Journal 52, Week 3-You Make Me Smile

I'm a little behind on posting my week 3 page for Journal 52 (or J52, which you can read more about HERE), but I actually got it done on time.  I just had a not very good weekend and didn't take the time to post.  But there will be more about that in this week's Documented Life pages, and for right now, I need something happy to get me off to work today.

For week 3 of J52, the prompt was "You make me smile." and it's about the 'quirky, silly, happy things that make you smile'.  Mine has a double meaning, which I'm always a fan of:

"Every time I find your face it always makes me smile!"
Prismacolors, Aquamarkers, Promarkers, Dylusions,  Bic 537R pen (aka the best writing pen ever...I used it for the writing and those crazy eyelashes)

As soon as I read the prompt, I knew I was going to be drawing a girl with a smiling face.  It's one of the how-to videos included in Jane Davenport's (JD for short) Supplies Me class that I'm taking, so I knew I wanted the practice.  I just had to figure out why the girl was going to be smiling...what makes me smile?

Not to make you think that JD is my new art idol or anything (although her work is beautiful and I am loving her classes...), but I do find that she has interesting side thoughts that pop out of her from time to time.  I imagine watching one of JD's videos is a bit like listening to me talk (except for I don't have an awesome Australian accent), because she rambles on and on, goes off on tangents, and is so silly.  But if you listen closely, some of her silliness makes a lot of sense!

One of the things that JD says is that we have little people living in our art supplies and when we use those supplies, we are setting those little people free!  I like that she says "let's see who's living in here today", because there's not always the same person in our supplies...it's different people every time!  And that was the inspiration for the page I'm sharing today...it makes me smile to find the faces of my little people.  

Now, just so you know, I do differ from JD a little bit, because I know that my little people live in my hand and not my art supplies.  My little people might tell me they want to be drawn in a certain art supply, but they definitely live in my hand.  There's a whole sprawling city of them living in there!  And I know they are living in my hand, because if you used my art supplies, you'd draw the people living in your hand!  And they are probably very different from the ones that live in mine!  I think if the people lived in the art supplies themselves, then your little people would look much more like my little people, and what fun would that be?  So, in my opinion, my little art people live in Hand City and take the art supply bus to Watercolor Paper Town (or sometimes to other substrate themed locations...but Watercolor Paper Town is a pretty popular destination at my house)!

The other meaning for my page is about finding a familiar face in a crowd.  I have a hard time with large groups of people, especially when I'm alone...it makes me nervous.  I'm a lot better than I used to be...when I was a kid, I could hardly stand in line at a store without practically having a panic attack.  So I've gotten better, but even now, it's not one of my favorite things.  But if I'm with someone I know, it makes the whole thing much easier.  So I was thinking about going somewhere by myself, bumping into a familiar face, and the amount of relief it provides me.  

I could also imagine waiting for someone in a crowded place (like an airport...although I've personally never been to an airport...) and searching through all the unfamiliar faces til, at last, you find the person you've been looking for.  I blame romance movies for this one...you know, where they have to find their true love before the flight leaves...I bet you can think of a specific movie right now that has this scene in it.  Hollywood has even invaded the brain of a non-TV watcher like me!

So finding faces is something that makes me smile...what about you?  What is it that makes you so glad you can't help but have a physical reaction?  

Fun with Sweets and Jane

I worked the dreaded Saturday this week.  Overtime is always a mixed bag for me, because I'm never sure which I would rather have, more money or more time.  Usually time wins, but this week the choice was made for me and I ended up working...I got off easy though, because I didn't have to work today like a lot of the other people I work with.  I missed out on getting paid double time, but, as I always say, money does me no good when I am in the mental institution from having a nervous breakdown.  I need to be away from work and work people so that I can be pleasant and sane during normal working hours.  If I don't have that break, I very quickly descend into madness and could very easily end up stabbing a co-worker in the neck with a pencil or throwing a stapler at someone's face...and that's just not very nice at all, now is it?

