warning: the classes are like potato chips, you can't stop at one!). We don't just learn to copy her lesson; we learn how to put what she teaches to paint anything. I know it's just a little teabag and a used one at that but it makes me so happy to be able to take up that challenge and come up with a reasonable painting of it! Thank you so much Laure!

Friendship Journal

I took part in a travelling friendship journal for a yahoo group I am in Blissfully Art Journaling. These are the three spreads I made for it. One was to be about me and the other two something about friendship.

The picture I painted was with gouache. The paint lifts very easily when it gets wet so I was going to spray it with fixative. I tried the fixative first on a different gouache page and it worked fine except the spray wouldn't quit spraying until the can was empty. So for this tea time painting I was goint to use some UV acrylic finishing spray from Krylon that I had. Hmmm, three big blobs hit my page before I could stop them. This time I got no spray; the stuff just bubbled out of the can till it was empty. I don't know if my cans were too old, too cold (the house was between 66 and 68 degrees) or what but I even went and found my spray bottle of hairspray I've had for a few years but couldn't get it to do anything but shoot a heave stream rather than a fine mist. So, the page is going to go as is, with three horrid blobs on it. Thank goodness they didn't blur the paint under them.

Do any of you ever seal a gouache or watercolor page in your journal? I have only done it as a trial effort and on a painted cover to a journal. I figure they don't usually get wet but when the journal is going to someone I don't know, I just wanted to be safe.

Pomegranates

I wanted to paint my pomegranate before I ate it. (Hmmm, maybe I should paint it when it's cracked open too)! I grabbed my general journal and used a drawing paper page which worked okay but not great. I'd pre-prepped the page when I was with my granddaughters and thought it would make a good background for the fruit. The biggest problem was bleedthrough to the other side as you can see on the other pre-prepped page (showing my granddaughter that the cheap paints I had in a palette someone had gifted me were better than the Grumbacher ones she was using which is why I promptly ordered her professional watercolors when I got home. Never expect children to do well with or to love doing art if they don't have good tools. It's really worth the expense at this level in my opinion!) so I am happy with my page. The drawing paper took a very long time to dry which is unusual and then I remembered we are in the middle of a nice, large rainstorm :) and so I happily waited for some of the paint to dry but should have waited till it all did. Patience is a virtue and I am working on it! By the way, since I didn't have patience or correct pre-planning, I lost my highlight so I used some gouache that was sitting in another palette nearby to rectify that problem.

I WILL figure out a page that will go with the bleedthrough or cover it up. It's now a challenge page!

Autumn Fun!

Once again, a class of Laure Ferlita's is finished. These are the pages I painted for my journal. Don't you want to try this? A new Fall class started just today. You could join in right now and not miss anything! There are other classes listed on her site too. Check them out. You won't be sorry.

Gosh, Gouache Is Tougher Than I Thought

I found using gouache I'd dried in a palette hard to use for a picture. I've heard people use it this way and some are what I call terrific journalers and painters. So why did I have such a hard time. Well I got splotchiness in spots. In other places I couldn't layer or the color underneath lifted. I ended up accenting with ink to clean it all up. I could sure use whatever suggestions anyone has for using it.

Paper Try-out

I was getting ready to make a journal for the class I am taking with Laure Ferlita. I got the paper cut but since it isn't really watercolor paper and that is the medium I would be using, I thought I'd better test it out first. Hmmmm, the little pumpkin sort of came out okay but I sure didn't like the stripes on the wash. This is done on multimedia paper which I had read on some blogs was good for watercolor. Well, when you compare it to the washes made on watercolor that came out so smooth with almost no effort, I don't agree. I guess I'll make the journal but use it for colored pencil or something else but NOT watercolor.

I've got some Canson Edition paper in a dark beige and some Brockford paper in blue, torn down for a journal. I need to make a cover and then put it together which will be in the coptic stitch style for a change. I've never tried these papers or the journal type so it will all be new. I've heard good things about all of them. Hmmm, but I heard good things about the multimedia paper too. Well, that's why we should try different things at times so we know what WE like or don't like!

Love Those Grandkids!

My husband took us back to California just a few weeks after we'd come back from there. He wanted to fix up some of the family computers. While there I got my 13 year-old granddaughter signed up for Laure Ferlita's Autumn Class which just started (there is still room. Go here ). I helped her sign up in blogger and showed her what she'd need to participate fully. She wanted to try out the new watercolors I'd gotten her which would be used in the class so she and one of the other granddaughters sat down to paint. They didn't know what to paint though! So I put down my coffee mug and had them choose between it and a pink goblet that was already on the table. One chose the mug and the other the goblet. Then I showed them how to paint them and they did a great job. You can see for yourself they did a great job. Now let me tell you, these girls are 11 and 13 and this was their first try at using watercolors in a real way. If they can do it, so can you! So scoot on over and join in on one of Laure's classes. You won't regret it.

Wow, Another Page!

