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!

Gratitude in the Kitchen Studio

I haven't been as active in my art as I have promised myself, as I always plan to be and because of this my art supplies have migrated yet again in search of the perfect place for me to "art". This time, it's the kitchen! Yesterday I posted to my sisters in the Book of Days facebook group that I was having problems finding time with chores and my little ones around to get projects underway, completed, and even just holding onto good ideas for my art! Well they inspired me with their advice, ideas, and input on how they do things to move into the room I spend most of my time in! Thank you ladies, you have done my heart good!

Even though the dining room is only a room away from the kitchen, in fact, it's practically the SAME room, I can't seem to get in there and BE creative. I guess, maybe, I don't like the room. I don't like it's set up, or perhaps its lighting options. The over head light gets so hot when it is turned on and up, and with summer right around the corner I know that this is going to cause trouble. The overhead light also provides light with just a hint of an orange tint, only slightly annoying and off-putting, especially since the room is usually so dark that you need the light even in the daytime!

But in the kitchen, there is a big window that catches morning light so wonderfully (in fact, that's going on my gratitude list today, that window in the morning), it doesn't have the most spectacular view, the backyard and our dog that desperately needs to be groomed, our neighbors house, some power lines, and the tops of the trees at the park, but it is such a wonderful window to open up in the morning, and morning is usually when I feel the best so I HAVE to enjoy it!

I didn't move everything. I figured most things could stay in their storage places in the dining room, I use our hutch for art supply storage. I just moved in the things that I love to play with the most, things that inspire me when I have them near at hand. My gesso and paints in a plastic tote, watercolor crayons, pens and markers, brushes, and a trash bowl. Simple!

 My new workspace!

So, I went straight to play after moving my things around and a few more things joined me in the kitchen, a tub of scrap paper and ephemera and a stack of magazines I have had sitting around for a couple months now. First I started cutting apart one of the magazines and while I was doing that I realized that I hated the first spread in my Gratitude Journal, so I decided to change it! I don't think I still have a photo of what it was before, but below is what I did with it.

 I collaged some colorful scrapbook paper I had laying around.

 Covered it with some gesso, stamping, and paint.

Cut the lettering and heart from a magazine, and added some other touches to the background including the circles of purple paint with the cap to my empty water bottle!

And the end result...

Yeah, I am pretty happy with it. In all honestly I do feel like it needs something more, but I also feel like I will know it when I see it! Maybe when I am cutting pictures and words from magazines, or maybe next time I go to the store.

My Gratitude Journal is a small moleskine knock off with lines. I have taken two pages at a time and glued them together to make them sturdy enough to withstand some art, and so far, it's working pretty well, at least it didn't disintegrate like the larger one that I had and glued 4-5 pages together at a time (too much stress on the binding, I learned). 

So, that's my gratitude in the kitchen studio thus far today. I am happy and arty. And, every time I go into the kitchen for something I splash some paint on something or glue something down, I have pages going in both my Gratitude Journal and my Book of Days at the moment.

I think I will make much progress in this room because it is where I spend most of my time cooking and washing dishes (the perpetual and hated chore), this will also probably help me keep the kitchen substantially cleaner as I wash dishes and do other chores while waiting for paint, glue and gesso to dry. The only downfall of this room so far, no seat! I can see now that I am going to have to invest in a stool and fast!!

 My baby girl sat in her highchair while I got my art on!

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

This is the last page that I completed in my Book of Days for the week of March 3rd!
I am such a bad bad girl!

And again, instead of trying to make up a month and make myself totally miserable (though I do have the daily journaling done in my day planner), I am just gonna let it go and start anew right now! No sense dwelling in the past and being hard on myself for procrastinating, it will only feed procrastination, laziness, and depression.

You might sort of recognize the layout, it's my interpretation of a lesson in a class I had started.
I had started Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's 30 Days in your Art Journal and I had completed the first spread and totally was loving on the class when life took a bit of a detour and my Book of Days was interrupted, again!
But now, I am really going to make an honest attempt at forming a daily arting/journaling habit.
I am INSPIRED!

Life Book Week 5 - Kylie's Lesson

Kylie's lesson in week 5 of Life Book was both inspirational and so much fun!
It took me 6 days to complete it and I definitely had some moments in which I wanted to rip it apart and throw it away, but I just put it away for the day and picked it up the next.
I tried to make sure that I did something on it everyday.



It started with a tissue paper and scrapbook paper collage, a layer of gesso and a layer of watered down pink acrylic paint, then a watered down layer of brown acrylic paint.


Next, I started working on the background.
These are a selection of words that I feel describe me.

I worked on clothing and color a wee bit and totally messed up my own teeth!


And finally I reached a point where I was pretty happy with my project!


I was not super happy with the paper I used underneath the face, it ended up being a lined scrapbook paper and I hadn't realized that until after I got the photo transfer of the face down, but oh well.
And, while I was burnishing the photo transfer it started to peel! Oh no!
I just went with it though.


