Can I call it "Spring Cleaning" when Summer is virtually upon us?
I thought a bit of sprucing up on the old blog was called for.
As you can see, a new header! I've also moved some stuff around and deleted a lot of extraneous content in order to try and make visiting an easy and intuitive experience.
If you'd like a guided tour of the changes, watch the video below:
If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, all the posts can be found here. Please read this post first. There is a flickr group for sharing right here. Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day! No need to finish anything or even like it. If you've done some art journaling this week and you've blogged about it, or put it on flickr, please leave a link in the linky list at the end of this post. Thanks!
Today we have a guest post from Cathie Reed. Watch as she uses a collection of simple (and some of my favorite) supplies to create a super cool art journal page.
I’m so excited to be a part of Julie’s Art Journal Every Day series. I have been a fan of Julie’s since the first time I heard her on the Paperclipping Roundtable talking about art journaling. I had never heard of art journaling before but that show was a game changer for me. Before the episode was over I was reading Julie’s blog and it wasn’t too long after that I bought my first art journal. Two years later, I’m taking my art journal to crops and sharing the fun with my scrappy friends.
When Julie asked me to share how I made this page, I did a little happy dance and said, “Heck, yeah!”
I love the freedom of art journaling - trying new products and new techniques. Who cares if you make a mess or ruin a page, right? It’s art journaling! So, I usually start a page with a “let’s see what happens” approach. For this page, I wanted to experiment with watercolor. I bought a cheap pack of watercolors and dug out my old (unused) Stampin’ UP Watercolor Crayons.
I started by drawing circles with the watercolor crayons. No reason. I just love circles.
Then I blended the circles with my watercolor paints instead of just water. This is really fun and I highly recommend it because it makes the colors so intense.
I let the circles dry and added some layers of crayon then blended again to intensify the color. Only, I didn’t blend all of the crayon I put down and that’s how I got the cool lines in the big circle.
Then I added a blue wash to the background. No reason, I love blue. This time I used water to blend the crayon.
And that’s how this page sat in my journal.
I was quite happy with how it had turned out and I liked to look at it - just enjoy it. Until the day I had the idea to make a page about the funny nicknames I have for my kids. I like to call them “turkey leg” and I knew my watercolor page with the colorful circles was the right background for this fun little story.
I started with the title. I used my pencil to write out the words “english language” and “funny thing.” It took a few tries to get it the way I wanted so I kept an eraser handy.
Then I traced over the letters with my Pigma Micron (0.8) and erased the pencil lines.
I learned the lettering technique in Lori Vliegen’s Class, Letter Lab. It’s a great class with lots of tips and techniques.
Then I ripped the page from my journal and put it in my vintage 1930’s Underwood Typewriter. Isn’t he a beauty? (Sorry about the poor lighting. He lives in the basement.)
I wanted to contrast my handwriting and I was curious to see what the typewriter would look like. I didn’t have a plan so I just moved the page around and typed whatever popped into my mind.
Here’s a close up.
And that’s how it all came together. It’s really a simple page that was basically the result of some playtime in my art journal. I love it when that happens. Don’t you?
Thank you, Julie, for inviting me to guest post today and thanks to all her readers and contributors for sharing their work and inspiring me every week.
Here's the linky list for this week:
Living in Portugal Cove – St. Philip’s, Newfoundland, Cathie Reed is a coffee fiend, work-from-home-mom, marketing consultant, blogger, scrapbooker and art journaling enthusiast. She is also a design team member and special guest instructor for her LSS, The Paperie. Cathie happily neglects the laundry and cleaning to spend time in her downstairs “studio” creating with her beloved paper, ink and paint. A huge fan of “flopporunities” and “happy accidents,” Cathie is forever inspired to try new techniques, products and projects all of which she shares on her blog, with coffee in hand.
Hooray! Stencil hop time is here again! I've got four massively talented ladies lined up to wow you:
Wilna Furstenberg: Wilna is someone whose work I've admired for about as long as I can remember. She is on the design team for October Afternoon and a Garden Girl at Two Peas in a Bucket, where she also sells lovely digital kits with a painterly feel.
Tammy Tutterow: Tammy's shabby chic style is so beautiful and delicate and her blog is constantly full of wonderful step-by-step tutorials. She is the Design Team and Community Coordinator for Sizzix and teaches across the U.S. and internationally.
