Dreamer Girl

This is an in progress painting...

thank you to Juliette Crane for introducing me to Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold paint for faces and to Mindy Lacefield for inspiration in the True Free Spirit course.

I still have a lot of refining to do in the background.  It just needs more "something."  

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How to Make Windows and Doors in Your Art Journal

Today is the start of Artist in Blogland's Scavenger Hunt Challenge. 
Visit Artists in Blogland to join in and link up with us.

• Each month will be a different Scavenger Hunt theme!  

• You will have the whole month of October to participate.  Link up an entry that fits the scavenger hunt.

•  How is it a Scavenger Hunt?  You can interpret the challenge to be like a scavenger hunt.  

           1)  Take a photo that fits the theme
           2)  Make a new artwork inspired by the topic
           3)  Find an old artwork or blog post that incorporates the theme
           4)  Create a tutorial or respond in another way related to the theme.

The theme for the month of October is:

DOORS and WINDOWS

I decided to create some cut windows and doors for my art journal and take pictures along the way.

• I used a separate piece of paper to practice cutting on.  I placed a cutting mat underneath the paper and used an x-acto knife to cut my windows.  The green stencil allows the cut to be straight and neat.

• I cut square windows in a variety of sizes and a door.

• I found some scrapbooking embellishments that fit around the holes pretty well! I glued those on to the paper.  

• I added colored tape around some frames, some doodles with markers and more embellishments.

• I found this old art journal page, which was ok, but I didn't love.  I tested out the windows by placing it on top of the journal page.  After seeing where the openings would be, I added the little instagram photo and a few of the texts.  

•  After taping the window sheet onto my journal page, this is the end result.  I like that the top layer can be flipped open and you can see the bottom journal page as well.

•  Here is a close-up shot of the windows.

• and another detail shot.

• And what it looks like with the little door opened.

• If you don't want to cut all your own windows, another option is to take some old greeting cards with windows on them, trim them how you'd like and glue to your journal page.  

I hope you play along with us at the Scavenger Hunt Challenge!

Linking to Art Journal Every Day
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Art Journal Page with Paints, Marker and Collage

Here is a doodled page made with watercolor, acrylic, marker and a few collage papers.

Also, we are trying to spread the word about FEATURING magazine!!  FEATURING magazine released four issues but we notice that still a lot of people haven't heard of our magazine... in order to keep this awesome art publication alive and going, we have to spread the word and get more brand awareness so we can reach more customers. The release of the next issue depends on that.

Therefore, we decided to set up a special promoting CAMPAIGN, starting on October 21 with a big BANG. We hope to make some noise and we can do that with your help!

We've partnered with Thunderclap to promote the magazine and we ask all our friends and fans to help promote the magazine.

Thunderclap is an app that updates everyone's status or Twitter feed who have joined the particular thunderclap at the same time on the same day. It only happens once and won't spam your friends, but the end result is massive amounts of people are reached and the name of FEATURING magazine will be heard.
We have a little more than two weeks to reach our goal of 500 people that click the link and support FEATURING...

Are you a friend and fan of FEATURING? Then please visit our Thunderclap page and donate a tweet or Facebook status update to help us promote the magazine. http://thndr.it/15OjQip

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Background for My Art Journal

Playing with a background in blocks of color..

book page
gelli prints
tissue paper
acrylic paints

These are two examples for an art journal project I'm doing with my 3rd graders.  We used large vinyl letter stickers (that were donated to the art room) and cut them into shapes and lines.

After the shapes are stuck to the page, color in the negative spaces with watercolor paints.

Gel pen designs can be added to the top of the stickers.

I have a few fun links around the internet to share with you.

• My Modern Metropolis has a lot of intriguing modern art posts, including this one of amazing photos of animals congregating. 

•  These rainbow-tastic paintings by Saddo Jaddero

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I Needed to Make This

Well, not necessarily THIS, but I needed to make SOMETHING.  I've been worn out from the day-to-day routine of teaching and from things going on in my life... not in a bad way, but just tired.   I've been falling asleep by 8 or 9 pm every night, which is fine because it is what my body needs.  Sleep is a priority for me!  Without getting a solid 8-9 hours a day I will be crabby and not able to enjoy the day. 

Some of the supplies I used are:
a variety of acrylic paints,
paper scraps,

Shiva Oil Paint Stiks

the pink Sharpie poster paint marker from this set:

Watercolor paints:

At school, we are building an addition to double the physical size of our school.  The construction is right outside my window, which has been really fun to watch. We will have another art room when the construction is done, which is super exciting.

In order to connect the buildings, they will be knocking out our wall and making a hallway through our storage and kiln room.  (A new storage area will be built between the two art rooms.)  That will happen at the end of October or November.  At that time, the kiln will be out of service for the rest of the year.  So I am doing clay with all of my classes now.  That is 11 classes doing clay all at once in our small space.  There are clay projects everywhere!  It is crazy. 

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day
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Art Journal Hodge Podge & Links to Share

Here is a hodge-podge of art journal pages from the past few weeks to show you!  I really don't feel like I've accomplished too much.. just a lot of playing around. 

Of course, I've been surfing the blogosphere and have more fun links to share with you.  Scroll down to see some of what I think is inspiring.

Links to Check Out:

Don't Fall Into This Trap That Could Destroy Your Blog (such an ominous title!)

Today's Lesson:  Paint it Black by Belinda Fireman

Listful Thinking:  Using Listmaking to Motivate Your Spirit 

25 Free Crafty Fonts

Tinkersketch Challenge:  Draw Into Wet Paint

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Polyvore Collages

Collage by marciadotcom on Polyvore

Collage2 by marciadotcom 

I stumbled upon this fun website, Polyvore, where you can easily make a digital collage for inspiration.  A lot of people like to make mood boards or design boards for their homes.  I would use this to create inspiration boards for colors, fonts, marks and symbols and patterns I would like to use in my artwork.  

The site looks like it was made for compiling home and fashion products.  What do you think?  Have you heard of this website before?

Stamping with Legos

My Lego Stamping Example

At school, I taught a stamping with Legos project.  Place your piece of paper on top of a piece of felt (to allow some squish room).  Then, get your Legos full of black rubberstamp ink and press on the paper.  We also used game pieces from the game Perfection.  I lucked out and found two of these games at a garage sale this summer.

If the ink pads became slightly dried out we used Avery Carter's Stamp Pad Inker to add more ink to the stamp pad.

After the papers were dry, we used black pens to go over some of the areas that did not turn out dark enough.  Then we used markers and colored pencils to color.

Below are some examples from my students.. grades 1-3.  Aren't they fun?  Would you like to see more of my student's artwork on this blog?

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Bits and Pieces Collage

This was a collage I made in my art journal with bits and pieces over the course of a few months.  I added to it a little bit here and there.

Materials include:  doily, scrapbook paper and embellishments, rub-ons, postage stamp, magazine clippings, stickers, star patch, white paint and gelli printed papers.

I just love this little guy with his arms raised!

Do you like vintage Valentine's cards?  I found a whole huge bunch of them in a thrift shop and I have put some of them in my Etsy shop.   They are cheaper than other ones I found on Etsy!  Only $5 for a set of 6.  And because you are a loyal reader of my blog, I'm giving you a coupon code to use in my shop:  BackToSchool for 20% off your whole order.  I have a lot of other vintage ephemera, digital downloads and art in my shop!