Such a Card - Rubber Dance Stamp Color Challenge

I may have turned over a new leaf...a new autumn leaf...

Bibi over at RUBBER DANCE ART STAMPS is hosting a monthly color challenge!  You know I'm a sucker for a challenge...and, to add even more excitement, she's giving away a grab bag of her beautiful stamps for the winner of the challenge!  So much fun!  The two conditions are to use stamps and the colors of the month.

This month's colors are classic autumn colors (you can read more about it HERE and enter the challenge yourself!).  Fall is my absolute, hands down favorite season, and the colors of fall really got me excited to play.

I am a guilty stamp hoarder, so I was extra happy to have a reason to pull out my stamps and sift through to find some autumnal goodness!

Going one step further from my comfort zone, I even decided to try my hand at making a card!  I have to thank my friend Boo for inspiring me to try.  She's the best!

Here's what I made:

Ooh...I'm so proud!

I used THIS tutorial to make my card.  The instructions were very clear and she gave the sizes for the paper cuts so that I didn't have to guess!

I've tried making cards before (a LONG time ago) and the results could only be called epic failure.  This time I'm really happy with the way my card turned out!  I'm giddy with pride!

Now that I made one card, I have this insane urge to go crazy and make a gazillion more!  Which could be a good thing considering the huge assortment of scrapbook paper I have.  Plus I'd use my stamps more...and I have embossing powder...and flocking...and...OhMyGoodness, I think I've lost whatever is left of my mind to the card-making muse!

Another bonus...I'll have to do something with the cards...so my mail art friends will have proof that I have not forgotten them!  

I'm going to go now...and make more cards supper like a responsible adult...and then more cards...

Who am I kidding...no one's eating supper in this house tonight... :)

ICAD, Art Journal and Canvas Hooray!

First, a big thanks to everybody for helping me hit 3,000 page views!  You guys made me do the happy dance today!  It wasn't too long ago that I was doing the happy dance over 2,000...I am going to have to start thinking about some kind of giveaway for when I hit 5,000...it's going to creep up on me and I'll be unprepared if I'm not careful!  If anybody has any ideas on that, I'm open to suggestions...

So I got to do some artsy stuff today, and I'm super excited about it!  I'm always super excited, aren't I?  It's like I'm bipolar, but only ever visit the one pole, you know what I mean?  

Up first is my ICAD card, which I'm cheating on and doing two prompts in one card, because I messed up my order royally and now I'm just confused and scared!  Help!  Help!  

This card is 3x5 and the prompts were 'your name in block letters' and 'logo':

I think I failed at block letters...I don't think there are supposed to be curves in block letters...but I didn't research that first, and so I ended up with this.   I did get to use some of my FANTABULOUS Silks acrylic glazes to color it in...I am not one for glittery things usually, but EGADS! I love those things so much!  This whole week for ICAD is bound to be a do-over, because I just went cuckoo or something.  The 'logo' part is my stylized little red clover.  I've used it before, hit and miss, but I like it quite a lot and I think it will be my signature from now on, mostly because it keeps me from having to sign my name in my terrible 12-year-old boy handwriting...  (Who am I kidding?  Even 12-year-old boys have better handwriting than me!)

Next I did a page (or really a two-page spread) in one of my art journals:

This is not my usual thing...  The colors and the collage-y look are both out of the norm for me.  This was kind of an experiment page.  I used some muslin I had painted black (I painted the muslin forever ago, testing out some textile medium I had bought.)  On the right page, behind the stamped image (the one that is not torn) is the scrap piece of paper I used underneath the muslin when I painted it...isn't that a neat effect how the paint came through all randomly?  I think it's a pretty nifty pattern!  The stamped images were also me testing things out.  Same stamp, in different inks (some images then covered in perfect pearls) on pages from my old Spanish/English dictionary.  I colored some of the pages using alcohol inks as well to make them look more aged...they were already pretty old, but not quite as darkly antique colored as they are now.  The journaling says: "I think somewhere along the way I have been torn apart and I must spend the rest of my life piecing myself back together." 

And finally, the thing I am REALLY super excited about:

Woo Hoo!!!   My bird at sunrise painting!  He's on an 8x10 canvas.  I would just like to mention that I do NOT like working on canvases.  I know it's because I'm just not used to them, but ARG!  I much prefer my safe and easy watercolor paper!  ...but I will keep practicing on the canvases.   One day, I will probably look back at this post and say what a weenie I was for not liking to work on canvas.  As much as I disdained working on the canvas, I am so very, very happy with how the painting turned out!  And look, I even used my little red clover to sign it with!  Squeeee!  It makes me so happy!

I did the painting along with the completely awesome (and very nice) Marc Charles from Painting with Marc on YouTube.  Some darling amigas from one of the Facebook groups I am in suggested watching his first video (I made an ICAD card using what I learned in the video...you can see the result in my last post).  Now, I am HOOKED!  

