Faces of my imaginations - Mermaid

This is probably my most favorite face.  Maybe it's the background, or maybe it's her coloring, but she makes me think mermaids.  She's done in various watercolors, just painted on in random strokes.  What does she make you think of?

A new addition to our household

We are expecting a new arrival to our household next week. This cutie is 7 weeks today and we get to bring him home next week. Just in time for my birthday! We'd been looking for a puppy off and on for the last couple of years, but because for one reason or another, it just didn't work out. Finally, we decided that we weren't going to get one unless it fell into our laps. Well....this one did. I got a call last Thursday asking if we were still interested in a puppy. This was a place where we had gone to over a year ago and the last puppy had sold just an hour before we showed up! After a lot of discussion with the family, we went and looked and no suprise, we fell in love. This guy was one of 8. 4 boys and 4 girls. When I held him, I knew he was right one for me. He nearly fell asleep in my arms. He's a mixed breed. 50% lab and 50% golden retriver. Now, the question is how will he do with our older dog. Or should the question be, how will the older dog do with the new puppy? Any suggestions!!

Faces of my Imagination 2

I've been playing with these closeups and here's another I painted using all acrylics.

Faces of my Imaginations 1

I started drawing these faces a bit earlier in the month, but finally got them colored.  I used mostly acrylics with a bit of watercolor.  I think this one's a bit resembling halloween!  Not sure why, but I've been loving drawing and painting these close up faces.  More to come in the next few days.

Zentangle Crow

While waiting at the Doctor's office, here's something I did.  I try to keep in my purse a couple of blank ATCs and a pencil and sharpie.  Zentangles are just random designs made on white background with a black marker.  I had a long enough wait to create this!

Tulip Toles

I've been quite sick lately and didn't get as much art done this month as I was hoping to.  In between lying around gathering my strength, I worked on a bunch of cards a bit at a time.  So, here's a couple I finished and scanned and I'll post the rest as I put finishing touches to them and get them scanned.  These two are tole cards on black backgrounds and painted with acrylics.

Toles are old fashioned floral designs started in the Scandanavian countries and can be seen on many pennsylvania dutch artwork.

Fall in the Air

Today was a busy day running errands, taking my kid to soccer, doing homework...you know how it is.  But, I managed to get some quite time sitting on my front porch sipping tea and looking at this view.  Fall is just ablaze surround my house.  Life should never be so hectic that a view like this can't be enjoyed.

Mad Hatter - Inks vs. Watercolor?

I'm in a swap for "Tea, Coffee, or Hot Chocolate" on the stamp-shack. With my muse missing in action of late, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, so I started pursuing through my collection of stamps to see if something called to my muse. My DS saw me shuffling through my stamps and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he said, it would be great if you had a mad hatter! You see, my son just finished reading the Lewis Carol version of Alice in Wonderland and aboslutely loves it. Well, as luck would have it, I had a Mad Hatter stamp!! I rarely collect word stamps, but the saying I used on this card, I just loved, so paired with the Mad Hatter stamp just felt perfect to me! I made this one last night. I played with a handful of layouts and on a couple of different papers. I was just playing, but in that play, I lost time. Isn't that the best!! This one is done with different distress inks, which is not a medium I use often. I finished is last night, but didn't upload it because I wanted to try something else too.

My favorite medium is watercolors and acrylics. So, I decided to do this layout all over again, but in watercolors. So, first thing this morning, I played all over again. I'm just loving this layout. I think, next I'll do it on tiles!

If you notice, the Mad Hatter has a pretty cool cup of tea. It's only half a cup of tea, but I love that it's cut in half lengthwise (taken from the story!) and the tea doesn't fall out!! OK, so which one do you like better, the inks or the watercolors?

Paris Fashion

Since I've been under the weather a bit lately, I decided to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and my laptop for some creative reading. I decided to go blog hopping. I didn't make it very far! When I got to "Mother Henna's" blog, I saw that she was participating in something called the "Art Every Day Month". I've been in a slump this past bit and have been pushing to find my muse. So, I knew this challenge wasn't for me. But the more I read and then checked out Leah's challenge, I thought, why not!!! The worse would be that I wouldn't get 30 projects done, but I knew that if I accepted this challenge, I'd get some creating done. Besides, her challenge isn't to create a complete project each day, it's to do Art each day! So with a light step and a song in my heart, I'm going to play in this challenge, and I hope that somewhere along the way, my muse will join me!!

This is a collage I started a while back and just sitting at my desk and clearing things out, I found all the pieces I wanted to add to it!

