Watercolor Doodling

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Watercolor Abstract

What does this remind you of?  Maps?  Islands?  Microscopic things?  I was teaching my students about art that has been inspired by microscopic things and also I had checked out Map Art Lab: 52 Exciting Art Explorations in Mapmaking, Imagination, and Travel.  So this has influences from both.


I am starting a huge mural with my students at school.  I will keep you updated as we start to paint it.  It's hard to see what's going on in these pictures, but we traced figures on to large white banner paper, cut them out and then traced those on to the wall. Next week the painting begins!

I was thinking of something school themed and since the wall is so long a parade of kids would be fun. The idea evolved organically through casual conversations with the principal, other teachers and students. We talked about how each kid could be holding something to represent subject areas of school. It started with just a few figures but in order to represent all of the subjects it kept growing to 8 silhouettes. The silhouettes will be painted black with the objects in color. We have music (blowing a horn, leading the parade), reading/social studies (a book), science (magnifying glass and flower), athletics (shooting a ball), computers ( holding a laptop), foreign language/cultures (holding a flag), the arts (paintbrush/drama mask) and math (ruler and protractor). There will be words written along the figures that say key concepts from the subject areas. There is also an eagle flying in front of the parade because our school is called Eagle. I had seen figural murals before and then the silhouettes of Bansky kind of gave me a more solid idea.

 The kids were able to trace a classmate using a projector and the shadows against the wall. The other art teacher and I (and other teachers and older students I grabbed in the hall) looked at the images and tried to make sure the proportions/lines made sense. 

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Molotow Masking Fluid Pen = Awesome!

I discovered the Molotow Masking Fluid Pen after reading about it on iHanna's blog.  I couldn't find it in too many American stores, but I did find it at Art Primo online.  This pen works just like regular masking fluid, but it comes out from a pen so it's much easier to control.


First, I drew the word "Imagine" using the masking fluid pen.  The fluid comes out blue, as you can see in the next picture.  After I drew my words, I used watercolor paint to doodle on top of the letters and around them.

Here's the final picture!  I can't wait to use the Molotow masking fluid pen more!

You are Awesome!

Art made with Photoshop using my original watercolor doodles and digital text.

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Watercolor Doodled Creatures

This little rabbit is my favorite.

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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? 

Keep in touch with me!
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Doodling with Watercolor

Are you bored?  How about doodling with watercolor paints?  It's one of my favorite ways to doodle.  Make some marks, add some water puddles, drop in some colors, make some dots and dabs.. see where your brush strokes take you.

I created a Facebook page for my elementary art blog!  I will mostly be posting links to artsy things I find that are inspirational.  If you like to make art with kids or just want to see what I'm up to, join me over there on Facebook.

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Cloth Paper Scissors Article on Watercolor Doodling

I am honored to have an article published in the Summer 2013 edition of Cloth Paper Scissors PAGES magazine.  It is on the newsstands now.  The digital version is available here.

I wrote about my watercolor doodles and showed how to photocopy the paintings, cut them up and use them in art journal pages.   I have a lot of these types of paintings on my blog, like here, here, and this page using the watercolor doodles. 

Cloth Paper Scissors does a wonderful job photographing the work and laying out the article.  I submitted about 10 different artworks to accompany the article and it's always interesting to see which ones they choose to use.

Thanks Cloth Paper Scissors!!!

Best wishes, Marcia
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Watercolor Doodling in My Art Journal

Here are more watercolor doodles in my art journal!

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day

Best wishes, Marcia
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Watercolor Doodling in my Art Journal

These are more old pages that I haven't shown you yet!

We went to a Brickworld LEGO convention this weekend.  I have a whole bunch of artsy LEGO pictures to show you that I will put up later.

Best wishes, Marcia
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ICAD #2, Glue It Tuesday and Watercolor Doodles

Index Card a Day #2

Sharing with Glue It Tuesday.

I made my second index card for Daisy Yellow's Index Card a Day.  My goal is to make half of the cards.. about 30.  I like the idea of making quick index card artworks...  with my other projects going on (Project Life scrapbooking, working on my Professional Development Plan for school, organizing stuff at school, playing with Daria) we'll see how much I get done this summer.