Here is the video for your viewing pleasure...and listening pleasure (I LOVE his accent!  *sigh*  It's just delicious, I swear I could listen to him read the dictionary!):

He does such a great job of teaching you how to do things!  I am enamored with him and his art and his style of teaching!  He kindly accepted a Facebook friending from me, and, let me just say, he is such a sweetie pie!  So go subscribe to his channel on YouTube and go friend him (and me, of course!) on Facebook and see just how wonderful he really is!  I think I am going to end up doing all of his tutorials, so be forewarned: You will be hearing about Marc again!

So those are my major accomplishments for the day...what did you get into?

Happy Mail and Some Encouragement

First of all let me just say a big WOO HOO!!!  I got some beautiful mail art today, from not one, but two lovely ladies!  Hooray!

First, from my darling Pamikins:

Two very awesome napkins, some really cool dress shaped paper (I think they must have been from a notepad?), and two AMAZING ATCs!  I love them both so much!  I love that Marilyn Monroe quote, especially that first line "Imperfection is beauty" (read on, because it applies to what I'll be talking about farther down).  And I love the WTF? ATC, that face... "Oh Lawd!"  I LOVE IT!!!  Thank you my dearest Pamikins!   

And from the fantastic Rose:

A fabulous bookmark (oh, I love these so much...I put my other one to good use right away, and, since I am a multiple books at once kind of reader, I will be doing the same with this one!), some really neat numbers (aren't they just too awesome???  I have been plotting with these since I opened the envelope...that 6 and the Paris napkin from my Pam are destined to be together I do believe!), a beautiful note card with butterflies (I love these so much, I don't know where she got them from, but I want to go to that place!) and then the Geisha and Crane piece, which I ADORE!  Thank you, wonderful Rose!

I am always so amazed by the creativity of the wonderful friends I've made online.  They are all so generous, kind and encouraging.  I am so fantastically lucky just to know each and every one of them!  Their kind words have made me so bold in taking chances and trying new things.  I know I would not have progressed as far as I have in so short a time without them cheering me on!

I had promised that I would share some of my beginning drawings with the ladies, and I decided to include them in this post too.  And I'm letting you see the horror that is my beginning drawings, because I want everybody to see that there is ZERO natural talent at work in me.  ZERO.  You won't believe it, but the following drawings aren't even the worst ones I did!  (I covered over the worst of them with gesso, hollered "DO-OVER!" and made art journal pages...so the following ones are the LEAST WORST...when you see them you won't think a person could do any worse, but trust me, there were worse...)

So here are a few of the (least) worst drawings I did when I was starting out:

Look at those hands...are they made out of straw?  Humongous head, little body.  Circular eyeballs.  Check out that nifty hair she's got going on there...look how flat her face is.  What nose has EVER looked like that?

Hand behind the back = I didn't have to attempt hands.  Two different sized legs.  Circle eyeballs again.  Who's hair looks like that?  What is up with those boobs?  It looks like one of her silicon implants is deflating...

So, you can't draw realistically?  Let's make some doll-like drawings then...good grief, how can you screw that up? Let's take note of just how you can screw it up: ..that hand situation...it looks like starfish and octopus tentacles...those are the fattest legs any ballerinas have ever had...do they have gout or something?  but look...eyeball improvement...they're no longer circles at least...  hair is clearly still an issue...  and proportion...

Check out that sweet pear shaped bod this gal's got going on...oh, and the one piece squiggle hair...who drew this stuff, a five year old?  Yuck.  

So, do you see what I mean?  NO NATURAL TALENT.  And the reason I want everybody to know that I have NO natural talent whatsoever, is so that they will know that they CAN draw (or paint or whatever).  All it takes is practice.  Talent is not needed.  Practice is the only thing you need.

Don't get me wrong, I know I am still, by far, NOT the best myself.  But, look at the above drawings, and then look at these: 

OK, she's definitely stylized, right?  But look at the 'before' doll-like drawings...disproportionate and terrible in general...  Now look at her, she's not perfect, but she's mostly in proportion.  The legs and arms do not look like disfigured sea creature appendages...  There is some sense to the hair as well...

OK, so what's going on here?  Still not perfect, right?  The wrong eyeball is bigger.  It looks like she got punched in the left cheek and it's swollen.  Mouth is still not right.  BUT, face has a face shape (it's not just a circle anymore!).  Same with the eyes.  The nose looks like it belongs on a human for once!

And then there's this girl, who I think is the best one I've done so far.  I still have hair issues, but I'm working on it...there is improvement.  Again, more realistic face shape, eyes, nose, mouth...more realistic everything!

I'm not showing you these because I want showered with praise...PLEASE DON'T!!!  I'm showing you because I want you to see that ANYBODY can get better with a little practice.  Again, I know that I've still got plenty of things I can do to improve, and I will keep practicing and practicing until I get to the point where I'm 100% satisfied (we all know that's imaginary...I bet no one is ever 100% satisfied...).  

I just want you all to see that you CAN draw (or paint or whatever), if you are willing to take the time and practice.  I've watched a lot of videos online, and did a lot of research, and I still am on the lookout for more and more.  I LOVE art, looking at it, practicing, reading about it, seeing what others do... I love everything about it and I do SOMETHING every single day.  

From the beginning drawings up above to the more recent ones down at the bottom, only about 6 months or so have passed.  When I look at these images, I can hardly believe that I've improved so much in that small amount of time!  It gets me so excited to think what I'll be able to do in another 6 months that I can't do now!