Have a Spooktacular Halloween!

Happy Haunting! Whether you celebrate halloween or not, I just couldn't pass up a chance to make an ATC with one of my favorite images by beeswax's Madusa.

Fall is definitely here!

I just love this time of the year. The artist in me marvels at all the colors flowing around us. The child in me wants to gather up all those leaves and jump around just to hear the "crunch" sound the leaves make...oh, ok, I want someone else to gather them and then I want to jump in the piles! The adult in me just wants to sit with a cup of tea and soak in the serenity of the season. The woman in me...wants to go shopping and buy all the fall colored clothes and boots on sale!!! These pics are from the trees surround my home.

Playing with Henna (Mehndi)

I've been wanting to do a Mehndi (henna) design on my hand for a long time. So, I finally bought some and tried it out on my hand. This is my first attempt. There are tons of sample designs on the net. Mehndi is the Indian name for henna. Mehndi is made from dried leaves (not sure from what plant). The dried leaves are then crushed and the powder is sold to consumers. When ready to apply, the powder is mixed with water and a few drops of oil to form a paste. when I was younger, this paste was applied with toothpicks, homemade tools, etc. The pros would take large leaves and roll them like bags, but not everyone could use these leaf bags well. Then someone got brilliant and put the paste in pastry bags!! Now, the designs are so much more detailed and anyone can do them, including me! The longer I leave the paste, the deeper the color and the longer the design will last. I plan on leaving it on for a few hours. That's not a hardship at all, it gets me out of housework!

I'm liking this so much, Iwent ahead and did the back of my hand too.

Floral Tiles

I did these two tiles for Jan. She had won a blog giveaway way back in Christmas. I did the smaller of the two tiles for her then and mailed it out. Never gave it a second thought. I didn't get a note that she got it, but it was during the holidays and everyone gets busy so I thought perhaps she didn't post that she received it, or perhaps, I just missed her post. However, when I recently talked with her, she said she didn't ever receive it. I felt really bad. I should have followed up earlier. So, I made her two this time and hope these will make it to her safely.

I stamped both the tiles with stazon jet black in. The smaller tile is colored in with watercolors, while the larger is done with all stazon inks. Both the tiles are bought at Lowes and they're tumble tiles. The tumble tiles are much more absorbent and take inks beautifully. Gloss tiles are easier to paint, but much harder to stamp on and becase the tiles are gloss, the paint just wipes off! Sealing a gloss tile just makes it even more slick.

Black and White Fairy

Black and White isn't as easy as it would seem! While doing this and a few other ATCs in black and white, I really found it quite challenging not to add a touch of color. My work usually is full of colors, sometimes way too much, so this was out of my comfort zone. First I stamped the moon. Then I painted the tree and the leaves. Added the fairy on a toadstool. I had to darken quite a bit of the fairy, because she just seemed too transparent. To ground the toadstool and to hide the ugly base, I added grassblades and flowering stalks! This might be look like it lacks color, but in the end, I felt I'd actually added a new color to my palette.

Distress Inks Challenge

I love distress inks and have a hard time passing up a challenge to use these inks. This card is done for a distress ink challenge hosted by Christie on Stamp-Shack. I used six different inks. Smooshed (that's a technical term! lol), them on my craft mat, sprayed them with water and wiped my card across them. Then I embossed the stamps with black embossing powder. The dragonfly seemed to blend too much into the background, so I added some green and purples to it using prismacolor pencils.

Monochromatic Challenge

I did this monochromatic blue card for a challenge on the Stamp Shack. The challenge was to do a card in any one shade of color. I decided to do it in blue. Last night, after playing a bit, I came up with a card I was somewhat pleased with. It needed a little bit more, but I wasn't sure. So, I decided to scan it first, just in case. Well, as luck would have it, right after I got it totally colored in with pencils, I ended up smudging it with some black pencil shavings that were left on the pencil sharpener, which came off onto to my hands when I sharpened my blue pencil. I tried to remove the smudges, but just made a bigger and bigger mess. So, I figured, heck with this and I'll just use the card I've already scanned. At 1:30 a.m. when I tried to add my card to the challenge gallery, I found out that I'd scanned my card at too high a dpi. I was a bit dissapointed, but not defeated. This morning I redid the card. This time I used feather stamps on the background paper instead of the eifel tower stamp. The sentiment is computer generated. I like this version a lot more. Hope you guys like the finished card.