Dion Dior: Dion is a painting queen. She was born in Australia and currently lives in Iowa with her husband and their two children. She is an avid art journaler and teaches online classes.
Joanne Sharpe: Joanne is a lettering diva. She has been published in many magazines including Cloth Paper Scissors, Somerset Art Journaling, CPS Studios, Somerset Apprentice, and Somerset Studio. She teaches classes online and across the U.S.
These four ladies are going to show off what they did with the Leaf Grid stencil:
I made this scrapbook page:
You can see that I used the stencil two ways to create this background. First, I sprayed through the stencil, and then I flipped it over and smushed it on to the page to create a print with the stencil. Having both types of prints from the stencil makes for a great background.
I used the same technique to create the tags you see here on this unfinished art journal spread:
Watch the video for the "Spray Two Ways" demo:
Of course, you can also isolate portions of the stencil, as I did when I created the cover page of this altered book.
That's a single bough of leaves -- simply mask it off with post-its or tape and you can easily create an adorable embellishment.
If you'd like to win the 6x6 and the 12x12 version of the Leaf Grid stencil, please leave an answer to the following question in the comments section of this blog:
What is the most recent project that you used a stencil on?
Several months ago a box arrived at my apartment. When I opened the box a styrofoam head was staring up at me.
Very odd.
I double checked the address. It was definitely addressed to me.
I checked the sender. It was a name I recognized and so I sent her an e-mail:
Hey Barb:
I hope we're not re-enacting a scene from the Godfather, but I got a head in a box from you. Am I supposed to be doing something with it? :)
J
She wrote back in the affirmative, jogging my memory about a conversation we had had at CHA. Barb is the owner of Bizzy B -- a great scrapbooking, stamping, and mixed media store in Toronto, Canada. And she is running a charity auction to benefit a Toronto-area high school art program. She sent heads out to loads of artists and they are going to be auctioned off in the store (Bizzy B's Stamp & Scrap, 2100 Bloor Street West, Unit 4, Toronto, Ontario, M6S 1M7) starting on May 25. The silent auction runs through June 3.
Here is my head:
And some details:
I had a really good time working on this strange and unusual surface. Very happy with the results and a little sad to see it heading out the door!
You can see all the heads here. I have to say that the photo of my head on that page is not of her "good side." But c'est la vie. If you live in the Toronto area, consider stopping by the store to make a bid!
Thanks for stopping by!
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P.S. The winner of the Wood Parquet stencil in 6x6 and 12x12 is...
Congratulations, Julia! E-mail me with your mailing address and I'll get those stencils out to you!
Thank you so much for all your kind comments on yesterday's post! I'm so excited about the stamps and stencils and I'm delighted to hear that you are too! Now onto today's post....
It's time for our May Book Club! Just as a reminder, each month I choose a crafty book from my bookshelf and create something inspired by the book. I hope you'll be inspired to do the same.
This book was written by a mother and daughter duo: Linda and Laura Kemshall. And though it is a book intended for quilters, there are many no-sew surface design techniques that I think would appeal to art journalers and mixed media artists alike.
When I went through my bookshelf to choose this month's book I was shocked by how many books on fabric surface design I own -- and many with the exact same techniques. (This is what comes of buying books and not reading them.) The Painted Quilt wasn't the first book I grabbed from my bookshelf, but after poking through several fabric surface design books, this one actually excited me.
There are nine chapters:
Introduction: The two ladies talk about why they quilt, share some work, and discuss what to expect from the book.
Inspired to Design: Linda and Laura are sketchbook enthusiasts. They work out most designs in their paper sketchbooks before moving to fabric. In this chapter they discuss design principles, inspiration, techniques, and more. This is one of the chapters I think would be universally appealing to all artists and crafters.
What Fabric? What Colour? This is the most technical chapter, and the briefest. From pre-treating fabrics to the basics of dyeing to health & safety, Linda and Laura cover it all.
Colour Before Quilting: A series of techniques for adding color, shape, and pattern to fabric.
Colour After Quilting: A series of techniques for adding color after the fabric has been quilted.
Removing Colour: A series of techniques for removing color both before and after quilting.
Adding Detail: A fun series of surface design techniques that have some precision involved in them.
Pictorial and Figurative Images: Printing from your computer, transfers, and painting are all discussed in this chapter.
What to Do with What you Know: In this final chapter Linda and Laura both share pieces they've made and discuss both their inspiration and the techniques they used. These are not, however, project instructions.