I guess the point I am trying to make is that six months from now, you can still be sitting there saying  "I wish I could..." or "I'll never be able to..." or you could be sitting there saying "Look how far I've come!"  I know you can do it if you really want to!  All you have to do is try and keep trying!  I KNOW YOU CAN!

OK, I'm getting down off my soapbox now...

Again, I just want to say a big THANK YOU to Rose and Pam for my GORGEOUS care packages!  (You ladies made my day a million times better!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!)  And I want to add more big THANK YOU's to all the fantastic folks I am lucky enough to know!  Your words of encouragement are a big part of the reason I can sit here today and say "Look how far I've come!"  Thank you all!

Icads 21-24

What a busy weekend I had!  (That's my lame way to say sorry I didn't post for a couple days...)  In my defense, I actually did have a seemingly action packed weekend.  

There was mailing of mail art.  There was going to Michaels craft store (twice).  There was a MONSTROUS amount of cleaning.  This is what took up the most time...egad, so much time...but the craft room looks AWESOME...and to a lesser extent, so do the kitchen and bathroom.  I mean, how awesome can they look...there's hardly any art supplies in those other rooms at all!  

And there was also art...I managed to get my ICAD cards done.  I also started an art journal page, but I'm not finished yet, so that will have to wait for another post.

So anyways, ICAD cards...  

They are all on 3x5 index cards.  I managed to somehow get confused on the prompts for each day.  I was doing the prompts in order, but I messed that up (no clue how).  I did do 4 cards in 4 days, so that counts anyway, I think.

For the first one, the prompt was 'owl'.  I tried using the video found HERE to paint my card.  The video is really cool, and I could listen to that guy talk all day long.  My girls on Facebook and I have decided I am totally going to marry him, because he has an awesome accent, he's pretty much adorable, he's clumsy (watch the video...he drops something...bwa-ha-ha...I love it!) and he likes art...  How perfect can one person be?  I don't know how my current husband will feel about this, but I'd like to think he'll understand.  Besides, he doesn't have an adorable accent at all, so his opinion is pretty much meaningless...  

Here's the card:

This video is really good.  The man (with the fabulous accent) makes you really feel like you can do what he's doing, and not in a fruit loopy, hippy dippy way (Lawd, I hate when they get all fruit loopy), but just in a nice "it's easy, just try it" way.  With that accent, I believe whatever he says...  Anyway, because I'm a rebel, I added some highlights with white to the owl and to branches especially (in the video, he just has you do the silhouette).  I like the way the branches turned out...the owl, not so much...he looks more cartoonish to me than the branches do.

Next is my ICAD for the prompt "list of pros and cons"...see, I told you, I got all out of whack.  Anyway, because lists are my mortal enemy, I decided that instead of pros and cons, I would just do a 'con' and decided to make a picture of Bonnie Parker, of Bonnie and Clyde fame:

Here's my extremely stylized version of Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker.  

Then I made this card, for the prompt 'lyrics or quote', using a video by Jennibellie, which you can find HERE.  Basically, the idea was to 'paint' using string of some kind.  I used embroidery floss:

Once I put down the string, it reminded me of Liza Minelli in Cabaret.  Mostly nowadays, when I think of Liza Minelli, I think of her in Arrested Developement...."I got a case of the dizzies." HAHAHA! 

Finally, I made this card for the prompt 'grocery list':

...because we all know art supplies are more important than food.  These are a few of the things I got at Michaels this weekend (minus the index cards): a set of black Microns, a set of Twinkling H2Os, 5 colors of screen printing ink for fabric, 6 different colors of Silks acrylic glazes, a couple different Sharpies, and some Mod Podge matte sealer.  I got some other things (during the second trip) which didn't make it to the 'grocery' list: some Golden soft gel medium (matte), some Adirondack acrylic paint daubers, and some new paint brushes.  Over all, a fabulous haul.  I've been good for a long time, so I went a little nuts...I'm like a binge buyer when it comes to supplies...nothing, nothing, nothing, EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE...  Shame on me!

Page at last and icad too

I finally did an art journal page last night.  FINALLY!  From start to finish (thanks to my beloved industrial strength heat gun)!  And, I suppose, technically two pages.  *insert gigantic sigh of relief here*

I decided that I would start to watch some videos for art journaling and see if I could learn some new techniques, be reminded of ones I've not used for a while, and even to see if I saw something that would inspire me to create a brilliant technique of my own.  

So, last night I sat down and queued up Pinterest and started searching...and then ingeniously forgot to pin the video I watched, so I sadly can't share it with you.  When I stumble across that video again, I promise I will put up the link...and I'll remember to pin the video next time so I can share it with you right away!