 

I have been doing my Morning Pages still!  Every single day, although I confess not always in the morning...but every single day of 2014 so far!  That's right, five whole days!  (ha ha) It might not seem like much, but I have stuck with it to this point and hooray for that!  Lisa Sonora Beam's Root challenge (which you can read about HERE and see if you'd like to participate...it's free to do) has been giving me some prompts that are helping me along.  Despite the fact that I've looked at some of them first thing in the morning and thought they were too woo-woo hippy dippy for me, I find that I keep coming back to them and having something to write about concerning them when I do my pages.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I'm becoming very good at hippy dippy as it applies to me! :) 

 

I think I might have mentioned that I am taking Jane Davenport's  (JD for short) Supplies Me workshop...if not...  Guess what?!? 

 

 

You can find all of JD's workshops HERE

 

I am having so much fun.  Faces are my favorite thing to draw.  Not too much time goes by without one creeping into my work...probably not even a single day...  From the very beginning of my artistic endeavors, I've just loved them.  And JD has such great faces and ways of teaching that it isn't hard to spend all of my free time practicing.  ...even things that I've resisted (I'm looking at you ball-on-a-board shading practice...which is coming up in one of the lessons as homework...ugh...), I find myself willing to do for JD's classes.

 

I'm on Week 2 of the Supplies Me class (although I have been scandalously watching videos ahead...I'm such a rebel!), and it deals with colored pencils.

 

After I watched JD's Whimsical Faces video from Cloth Paper Scissors, I have given myself over to drawing with colored pencils instead of graphite ones...it has been one of the best things I've done to improve my drawings, I swear it!  I've just been using my Crayola set, and they work just fine for the beginnings of  drawings...BUT...today I was practicing blending with my Prismacolors and let me just say...I need to get more colors of the Prismacolors...possibly all the Prismacolors in the world.  I got the basic set a long time ago (I think 10 or 12 colors) and a few flesh tones along the way, but haven't really used them much because I wasn't a fan of shading with colored pencil...until now!  These things are like magic wands of awesomeness encased in wood.  I don't have the piece I was working on today ready to show you just yet (probably tomorrow or the next day), but I do have my other homework type drawings, which are face practice (and done in Prismacolors):

 

 

The Oval Face

The Circle Face (Left braid, you turned out so well...I don't know what happened with you, poor right braid...)

The Squared Face

I am eventually going to put my shading skills that I am learning to good use and color these girls in, but for now they are just basic outlines in waiting.

 

I did do another face, using the Crayola colored pencils and, to a lesser extent, Inktense pencils, Distress Markers, and Sharpie Paint Pens:

 

 

I used a Painters (that's the brand) paint marker to try to 'white' out the face's guidelines, and it worked really well but in the photo it sticks out like a sore thumb.  In person, you can't see those lines at all (or hardly at all)...and from across the room, this girl just GLOWS...I tell you it's almost eerie! 

Possibly my favorite bit of face practice is this page:

 

Squeal of Delight!  Squeal of Delight!

 I loved doing this!  I stole the idea right from JD (not really stole, she suggested it as practice), and I had FUN with a capital F-U-N finding out what kind of girl was living in each circle of paint!  The only thing I did differently than JD was I used a black pen ( a Micron on some and a regular old ball point pen on others) to make the facial features instead of using colored pencils.  The reason I did this is that I used Martha Stewart Pearl paints on some of the circles and that paint is glossy and colored pencil won't stick to it.  That happened to be the first spot of paint I tried to draw on...so then I forgot to switch over to colored pencil and all my girls ended up being done in black pen.  It was a HAPPY accident though, because I LOVE how the page looks!  Part of me wants to take a dot stencil and fill in some of the white space with tiny non-face dots of paint...and part of me wants to leave it as white space...what do you think would be better?

 

My two favorite faces ended up being right next to each other.  The one at the top left in the periwinkle-ish color (incidentally the first girl I did...can you tell it's glossy paint?) who's got the turned face and the bun is my favorite, and the girl below her in the light blue is a very, very close second.  They're such different styles of face, but I LOVE them both... HUZZAH!

  I've got another page of paint circles opposite this page, but I had to stop drawing these little faces as my hand was cramping...now I'm not sure if I want to draw more faces on those blank circles or if I want to turn them into journaling space...hmm...decisions, decisions...

 

Oh, I did manage to make one face in colored pencil, the girl at the bottom left in this picture...she's all pencil and I love her fantastic lips.
 