Tim Holtz - Nostalgic Metal Memoirs

Have you ever taken a class from a teacher that you just couldn't get enough of. Well, that's how felt when I took a Tim Holtz class two years ago. He returned this past weekend to teach a few classes and I was lucky enough to take his "Nostalgic Metal Memoirs" class. He makes a class so much fun that you don't even realize that 5 hours have passes since you sat down and that you're holding a small piece of art in your hands! This class was a combination of book binding and metal class. The book is 4 x 4 and has 90 pages hand sewn into it. Then we worked with metal sheets which was embossed, sanded, distressed and colored with AI inks. The sheets were then used like wrapping paper to cover the top and bottom covers. Once corners, a decorative clasp and crown on the front were added, the journal was finished. It always amazes me how everyone starts off with the same kit, the same instruction and comes up with a totally different and unique piece when you take one of Tim Holtz class. Oh, and did I say, how much fun this was? Loads!!

Whimsical Marie Antoinette

These three were done for a "Whimsical Marie Antoinette" hand drawn/painted swap. I was pretty excited to do these. Not sure why. Not as if I watched the movie or knew much about the ill fated queen, but something made me want to do this swap. So I signed up for it. Now, here's the kicker! I joined on 4th of July. We went to our local fair grounds to watch the fireworks. We had about 3 hours of wait time and I drew all three of them fairly quickly before it got dark. As I said, I was pretty inspired. Not sure I've ever drawn so many cards so quickly before. Then we went home and packed for our trip to disneyworld starting the next day!! I thought I'd be back in time to color them and mail them out. Nope, didn't work out that way. By the time we got back, they were due in 4 days. So, I got them colored and priorty mailed them out! Hopefully, the hostess will have them in time.

When I showed my husband these, he wanted to know what "whimsical" meant. Hmm....I didn't know how to explain it. So, I looked it up. Here's what the dictionary says..."fanciful, odd, funny, unusual, peculiar, eccentric, queer, flaky..." The more I read these adjectives, the more I'm loving this word. I'm not sure my queens are eccentric or peculiar or flaky enough, but, they're whimsical. Right?

The Blue Angels

Recently our local Naval Base had their air show. Which was spectacular. There were lots of acrobatics in the air, some on the runway, and lots of food vendors. The traffic coming into the base took 1.5 hrs, where normally it takes 15 mins. Needless to say, we missed closeups of a few of the attactions. But because most of them are aerial displays, we were able to watch much of it from the car!! My favorites and most likely everyone else's there too, are the Blue Angels. The Navy's premier acrobatic team. It's a six man/plane team, with #7 being the spare. It's simply amazing to watch these jets zoom by each other at high speed and miss each other. They flew straight up, in formation, upside down and sideways. It was skill and grace in the air. I loved it. Here's a little of what we saw. I look forward to when they will be back again.

Hobo

I joined an inchie face swap and was playing around drawing some. I ended up doing a face that resembles this one by mistake. I loved it so much, I did an ATC size. I love this elongated face style. I took it with me to the Artfest, but he looked kind of sad to me, so I kept him, instead of trading him.

A Rainbow of Daisies

This was one of my favorite designs. I did this in so many colors (take a look at the sidebar), as ATCs, inchies, and as the journal page I painted. I think I could do this in my sleep now!! These are done on black paper with acrylics.

ArtforAll 2009 Tole ATCs

During the past week, I was lucky enough to get together with about 45 artists, some of whom were friends, some really good acquaintances, and most of whom I'd traded ATCs with but for the most part, I knew only through the web. It was an amazing experience. I created like a spazzed out energetic bunny the three weeks before I left. The above "tole" cards are some of the art I created. These are all done on black backgrounds painted with acrylics. This style is similar to Dutch Pensylvania art or rosemauling.

I'd made 64 ATCs (not all toles), 117 inchies, 50 charms, and a name tag. My DH and DS helped back my cards and afix them to strudy cardboard. Whew! That was a lot of work!! I've finally gotten some sleep, got my bags unpacked, laundry done and all my phone calls made. So, now I can get back into my art space and create for the sake of creating!

I hardly bought anything there, but came back with a new addiction, anyway. Journals!!! How did I not get into this before. We all exchanged journals and I managed to do pages for 20 ladies. Now I need to do a journal for me! Love it.

I'll be back with more of my cards soon.

Dancing in the Rain

I know I haven't posted much lately, but I've been quite busy. I'm going to an Artist get together mid June. This should be a fun get together. It's a lot like the shack-a-poolaza the girls at the stamp shack did earlier this year. But since I'd signed up for this one nearly a year ago, I couldn't do both. Perhaps next year...

