The Joy of Scribble

Have been so looking forward to a lesson from Kate Crane. I love her joyful approach to art, and she did not disappoint! Her lesson this week for Wanderlust, Everything Art, encouraged us to enjoy the scribbles, and layer to our hearts content as we might have done as children.

What a mess, but a joyful mess for sure! Started with a practice sheet of fun scribbles to use in the final piece. Loads of acrylic paints, pens, pencils, Distress Crayons, ephemera and much more to complete this happy piece.

Then, a day later, I'm editing to add the two pages that happened from the first. The first was using the leftover deli paper as a base, then the second with the leftovers from that one plus items lying about my desk.

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Mirror Mirror Me

The Documented Life Project (August Theme Faces, the Human Form & Characters, August 29 Art Challenge: Self Portrait Journal Prompt:  Mirror Mirror) had several really great ideas to work with the prompt of mirror. My first attempt was to use a black and white photo and recolor it. But, the idea of doing a value study without worrying about having a perfect likeness kept nagging at me. So, I wound up doing it that way too. I really enjoyed pushing myself a bit and I learned a lot.

Dealing with Criticism

Tam, Willowing.org, had a free lesson called "Feeling Feelings Through Creativity!" Of course, I went my own way, but I was really happy with this until my hubby came into my studio and asked why I was painting an Indian. Then he asked if I knew how to divide the face up so that my eyes wouldn't be crooked! Talk about bursting one's bubble. I was so happy, and now I am vaguely sad.

I used acrylics, Neocolor 2 crayons, Posca white marker, Pitt pens, white gel pen, graphite crayon, Dystress and Tombow markers. I added some bits of a pretty napkin for the designs.

So, how do you handle criticism? I, of course, laughed it off seeing as he doesn't really understand what art journaling is all about. But, it did hurt for a bit.

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Paint Party Friday

The Choices We Make

 Life Book, Week 19, Stamping Shadow and Light with Jessica Swift.

I love handmade stamps and have a bit of a collection, so this was fun to do. I wanted to just one page and have the transition from dark to light, as life usually happens. I wanted the dark to represent what we are not in control of, the swirls represent how life can toss us about, and the light represents how we deal with those things.

The two stamps on the top, I did today. The ones on the bottom are older ones. I had intended to use these but wound up not using the bottom star and adding a curved piece that I carved but had not photographed.

Feel the Moment - A Portrait

Week 17, Feel the Moment: Painting an expressive portrait with Jenny Wentworth. I'm starting to see a common look to my face paintings. I wonder if I am painting myself? I can change the hair and the eye color, but they still look like I put a wig on them and it's really the same person. It must be the way I see people. Eyes are more important than anything else as they reflect the soul, health, and happiness of a person. Words can lie, but eyes can't.

I used many layers of acrylics and, at the end, used some Cray-Pas, colored pencils, Pitt pens for details. Her hair was done with acrylics and a sea sponge then scribbled with a brown pastel pencil. The words are with a Fude Ball pen and roughed up with sandpaper.

Enjoy Your Today

Week 16 for Life Book is  "Quick be here now painting with Alena Hennessy".

 
 This was an interesting assignment. We were to take only 15 minutes to just let the paint flow and do what it wanted to. Alena used Yupo paper and I happened to have some since I use it for my alcohol ink work, so I thought I'd give it a try. There was no way for me to do this in only 15 minutes though as acrylic just doesn't dry quickly on the Yupo. And, I also have a life, phones ring, dogs need to go out, or hubby interrupts with whatever happens to be important to him LOL! However, I did let everything just flow with whatever it wanted to do without preplanning or much thought. For some reason, a conversation I had with one of my now grown sons when he was just a young boy kept going through my head. At bedtime, he would ask, "When will it be tomorrow?" To which I would reply, "When you wake up in the morning, it will be tomorrow." Yet, each morning, when he asked if it was now tomorrow, I would have to tell him that no, it was today. This went on for some time until one day he finally looked at me and very sadly said, "It never is tomorrow, is it?"

Enjoy your today!

It's the Little Things

Week 15, It's the Little Things, Life Book
This one was difficult for me. I kept "messing up" which means more layers. That's not always bad.

I used some Neocolors around her face and thought it was just too much.

So I grabbed some gesso and some pattern paper leftovers and covered it up, for the most part.

I did some background word stamping, added some gelli prints done with the new round one, to which I wrote "the little things" that make things special. I also stapled on part of a tag where I put the theme. I had some fun with my new Rebekah Meier stencil and Abandoned Coral Distress Inks.

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Rhedd's Creative Spirit
Sisters of Craft
Paint Party Friday
Altered Eclectics