At any rate, I watched a video (it was a lady who did a Dyan Reavely inspired video, using Dyan's products/style)and then tried to copy what the woman in the video did.  She did some things I didn't/couldn't do (because I didn't have all the supplies she did) and I added in my own touches as well to get the pages to be 'finished' and more my style.  And here they are:

Started off by spaying the page with fresh lime and black marble Dylusions (I notice people using this color combo a lot, and it looks good when they do it, but I HATE it when I try it...)  Then I used one of Dyan's stencils (which I do have, but don't know the name of...it's the one with the flower edge and dots in the middle) and sprayed through it with the same color dylusions as above.  And then I decided (she did not do this in the video) to use some white acrylic paint and went through the stencil with it as well (because the page was VERY dark in places, and I didn't like that.   Then, in the video, the woman uses one of Dyan Reavely's stamps on a separate piece of paper, and then glues it on the page, but I don't have any of her stamps, so I just drew a girl instead, colored her in with Dylusions and pasted her in.  I used postbox red Dylusions sprayed through the same stencil on the left page to tie in with the headband of the girl. Then I used the mini "Mixed Up Alphabet" stencil and traced out the letters on the left page ("You gotta be kidding me"), with Pitt pen and then colored it in with acrylic paints in yellow and in turquoise to try to tie in the girl a little better...she was sticking out like a sore thumb pretty badly.  Then I took some black acrylic paint and added in the words on the right page ("Can I just be over it now?") because there was too much white going on.  Then I added the dots with turquoise and black acrylic in some random places, outlined some stuff as well.  I used black faux-latos around the girl and then a sparkly peachy one to color in her face a little more (it was a VERY stark white before)...then I took that same sparkly peach and went over the whole page randomly.  And then it was bedtime!

I also got my ICADS done for yesterday and today, just didn't have time to share them.  Both are on 3x5 cards.

This is the one for the 19th, the prompt was 'summer':

I saw a picture of this on Pinterest, and it had these really bright awesome super saturated colors, and I thought that looked pretty summery, so I tried to recreate it on a card.  I REALLY LOVE how the colors look on this.  (Used watercolor and Pitt pen)

And here's today's card, with the prompt of 'poem'

:

"Faces of other people follow me around the room."  This is acrylic paint and then I glued down some faces I made using paperclay (the blueish white ones) and Martha Stewart Crafter's Clay (the purple ones).  I painted their eyes, lips, and cheeks with acrylic.  The poem this is from is below in it's entirety.  I wrote it and it's a double alphabet poem, minus the letter 'x', because there are just not that many 'x' words out there to use...  I always end up cheating and using words that sound like 'x' at the beginning...extreme, extra, etc.

"The Firing Synapses"

And you will always

Be with me, beloved.

Closed eyes call and you answer in 

Dreams that keep you dear to me, 

Ever in my thoughts, even where you shouldn't be.

Faces of other people follow me around the room.

Giddy laughter covers the gloom in me.

Half of my life rots with you, hallow in the grave.

Indecision corrodes the rest.  If only you had not...

Justice, however, won't be served and I'm always jolted back.

Killing me slowly, they keep it up.

Love, they never seem to let me alone.

My memories of you are constantly interrupted,

Not by anything I care for, nothing important,

Only for the sake of this half life I lead.  This open wound

Pouring, barely enough left to keep me going.  Nothing easing the pain.

Quietly, life drains out of me...quick enough I suppose.

Ready or not, when the time comes, you can't resist.

Sometimes I wonder where you are now.  Sickly

thoughts try to make sense of it.

Useless.  I know I will never understand

while I still breath, while I still think, 

exactly what happens, what to expect.

You yearn to know or else try to forget the question.

Zapping your brain, the synapses zero in or else try to disconnect.

So there you have it...if you'd like to read more of my poetry (some is pretty decent, I swear!) you can check it out HERE.

ICAD 18 and...did I show you this already?

So two things to show you, that I made quite a while ago, but don't think I showed before.  They're in my scrappy pocket calender journal that I made.  If I shared these before, please forgive the repeat, I have tired brain...

Easy peasy wimpy drawing...I just was pretty happy with the lettering on this one...usually I hate my lettering, because of the 12-year-old boy handwriting, but I am ok with this one.  The lyrics are from the song below:

This is the song, by Fiona Apple, called Werewolf.  I think she has interesting lyrics and she did the artwork for the cover of the album, which I think is pretty cool! :

This is on the page opposite the one above, and Fiona Apple lyrics inspired this one too.  What can I say, I get off on tangents...

This is my actual handwriting.  Horrifying, I know...  I like the way the feet are crossed in this little sketch.

This is the song that the lyrics above are from (for the record, weirdest video ever, but I love it...it's like a big crazy dream within a dream thing...that's my take anyway) :

Also, I think that gal has an interesting face.  I will probably draw it one day...


And lastly, but not leastly, there is my ICAD card for today.

It's on a 3x5 and the prompt today was "Italy":

I did a drawing of  La Bocca della Verita, or 'the mouth of truth', which is in the church of Santa Maria
Cosmedin Rome, Italy.  I don't think this is the best sketch in the world, but the black eyes and mouth do make his look appropriately menacing, I think.

As soon as I saw the prompt for Italy, I thought of "Roman Holiday" with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  It's my favorite Audrey Hepburn movie, I do believe.  Anyway, one of the scenes that the movie is famous for is the scene with 'the mouth of truth' in it, and that's why I chose this to draw.  

Here's the scene:

Just an interesting tidbit, Audrey Hepburn was unaware of what Gregory Peck was going to do in this scene, so her reaction above is her actual reaction.  You just witnessed a young Audrey Hepburn freak the crap out...that thought is hilarious to me!

