Pinky

Here's my latest page, done and done:

I actually made this art journal (the book itself)...I'll have to post about that some time...

And EXTREME CLOSE UP version:

A couple things about this page...first, pink is NOT my favorite color.  I had done the girl before I did the background and given her pink eye shadow just for kicks...then when painting the body, I had a massive error involving ripping the paper (UGH!) on accident.  I was looking for something to cover that up, when I saw a card one of my coworkers gave me that had a similar coloring to what I had done on the eyes.  So I got out my watercolors and painted the background pink.  I cut up the card in manageable pieces and gave them a little bit of a wash (they were a little too pastel in the beginning) and glued away.  

Second, I am in the process of working on layering.  It's a skill that has eluded me for far too long.  In the past, it's always seemed like my ephemera was just sitting there on the page, not looking like a part of the page at all.  This is the first page I've done where I'm reasonably satisfied with the layering looking like it's part of the page and not an afterthought.

Third, the journaling bit in the lower left hand corner is a quote from a song by Mama Kin.  It says "Love was a cruel mistake."  The irony of it is that while I was writing the quote, I accidentally smeared the pen on the word mistake, so I scribbled it out and rewrote it below...now it's one of my favorite parts of the page...so hooray for some mistakes!  

Be THAT person.

Who are you when no one is looking...be that person much more often.

I finished this page last night, staying up to the wee hours of the morning to finish...I have got to stop doing that!  At least today was Saturday and I could sleep in and make up for it...

One of the things I'm working on is making interesting backgrounds.  I am bad for drawing the main thing first and then trying to fill in a background and not mess up the main image in the mean time...  With this page, I did the background first (like a normal person!  ...for once)...and it was a different experience for me, because I kept seeing parts of the background I really liked and didn't want to cover over...which shaped the way I decided what to draw.

My favorite thing on the page happened by accident (that's always the way it goes, isn't it?).  I was writing the quote journaling in a light colored marker, so it would blend in, but it was too light, so I wrote over it in a slightly darker color...still too light...so I wrote over it again a couple more times.  I like that you can kind of see the original writing underneath...like a ghost image...or when you're taking a picture and the camera is shaky!  I think it looks pretty neat.

Heart Failure

So, here's my Daisy Yellow Prompt6ix #7:

Heart Failure

The prompts this week were:

1. Science - The writing on the parts with drawing.  The top one says "He" (Helium on the periodic table of elements) and "emulsion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium (latex)".  The bottom one says: "Family-Hominidae, Species-Homo Sapien,  Orientation - 2 X chromosomes (female), Age (approximation) -29 years, Status- Deceased, Preliminary exam indicates early life demise due to heart failure, a result of repeated breakage."
2. Balloon - The top drawing is a heart shaped balloon
3. Garden - alluded to (garden/roses...I took some liberties with the interpretation of 'garden')  in the quote (the smaller writing reads: "Heap not on this mound roses that she loved so well.  Why bewilder her with roses, that she cannot see or smell?  She is happy where she lies with the dust upon her eyes." This is a poem by my favorite poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay)
4. Sketch - both images are quick sketches I did, I added the lines/arrows to make it look more like a blue print...I don't know if that comes across well, but I like how it looks and am going to practice this idea more...
5. Resume - everything is written/sketched on watermarked resume paper
6. Argyle - is in the background paint... (you can kind of see it behind the paper with the smaller quote on it)
7. Orange/green - ok, this was by total accident, because I didn't see the notation in the prompt page when I read it, but I actually have orange and green in the background paint! ...I almost didn't add the orange when I was doing the background, but now I'm glad I did...you cannot trick me sneaky, sneaky Daisy Yellow lady...I'm one step ahead of the game I didn't even know we were playing! (haha)

I liked this challenge...I thought of the idea for it pretty fast, which I've not been able to do as quickly with the other two challenges I've done...so either this was an easy one, or I'm building some brain strength!

I'm liking the elements of this page, but I am having a hard time with the "layering"...it kind of looks like the papers are just sitting on the page, not really part of the background...does anybody have any thoughts on  how I can fix this?  It's one of those things I haven't learned yet...  I'd love to hear any thoughts on this, because it's driving me NUTS!!!

Fish Kiss!

I have been sickly and gross feeling for a week and a half now, so it seems I've been much less prolific than usual.  I did manage to get the Daisy Yellow Prompt6ix challenge done, so here's my page:

"Fish Kiss"

This time, the prompts were:

1. Leaves -Pattern in the scrapbook paper hair
2. Job -It's in the quote in black, which says "It's your job to be yourself in a world that's full of everybody else."
3. Brushes - The girls face is completely painted in acrylics (I didn't use my trusty number 2 or my Prismacolors (as is my custom) at all for this!)
4. The Mail -Part of the quote is cut from junk mail
5. Textures -The hair is cut and layered pieces of scrapbook paper and the red background paint is actually crackled, although it's hard to tell in the photo
6. Red -I know it may be hard to see, but I did use some red in making this page. :)

My favorite thing on this page is the two fishes, which are from a scrapbook paper I've had FOREVER... literally the first piece of scrapbook paper I ever bought...and I have been in love with those fishes for a long time.  I especially like the bottom fish, because it looks like he's giving her a little kiss!  So I think that's the name of this piece!