The get together is mainly a bunch of artists on ATCsforAll. It'll be a combination live trade show/art classes/art making. Oh, and lets not forget the social aspect. That should take up the whole weekend! I'm not sure I'll get much art making. So, in anticipation of this, I've made some ATCs and some inchies in advance.

I'll preview a few here and add lots more while I'm gone, and especially when I return.

More Inchie Faces

Another set of inchies! These little pieces are more addictive than I thought. Though, trying to color those little eyes is a bit neurotic! I did these for a swap on ATCsforall. I've drawn nearly 30 faces, but so far, these are all I've colored in. I've used mostly acrylics for the faces, except for the blue haired fairy and the little imp on the bottom left. Those I colored with prismacolored pencils. For me, the pencils were harder to get the saturation I wanted and didn't give the smoothness of color that I liked. These little pieces of art are easy to draw when watching my little guy practise his soccer game. And since they're only 1" x 1", there isn't that much detailing needed in the background. My fav. is the little girl peeking over the fence. How about you? Which one strikes you the most?

Flower Power!

I've finally taken the plunge and hosted my first swap "Flower Power" on the Stamp Shack. I have a lot of floral stamps and wanted to do some cards with them. When I saw no floral swap to join, I made my own up. I envisioned something along the lines of a physecadelic card that represented Flower Power to me. And I'm thrilled that what I envisioned, happened! I love the colors. I usually work in watercolors, but this is a first for me. Markers!! The colors are rich and vibrant.

I used 3 different stamps, all from the same set by K Marcella (clear stamps #137004). Made a collage of them and then colored with Bic Markers.

If any of you want to trade with me for a card very similar to this, let me know.

Wizards and Elves

Sometimes a card just comes together, and at other times, it takes...well, till well, forever! The first wizard (in blues) came through fairly easily. But this swap required four cards and I just couldn't figure out the others. I researched and researched and nothing seemed to work for me. So when the pressure of the deadline was making me twitchy, my muse finally came back from vacation!!! Sitting in the car watching my youngest at soccer practise, I drew the second wizard (in purple). The beauty of that wizard is, that the two look like they're talking so I drew the background path to match up. Then when I took the same youngest to chick-fil-a for dinner (hey got me out of dinner duty), I drew the old elf in the tree and a second elf. I came home and since I'd had dinner too (well, I've got no will power when it comes to those waffle fries), I sat down and drew the third one (sleeping below the tree). I don't think I've ever drawn four full cards in one day, let alone in such a short period of time. The other elf, I'm sooo in love with, I'll have to take my time coloring it. Hopefully, I've done justice to these pieces and will do so on the other elf too.

More Inchies

Well, I don't think I'm hooked, but doing inchies has helped get rid of stress for me. We've had so much going on the last month and which will last for another few weeks, that I was finding I just was too tired to create. I was under pressure just to finish my committed swaps. Inchies are so small that I'm able to complete these fairly quickly. The top two are done with water colors. The flowers are acrylics and my favorite of all favorite, the faces are done using prisma pencils. I love the faces, so bear with me. You might be seeing more of them!!

Inchies by Number

I love my ATCs. I never think I'd actually make anything other than that. And then a swap comes along that is irresistable. Perhaps because of the medium or technique used. Or perhaps the host. In this case it was definitely the host. Pixeldog at ATCsforall. He was hosting a swap with inchies. An ATC is 2 1/2 x 3 1/2. Inchies are, well, 1" x 1". My gosh, those are small!! I signed up for the swap, but waited pretty much till the end for one reason or another to do the swap. Mostly, because I was panicked and didn't have a clue what to do. One night, I started and this is what I came up with. His inchies required a number on them. Other than that, it was whatever I could create. There were 75 participants in it. Lol, he's got his work cut out for him sorting out the returns! So what do you think of my first venture into Inchies? They're all done in watercolors, except for the pink daisy. That's in acrylics.

Fairy Wings

This was an ATC done for the "Wings" swap on Stamp-Shack. The girl is an unmounted stamp that I've had for ages, and not sure who makes it. I had visualized her with some butterfly wings, but none of the butterflies I had would work for this girl. They were mostly too clunky! So, I went through my stamp drawers and found door hinges. I liked the scroll work look of them and they seem to match the design on her sleeves. I masked the girl off and stamped the wings. Then I added some stamped butterflies to give her something to interact with. Drew a pond under her and doodled a bit of flowers and grass to finish of the image. The background is colored with watercolors which I applied with very broad strokes. The fairy is colored with prisma pencils, mainly an orangish red and yellow.