ICAD 16 and 17 and a Bonus

I was a bit of a no-show yesterday...sorry about that!  And here I've been so good at posting at least the ICAD cards once a day...Oh well...

The reason I didn't post yesterday is that it was my first day of non-smoking.  Oh yeah...it was great.  I got one of those e-cigarettes to try to take the edge off...I don't know how well that's going to work.  Let me just say I could totally eat a cigarette right now.  I wouldn't even flinch. 

I have quit smoking before.  Literally quit, I didn't just make an attempt to quit for a day and then take it back up.  No, I quit for three or four years.  Then, I had a bit of a personal tragedy and started again.  That was about two years ago.  

The first time I quit, I quit cold turkey (after attempting the pill, which made me a psychopath)...that may be how I end up doing it this time as well...  I think this electronic thing is just making me angry.  

The sucky part is that I LIKE to smoke.  I REALLY like to smoke.  OH LAWD, HOW I LOVE TO SMOKE!!!.  

But I know that I need to quit.  I've been getting out of breath way too easily, and it is probably a combination of the smoking and the general amount of unhealthy that I possess, but I'm willing to try to quit smoking first and see how that works out...then exercise if I HAVE to.  Another good reason to quit is the stink.  I know everything I have probably smells like smoke.  I have been thinking about trying to sell some of my art online (Thanks to the encouragement from my gals on Facebook) and I can't do that if it smells like smoke.  And then there's the whole money end of it.  Yeah...I don't want to tell you how much I spend on smoking a month...you'll gasp in horror.  ...At least (AT LEAST!) $200...sometimes more.  Yeah, that's not a typo...two hundred dollars a month or more spent on smoking!  *GASP!*  I know, how ridiculous is that? Do you know how many art and craft supplies could be bought with that money?  So many...

So if everyone I know in real life could promise not to be annoying for the next week or two, that would be great.  From quitting before, I know the first two weeks were the hardest for me.  That was the time frame that I wanted to rip people's faces off.  After that I was totally ok.  I thought maybe the e-cigarette would take some of that edge away, but I think it is making it worse.  

I am trying to think of all the awesome reasons I have to quit smoking, but good grief, just talking about it makes me want a cigarette!  I promise this will not become a blog dedicated to how I quit smoking, but I may mention it off hand, just to keep me accountable.  

At any rate, I did do my ICAD cards this weekend, and here they are: 

The first one is from the 16, the prompt was "polka dots" and it's a 3x5:

This is a stamp I have.  I embossed it and then used watercolor to paint behind it.  I could get inspired to do much else on this one, I just wanted to try the idea out again.

Here's the card for today, the prompt is "definition" and it's a 3x5 as well:

This one reminds me of smoking...if you look at it sideways, it looks like your trying to light two cigarettes with one flame.  I can't look at this anymore!  *tear*

Finally, I have a bit of a 'bonus' card today.  Inspired by the lovely (and VERY nice and funny) Tracey Fletcher King and her amazing cuppa cards, and using her step by step how-she-does-it on her blog (found HERE), I made my own cuppa card!

Here's my cup, I use her for holding pens and crayons and crochet hooks, but she is very much a mug, I promise... :

Isn't she adorable?  I love stuff like this!  I got her forever ago at a thrift store for a quarter.  She's worth much more to me; I just love her!

And here's my card, a 4x6:

Not too horrible for a first try, right?  And I did like Tracey said on the blog, and used NO PENCIL, only pen...on the lettering too, which is why "promise" is colored in...because it's an 's' not a 'c' as I originally tried to write...Note to self: spell check first next time.  Overall, not terrible, but I think with practice that I could get better.  So practice is the plan!  

Thanks to Tracey Fletcher King and her awesome how-to!  I really had a lot of fun attempting this...even though I couldn't use my pencil safety net... :)

ICAD June 15

Here are my ICAD cards for the day, the prompt was "Postage Stamp".

This one is 3x5: 

I saw the quote on Pinterest.  She's sepia-toned Micron 0.5 colored in 'faux'-latos.  The Guatemala thing is a rub-on I've had forever.

Here's the 4x6:

This is a stamp featuring  postage stamp size pictures, some of them even postage stamp related...I feel like it captured the essence of the prompt.  I embossed the stamped image and then used my watercolors to color it in.  My heat gun has been at my mom's house for quite a while, and I realized I missed it ever so much...I do not wish to be parted from this day forward.

The Face and the Camera

Another one from the br sketchbook today...  

I like this one so much.  She reminds me of an actress, who's name I can't think of for the life of me...if you think you know who I'm talking about, could you tell me who you think it is, because it is KILLING me!

"She was so wise to the ways of the world.  No one could hurt her now."  The lettering was my poor attempt at sketchy graffiti...I don't know how well that comes across (not at all...).  But, I do love this face so much.  I don't even want to color her in, and you know that is NOT like me!  I think she is fabulous just as she is...

