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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Watercolor Bird Painting

Hello there!  What a long and cold month this has been.  I was feeling sick for about 3 1/2 weeks there.  I'm starting a new bird series with watercolors.  I painted the bird below this week.  It's fun to show my elementary students my sketchbook because it's a big ego boost.  Ha ha.  "WOW!! You should be an artist!"  they say.  Well, I guess I am an artist.. art teacher.. 

If that colorful little guy above looks familiar, that's because I painted the same type of bird a few months ago.  Here he is below.

Stay tuned for more colorful birds.  Growing up I had a couple parakeets... maybe parakeets are next?!

If you like my art, you can purchase a Happy Mail Pack at my Etsy shop or maybe you would like a 5" x 7" postcard of one of my watercolor paintings?  If money is a problem, feel free to message me for a trade of some sort (I collect zines and love stickers).  Anyways.. I'm just excited when someone else likes my art enough to want something from my shop! :)

Have a great weekend, friends!

New Mixed Media Collage on Canvas

I love painting on canvas boards, because they are sturdy and can take a bit of scraping and wiping.  Materials in this collage include black and white images, acrylic paints, rub-on letters, stenciling, graphite, stamping, tissue paper and patterned paper.

I love to include things that are floating, like the upside down gingko leaf.  I also like to make things look a little ethereal.

EE Cummings is also one of my favorite poets.  I love his unconventional! use of punctuation.
 

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Repainting a Journal Page

So my journal page originally started like this.  Lots of layers of paint, stencils and black paint marker on top.

After many more layers and completely changing the color scheme, I finished the pages like this.

That's a pretty drastic change, right?  It just goes to show that it can be fun to completely change directions in a painting and a journal page never has to be "done."

Ink Drawings of Faces

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Create magic in your art journal!

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Inky Animal Drawings

I made a whole bunch of inky drawings of faces and animals using a fine line applicator and high flow acrylic ink.  The deer in the upper left corner was drawn by my 5 year old daughter.  Cute, right?

Side question.. I noticed on the label for the high flow acrylic ink that it had a "this product is known to cause cancer" warning on the label.  Are all high flow acrylic inks like this?  Are there any safer ones I could use with kids?

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Stamping and Stenciling with Christmas Ornaments

Another printmaking experiment for you!  I bought some felt ornaments and sparkly snowflake decorations from Target on clearance.  

 Here is how I created the background shown below.

Snowflake:  Place the snowflake decoration on the page.  Use spray inks to spray over the snowflake (I like the Dylusions Ink Spray, but you can also make your own by pouring liquid watercolor into a small makeup spray bottle.)

Star: Use an brayer to roll acrylic ink on top of the star.  Since the material is felt and absorbent, I had to use a lot of paint.  Press on to your paper like a stamp!

This was a fun experiment and I am thinking about what I should add to this page. 

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Printing with Paperclips

I checked out the book Print & Stamp Lab from the library and there was a cool idea in there with printing with paper clips (among many other found objects.)  When I was at Target, I found these cool purple paperclips and decided to try it out.

First, find a scrap wooden block to use as a base.  Place layers of double stick tape on top of the block.  Firmly press your paper clips on to the base.  You can use other objects such as buttons, pennies or basically anything lightweight and flat.

Use a brayer to roll acrylic paint on to the surface. I used a firm brayer, but I think a soft foam brayer might actually work better. 

Place your paper upside on top of the block.  Rub your fingers over the surface to transfer the paint to your paper.  Pull your paper off and voila!

Print on top of painted papers or colored papers of your choice.  Use these as a base or layering for a collage, art journal page or greeting card. 

The printing block won't be able to be reused over and over again, but you could just re-tape the pieces if they fall off.

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Fun Christmas Presents

I got a few fun Christmas presents that were art related.  I got a set of Tropical Gelatos from Faber Castell.  These are similar to oil pastels, but water-soluble, which means you can spread them with water.  They are creamy and have vivid colors.  I have a bunch of these in different shades.