Snowflake ATC

This was another one of those free form, fun cards to make. It's for a snowflake swap at ATCsforall. I used a collage of stamps and added white dots to highlight certain areas. I'm really enjoying these stamped collages, and definitely plan to be doing more!

Blog Award

I received this award from Jennifer at Trial and Error. To participate in this one, I am to list 5 addictions and then pass the award onto 5 bloggers. First my addictions:
1) Taking photos...of my kids and anything else I see through my camera lense!
2) ATCs
3) Coke or Pepsi, for some reason, it's the only sodas I'll drink
4) Reading
5) Indian Food

O.k. now for 5 bloggers:
1) Running on Ink
2) Sir Pumpkin
3) Land of the Lost Luggage
4) Thimbles, Bobblins, Paper and Ink
5) Far North Designs

I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do.

Red Tailed Hawk

I joined a partner swap for a 1/1 card. In this swap, we had to check our partner's profile and do a card based on what they were interested in. I picked "bird" out of his profile and did this red tailed hawk. I love how he turned out and wish I'd made one for myself too. Though, I do have to say, I wasn't totally original in this. I'd done a 8 1/2" version of this in a mini-class before, and was thrilled to be able to duplicate it without the instructor talking us through it. It's done with just two colors, brown and blue, except for the touch of color for his eyes. The hardest part then and now was drawing it free hand. The curve of that beak is a lot harder to do then it looks!! Well...at least for me.

I did these beauties for a "Hand Drawn or Painted Fantasy + Background" swap on ATCsforall. I love doing fairies and mermaids. They are my favorite characters. I ended up doing these at the very last possible second. Seems I've been doing that a lot lately. Probably because I can't resist all these really wonderful swaps going on. Once all my swaps and trades are accounted for this month, I think I'll be able to do them during the sunshine hours! Then again, I'll probably hit a bunch more "join" buttons between now and then!! I was up until 3:00 a.m. last night and part of today to finish these up. They're done with acrylics and a bit of sparkle added with stickles. I have a hard time letting go of my cards when I'm done, especially the hand drawn ones. They're usually one of a kind. Oh well, I never made these to stay home anyway. Fly away!!

It's all about the Eyes ATC

This is my first art project for the year 2009. I'm quite pleased with the final piece. I created this ATC for a swap I'm in for eyes. I say final piece because I've tried numerous versions of this and some coloring schemes. This was my favorite. I played on the word "eye". See if you can spot all three "eyes" I used. I'll give you the answer at the bottom of this post.

I used five different stamps to create this collaged image. The face stamp is by Queens Ink, the feather and the swirls are by Judikins, the two clear circle stamps are by Inkadinkado. As you can see, I only used a portions of the stamps. This is an ATC afterall, and the whole stamps just don't fit! I colored it with green and blue. Heavy handed in some areas and lighter in others.

I've been experimenting with doing collages and I really like how this turned out. What do you think. Too busy or hopefully just right?

O.k, did you figure out how many eyes there are? First, there is the girl's eyes, then there is the eye of the peacock, and finally the bullseye. Did you get them all? Perhaps you found an eye that I had not thought of. If so, let me know.

Happy New Year

This is my favorite day of the year. I feel excitement in the air, a shiver of joy as the new year stretches out in front of me. An opportunity to learn something new, improve on something old and enjoy what I already know! I love Christmas too, but I feel so tired by the end of the season that this day makes me feel refreshed and young again. There are 357 days of shopping left! That alone makes me think that perhaps this year I might get things done ahead of time. Lol. Then again, I'll probably wait till the very last minute. I don't think it's because I'm lazy or I procrastinate too much (perhaps a wee bit), but I know it's because there is so much to do and learn out there. I'm a very curious cat by nature. I like to veer off the beaten path and see and take pictures of everything I can. By the time I get back on the path again, I'm late. Like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, I'm always saying ..."I'm late, I'm late, I'm late". This year my resolution isn't going to be to be on time or to stay on the path more often. This year my resolution is going to be "MORE". Does that make me sound greedy. Perhaps, it is. This year, I want to have more off the path adventures, more being late because life is so full of interesting things, more of my kids hugs, more of my husband's kisses, more of being creative and especially more of being me! I look forward to every new year and I look forward to this one too. I wish for all of you new adventures in life and the time to enjoy them!