And, of course, we've got the ICAD card today as well.  The prompt today was "camera" and this is on a 3x5 card:

"There are always two people in every picture, the photographer and the viewer"
-Ansel Adams

I am super happy with the way this turned out.  I love that only parts of it are colored in, and the camera strap makes me squeal with delight.  I love how it turned out.  And that quote...oh, that quote!  

I think all arts are like that, don't you?  Two people in every work of art...the artist, who pours themselves into their work, and the person looking at the art, who sees their own meaning in it.  I really think that no two people ever see the same thing when they look at a work of art, because we each view it under the influence of our own life, shaded by our own experiences.  

Isn't it interesting that we, as humans, are made up of all the same basic bits and pieces as any other human, and yet there is so much variation?  

She's a Freak

I've been thinking about the things that make us individuals...you know, our little quirks...the things we do that make us seem a bit strange to other people.  

I, for one, find these traits/habits/weirdnesses to be extremely interesting.  I love the details that make one person different from another.  I guess, in my head, if you just pay attention, these little funky things are like having a secret insight into someone else.  

For instance, my husband has this thing he does when he gets frustrated...he takes his hat (he's never without his ball cap) on and off repeatedly...not all the way...just up, down, up, down...  And when he's REALLY mad, he takes off his hat and rubs his hand across his forehead so hard you would swear he was trying to take the skin off.  Why does he do it?  I have no clue, and that's what makes it interesting to me.

Or a friend of mine at work has a desk full of ducks...why ducks?  Actually, I know why in this case: I work at a factory where they make fans, heaters, thermostats, ect.  One of the things we make are duct heaters, and my friend is the one who always prints and keys these duct orders in and so somebody started calling her the duck lady (same issue with duct tape...duct tape, duck tape...everybody calls it duck tape) and got her a duck...and then people just assumed she liked ducks, so they kept getting her more of them and now she's got a desk full of ducks.  Even when I know the why behind these weird things, they still interest me.

If quirks are what make us interesting, I think I must be the most interesting person in the world.  (Not really...)  I do have a lot of quirks though...for instance:

• I am a multiple sneeze person.  I sneeze six times in a row.  If I ever sneeze less than six times, it will be just once, and this is how I know I am getting sick.  Multiple sneezes are completely normal, but if I sneeze only once, it's time to stock up on Kleenex and orange juice.
• I have a large collection of various turtle things (even a tattoo of a turtle).  I collect turtle things because my mom has called me Turtle ever since I can remember.  She says when I was a kid, it was like I did everything in slow motion...so she started calling me Turtle.  My turtle tattoo is the equivalent of the heart with 'Mom' inside of it.
• I never cry...I mean very rarely...not even when people die...I'm just not a cryer...  However, if you make me watch Dumbo, I will ball my eyes out when Dumbo's mother is in the 'mad elephant' cage and she sticks her trunk out through the bars and rocks Dumbo and that darn "mother's love their babies" song is playing in the background...I swear I get misty just thinking about it.  
• I hate bananas, but I like banana flavored things.  Banana popsicle, banana snack cakes, banana Runts (the best flavor Runt of all!)...love 'em...actual bananas, puke city.
• I hate the following words: moist (don't ever call cake moist in front of me...that is a cake I will not be eating), whimsical (maybe from overuse?  ...I don't know, but it irritates me when I hear that word), panties (grossest. word. ever.  I call them underpants...much less gross, slightly comical, better option by far) , bling ( I might use this word occasionally, but not if I can help it...I like sparkly...or shiny...or shimmery... anything but bling) and vagina (ew.  Who names this stuff?  I go with 'lady parts'...  I'm perfectly fine with penis...I usually say wiener, but I'm ok with penis.  But vagina...that's just a terrible word...I'm so happy my name is not Gina for this exact reason...although if you pronounced vagina like you pronounced Gina, I think I'd feel better about the word.  'I wear underpants to cover my va-Gina...'  Ok, that's hilarious...I'm going to be calling it a va-Gina from now on...at least on occasion when 'lady parts' just won't cut it...

What got me thinking about quirks was the fact that I also have the weird habit of drawing when I'm in the bathroom.  I used to read, but anymore, I've been mostly drawing instead.  Which is weird in and of itself, but if you include the fact that the bathroom sketchbook is huge, it adds to the strangeness...  And then, I have the best ideas in the bathroom.  I hate to think of all the great ideas that have been lost to me because I resisted putting a sketchbook in the bathroom for so long...but NEVER again will my bathroom ideas be denied...  

The sketch for today is in my bathroom sketchbook (hereafter known as the br sketchbook):

I use pen or sharpie in the br sketchbook...the br is no place for erasers...it's a place for brilliant ideas jotted quickly.  So I use pen and if I like something, I try to make a more polished version in one of my art journals or, in the case of today, an ICAD card.

Here's the ICAD card based on the above quick sketch.  It's 3x5, colored with watercolor:

I actually like the original sketch better than this.  I think the white face is what's throwing me the most...I'm not sure...  But I do like the nose quite a bit...on the ICAD card and the original as well.  There may be another incarnation of this attempted in one of my art journals at some point, because I REALLY like the idea of/thought behind the page.  In case you are wondering, the quote comes from the John Butler Trio song below.

So there you have it...now that you know about a couple of my weird little things that make us the entire weirdness that is me, I'd love to know yours!  What are some things that make you who you are?