After I finished burnishing the transfer I still had to shade it in and add some color and while it is not perfect, I really ended up liking this project! It was a really great learning experience, it inspired me, gave me a hundred more ideas, and I think that photo transfers are going to become one of my most favorite new techniques!

Yes indeedy!

30 Days in your Art Journal

I bounded into a small amount of extra money and I signed up for yet another class!
This'll probably be the last for a bit but I should have plenty to blog about with all the classes and challenges I have taken on.
Just soaking up the art, thanks.

So, my new class is 30 Days in your Art Journal with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and just two days in and I simply ADORE it!
I went to get back into my Book of Days because I had been neglecting it and I found that I was completely blocked. I was so worried about all the time I had missed and overwhelmed with the fact that I would have to make all of that up. I have been keeping up with a daily journal in my day planner, mostly these symptoms I suffer but often notes about what inspires me or what I am thankful for. But I let it go so long that all I could think about what how overwhelming it would be to catch up. And thus, I kept tucking my Book of Days back at the bottom of my stack of journals.
:(

So, last night I made a decision to wipe the slate clean and "forgive" the time I fell behind. I came up with this idea...

Picture is a little blurry, I think I had a fingerprint on my lens.

So, what I did was took a printed picture from the Star Wars: The Old Republic website, I think it was one of their wallpapers.
I simply folded it in half and tore around the edges, slapped it in the book with some Mod Podge, scribbled with watercolor crayons all around the edge, and wet that up with a brush with water and gesso on it.
When dry I wrote about the game having kept me busy and away from art for so long.
There, slate = clean!
Moving on!

The next page is the first day of my 30 Days in your Art Journal and while I have pictures of it in the process, I really don't want to share it until it's a completed page. At the very least, until I have more than a couple pictures to show off.
I am enjoying this class greatly though, I can see myself going through it a couple times through until some of the processes are ingrained as habits.

I am also still taking my Life Book course. I hit a bit of a snag with one of the lessons and lost interest for a while. But I recently wandered back in and moved on to the next lesson and am having a blast with it. I will just go back to the one I skipped later, I am sure it will hold more relevance to me at a later time.

I am also immensely enjoying my Face 2 Face class, in which Mika is teaching us how to draw faces!
This class has to be my most favorite because I am learning SO much from it, but I am taking it real slow and getting in a lot of practice tries into my sketch journal. I don't sketch everyday but I would say that I make some effort about 5 days a week.
I wont inundate you with magazine sketches until I come up with something really good!

So, there is my current class review. So far I haven't regretted a penny spent on any of my classes.
And I even have a wish list of classes to take or things to learn, including.
I hear Rhomany has a great Lettering class, I could stand to learn how to draw letters better.
And I have always wanted to take the She Art workshop by Christy Tomlinson.
And lastly, I am really interested in Angels in my Studio, a class I stumbled across while surfing blogs!

We'll see what's next as I really need some new supplies so funds may have to go towards that for a bit!

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.

2012's word is CHERISH

Because this year I celebrate and cherish everything that I was, that made me who I am, I cherish ME!
I cherish art, my art journal, other's art journals, and I cherish sharing with these wonderful arty people with good hearts.
And above all else I cherish my family and friends because life is really, really short.

One of my goals this year is to learn as much as I can about art/art journaling by immersing myself in it and being cretaive everyday, so I joined in on Effy Wild's Book of Days.
I found it and I am already making an honest effort to journal for at least 5 minutes everyday even if it is about stupid things.
So, I thought this would be a great addition to my year of art! And so far I have had so much fun with it!

I started by going shopping for a new journal as my current journal doesn't have enough room in it for 52 new spreads plus any "special day" pages. And of course, I couldn't find anything here in town. So, I took some advice and started looking at my old books for one to alter.
I found one!

Not that I want to see this book destroyed.
No, I find this book very dear to me and I decided it would become my Book of Days for 2012!


A photo from inside my book, these are flowers I pressed years ago on my last trip to Louisiana, when I bought the book.

And, on to the project at hand...



These are the pages I started with.



And after some paint, post-its, watercolor crayons, printed words and numbers, and more paint, this is what the layout looks like.

The words, close-up. I took them off some scrapbook paper I was going to use but the design was just too big to fit in my book.

And finally...

Yeah. I think I over grunged the word Cherish and the numbers. But eh, I am still happy with it!
It was fun and tomorrow I will work on the layout for this week.

I avoided dishes and laundry to complete this today, so I guess if I want a place to sleep tonight and bottles to feed the baby out of, I guess I had better get to washing.
Please excuse me!
:D

It's not all about the pretty and likable...

I have been working for two days on my week 3 project for Tam's Fabulous Faces class and I can honestly say that I am less than pleased with the results, yet they deserve to be posted because it is not all about what my inner critic thinks is pretty and likeable.

The first picture is stylized more or less after Tam's lesson, except, I couldn't get the ears right so I turned them into pointy elf ears.

