What was I up to today? 29 Faces in May

So, as you may or may not know (I posted about it a couple days ago), I have joined the 29 Faces in May challenge in which I challenge myself to create and share 29 faces within the 31 days of May! I am so excited for this challenge, already on the Facebook group I am seeing AWESOME faces being posted!

I asked my oldest child last night when he thought my first face should be and he said "Alice". Ah, Alice. I LOVE Alice! For my picture, I used American Mcgee's Alice as inspiration. I actually started drawing before I looked at any images and realized after I had the face painted and background started that I had done her hair wrong, eh, that's ok. She was just inspiration.

So, she was supposed to be a little bit mad, sadistic and dark with a hint of innocence. Well, I am still working on getting those emotions across in facial expressions and painting. But I am pretty pleased with my outcome, for me.

This is the sketch this AM.

I got about half way through and HATED her! I am telling you, I was so frustrated with how the background was coming out and I still had hair and clothing to paint, I wasn't happy with how her face was painted, and I knew it would be forever before I was done. My inner critic almost had me convinced to toss Alice out and was in the middle of telling me that it would just be easier to draw a marker girl in my Book Of Days and just forget about this piece, when I realized, all the hard work was done! Sure, it might be a while before I was finished depending on how much I "fixed" her, but I should at least give her and myself a chance! So on I trudged...

I am sorry, none of my other "process" pictures came out very well so I am not going to worry about sharing them, we will jump right to the finished piece.

The finished page.

Close up of Alice's face and some graphite shading.

My favorite quote from the movie.

So, there you have it! Face number 1 completed! Join me tomorrow to see how face #2 turns out!

Lifebook Lesson 14 - Honoring your (my) Past

This is our week 14 lesson in Lifebook.
I have been an unruly student and have jumped around a bunch in the Lifebook course so you will often see the weeks out of order. Here I just picked the most recent lesson that Tam had posted and ran with it!

I started this page last week, and as you can see below, she went through many processes.


This is how she started out, I was most proud of this drawing because I didn't have to refer to my drawing notebook to be able to complete the face.
Not once did I refer to my learning materials! I am getting it!


Then I watercolored her face and worked on some shading. Shading is always difficult for me but, practice makes perfect right?!? Have to keep after it.
I got her roughly where I wanted her without too much fuss but then she sat for several days, I had lost interest and I didn't know where I was going with her.
Last night I sat down and re-watched Tam's videos and worked along with her and this is where it took me...


It was around here that her hair had changed. I had lost the outline of the short "do" that I had penciled in but it didn't seem to fit anymore. I don't know why she turned out this way but I was lead to it and it feels right.





Voila!
Well, it is missing a fold out piece but I have yet to come up with something creative to do that will not cover my picture.

I am really enjoying the Lifebook course, many of the lessons are really fun and interesting!

Last Week's BOD Spread

For the first time in over a month I finished a Book of Days spread and it felt soooo good!
It FEELS good to get back to art. I have been arting a lot in the past week. About half way through the week I was starting to get discouraged, specifically in my Lifebook page. I had hoped to sit down and art it out! One day, done! Alas, that's not my life, there are little interruptions, BIG interruptions, bad days, busy-ness, and plain old laziness. But, I belong to a group on Facebook for the Book of Days and it has evolved into the most wonderful of support systems! When I am feeling down it's what I surf around on for a while and I always come away with a smile for I have found art posted by my sisters to inspire me or I have witnessed someone post with honesty about how they may need positive energy/prayers sent their way and I have seen a group of women swoop in to the rescue to offer prayers, love, support, and kind words. It leaves one with the most wonderful feeling that there are indeed still wonderful people in this world and this is just a sampling of such good hearts.
Effy Wild's blog post really says it all. <3

And so, onto the art...

I have been loosely following along with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's 30 Days in your Art Journal.
Well, I bought and paid for the class and finished week one with no problems in March.
But then, in week two she does this awesome spread where she uses tags to journal on and I kept putting it off, meaning to buy the tags but never getting around to it. Weeks slipped on by and I started looking around my house for things to use instead, don't get me wrong, Julie offered up several awesome substitutions but I REALLY just wanted tags.
Finally the 1st of April rolled around and I knew I had been art-less for too long.


This is the background as it sat for over a month, untouched.

Painted with wet craft acrylics, I did the base in apple green over a non-gessoed page, then smeared a corner with another craft acrylic in a shimmery red which just turned out to be pink.
Stamped the circles with a toilet tissue roll and black acrylic paint.
Then I took my most favorite shimmery purple craft acrylic and colored some circles in and then painted some clear glitter acrylic paint over them because there just wasn't enough sparkle.
Yum, loving glitter.