I'm in the process of finishing up this week's challenge for the Documented Life project, and that's what I'm using my Prismacolor shading page on...ooh, I'm so exited for you to see it!  So, if I want to get done and ready to show you tomorrow, I better go finish it up right now! 

 

 

By the way, what have you been working on over the weekend?  Are you keeping up with your new year challenges? 



Life is for Learning or Art From Start to Finish

Wow, I may have fallen off the KIOS wagon, but three days in a row with art to share...way to go Sweets!  *pats self on back for an obscene amount of time*  

So...as a present to myself, I am taking Jane Davenport's (known as JD from this point on) Supplies Me class.  I had gotten her Whimsical Faces Video from Cloth Paper Scissors (when on super sale...egads, I love a good sale) and it was such a good video, probably the favorite one I've bought from them (so far...hehehe), and I knew I really wanted to take another of JD's classes at some point.  I just didn't think it would happen anytime soon.  But then, surprise Xmas bonus at work (HUZZAH!)=me getting to take one of her classes!

This is my Week 1 (Texture) homework for the class, from start to finish:

Light gesso layer, followed by washi tape, tissue paper, fancy napkins...

Followed by more washi, tissue paper, fancy napkins, and sheet music...and a coat of gesso where I smooshed the pages together while the gesso was still wet (for added texture)...

Followed by Dylusions sprayed through two different Heidi Swapp stencils.  Can I just tell you how much I didn't want to add anything else to the page at this point?  It was so vibrant and glorious...the picture just doesn't do it justice...GORGEOUSNESS!  ...but I was good and added more, starting with a layer of clear gesso...

The gesso faded out the Dylusions background a little bit...making it, as Donna Downey would say, touch worthy (hehehe)...  So here's where I started sketching in the face (with colored pencil...Trust me when I say to start sketching with colored pencils if you don't already.  I swear that was one of the best tips I picked up from the Whimsical Faces video...as a former compulsive eraser, I can testify that I LOVE not being able to erase now!).  Then a light coat of craft acrylic in a flesh-ish tone for the face and a light gesso wash in the hair area.

Blurry picture, why you so blurry?!?  As you can see (hopefully, despite the blur...), I started adding in more color and shading with Inktense pencils and Neocolor II's.  On a side note, I want the entire sets of both of those things now...especially the Neocolor II's.  Then more shading with some Distress Markers (which I got on clearance at Michaels...yay for clearance) and a little bit of Winter White acrylic paint for the eyeball whiteness...

Close-up of texture-y goodness!   This picture makes me so happy I could squeal!  Why can't all my phone pictures turn out so awesomely?  (I'm looking at you, blurry picture above!!!)

And because it worked so well the first time, another EXTREME close-up!

Finished face...used a Micron, a few gel pens, a Sharpie paint pen, Distress Markers, and Bombay India ink for the finishing touches... 

"Life is for learning."  (Quote from Joni Mitchell song which you can listen to below)  Finished spread!  I used Distress Marker, Bombay India Ink, Recollections Signature markers (which I've had FOREVER) and Sharpie paint pen for the lettering...and then splattered some of the India Ink on the page for a finishing touch...  On a side note, most of my desk is now splattered with India Ink...including my computer screen.  I am writing to you around dots of color...  I'm hoping it will come off (at least from the computer screen!), but if not, it's ok, my stuff is just extra decorated now...

And here's a photo collage of all the pictures above, just because I made it for the class, and because I feel extra technologically advanced for making it! *more shameless back patting of self*

 I LOVE this spread!  Aside from the hair (which I will be practicing thanks to an AWESOME video my friend Boo sent me the link for) and the lettering (which I will be forcing myself to practice...for real this time...), the thing is just swoon worthy!  Even the hair and lettering being less than perfect doesn't really bother me horrendously...I'm still self-swooning!

As promised, here is the song that I got the "Life is for learning." quote from (Woodstock by Joni Mitchell):

Aah, Joni, my love for you is boundless...I swoon for you...and this journal spread...and you...le sigh...

Now I'm off to start Week 2 of the Supplies Me class...colored pencils! Enjoy your creative life, wherever you are on this fine day...