I have some of the Gelli printing plates at school and I wanted to have a small one to use in my art journal. I got the 3"x5" Gel Printing Plate, which is great for doing small prints.

Lynda Barry has some really interesting books with writing and drawing exercises, comics and collage.  I gifted this book to my sister-in-law and also received it off of my Amazon wishlist!  Here are some peeks inside the book Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor.

Now it's your turn!  Did you get any fun new presents?

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A Year in Review Mosaic

Happy New Year!  I didn't get a chance to make as much art as I wanted, but here is a mosaic of most of the artwork I made this year.  Thanks for reading my blog and following along with my adventures.  Here's to a great 2015!

1. Truth, 2. watercolor backgrounds, 3. Wisp, 4. Organic Configuration, 5. art journal page grid format, 6. Magic, 7. starlight girl, 8. watercolor doodle, 9. Time is Limited, 10. kids with animals, 11. Count the Stars Journal Page, 12. Whatever is True, 13. Flower doodles, 14. Puppy in the Sky 2, 15. Shooting Star Tonight, 16. Flower Doodling, 17. you are a firecracker detail, 18. Spring Flowers in Ink, 19. vintage Valentine collage, 20. happiness, 21. butterfly journal full, 22. Still Life, 23. Watercolor Creatures, 24. All Creatures Great and Small, 25. Watercolor Patterns, 26. Flower Journal Page, 27. Decorative Detail, 28. Abyss, 29. Move Forward, 30. Dot Day, 31. colorful bird painting, 32. Rumi Quote, 33. Imagine, 34. Listen to Your Art, 35. You Are Awesome, 36. Wish watercolor collage

From the Archives

Since I have some new followers I thought I would share some old artwork from several years ago.  I remember when Daria was first born.  I did not have much time to make art.  As she got a bit older and was able to play on her own for a little bit at a time, I was able to steal some moments to do some quick art.  I loved when she got even older and was able to paint and draw and glue things next to me.  When Desmond gets a little older, I am looking forward to being able to do some art with him.  He's at that "everything goes in the mouth" stage now and he gets in to EVERYTHING.  He is able to pull himself up to standing now and as he moves around the room he manages to find everything that is not a toy to put in his mouth. 

Since I don't have anything new to show you, here are some artworks from the archives that I thought were interesting enough to revisit.   These are all from 2011.

With this one, I was experimenting with masking from contact paper and watercolor paints. 

A mixed media collage in progress...  I didn't like how the final version turned out, but I liked this in progress photo.

One of the beginning artworks in my "watercolor doodling" series.

An art journal spread

Next time I post on here it will be to show you some new artwork, ok?

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Art journaling and Quotes Illustrated

One of my artworks is in the Inspirational Quotes Illustrated: Art and Words to Motivate book which recently was re-released under a new publisher.  The book is available here on Amazon.

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A Hodge Podge of Art Pages

Just a hodge podge of art journal pages. 
Not a lot to say...
I played with some papers.
Scribbled some marks.
Laid down a lot of paint.

This next one was made from a hot glue stencil on a Gelli plate. 
Then I added watercolor paint on top and line work with white pen.

It reminds me of an island.
Or a map.

I donated a piece of art to the Artists Give Back online auction.  You can bid on my artwork starting at $15.  The artwork in the auction is this one:

The auction starts on December 8 and ends December 12.  There's a lot of awesome artwork already donated.  Check it out!

"Imagine Rites of Passage that end in pledges to educate African girls and empower them, rather than cutting them. Artists around the world have donated work AND shipping to raise awareness about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and the importance of creating Alternative Rites of Passage (ARP) for girls and to highlight the dangers girls face as a result of FGM."

Art Journal Fun

I managed to spend a bit of time this past weekend working in my art journal. The first page was started with a watercolor background and then I tried to use up lots of scraps that were in my scrapbooking stash.  I really like this ink doodle with organic shapes.  Do you ever do that?  Limit yourself to just using the scraps you have in a pile.  See what happens when you try to just use up what you already have without cutting in to new pieces of paper.

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