Her skin was also supposed to have a blue tint to it but I had some serious issues with painting and shading this picture.
My portraits never come out smooth, polished, and pretty like some of those that I see on the forums. So, obviously I haven't mastered the art of coloring with what ever media I am attempting with.
I tried acrylics, and watercolor crayons & pencils. This mish-mash of media really took a toll on the picture itself and left me burnt out and tired. I went to bed really unhappy with the project but knowing that I could start over today!

And so, I started over today. I wouldn't say that I love this finish picture either.
But I will say that I think watercolor pencils might be the media for me, at least right now.
I had a much easier time with them, I enjoyed the coloring and diluting process much more with less give of myself and painting takes, takes, takes.
I am really only unhappy with some of the dimensions and that it does not meet my expectations. Little bubble head here doesn't match what was in my head when I started drawing this picture.
But, it is close! For that I am thankful because I am still yet a beginner.
So I will take what I can get and move on to finishing this as a journal spread tomorrow maybe.

I am seriously considering copics at this point. Or looking into some watercolor marker of some sort...

Oh! And I am joining in on Effy Wild's Book of Days project and I can't wait to do a spread for last week. I have already been working on recording something in my day planner everyday, would be a great chance to incorporate this into a journal spread!
_______________________________________
Updated: 1/11/12 9:28pm
Ah I realized tonight where I had seen a bubble head picture before, I was pretty sure it was one of Tam's pictures I had seen somewhere along the way, and it very well may be that she has bubble headed girls as well but I couldn't find them when I started looking again.
However, tonight it dawned on me!
My good friend Mika over at Motley Soul has done something very similar but by far much more beautiful! I remember seeing it as one of the very first things I found when i started searching for information on art journaling. I would like the exact picture but I think she may be attaching it to one of her future classes, so I will refrain but you can find it on Motley Soul!
Just wanna give credit where credit is due!

What have I been up to?

Well, for starters, I missed What's on your Workdesk Wednesday, AGAIN!

But I did take a picture for it, I just forgot to post and link it.
This was my desk on Wednesday.

Sorry for the slim pic there, due to living conditions at the moment my desk is situated between my bed and the wall in my bedroom and my bedroom was a wreck!
That's what I get for drawing and painting all day!

Anyhow, what you see here is my art journal and what I had set out preparing to finish the outside flap of my first page for my Life Book 2012 class.
And here it is, all finished!

Can't say I am SUPER pleased with it, I feel if I re-did it I would do better.
But we aren't doing that.

Then I retouched a picture I had drawn for practice on the above project and had started painting. I figured it would be a good opportunity to practice more instead of letting her just sit in my journal, unloved and incomplete.


And lastly I have my finished portrait for my Fabulous Faces Class, week 2.
It is a front view of a face with color.
I had quite a bit of trouble with painting her. I took some advice off the forums and gesso-ed my journal (a simple hardbound sketchbook) page with a credit card and let it dry before I started drawing her. I LOVED the surface for drawing and I think it will be great for painting, it was just something I wasn't used to and it really showed.
I found that too much water removed color from my picture so it went back and forth for a long while, color, apply too much water, wipe all color away, start over.
Sigh.
Eventually I got tired of painting her and let her be, then moved on to shading. I really wanted her to be turning away from the light so that's what I was shooting for.
Shading is difficult for me still.


And lastly, I have been taking my time with my Draw Happy class by Jane Davenport.
It's really a cute class and I have been having fun with it. Right now my homework is to create a tool page, which I am excited about but haven't had time to set up.

Life Book Week 1 - Intimidation and Battling the Inner Critic, and yet...

I am almost finished with my page for week 1 of Life Book!

All that is left is to finish the outside flap with a picture of myself and some doodling. And I have to wait to print the picture because I am out of ink in my printer and I am dreading venturing out to Walmart to get more because I hate Walmart.
: /

Really, I am pleased with my progress, and yet I still feel like it is far from good.

So, from start to finish, here is my process...


This is my list of my happy-making-positive-qualities-that-make-me-me.
Doodled in my art journal opposite my first graphite portrait
(yeah, that's not need to know information but I am in a rambly mood)
I wrote the list and then re-worked it several times over the course of a day.


This is the beginning of my girl.


Here it is almost finished but I forgot a couple small things.

This side is complete now, I think.
Like I said, I still have the flap to do but that waits for a picture.

Posting my work on the Life Book forums is really daunting, everyone's work is so awesome, and my mistakes SCREAM at me. I considered starting over and tossing this one, but I came to my senses and decided that this page and all others will be fun to look back on in a year when I have hopefully improved.

I, for one, can NOT wait for the week where we work on our inner critic. Mine is schizophrenic, it bounces between "Heyyyyy, you can draw!" to "But that's far from good enough to share with anyone!"

Today is turning out to be not such a great day for me, but I suspected that it wouldn't be this morning when I was still awake at 4am due to leg pain. I will just work through it, maybe draw a new girl or two for practice and wait for miss Jane Davenport to contact me regarding my Draw Happy class that my mom got for me for my birthday. Yes, I get to play with it now! :P