The reason that this book stands out to me is the writing. Most crafty books are heavy on pictures, with some directions of varying quality. The Painted Quilt has both photos and instructions, but more importantly, it is filled with truly interesting text. Philosophically I am very much of the same mind as Linda and Laura in many aspects of their creating. I think they're a bit more scientific about how they approach things -- testing, sketching, planning -- and I'm more of a "just do it" kind of gal. Nonetheless, there is a meeting of the minds, for me, in the pages of this book. I appreciate how they mix their media -- something I'm a strong advocate of.
I'm pretty sure I will end up making a number of projects inspired by this book, but I roped my Mom into modeling the first one:
I mixed painted and quilted fabric I made inspired by The Painted Quilt...
...with commercial black & white fabrics for the sides, strap, and lining.
I'm thrilled and delighted with the finished bag and can hardly wait to wear it around town. Can you believe that gorgeous fabric started out a plain white? It blows my mind.
Though this is a quilting book, remember that there are many other possibilities (like this purse) within its pages.
I'm so so so so proud of this concept of matching stamps and stencils. I don't know of anybody else who is doing this. As far as I can tell, it's an entirely new concept!
Each stamp set works independently.
Each stencil works independently.
Each stencil has a matching stamp set. Each stamp set a matching stencil. And they work together.
Let's walk through all six sets, shall we?
This first one is the easiest to understand:
And some tags:
Next up: Flowers!
This set is extra cool, because not only do the stamps and stencils layer together, but the stencil itself is a layering stencil! And some tags:
I'm hoping that I'm blowing your mind! This next set has so many possibilities:
Again, the stencil has multiple parts that layer.
And then you can layer the stamps and stencils together as well!
Here are some tags:
I think this set would be perfect for card making and art journaling. I plan to make some very pretty thank you notes, myself.
I don't know if you've noticed, but I have an obsession with circles. I explored that obsession in this next set:
And, of course, the stencil layers just with itself and/or with the stamp set!
And some tags:
The fifth set is one that I designed specifically for Project Life. However, as you'll see from the tags, there are lots of other ways to use the stencil and the stamp set too!
And finally, I couldn't stay away from the butterflies!
I hope that you're as super excited about these new coordinating stencils and stamp sets as I am. One of the things that has me most excited is that there are just so many mix-and-match possibilities! These tags barely scratch the surface of what fun there is to be had. I can't wait to see what you do with them! I know it's going to be amazing!
If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, all the posts can be found here. Please read this post first. There is a flickr group for sharing right here. Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day! No need to finish anything or even like it. If you've done some art journaling this week and you've blogged about it, or put it on flickr, please leave a link in the linky list at the end of this post. Thanks!
You may recall a post from me many months ago called "Letter Ladies" where I shared my reluctant contribution to the Sketchbook Project. Today we have an enthusiastic guest post from Lenna Young Andrews all about that super popular Sketchbook Project. I'll let her take it from here!
A big hello from Lenna!
I am honored to be writing a guest post on Julie Balzer’s blog for Art Journal Every Day. I am a big fan of Julie’s. When I read her blog posts I’m always so inspired and often blown away by her ideas. When she asked me if I would be interested in writing about my experience with The Sketchbook Project, I said -- Yes!! Let me start by telling you a little bit about the Sketchbook Project.
This project is a traveling library of artists' books, created by thousands of people from across the globe. It is hosted by Art House, an independent NY-based company that organizes global, collaborative art projects. Art House is a world-wide community of artists all brought together by the Art House Co-op website, but they also have a brick & mortar gallery space in Brooklyn, NY. Below, is a short video peek into the Brooklyn Art Library, home to the Sketchbook Project.
I signed up for my first Sketchbook project in July of 2010. I’ve completed three now and already registered for a fourth due in January 2013. My first experience was the 2011 project - due at Art House no later than January 15, 2011. At the time, I did not have a lot of experience with art journaling. I found out about the Sketchbook Project through one of my art swap participants - Sharon Walworth, who sent me a link with a note saying, “This might be something that would interest you”. . . she was right! The idea of a huge, worldwide collaborative journal project really appealed to me, even with my limited art journaling experience. I signed up!