ICAD, June 11: Ivy

Not much time, but I did get today's ICAD card done!  

The prompt was 'ivy' and I did this on a 3x5 card:

I keep looking at it thinking "that's not ivy", because in my head, ivy is English Ivy...but there ARE other kinds of ivy besides the English version...so shut up brain, this is ivy too!!!

If nothing else, ICAD is teaching me how to work in smaller spaces...I feel like I am getting better at the smaller format!  This is awesome, because it's one of my goals...when ICAD is over with, I am going to take the next step towards tiny and start practicing ATCs!  I'm taking baby steps...shrinking baby steps!

ICAD DAY 7

Another quick one today...

Today's theme's are "paisley" and the bonus them is "calligraphy".

I only did one card with the paisley theme, a 4x6:

I thought I would try to use stamps as hair, but I think I should have overlapped the stamps...maybe that would have been more hair-like in my eyes...  on the positive side, I do love these stamps (the biggest paisley one is my favorite stamp, because look at the flower...it's a red clover (at least in my eyes)!!!) and I use them so rarely it's a crime!  I used crayola 'super tips' markers to color most of it in...I do like how her bottom lip turned out...it looks pretty good.  I chalk the rest of her up as a loss...or a lesson learned...

I did several cards with the calligraphy theme.  The first 3 are 4x6, the last one is 3x5:

Actual calligraphy...or at least as close as I can get...maybe it should be 'done with an actual calligraphy pen' instead...

Again, this was done with an actual calligraphy pen.  I like the 'L' in 'Look'... 'L' is my favorite letter to draw, because it's the only one that looks right to me...

These last two were done using the tutorial found HERE.  I like how they turned out so much that I should really start using this technique in my quotes in my art journal!

"Eyes tell lies."  I think I am going to add some stuff into this one...maybe color it in too.  I like that it's stretched across the page, dividing it into two separate spaces.  I think something interesting could be done with that...

And the only 3x5 in the group...  This is the card that made me think I should use the faux calligraphy in my art journals.  I like the 'S' in 'Sweet' and pretty much the whole of 'Clover', with the exception of the curlicue on the end of the 'r'...I don't care for it so much.

ICAD Day 6

Just a quick one today, I'm running behind and can't play hooky from work today sadly...

Today's prompt was "crown".

Here's the 3x5:

Marceline the vampire queen.  She's a charachter from a kid's show called "Adventure Time" that my nephew likes.  She eats shades of red, how cute is that?  I love cartoon art, and I think Marceline is just the bee's knees!

Here's the 4 x 6:

"Infamous angel come one home to someone who loves you and knows you needed to roam."
I was listening to the song below and it put this into my head.  I wanted to try a simple line drawing, and make myself NOT color it in.  This is the result...she may get colored in eventually...

Dancing On A Graves and ICAD Day 5

When I first became interested in art journaling, as is my tendency when I become interested in something, I did a lot of searching.  I scoured the internet for pictures and information.  Well, honestly, the first thing I did was talk to my sister, who's an extraordinary researcher...and I put her skills to use for myself...she may or may not be aware that I use her as my research monkey.  (I love you, Marian!)  And the next thing I did was to take what she'd given me and branched out on my own and found information where ever I could.  I went to the library.  I stalked the blogs of people who's work I admired.  YouTube seemed to become a homepage for me, because I was constantly looking at how-to videos.  I ordered a bunch of books off of Amazon.  I can get a little obsessed sometimes...it's a good and bad thing.  But in that initial burst of interest, I discovered something I found very interesting.

In all the blogs I stalked, all the videos I watched, all the books I read, there was a pattern of...I don't know if this is the right word...cheerleading (?).  There was inevitably something mentioned to the effect of "You can do it!  Dismiss your inner critic!  There's a little voice inside in your head saying there are beautiful things  inside of you, and YOU CAN SET THEM FREE!", etc.  My pessimistic side wanted to mock all of these encouraging words, because they seemed like a bunch of mumbo jumbo.  Not because they were stupid or wrong, but because I didn't understand that there were so many people out there who needed to hear them.

Let me try to explain:  

In my life, I've had the pleasure and the pain of being responsible for myself and others from a pretty early age.  The downfall of this responsibility is that I question basically all my choices.  I can be the most indecisive person in the world...I over-analyze EVERYTHING.  I am always afraid of making the wrong choice and that the consequences of my choice will have this butterfly effect that eventually leads to what we all fear...a zombie apocalypse.  OK, that's a stretch, but you get what I mean, right?  Choices lead to actions, and actions have consequences beyond our control.  The fact that we don't know what consequences our actions will have is a little scary to some people, and a lot scary to other people...I fall into the "a lot scary" category.  It's not the actions, it's not the physically doing something  that scares me.  It's the mental part, the choice, that's scary.

The good part of being responsible from early on is that I know I can DO.  My mom's favorite saying when I was a kid was "Can't never did nothing."  If you keep saying you can't do something, you're right, because you won't even try.  This line of thinking has led me to be able to do a whole heaping lot of different things.  Oh sure, I'm a colossal failure at many things, but I keep trying.  For many situations in my life, failure has not been an option.  If I have to do something, I'll latch onto it like I'm covered in super glue and won't let go til I'm as close to perfect as a person can be.  

