Mixing It Up

I was over at Jennifer Edward's blog Drawn2Lifewhere she has started some mini lessons on drawing. Not the technicalities of line but on why or how to do it really. For the first lesson she asked us to draw up a chair and ... well, go to her blog and read it yourself. I can't see repeating it and you should get it straight from her rather than letting me paraphrase and mess up the message. Anyhow, the end result was a challenge to draw some chairs we use. So I drew three of the chairs I use a lot in my home. I just didn't have room for my dining table chair and now that I think of it, the stool I use when doing crosswords with my husband. I have more chairs in my home but these are the ones that don't sit and collect dust! Why don't you draw your chairs but first read what she has to say here. I used a page with a background treatment I really didn't like. I don't like to tear these out of my journal so I wait and hope something will come up to use it with. For the chairs it seemed to work okay. Drawn in pencil first, I moved on to a fine pen as I didn't think just watercolor would be enough on this background. Then I added the watercolor. I thought about doing colored pencil or gouache but I really love watercolor so used it. This was fun and just what I needed! Oh, the top of the picture got a tad cut off in the scanning. The top of the rocker is actually in my picture.

Catching Up for Now

My husband had an appointment at the VA dental office. It is in Prescott AZ, about 80 miles away so I packed candy and journal stuff to go along with me while I waited for him. The first picture is what I did while I waited. It's in the style of Alisa Burke who offers an ongoing class here.

I made a little travel palette to go in my journal in my purse. It takes up no room. In fact it sits inside my journal. It's made by cutting a piece of Sheer Heaven, a special plastic which can be used multiple ways as you can see here. I made it per the instructions found here. It worked really well as you can see.

And these are my latest pictures from Jane Davenport's class SuppliesMe. I plan on signing up for her next class!

Just Practice Work

 I was practicing dewdrops for a class I am taking with Laure Ferlita.  This one is a Trip to the Garden and she might have a second one coming up.  These seemed pretty hard at first but are fun once you get the hang of it.  I resorted to a magnifying glass when I tried the teensy tiny ones on the flower you see at the bottom of the Dewdrops page!

The other page was simply boredom last night and a desire to do a bit of practice with my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.  I played it loose and fast both with the pen and the subsequent watercolor.  This is in a Strathmore journal filled with drawing paper so it's not really made for the watercolor.  I think it worked fine as I got in some drawing practice and painting practice but I also found out this ink doesn't dry quickly on this paper.  I had several minutes between drawing and painting but my ink still smeared.  It didn't matter so much with this page but it could on others.

Since I am always wondering how large a page people are working

on I thought I would mention the top pic is on a 5.5 x 7.5 inch page  and the bottom pic is on a 9 x 12 inch page.

Hope you have a wonderful, creative day.

Playing Around

I was playing around by first adding some leftover paint to the pages by sliding a credit card with the gold paint down the page and then later adding blue circles. On another day I stamped a red checkerboard pattern in pigment ink and then worried it wouldn't dry so I embossed it with clear embossing powder.

So far, so good but now what? I left the pages open for a couple of days and then saw a post on Carol Sloan's blog
that gave me the finishing idea. I used her tutorial to make my dialog boxes and then filled them with quotes I'd been saving. All but one of the boxes that is. That tiny box got filled in when I realized I had done all the quotes upside down on the pages! I have a tendency to do this upside down trick in many of my journals. I guess I get caught up in what I am doing and stop paying attention to anything beyond the page! So the tiny box made note of my error and now the page is finished.

I really like the idea of doodling an area that can be filled with something later on. Thanks Carol for the idea.

Painting My Wall

I have been busy painting a wall in my bedroom/craftroom. I moved the bookcases that you can see here to another wall and that left a brown and yellow wall - ugly! It took me months to get to it but I finally went and bought the paint and did it.