To sign up for a Sketchbook project you need to go online to their website, fill out the registration form, pay the required fee and choose a theme. After you do this, Art House will send you a specially designed sketchbook (sized 5”w x 7”h) containing 32 pages. It was created just for this project. There’s a label with a barcode on the back cover of each and every sketchbook. It includes your name and your chosen theme in order to identify your book and so people can check your sketchbook out. You fill the book up and return it to Art House by the deadline. Then, your sketchbook will go “on tour” with all the other books in the project –sometimes as many as 10,000 sketchbooks! Important: When the tour is complete, your book will not be returned to you. Instead, it will be permanently exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Library where it can be checked out and admired by anyone at any time. Imagine . . . . here is a peek at the Brooklyn Art Library, filled with shelves of completed sketchbooks:
(photo courtesy of Art House Co-op)
(photo courtesy of Art House Co-op)
For the 2011 project I simply jumped in and started working in my sketchbook. The theme I chose was: “This is not a Sketchbook” - which I thought would distinguish me from the participants that were actually sketching in their journals! I did not really know what I was doing but did not let that stop me. I painted and collaged and wrote things in my book, then shared the process on my blog. This first sketchbook was larger (5.5” x 8.5”) with thinner pages that I glued together for strength like I was working in an altered book. Below is a spread from my 2011 sketchbook where I used a favorite old photo of me above a copy of an old ID card I had. On the right side, I placed leftover paper from trying a spectra tissue technique into the sketchbook and I added circles to both sides to join them together. Then, I added journaling and a line of faux stitching. I was deliberately trying to put myself into this sketchbook through my photos, journaling and my art. I have counted at least 10 photos of me inserted throughout my 2011 sketchbook.
Another favorite spread including a baby photo of me is below. It was done with an old calendar page that hung on the wall of my childhood home and somehow had been saved all this time. It is the December calendar page, my mother’s birth month. The photos I used for this spread were printed on a clear transparency sheet in order to better see the calendar underneath.
I also used the sketchbook to try out new techniques, like a ripped paper and fabric background:
This ripped paper background was a great base for another photo of me with my 2 young sons in the 1980’s in Connecticut. This photo was printed on vellum. A photo I took of a local street in Florida was printed onto watercolor paper with my ink jet printer. I used my water brush to migrate the printer inks. I had lived in Florida for less than a year at the time and was adjusting to my new home base.
For the 2011 project = 10,000 sketchbooks were returned to Art House from 94 countries by the deadline. Over 28,000 people registered! View all of my posts about the 2011 Sketchbook Project here.
*After finishing the 2011 project, I found Julie Balzer’s blog and her Art Journal Every Day. I was so excited to find more info and techniques related to art journaling after doing the Sketchbook Project and subsequently participated in AJED on a daily basis from May 1 to August 30, 2011. I was amazed at how much Julie shared and how inspired and prolific I was because of this. You can take a peek into my four month long journey doing Art Journal Every Day as well as view all three of my Sketchbook project journals in this collection on my flickr account. One of the benefits of doing my Art Journal Every day journals besides being more prolific is - I get to keep them! I pick them up from time to time, look at them and smile.
The 2012 project had odd timing for me, but it actually saved me in the end. My husband and I moved to Florida from Connecticut in 2009 because my father, who was living in Florida had cancer. We wanted to be near him and my mom. I received my sketchbook in August of 2011, but did not start working on it until November because my dad was quite ill and passed away on October 1, 2011. I credit the commitment I made to participating in the Sketchbook Project to bringing me around to my creative mixed media art again after my dad’s death. I was especially motivated by an idea I had of re-binding the Sketchbook and doing something different from the normal pages I did for the 2011 project. And so, I did just that. I took the pages out of the cover, put two pages together to create a folding panel and re-assembled the sketchbook by re-binding it.
I think you can best see how my 2012 sketchbook was re-designed by watching this short video I made to show viewers how the pages extend.
For the 2012 sketchbook project = 7,502 sketchbooks came in from around the world and they are now all on tour, from April – November, 2012. This tour of sketchbooks is also going to the UK and Australia!
The Sketchbook Project Limited Edition Vol. 1 -due April 30, 2012, this project was a little different from the other two projects I participated in. Registration was limitedto 5,000 artists from around the world. One spread from each of these artists’ sketchbooks will be chosen to be published in a series of art books published by Art House. I really had fun with this project and from start to finish it only took me 10 days to complete -- wow! I had the time to devote to it and was inspired by an idea I got when I started working on the cover. The theme I chose was “create and capture”. In the past year I have really stepped up my photo taking as a creative experience. So I got the idea to use some of my favorite photos in the sketchbook with a window on the page before it peeking in, to view just a bit of the photo.