I am having a lot of fun with the challenges and am always on the lookout for other challenges, so if anybody knows of some good ones, I'd love to hear about them!

I guess I was in need of a challenge...

I don't know about you, but sometimes I get stuck in a rut.  Or just stuck...where inspiration doesn't come.  Or there's so much going on in my noggin that I can't pin down one idea and do it.  I'm very bad for that last one.  I want to do EVERYTHING right now...to the point where I do nothing but think about doing things instead of actually doing them.  

I was feeling that way earlier this week.  Stuck.  I was doing a million things at once, on little sleep, after having two wisdom teeth pulled (I have found I hate teeth, by the way, but that's a story for a different day...),  working overtime and Saturdays at my day job for a while now, dealing with some stress at home...the list goes on and on...just like everybody's list of frustrating things, I know!  Art and other crafty things are such a nice way to get through life's little frustrating moments without FREAKING OUT too badly.  

But even being artsy fartsy was not helping me that day.  Because I was sitting there putting pencil to paper, but not really thinking about it at all...thinking about all the frustrating things instead...and getting more frustrated because I was just in a puppy-kicking mood...and I love puppies (I would NEVER kick a puppy...it's just my phrase for a really bad mood...don't go kicking puppies when you're frustrated and try and tell PETA it was my idea...I'm telling you now, don't kick puppies...)  When I realized what I was doing I stopped being artsy fartsy and went online to try to find puppies to kick zone out and think without wasting precious art journal pages on angry-pants, messed-up looking doodles.  (If my pencil would have broken on this particular day, I would have found the nearest person and stabbed them with my messed up pencil...so for my husband's sake, I put down the pencil and got online.  It's much harder to stab somebody with a keyboard...they're not near as suitable for stabbing as a pencil is!)

In roaming around, I saw something that had never occurred to me to try.  A Challenge!  An art journal challenge to be exact.  It was perfect because I would have to stop thinking about all this dumb daily life stuff that I could do nothing about, so that I could use my brain for more productive things.  I have to admit that I was a little resistant to challenges for a while, because a) I don't usually have a hard time finding something to put on paper, and b)I don't like other people telling me what to do.  Apparently, I can be a real brat sometimes!  

A wrong, wrong, wrong, brat!  I made myself do the first challenge I saw, which happened to be THE PROMPT6IX CHALLENGE challenge by DAISY YELLOW.  You can click the link to find out the specifics of the challenge, but basically she gives you six words (or phrases) to use in your creative endeavors in some way, and in each set of words, there is one color to use and one technique to try.  I kinda got excited about the technique part, because I love to try out things I've never done before!

So this time, her challenge consists of these 6 things:

1. aquamarine
2. peaceful
3. stamped circles
4. cactus
5. symbol
6. blossom

to be used as the artist sees fit.  I almost stopped in my tracks when I read the list...I was a little intimidated by the cactus things, I think...  But because I am stubborn, I MADE myself do it (and ended up having a lot of fun and getting myself out of the funk I was in)...and here's the result:

"I found I had developed a prickly skin that nothing could penetrate.
It was peaceful but lonely.
I needed more.  I needed to bloom."
-Quote by me

The cactus thing was a little tricky for me, like I thought it might be, and my brain kept going 'this is stupid, this is stupid' every time I thought of something cactus related...so I thought ok, what do you know about  the cactus (cacti?)...and the first thing that popped into my head was 'they are prickly'...and I knew I could use that in my challenge piece!  Hooray, inspiration achieved!  And honestly, the cactus/girl head/cactus hat turned out to be my favorite part!  The cactus thorns reminded me to go shave my legs that day, so it was a doubly helpful exercise!

Did I achieve all the required parts?  Let's see:

1. Aquamarine-  I had a little trouble with this, as the internet seems to debate on what color aquamarine is...I took it as a light blue/green color, and the quote is written in that color (although it may be hard to tell, I had bad lighting...) and the stem of the flower is made from 'aquamarine' glitter... so check!
2. peaceful- I used it in my quote, plus blue and green are calming, peaceful colors, right?  Check!
3. stamped circles- I used an empty tp roll to stamp in some circles (taking away some of the background paint) and used a yellow to stamp in some color, which turned out too bright, so I twirled them in with the blue and green background a little.   Check!
4. cactus-  Clearly, I drew one, but is also referenced in the quote as well. (Prickly) Check!
5. symbol-  The cactus body and hat symbolize the thick skin, and the tall flower in the piece indicates the blossom part of the poem...so CHECK!
6. blossom - Again, drew one and referenced it in the poem in the piece.  Final Check...

And I was done!  I really had a lot of fun doing this challenge.  It got my mind off of the stinky week I had and it made me do somethings I would have never done otherwise, and I am super happy with the result!  

So what about you, what do you do when you're in a creative dry spell or having a bad day/week?  Do you participate in any challenges or have any special ways of dealing?  

