Butterflies

The theme at Inspiration Avenue challenge team this week is Butterflies.  I love butterflies and they make their way into many of my artworks.  Just this week I was painting them and using them in my art.

This is a closeup of a mixed media collage I am working on.  It's not totally finished yet. The butterfly I painted with watercolors and black ink.

Here's another part of that mixed media collage.

I've been reading everyone's blogs about choosing one word for the year, instead of coming up with resolutions.  Many people have words such as courage, joy, etc.  My word is balanced, because I need to make sure I balance all aspects of my life... family, work, art, exercise, church, etc.  And it includes a butterfly!  The "C" is a bit funky and after I used the rub on letters it was a bit too late unless I wanted to redo the whole word, so I just left it as it was.  oh well.

Also check out The Answer is Chocolate
Artists in Blogland
Paint Party Friday

What's on my workdesk this week?

What's on your workdesk this week?

Journal Pages

 I have been starting my pages by laying down pale pastel washes of paints.  Then, building up from there.

Quotes are always making their way into my art journal pages.  The above quote is from a passage in the Bible that we read at church this week.  

There are some parts of quotes in the above journal page as well.  Do you recognize Picasso's dove?  That was from a Christmas card I got this year.  The Butterfly Effect's challenge this week is to show some art with quotes in it. 

Omg photo filters

I really love the look of those Instagram photos.. but alas, I do not own any sort of fancy phone and probably will not splurge for one of those soon.  I did some googling and found two places to do photo filtering online.  The first is omg photo filters

Look what I did here:  x-pro filter, and border

Picnik is another favorite of mine.. Here I used winterize and polaroid border.  Picnik is awesome because it is a complete photo editing program online.  There are all kinds of free things you can do to your photos, add text and borders, make collages.  Then you can upgrade to Premium and get more filters and fun stuff.  I have been very tempted to upgrade, but just haven't done it yet.

Do you know of any other places?

Bright Shiny Days

Painting and Featuring Magazine call for artwork

Featuring Magazine Call For Artwork
We extended the date and the theme for the theme gallery
of the first issue. ‘Applause’ seemed too narrow and rather
difficult for people to get inspired.
The new theme is: CHEERING, STOMPING AND APPLAUDING
The deadline for submissions is now February 29
Find all the info on the website here

Also check out It's a HodgePodge LIfe!

Finished Mixed Media Painting

Here's the painting I've been working on for a few weeks.  It is mostly acrylic craft paints.  I realized I need to replenish my supply of better quality paints.  I added details with poster paint markers and white out pens.

 

Do you remember the before???  Yep, it totally changed!

Detail shots:

paint palette

paint palette

Palette & Paint Thursday is a super cool mash-up of paintings with the pictures of the palettes used!

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!

 

 

Rest your Soul

Here is a small collage I made for the Inspiration Avenue challenge of the week.. using a damask image in your artwork.  It also fits the monthly Artists in Blogland challenge of "Soul".  I like using challenges in making art because it provides a focus or set of limitations that helps to come up with an idea.  Okay, so I *think* that is a damask stencil, right?  I hadn't heard of the term before but I was comparing the images provided to my stencils and I'm pretty sure that is a damask.  The colored letters below are old scrapbooking letters that I hadn't used and the black letters are these fun old rub-ons I had.  An penpal from several years ago sent me a HUGE package of ones she no longer wanted.  They are super old and the packaging must be from the 70's, but they still work. Also check out My Mojo Monthly.

A lot of people rave about Beth Moore. This is a book I read by her. Have you read any books by her? If so, what did you think?

 

Just Journals Link Party #9

What's in your art journal?  What are your favorite new supplies to use?  I just bought some Faber Castell Gel Sticks that I've heard so much about.  I'm going to test them out this weekend and let you know what I think. I'm thinking about doing Just Journals Link Party every other weekend.  Things are getting busy around here!

I would love to see your pages! Find a post that you recently made about an art journal page, add a link in your post back to the Just Journals blog post so others can find the meme and then add your link to inlinkz tab below! Sounds fun? play along!





Grab a button for your page:

Here is a link to the Gel Sticks I mentioned:

Journal Pages!

Lots of color, collage, painting words with a paintbrush, outlining, doodling, painting background with inktense blocks mixed in gesso

 

Check out these links for more artwork and ideas:

The Answer is Chocolate

It's a Hodgepodge Life

Artists in Blogland

Just Journals

Sweet Saturdays

Art Journal Every Day 

Studio JRU

A few highlights from Christmas.

So yes, this blog is about my artmaking adventures, but I thought I'd show you a peak into my personal life as well. :)  The picture above is of my cutie patootie Linus. He is a schnoodle.

This was my lovely niece Sonia with the picture I drew for her. 

These are all the kids in our family--  two from my brother, two from Andrew's sister and the girl in the red dress is my daughter Daria.

This is Andrew and I posing for a picture while the kids were watching a movie.

Be Still

Journal page with a LOT going on!

Stencil Tutorial

I love the look of stencils, but since I have a toddler I like the process to be easy and quick to clean up.  I need to be ready to switch gears at a moments notice :)  I've tried using spray inks for the stencils and paints, but this way I just tried seems to be an easy and neat way to make stencil prints.

Use rubber stamp ink pads.  I love this Color Box set with a rainbow of colors.

Each section can be removed.

Place your stencil on your paper.  Hold with one hand tightly, or tape in place.  Then dab the rubber stamp ink pad up and down on the stencil.  You can twist and turn the ink pad gently as well.

Finished stencil print.  The colors are vibrant and the image has good coverage. 

Mini Collage and FEATURING survey

 

Here is another one of my mini collages.  I used bits of dyed paper towel, ribbon, paper scraps, doodled images, and some sewing.

I hope you are all having a wonderful new year so far.  We went out and bought an exercise bike yesterday!  I know, it's super cliche to buy an exercise bike on New Year's Day.  However, we had been talking about it for awhile.  And I do go to the gym a few times per week, so this is something supplemental to use.  

We have a new, quick survey for you to fill out for the upcoming magazine Featuring, which I am a part of.  It only took me a minute or two to fill out.  It's about Etsy.com shops. Have you ever shopped there?  Do you have an Etsy shop?  We are going to write an article in Featuring magazine about Etsy shopping.  So, would you pretty please fill out this survey for us?