First, I used the paint that is on my furniture for a sample so I could match it at the store. Knowing it was a large area to be done, I lightened the sample a bit so it would read right. Well, I didn't lighten it enough and after getting it on the wall I had to lighten up some of the paint and recoat it. Then I added the squiggly pink lines one at a time till I finally covered the wall in a diamond pattern. I finished by adding blue paint to the top edges where the wallboard had a frame already and painted some really sloppy green leaves on the blue strips to match what I had done on the furniture. I either need new brushes or get back to practicing strokework but overall it turned out. This wall took me four days to do - painting those lines is hard on the wrist. As you can see it matches the furniture I painted several years ago. I think my room is done now. Well, until I need to rearrange my art supplies again anyhow!

In a workshop I am in over at A.R.T., a yahoo group, our lesson this week was to make a page using a page out of the book we are using Artist's Journal's and Sketchbooks by Lynn Perrella. I chose page number 26 that had a hand on it. Mine came out quite differently I think but I am glad of that really.

This has acrylic paints for the background with white butterflies embossed with clear powder. I don't know why they turned color. Anyone have an idea? Did it suck up color from the paint with the heat of the gun? I don't know. Anyhow, the rest of the page was done with Pitt pens and watercolor pencils except for a few cutouts from my own photos.

Gouache Teacup

I ordered some gouache after seeing what Roz Stendahl does with it. Oh, I know I can't do anything like she does but I like the look of the paint and I like the idea of something that won't wreck my brush like acrylics should I leave it set too long. I bought mostly what she recommended and added a couple. I just got them two days ago.

Last night I was listening to Kaizen Muse 's free audio sessions and I drew the teacup in a spiral notebook that was sitting handy. I should have grabbed my sketchbook but I was just thinking I was doodling so no big deal. Then I ended up liking my teacup so I pulled out the paints I'd set in a palette to dry and painted it. I had fun with the whole thing as I was just playing and not intending to do anything.

Today, still liking my little painting, I put it on a prepainted page in my composition book journal. I didn't realize I got it so crooked till I scanned it in to my computer. Ah well, it's glued in tight and there's no changing it.

Thanks Roz for your inspiration and your list of colors to start off with.

Saved Stuff

I don't usually put this type of journal page on this blog as I tend to stick with drawings but this one includes old sketches I was trying to find a place to keep when I threw the notebook they were in away. I was working on a page in my journal and needed to put a protective sheet under it to protect from runover. I didn't realize it had something sticky on it which ended up transferring to my journal. Thank goodness it wasn't a finished page but I couldn't shut my journal like that so I ended up sealing the sticky with acrylic paint layers. I added a couple of strips of paper to tie two sketches I wanted to save together and glued the sketches on top. I ended up saving my old sketches and my journal with a page I am quite happy with. I added the hearts and flowers just because I WAS happy about saving the page.

Journal Page

Okay, it WAS too good to be true - what I said in my last post about posting more often. Ah well, at least I am finally posting something new!

I have made a new journal page in which I added some folk art painting. I haven't done any of that kind of painting in several years so it was quite a stretch for me. I like how it turned out and hope to do some more of it. My journal gives me a place to use this painting now that I don't have furniture or other things I want to paint on.

And Another One So Soon?

Wow, I've posted twice in a week's span. I sure wish I could keep this up. This journal page was done for an online workshop I am in at the Yahoo group A.R.T. We are using the book by Gwen Diehn, The Decorated Page. This is my version of one of the lessons. I don't always post lessons from classes as they tend to be just that - lessons. But, this one is really just a depiction of where I want to be some day and I keep it in mind in several ways with it cropping up in my journal rather often. I also realized this is all drawn and painted. I stamped the word Treasure and the frog but the rest is my work so I feel like it fits this blog and am posting it.

I used Pitt pen over a pink acrylic wash edging with beige acrylic paint as the base for the map. I sponged on a little golden color for texture in the parchment and added some quick shading. Some of this is water color pencil (most of the color on the map). Once I got started I had fun with this.