As always, any questions, comments, or critiques are welcome!

Words, words, words and a naked lady

I have a deep and abiding obsession with words.   If you think about it, the purpose of words is only to convey a thought.  And words can be meaningless.  If you spoke to me in another language, those words would be useless, because I wouldn't understand what you were trying to tell me.  Yet words are functional.  You can learn how to do something new, you can communicate your thoughts and feelings, or find out where the bathroom is when you really need one!  So, words can be functional and useful, but that's not why I like them.

I like words because they can be more than just functional.  The right words can paint a picture in your mind more beautiful than any artist could ever create on a canvas.  They can make you connect to a person you've never met or bring to mind memories you had forgotten for a time.  A line or two of words, strung together in just the right way, can inspire us or defeat us.  

I've collected words and quotes for a long time, way before I started art journaling, before I started doing anything artistic or crafty.  I've also been writing (or trying to anyway) my own poems from pretty early on.  (You can read my poetry at my other blog HERE if you'd like to check it out.)  So I have this huge collection of words floating around in my brain (and on scraps of paper, and written in the margins of books, etc.), and so now, if I see something new or rediscover an old favorite, I am trying to put it into one of my art journals and illustrate it.  I find words I love everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, so if I make the effort to slap a quote onto paper and then take the time to modify the page (e.g. -work on drawing, or some new technique I want to try for the background), I should be an expert in no time!

So, here's a recent thing I'd seen while scrolling around the web late one night.  I just love that first line, "I think of you in the in-between spaces, ..."  It's so perfect that I can barely stand it! :

"I think of you in the in-between spaces,
in the pause before the next heartbeat,
in the clench of my chest before I exhale,
in the swell of courage before I say hello."
-Quoted from Kitkat Pecson, originally
seen HERE

In my last post, I mentioned that my black illustration pens were water 'resistant', not 'waterproof', and there's a BIG difference between the two.  Then I realized I had a set of sepia toned micron pens and when I checked, I saw the magic word (waterproof), so that's what I used for doodling this.  I did, sneakily, drive to Michaels after work on Saturday to look for a waterproof black pen.  I ended up getting two Pitt pens, a 0.1 and a 0.6, and now I understand why people love the Pitt pens so much!

The other page I've finished was another learning experience...very similar to the 'resistant' does not equal 'proof' in terms of the water solubility lesson that I learned last time...I've learned that gesso (or at least the brand I have) is not super waterproof (it will take a little water, but a VERY little only...)  ...I think I've fixed it enough that it isn't too obvious, and now I know for next time, right?  Not a mistake, just a new way NOT to do something...  :)

So here's the page:

"It's much too risky to let myself be vulnerable,
to lay there bare, naked and prone,
without any defense from the outside.
Ah, I have built up a tough hide.
And now you ask me...how I feel...
and you expect me to lay aside the thick skin
I have acquired through years of hard work and let you in!
...I can not say 'I love you', my dear one.
But I can try, slowly and scared,
to undress down to my soul
and let you see the truth for yourself."
-Quote by me, and you can see the entire poem HERE

If anybody out there would like to share any techniques or quotes that they enjoy, I would really love to hear them.  I'm always on the lookout for something new...and please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think of my stuff, good or (nicely) bad...I'd love to hear what you think either way.

My Muse

The internet is a fabulous, glorious, wonderful thing...also a time waster, if you're not careful...  I have a love/love relationship with my computer, possible to the point of being a little codependent.  Don't judge me too harshly...

It's just that there are all these amazing things to be seen and read with just a few clicks.  You can find tutorials on how to do just about anything, whether it's how to draw a face or how to birth a calf (seriously, it's out there).  For me, I love that I get to see beautiful art work from amazing people that I would never get to see otherwise.

So, in my wanderings around the internet, I came across the BEST THING EVER!  Well, I think so anyway.  I love this picture so much, words are incapable of describing it!  Don't get me wrong, I really like the current trend of layering colors/texture/words/etc. as the background of people's work, but when I saw THIS, it was like a breath of fresh air!  It just looks so clean and fabulous and wonderful.  She knew what she was doing...she embraced the white space and it was so perfectly executed that my heart skipped a beat!  And I knew I had to blatantly copy what this amazing person did try the technique out from myself.

So here is my blatant copy version based on the inspiration:

Quote by me...I wrote it in a poem I was writing and then couldn't get it out of my head

Clearly, not as great as the original, but I am so thrilled to have this in one of my art journals.  If you look at the dark flower in the bottom left corner of the page, you will see where I discovered that 'water resistant' does not mean water proof when in comes to my illustration pens...at that point, I also discovered that hairspray (while it will yellow over time, which is not a big deal to me) will seal the ink and that's why there's one DARK flower amid many other light colored ones.  At the top of the page, toward the middle, you will see a pink squiggly thing, which is supposed to be an earthworm...I think it is my favorite thing (even though you might not be able to tell what it is by looking at it) because it is just silly, and I am a big supporter of silly!

So thank you wonderful person at runlorirun.typepad.com (who's name is possibly Lori, although I am not sure), because you are internet gold, and my new art crush!