And that's why I couldn't understand that people need to hear "You CAN do this."  ...well duh, of course you can!  For me, once I made the choice to do creative things, the majority of the scariness ended.  It became about practicing at that point.  It became irritation that I couldn't get my hands to make the things I saw in my brain.  It became about learning as much as I could about how to make the kind of art I wanted to make.  

I am still learning.  I am still not at the point I want to be at.  I have second thoughts about certain decisions: Do I add this color, or is it better without?  Do I want to put this journaling here?  Do I want to use acrylics or watercolor today?  See, it's the choices I'm most afraid of.  But the great and forgiving thing about art is that you can always make more.  You can always have a do-over.  It makes the consequences of your choices much less scary when you come to terms with the fact that, if we choose, what we make can be never ending.  Anything we do can be fixed, repaired, altered, amended or covered over entirely and it becomes a new start.  In art, mistakes merely teach us what we need to do to get better.

Deciding to make art has been a really wonderful choice for me.  It's taught me so much.  My attitude towards life has started to become a reflection of my attitude towards art.  I've always been scared of making decisions because I didn't want to make a mistake; I thought of consequences as final.  Art has taught me that no mistake is irreparable.  Even the worst mistakes, if nothing else, teach us what we don't want.  

So here comes my mumbo jumbo:  I've heard so many people say "let go of your fears".  That's pretty good advice.  But, I think I have better advice.  Don't let go of your fears.  Bury them.  Bury them under mounds of your art.  Just make something, anything, and make your mistakes.  Make so many mistakes that your fears are suffocated by effort.  And then learn from your mistakes.  If we keep doing this, eventually we'll stop making mistakes and our fears will be completely buried.  And then we'll dance on their graves.

"I came here to dance on the grave of my fears."  I had done the background of this a while ago.    The sky is Dylusions, and the bottom is colored pencil with dylusions over top for the individual blades of grass.  The mushroom cap is scrapbook paper and the stem is a tag I cut out of a piece of paper I nabbed from work (I really like paper with boxes and grids on them.)  The lady was part of a set of free printable stuff from somewhere online.  I printed it off so long ago,  before I was even on Pinterest (oh, Pinterest, was there ever a time you weren't a part of my life?), that I can't find the link for it.  But the face, arms, legs, and dress are all separate pieces.  The topmost butterflies are angelina film stamped with Stazon ink.  (Angelina film is iridescent and amazing...go google it, it's worth the time.)  The bottom butterflies are stamped with my faux gelatos (faux-latos...hehehe) and outlined with Sharpie markers and Microns (as is the woman).  The shading on the mushroom and the woman's shadow was also done with faux-latos.

For ICAD day 5, the prompt was "recycle or repurpose".  ICAD is a great start for letting go of your fears, and this prompt seems like a bonus in that direction too, because you could use an index card and something destined for the trash can...so who cares if it doesn't work out?  Bury those fears!

This is the 3x5 card I did:

"Do raindrops dance down at your feet tonight?"  This is a line from the song below, "Where You Are" by Clare Burson.  To make the background, I grabbed a paper towel I had used to catch over-spray from when I was spraying an art journal page with Dylusions, sprayed a little water on it and then scrubbed it onto the index card.  There was a lot of color left in that paper towel!  Then I took the cap off an empty container of glitter glue that was in my trashcan and stamped the circles using black faux-latos.  Then I used watercolor for the text part.

Here's the song that the lyrics in the above card are from:

This song makes me think of someone who's died.  One of the lines is "When I look to the stars, I know where you are."  I'm talking to our fears when I hear that line and I think to myself: "I know where you are, stupid useless fears...buried six feet under!!!" and then I laugh maniacally because I'm holding the shovel that put them there!  Bwa-ha-ha!!!  

Here's my 4x6:

"If you are willing to do something that might not work, you're closer to being an artist." -Seth Godin
Hooray for subconsciously managing to get all of today's pieces to come together around a common theme!  It was purely accidental, I swear...my brain just gets stuck on a notion sometimes.  For this card, I again used one of my paper towels that I use to catch the Dylusions over-spray with (I had used this one mainly for ICAD day 2's 3x5 stitch themed card...you can see the outline of the card pretty well.) and glued it to the index card.  Then I took a black Sharpie and wrote out the quote.  Lesson learned: sharpie spreads/bleeds when you use it on paper towel.  So it made the quote pretty hard to read in a lot of places.  I was trying to find a way to fix this, and watercolors were the solution.  As long as the watercolors were on top of the part where the black Sharpie had already bled, they didn't run (you can see how precise it ended up staying on most of the words).  If the watercolor hit a piece of the paper towel that didn't have sharpie on it already, then the watercolor would bleed/spread too (you can see this in a couple places, like the "o" in "to" and several of the letters in "artist").  I signed it with a Pitt pen, at the bottom left, and that didn't bleed, although it wanted to snag the paper towel a lot more than the Sharpie did.)

So that's my long-winded thought for today.  I'm off to go murder some more fears and hide the evidence...