Gratuitous glitter close-ups!

So after a month of ignoring my BOD I decided it was time to move forward and put this pretty background to use! I had considered using those subscribe postcards that fall out of magazines
(I started collecting them from all over), but they were a little too busy for my liking,
I considered card stock cut in the shape of tags or just in funky shapes but it seemed to plain.
And one day I was cleaning and re-organizing all my supplies and I found a stack of
multi-colored post its and that was IT!
They were bright and colorful but still a little plain for my liking, so I took a total of 12 of them and painted them all different with my watercolor crayons and then sprayed them with a spray I made from my shimmery red acrylic paint and water
(Again, it turned out pink, not red! Oh well!)

Shiiiiiiimmmmmmmmerrrrrrrrr!


Stacked in sets of 2 for journaling in a possible layout plan.

So, then the work started! This was one of the easiest journal layouts to keep up with!
I just tucked the sets of 2 glued together post its in my book and everyday I would pull a set out and journal on it and glue it down!
The layout was pretty much complete, I just had to journal!


Half finished!

My layout ran from Wednesday, April 11th to Monday, the 16th.
Somewhere in there I had decided that I needed something more and I cut some post its into three equal pieces and watercolored them and glued them in thinking I would write important words or something on them or something that would pertain to each day but I was undecided so they stayed blank for a day or two.
On Sunday, I realized that I should just incorporate my daily prayer journal into my BOD because I have been a bad panda and haven't been keeping up with it at all!
I belong to a 30 Day Prayer Journal group on Motley Soul, and Mika is usually so good about posting a scripture daily and thus far I glued and clipped all the ones from March into a composition notebook, but I hadn't done anything in April.
So, why not put those in my BOD!?!
I mean, I joined the group wanting to make scripture and prayer a bigger part of my life!
Well that's what I did!


The finished page!

On Monday I got Happy Mail from on of my BOD Sisters and in the envelope was my very first row house, some awesome napkins and papers, paper doilies and PUNCHINELLA!
I have been wanting some but found none in my small, small town, and I never get to go to the city anymore, so I was SO thankful that my sister H. Crump sent some to me!
To commemorate my first bit of punchinella, I used it!
As a stencil first with orange paint and I also cut off a small bit and glued it onto the corner!


Had to take a picture with the light hitting the shimmer paint.


And finally, showing most of the glued in scriptures!

And that's it for Tuesday's blog!
I finished two other projects yesterday/last night as well but I am going to blog about them one at a time and will schedule them to post the next two days so check back I am trying to make blogging a more regular thing!

Book of Days Journal Page - What Challenges Me?

Been keeping myself busy lately and making a great effort to stay creative everyday!
I have been working on my Book of Days, trying to catch up because I found the group about a week into the month.
Having a lot of fun with it!

This is my page for this week, the prompt was what challenges me and that would be procrastination and motivation and those are two of the things that I am trying to change about myself this year. I am such a bad procrastinator.
And the quote, I picked that up out my book of favorite quotes. It reminds me that I should not waste time by wasting time.

What's on your Workdesk Wednesday 136

Off to a rockin' start this Wednesday, feeling good, got a baby that is in an awesome mood, good coffee and an arty to-do list.
I do so love being a stay at home mom on a day like this, now let's just hope that I don't get pooped or thrown up on!

So, this morning I am working on my Book of Days.

Effy's prompt this week is "Things that Challenge You" and the technique is Mosaic. And that is what I am working on here, plus some mail art.
I am still working out what challenges me, I think it will be motivation as I do have trouble with getting motivated to do certain things sometimes. I am not sure yet though.

I am really sticking close to what Effy showed us in her video as I really liked how hers came out. I had considered doing a torn mosaic, like on the cover of my first art journal. But it would be a really heavy layer, heavier than even this, so I may try it after I have gotten the few supplies I need to reinforce the book a little more.

You should have seen my desk yesterday, well... you couldn't even see it, it was buried! :D

Yesterday's projects were my journal spread for this weeks journaling in my Book of Days (pictures of that coming at the end of the week when i am done journaling on the spread) and a thank you card I Zentangled for my son's teacher.

And this is the string I started with on simple folded card stock.


And this is it once I was finished. I am not super original with my patterns right now as I am still learning them and there are sooooooo many to learn. So I used my favorites, Zedbra, Cracked, Strircles, Networking, and one that, honestly I can never remember the name for, but it is one of my most favorites and it is the one behind the "lie" in the name.


And lastly, is the one I drew on the inside before I wrote the thank you note, and it is called Ribbon Bow.


So, happy Wednesday everyone!