Daria's at daycare once per week this summer to keep her in the swing of things.  Today she is there.  My plan today is to write this blog post, then I need to deep clean the house and do laundry.  I know, I lead an exciting life!  We watched my brother's dogs this week and with 3 dogs in a small house, that creates a LOT of fur balls!

When I pick up Daria from daycare I'm going to take out the index cards and scrapbooking stuff and see if she wants to make some art with me.   

I'm reading this really interesting book I got from the library called Life at Home in the Twenty-first Century: 32 Families Open their Doors which is way different from other home design books you will read.  These are pictures of middle class families' homes in their every day life... real-time observations in unstaged homes.  Bottom line is that Americans have too much clutter!

• American children (a small percentage of the world's children) buy 40% of the world's toys! 
• 3/4 of the families in this study use their garages for storage only, not for their cars!
• The researchers noted that how cluttered the refrigerator is with schedules, photos and magnets is directly proportional to how cluttered and messy the rest of the house is.   

Looking at this book made me realize our house is not as cluttered as it could be, but we definitely have too many material objects.

More colorful art:
Here are a couple of watercolor doodles I made awhile back and never posted.

Best wishes, Marcia
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Ladybug Watercolor Art Journal Page

I just got back a package of my artwork that I had sent off to Cloth Paper Scissors magazine.  I had an article in the Pages magazine, which I will show you later.  This artwork did not get published in the magazine, but I think it's one of my favorites!  The ladybug was painted with watercolor paints and the border is a combination of painting, markers and rub-on images.  The words were rub-on letters. 

Best wishes, Marcia
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Art Journal Pages with Watercolors and Mixed Media

Hello friends!

While I have not shown you any new pictures recently, I have been busy busy busy making artworks and journal pages, plus writing.  I finished up an article this week for Featuring magazine about Julie Elman who has been working on her ongoing Fear Project.  It was super interesting and got me thinking about all of my own fears (escalators, worms & snakes, axe murderers...) I used to love that show Fear Factor (did anyone ever watch that?) and ponder what I would and would not do for money (eat cockroaches?  sure, why not!  eat a plate of worms?  heck no.).  

Watercolor Art Journal Page

I also have been working on an article for Cloth Paper Scissors PAGES magazine.  I submitted something to them quite awhile ago and had forgotten all about it.  I was stoked to hear from them requesting an article and in-progress pages. 

Another thing I was working on these past two weeks were preparing and setting up our student art show at the local mall.  I selected 12 artworks to mat and display.  Tomorrow is our closing reception.  I will show you pictures of it later!  The kids were all, of course, thrilled to have their artworks chosen for the show.  One is selected to go to the state show and one other artwork received a Sax Award (from the Sax company), so those kids were on cloud nine.

Hmm... what else is new?  Last night, my sister-in-law texted me to see if I would go with her to get her ear pierced.  We both decided to get our traguses pierced.  (Google it!)  My husband reminded me that I am in a professional field and face piercings are out. 

Now I will leave you with a few photos of art journal pages:

Watercolor Shapes and a Quote page

These two watercolor doodles were examples for a lesson I taught at school.  The kids made some great paintings too!

 Here I am playing around with a quote.. doing some practice ideas.

P.S.  I have decided (for the time being) to put a hold on the Just Journals link ups.There are plenty of other sharing communities out there right now...  Artists in Blogland (which I run), Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day.. to name a few.

Anatomy of an Art Journal Page: #2

I love making these diagrams of my art journal pages.

Bright colorful pages..

Watercolor doodling..

I just received Orly Avineri's book in the mail.  It is gorgeous and I can't wait to read it.  I flipped through it and it is chock-full of beautiful pages.  (I do not get paid to review books/nor have I gotten this one for free.)  I really think this one is worth the money if you like her blog and I hope more people start publishing full books of art journal pages (rather than simply how-to books).

Paint Party Friday

I am the featured artist on Paint Party Friday this week.. visit the site to see links to lots of other fun artists. 

This week, I am showing a couple pages of watercolor doodling from my sketchbook.