To sum up my experiences, what I can say wholeheartedly about the Art House Co-op projects and the Sketchbook projects in particular is that they give me a reason, a structure, a purpose and more of a desire to create. I enjoy being part of these large world-wide collaborative art projects and registering and paying for the Art House’s organizational efforts pushed me to follow through and do it! The projects are all very well organized, quite massive in scope and the heart of the matter is the organizers want to see more people – not just “artists” – participating and enjoying. Right On!
Below are excerpts from a question and answer post I wrote on my creative lenna blog - August 8, 2010
I’ve had questions in regards to The Sketchbook Project, mostly from those of you who are considering signing up and participating in this project yourself. I’ll share both the questions I have received via email and my answers here – just in case you are wondering the same things!
"Do you think you’ll be okay with “letting it go” next year, when it’s chock-full of all your wonderful stuff? Or is the possible regret of giving it up outweighed by the idea that it will be “out there” to be shared with others?"
I replied: I am already okay with letting the sketchbook go. It is a weird thing, but I would guess because I make a lot of art, I don’t want to or can’t keep as much art as I make. Because I can scan or photograph my art to remind me of what I have done, I really don’t need to physically keep it. I am actually happy to be sharing my art and then sending it off as part of this huge collaborative. I will have no regrets! I think it is the most amazing thing and I can’t believe they have over 10,000 participants. I did opt for the digitized sketchbook and I do like that I can receive comments via the bar code when people check my book out. But my basic idea is that I am going to put myself and my art into this sketchbook and send it out into the world on purpose, to share myself and my art with the world --or with whomever thinks my sketchbook looks interesting!
"I am curious though, can you do pretty much any art form in your book, excluding the items listed in the rules, or is it geared towards sketching, painting, etc. (mostly flat medium)?"
I replied: Yes! You can do pretty much any form of art in the sketchbook; it does not have to be sketching. The best information is here: http://arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject - then scroll down to the bottom for the FAQs/rules. As I understand it, your book must remain within the dimensions of 5.5 x 8.5 inches (it has now changed size now to 5”x7”). It may open up to something wonderful of any size, but it must fold down to the original width & height dimensions. You are welcome to unbind, rebind or alter the book in almost any other way –but it should end up being no thicker than 1” or they cannot take it on tour. If you want to use thicker stock of paper, they say go for it. I don’t believe it has to stay flat as long as it folds down to the same size, height & width. I am very excited to be part of this amazing project!
"How many double page layouts are there in the book?"
I replied: Well, I have done 5 or 6 double page spreads so far, but in most of the cases I glued two pages together because the paper in this moleskin journal is very thin (it’s been re-designed and the paper is a bit thicker now). I counted and there are about 30 single pages left which would really translate into 15 spreads or less, when gluing pages together, depending on how many pages you glued together. You have until January 15th to finish & mail your sketchbook.
"How did you learn about this and have you ever done it before?"
I replied: I learned about it from one of my swap participants, Sharon Walworth. She wrote to me and said she had found something that she thought I would like and gave me the link. She was absolutely right. I love this idea and I am having a great time doing it. I have never done the sketchbook project before and I have never kept an artist journal before!
"What theme did you choose?"
I replied: I picked one of the themes the project offered, “This is not a sketchbook”. That was perfect for me and gives me a lot of options. They have a wide range of themes when you register. Hope to see you in the project if it appeals to you - or just enjoy the art and the project as the pages unfold!
Here's the linky list for you to leave a link to this week's art journaling:
Thanks for stopping by!
lenna young andrews loves to dance, take photographs, throw paint around, collage, document her life, be creative, tweak her online sites and usually thinks to herself, “what if I did this?”. She likes to collaborate, learn new things, dive in, rubber stamp, organize, teach, sew, host art swaps, share and inspire. She lives on the sunny gulf coast of Florida with her husband and 2 dogs. She takes Nia classes barefoot on the beach and considers herself extremely blessed. You can read more about her art and life on her blog: creative lenna.
Don't you love stencil hop days? I know that I do! I'm a bit sad to think that we only have four more hops after this. I can't even tell you how difficult it was to choose which designs to feature. For the Spring Hop we only had eleven spots, but twenty-one stencil designs! If you're ever wanting to know which of The Crafter's Workshop stencils I designed, you can see all the Balzer Designs stencils here (there are thirty-nine designs so far, with more to come this Summer! Yay!)