I got a new bird yesterday. Actually I got him a little over a week ago but when he didn't eat for 4 days and was sitting on the bottom of the cage, not even on his feet, I took him back. I was so happy to hear they'd take him straight to the vet. We hear such awful stories about the treatment of animals in stores and mills. When I called back later the manager told me the vet thought he'd make it and it was mites that were the problem. She said she'd put my name on him when she got him back so I could rebuy him. Then she took ALL the canaries for treatment. This was at PetCo so they really do take care of the animals.

Because I missed him after I took him back to the store I made a Zentangle with him. Now that I've got him back I made a journal page that I had pre-prepped with paint, about him. The zentangle is there rather than his picture. Now that I think about it, I should have had both picture and zentangle. Oh well, I guess I'll have to do another page sometime.

By the way, he is doing great now. He's hopping all over the place, eating the veggies I put in the cage and his seeds. He's even done some chirping. Cross your fingers he stays this way!

Helena ( Creating a Likeness )offered to make me some photo corners and I thank you for the offer Helena. As you can see, I made a couple for this picture and they are much larger than the punch cuts out. I appreciate your offer so much though.

New Pages

I made two pages for my journal. These were made loose to work on watercolor paper which my journal is almost out of. I'll use photo corners or something to attach them to a couple of pages in my journal. My next journal will have a lot more watercolor paper for pages!

Both of these are done lead-free with a Sharpie non-bleed-thru pen and then watercolored.

My New Bed

I did this a few days ago but am finally posting it. My sister had an extra bed set given to her and didn't need it so gave it to me. It's from IKEA she says and I love it. I didn't have one so am happy to get it. What better reason to make a journal page?

I did this straight with the pen, no pencil so the angles are a bit off but I knew if I putsied around it would never get done. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Two notes: The lamp was a cheap one I had and painted to go with my room's furniture and it is always wonky so I drew it that way. Second, the white stand next to my bed holds a lot of my smaller papers and is there instead of a regular nightstand because I've run out of room for supply storage. Something had to go and it was not going to be my art supplies!

What a Trip!

Yes it's about time I posted here! I went to California to be with family which I do several times a year. This time I just got so busy I didn't even get online for a long time!

We went to our granddaughter's ballet recital where she had a solo after taking ballet for only two months. She got to do a dance she'd made up before starting ballet and didn't know that was what she was doing! (She was in gymnastics for 3 years so I'm sure that helped).

We stopped first in San Diego to visit our son for his birthday and then went for an overnight to my sister's in Fallbrook where I picked up my new bedframe (my husband had his truck with him so could bring it home for me).

We went to the circus in Los Angeles as my husband was given that as a gift back in Feb. for his birthday.

Then up to Simi Valley for that recital I mentioned and then staying for my grandson's 16th birthday unparty. He didn't want the anxiety associated with a party so it was mostly family and a few neighbors and we kept up the unparty theme teasing him that we brought an ungift and so on.

My daughter took me shopping for the bath stuff I don't get here at home and for skirts that were on clearance at JCPenneys. I was down to only two very old skirts hanging in my closet so needed something.

And then it was watch the girls do this and watch them do that and journal with us Grandma and listen to this and watch us swim and play a game of pingpong with me and on and on. I had fun!

Finally it was a couple of days with my sisters and brother. The last time all of us were together was eleven years ago for our dad's dying and funeral.

Busy, satisfying and very tiring. Now I am home trying to get back into doing classes and catching up with everyone.

In the pictures I am wearing a blue t-shirt and a skirt at the beach and a purple t-shirt at my sister's condo she just moved back into (lucky her, she's back in the San Diego area). We range in age from 51 to 63. The journal page pictures were done mostly at my daughters in spare moments. I added the words to the borders page when I got home.

Beaded Flowers

I mentioned doing beading in my last post. These are some of the flowers I made. The pot is about 2" high and the larger daisies are not quite 1 1/2" across. I also made some roses but they are not in an arrangement yet so I'll share them later. These aren't drawing or painting but they are art in their own way and since I mentioned how they helped fill my July with art stuff I thought I'd show them to you.

Art Everyday

During Laure Ferlita's Foundation To Journaling class I made a calendar page. Everyday during July I put a red circle around the date if I did anything artwise. I also wrote down the main thing I did. I managed to do something everyday! It feels good to see every day marked off.

Mostly I beaded flowers and worked on paintings for my son's birthday. I'll be posting about both of those but since he hasn't received his gift yet I don't want to take the chance of him seeing what I did yet. Stay tuned. Today is his birthday so I'll be posting in a couple of days about it.

This month I probably won't be able to do art every single day since I'll be visiting family and doing lots of things they want to do but I will try to do as much as I can.

If you want to take her Foundations class you'll find a new one starting up tomorrow. Hurry over and sign up. It was a super class.

Journal Class

I've been taking another class. This class was called Foundations of Journaling and it was taught by Laure Ferlita. As you know, I've enjoyed some of her trip classes. Well this one was just as good! I've posted most of the pictures we did but not all of the exercises or pages. We covered a lot of ground and had a lot of fun. Again, this is another class of hers I highly recommend.

Now I am moving on to her Explorations class. She has room for a couple more people. See, she keeps her classes small so you get the attention you need. Why don't you click the Imaginary Trips button on my sidebar and see what is being offered. Hurry if you want in the class that is starting on July 20!