Layers of Color workshop

Thanks everyone who sent me messages of congratulations on our new baby, Desmond!  He is doing very well, sleeping a LOT and I am steadily healing. 

I still have a LONG way to go to get my strength back up.  A simple trip to Target just completely exhausted me yesterday.

I have not had time to make art since Desmond was born, but I have been watching some of the videos in Stephanie Corfee's online workshop.  She is so talented!  The workshop is jam packed with so many ideas it will take me all year to work through them I'm sure.  And, each one, I just want to create multiple artworks based on the lesson. 

The artworks in this blog post were made based on one of her watercolor lessons.  When I photograph my watercolor pictures I have a hard time making the pinks not look washed out and strange.  Any suggestions? 

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Waiting

Still no baby!  Just waiting...  It feels like the baby should be here now, although I am only about 37 1/2 weeks.  The last ultrasound had the baby measuring about 8 lbs 12 oz already.  This is going to be a big boy!

Last night I made some of these watercolor backgrounds.  I started watching Stephanie Corfee's workshop videos and she starts out very similar to how I do my watercolor paintings.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the videos.

NEW FAVORITE CHEAP PAPER!

I picked up a watercolor sketchpad called Kid Made Modern from Target for under $3.  The paper is 7.5" x 9" which is perfect size for sketching and art journaling.  I was SO impressed with the quality of this watercolor paper.  For kid's watercolor paper, it is pretty darn good.  My plan is to buy a few of these pads and bind them to make my own art journal.  The three smaller paintings in the background were painted on this paper.

21 Secrets Journal Page and Link Love

My LINK LOVE is at the bottom of this post!

I am taking the 21 Secrets online workshop.  Since it started a few years ago, I've heard lots of people talking about it on their blogs.  Obviously, with a limited amount of free time along with a limited amount of disposable income, I have always been choosy about the classes I can sign up for.  I want to make sure I have the time to devote to the courses I purchase.

If you haven't heard of 21 Secrets, it is an online art journaling playground with 21 instructors giving 21 different video workshops.  If you don't keep an art journal, there are still loads of techniques that can transfer over into other art areas.  It is well worth the price.  I have only watched Cathy Bluteau's workshop so far and it was fantastic!  I love her artwork, and have always wanted to see her process.  The art journal page shown above was one that I made this week using the same process she does.  21 Secrets will be open until the end of the calendar year, so you have plenty of time if you want to sign up. 

I was debating whether or not to take an in-person painting class this summer, but it gets tricky with childcare.  I stay home with Daria all summer and do take her to daycare once per week for "me time", but the painting classes I really wanted to take did not work out with the times I had available.  So, I decided that I would sign up for 21 Secrets and then work through the video workshops on the days that Daria is at daycare this summer.  (I didn't get compensated to talk about 21 Secrets, but if you sign up through your favorite instructors' blog, they will get "credit" for your purchase.)

Share the Link Love

Daisy Yellow has set out a mission to share the link love.  List your favorite recent blog links and then join in the group at her blog.

1.  First, I'm really enjoying the Coffeeshop Blog.  She shares free downloadable Photoshop actions to transform your photos. Awesome!  I'm surprised it took me so long to discover Photoshop actions.

2.  One of the language arts/social studies teachers at my school has started her own photography blog.  She is very talented!  One of blog posts is about found poetry photography.  

This is also like Marit's found book Haiku poetry!  Marit is also the founder of Featuring magazine.  Our 4th issue is wrapping up shortly and should be finished in the next few weeks.

3.  I subscribe to a lot of blogs about.. what else, but... BLOGGING!  You can get a lot of good ideas from those pro-bloggers.  This article, 5 Keys to Writing Excellent Blog Posts, was useful.  

My next few links will be to elementary art teacher's blogs.  I subscribe to a ton of these and if you have children or ever play with children, these might be interesting to you.

4.  I really like the Lenkerville Art Room blog.  I recently discovered this one and I enjoy her "Friday Photos" posts... just snippets from the art room.  I might start that up on my own art teaching blog.

5.  Aren't these the cutest paper mache pets?  From Artolazzi.

6.  Colorful paper sculptures from MVM Art room.  I will definitely be doing this with my little students to use up our huge box of paper scraps!

Sharing with Art Journal Every Day, Glue It Tuesday and

Thanks for reading!  Best wishes, Marcia
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True Free Spirit

I am taking Mindy Lacefield's yearlong online class and I had some time last night to work on one of the paintings. 

I am having a lot of fun and enjoy learning how Mindy approaches the painting process and I think I am learning some things that I could translate into my own painting styles and subject matter.  The only thing that bothers me is that clearly this picture looks like Mindy's style.  I like how it turned out, but it definitely feels like an imitation.  I just need to figure out how to incorporate these techniques into my own unique style.

My long time friend Jen recently had a new baby who she named Grace.  I was looking for a gift for her and found the perfect one!  She has 3 other children, named Faith, Hope and William.  There are lots of home decorations with Faith and Hope on them.  This one was perfect because it had 3 of her kids names, plus Love.  Isn't it great?  She did love it when she received it in the mail.

Fun with Traci Bautista's workshop

I've been having lots of fun with Traci Bautista's online workshop at Strathmore.  Strathmore has a series of FREE online workshops with videos and pdfs.  If you haven't heard about it, you should check it out!  The first session was about spraying with stencils, overpainting the stenciled images and adding details with markers.  Here are some of the pictures I am working on.  These still need marker doodles on top, although they are quite busy as they are!

 

 

Manon's workshop

I've been busy for the last couple of weeks and overwhelmed, (and it's not an excuse.. really.. my car was totaled, I work full time, we had parent-teacher conferences, church obligations, yada yada yada.)  Anyways, so I had been meaning to check out Amy's free workshops and this week Manon was doing a workshop with Amy.  I really love Manon's style, so I watched the video of her workshop.  I really enjoyed learning how she layers markers to create the shades on her little girl drawings.  And then she used gesso to blend the markers.  I haven't ever used gesso in that way, so that was really cool.  I'm very pleased with how my little girl turned out, but also then I have mixed feelings, because this is really a Manon girl and really her style.  I don't really ever draw people that much, maybe once in awhile.  I think there are some elements of the drawing style that I could transfer to things like animals and creatures.  Anyways, I think the girl turned out pretty cute.