Enough blathering, let's get to this week's amazing lineup of guests:
Marcy Penner: Since stumbling upon Marcy's blog I've become addicted to her clean meets artsy scrapbooking style. Marcy has a cool shop full of fun papercrafting goodies. She is on the design team for October Afternoon.
And what stencil did these ladies get to play with? I call it Wood Parquet...
...and you can probably guess why. The Crafter's Workshop does have a regular woodgrain stencil, which is awesome, but I wanted something more delicate. This stencil has a lacey quality that I really like.
It works as a strong design element. I used the 6x6 version to decorate this altered book spread:
It also works when you use it more subtley to add a bit of tone-on-tone texture and atmsophere. I used the 6x6 version to create the soft background for this outdoorsy layout:
Remember, you don't have to use the full stencil image. You are the boss of your stencils.
You can see that I let the stenciled image sort of fade into the kraft background. I really like the look.
For this next layout I went for texture:
You can really see the dimension of the gesso in these detail photos:
And the precision! I used the 12x12 version of the stencil with super heavy gesso and the 6x6 version of the stencil with Distress Ink.
As I mentioned in "The Things You Want to Learn: part 1" last week, I found the comments on the April 26 (Wedding Ring) stencil hop post absolutely fascinating. I asked the question, "What is a craft/art supply you'd like to learn more about?" Today I'm going to offer a few more resources for some of the most often requested things.
A number of people mentioned "mixed media techniques." This one is a bit of a doozy. It's such an enormously vast topic. It's a little like wanting to learn about "art." Where does one even start with the topic? I figure it's a bit like that old adage:
Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time.
So let's take the first bite: What is mixed media? Mixed media has become a bit of a buzz word that is now used in the scrapbooking world to describe anything involving paint or layouts that are a bit artsy feeling. The actual definition of mixed media is art that combines two traditionally separate disciplines (such as collage and painting).
Technically speaking, most scrapbooking is mixed media art because we combine paper-on-paper (aka collage) with found objects (metal, wood, plastic, fabric) and often with paint and/or ink, as well as stitch. And as you can see from my note on the image above, writing with a journaling pen adds ink into the mix and that keeps scrapbooking from being simply collage. That said, I have found that when most people in the scrapbook world refer to "mixed media techniques" they're usually talking about techniques for integrating paint, ink, and paper. So here are some places to start:
My hour-long instructional DVD "Collage Fast & Furious" is full of techniques for mixing up your media. You can purchase it as a physical DVD or as a digital product and download it to your computer immediately!
My online class "Technique-a-Palooza: Paint & Ink" which has thirty paint and ink techniques along with suggestions on ways to combine them.
Type the phrase "mixed media" in the YouTube search window and you'll come up with a ton of great and FREE tutorial videos.
All of that said, the first way to learn about mixed media is to try it. Do it. There's no right or wrong. Just do something. See if you like it. Figure out how you like to hold your paintbrush. Do whatever feels good to you. I guarantee that you can't go wrong!
In this Über*Media Acrylic Paint Workshop Nathalie will teach you how to use acrylic paints in your scrapbooking and mixed media projects. This class is a reference guide for you, showing all kinds of possibilities and techniques using acrylic paints -- in fact, there are almost 100 techniques for using acrylic paints in this class. Wow!
Also, a lot of people swear by this book: Acrylic Revolution. I bought it when it came out, but I have to admit that I haven't even cracked it open in all the years I've had it. Hmmmm...maybe a future Book Club book?
Here's a fun video from the awesome Dina Wakley on using modeling paste:
Here is a video about using Golden Extra Course Pumice Gel.
Watch this easy-to-follow video tutorial on doing a gel medium image transfer.
Finally, here is a video from Golden, about their various modeling pastes:
If you'd like to do some experimenting, Golden sells a "Sampler Pack" containing a 2 oz (60 ml) jar of Soft Gel (Gloss), Regular Gel (Semi-Gloss), Extra-Heavy Gel (Matte), Light Molding Paste, Coarse Pumice Gel, and Clear Tar Gel. It's less than $20 for all six mediums and a great way for you to do a bit of experimenting and figure out what you like before you invest in bigget jars.
When I graduated from college, I asked my parents for a gift: a sewing machine. I didn't end up getting the machine for several years, but once I did, it was love at first sight. Here's how I learned to sew:
The woman at the sewing machine store showed me how to thread the machine.
I took my machine home and couldn't remember how to thread the machine.
I studied my manual and re-learned how to thread the machine.
I bought lots of sewing and quilting books and tried lots of projects from them. The best book, in my opinion, is Patchwork Quilts Made Easy by Jean Wells.
I still couldn't remember how to thread my machine.
I started to experiment...and I haven't stopped since!
I think sewing is an essential art skill to have. If you'd like to develop your skills, you can take my online mixed media sewing class "It's Sew Easy."
If you want to learn more about sewing by hand on paper, Kinsey Wilson has a wonderful free blog class called "Handstitch."
In the image above Kinsey is sharing the different looks you get depending on how many strands of embroidery floss you use to stitch.
Finally, one of the great mixed media sewing goddesses -- in my opinion -- is Alisa Burke. I highly recommend her book: Sew Wild.
The Splitcoast Stampers site has a tutorial on stamping with watercolor crayons.
Dion Dior did a wonderful guest post for this blog on using watersoluble crayons.
This post about screenprinting with watersoluble crayons blew my mind! I want to try it!
There's so much to learn about and so many ways to learn it all! I encourage you to consider supporting the artists whose work you love by buying their books, DVDs, classes, products, etc. All of those purchases allow them to keep sharing free content and is much appreciated.
Thanks for stopping by!
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P.S. The winner of the " Peek-a-Boo" stencil in 6x6 and 12x12 is...
Congratulations, Debbie! E-mail me with your mailing address and I'll get those stencils out to you!
Thanks so much for all of your titles and story interpretations on yesterday's post! I read all the comments with much joy. And you made me see things in the painting that I hadn't previously noticed. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And now to today's post...
Today is the fourth Second Floor challenge! Are you ready to take it to the second floor? What does that mean? It means trying something vastly out of your comfort zone. Doing something that might not work. Experimenting with a crazy idea. It's all about pushing yourself. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't work, awesome!
The challenge this time around is to create something inspired by circles. Whatever that means to you or however it inspires you. The prompt is simply meant to get you started. The level of challenge you aim for is entirely internal and up to you.
Just a friendly PSA: If you protect your surfaces, you can paint anywhere and it will make you feel a bit more free as you work. We have a tiny dining nook in our apartment. I push the table out of the way and cover it with an old painty tablecloth. Then I cover the floor with a drop cloth. This way I can paint freely and never have to think about if I'm making too big a mess. (Though I will admit that I have caught my husband's golf clubs -- see the case, standing in the corner -- with a splash of paint before. Shhhh. I don't think he's noticed.)
I started with some circles...
...and then built it up into something kind of abstract and whimsical:
It's kind of cool AND it contains one of my all-time favorite motifs: a pie chart. But I wanted to take this painting to the Second Floor.
So I took a deep breath.
And I painted in a figure.
And I'm so very glad that I did.
I call this painting "Boy with Green Tie." A very classical title for a very un-classical painting.
Taking the risk of "ruining" the previous painting was so worth it because this painting is super close to what I envisioned in my head. And that happens very rarely -- at least to me.
Here's what I'm taking away from this challenge:
Even when I'm not going for realistic, I create more interesting faces when I work from a photograph of an actual person rather than my imagination.
Keep going. It's a lesson I learn over and over and over again. Maybe I'm not that smart because it is a lesson that I just keep needing to learn and that I'm trying to internalize. I get scared every time a painting doesn't look good. Keep going. I get scared when I have an idea and I'm not sure if it's going to work and I don't want to ruin what I have. Keep going. I think "keep going" is becoming quite a mantra of mine.
I played more with mixing my own colors rather than going straight from the paint tube every time. I like it. I think the colors are more complicated and interesting. Must do more of that.
I need more brushes. I feel like I have a thousand brushes, yet never the one I seem to be looking for. Guess this means I have to go to the art supply store. Oh, well. It's a tough life....
I want to explore this kind of painting a lot more. A lot more. Something is jangling inside my head and ideas are just starting to roll in. I feel like I'm at the very tip of the iceberg. There's something more, something really exciting to me, something mysterious at the end of this tunnel and I am bound and determined to discover it!
Finally, I thought you might like to see the painting hanging in my apartment:
If you'd like to leave a link showing off what you did in response to this challenge, here's the linky list:
