Happy Halloween

I was involved in black cat swap for Halloween so here is what I got.


















This is from Cheryl who doesn't have a blog as far as I know. She sent some chocolate and some lip gloss too. My cat sits on my mantle piece and looks out on her domain.













Here is the cat that I sent to Pam It is done on a 6 x 6 gallery wrapped canvas. First I painted the canvas in reds and oranges. I drew the cat on plain paper and cut it out of black cardstock. Using it as a base I added decorative scrapbook paper in black and white. Then I added the face with white and silver gel pens. The little bats and ghost were stickers that just appeared out of nowhere. oooh eeee....


















Here is my last drawing for the Big Draw. Its been an amazing month of drawing every day. I don't know if I can stop now. I think thats a good thing. If you enjoyed seeing all the faces you can see the whole group here. Thanks to all of you who visited and commented on my work. You've been wonderful.

Next month I switch over to writing. I posted every day in October and November will be totally different. I will probably post a couple times a week at minimum, maybe more

A gold mine in the mail

I got in on this giveaway from Kelli Perkins and look what she sent me. First the envelope was lovingly decorated.














Then package is full of paper, beads, fabric, ephemera of all kinds it is quite a gold mine. Make sure to click on th pic for a closeup.


















and here is todays drawing.

600 Posts

This is my 600th post on blogger and my blogiversary is next month on the 17th. I will do something to celebrate all that in December. I have no time right now and November is shot so in December I will come up with a give away of sorts.


















I seem to have a full blown cold, with a sore throat and nausea thing going on. Yuck. Right before Nanowrimo too. I hope the worst is over by Saturday. I am spending a lot of time in bed lately. I can still draw though so here is today's drawing.

Comments: thanks to all the wonderful souls who have been commenting on my drawings and so forth. I have not had much time to go do the same for you but I do appreciate your efforts.

New books

Here is todays drawing. I am not feeling great today so I decided to get it done early. I think I caught the bug from Sarah this past weekend.














This past week I got these 2 books in the mail and they are both not what I expected. This is a good thing though, they are both better than I thought they would be. This first one has been talked about a lot on blogs. I thought it would be a page a day for the 37 days but it is so much more.















This book I have been waiting for. I hate when you hear about a book but you have to wait till its published.I really like the premise and will be doing more and more self portraits in the coming year. I have learned manynew ideas and techniques and I have been opened up to new artists. That is all a plus. I really like both of these books very much...

The papers

Here is my second attempt at posting the pages. These are just the ones I did. The ones Kate did were just as nice. I hope they show up well. We followed the instructions here Some of the colors are so subtle that you may need to click on the page to see it better. This was really fun and I hope to do it again. We learned a lot our first try. Maybe I will have to do a video the next time.

















Page 1. I used a comb on these.














Page 2, I used a comb tool and stamps.












Page 3, using a combing tool.












Page 4, once again playing with a combing tool I got from the paint dept.














Page 5, I used a comb here.














Page 6, I used a rolograph stamp here.














Page 7, using a rolograph stamp.














page 8, using a rolograph stamp to take off color.













Page 9, again using a rolograph stamp.














Page 10, and using another rolograph stamp. The layering of color is what makes it interesting.













Here is today's drawing..

Paste Paper

Here is todays drawing.

Today I spent the day making paste paper with my friend Kate. I did take pictures but they really didn't come out well. We really had fun making these papers. It took a little while but we finally came up with a system that we were happy with. At first the paste seemed too thin and then we started layering colors and had better success. I found that using rolograph stamps made some great papers. I will try to take pics of mine again tomorrow. They really came out nice.

More mail and magnetic stamps

I got some Mail Art from Mahala













First is the lovely envelope. Yes you can do collage on an envelope and still mail it. This is so pretty, I love it.













and inside a lovely card.

















and then a lovely ATC. Sunflowers are my favorite. Thank you so much Mahala.

















Todays drawing.... are you getting tired of seeing faces...














After reading Kate I's blog and seeing the magnetic alphabet stamp set I just had to have one. Roberts did not have them but Michaels did. You have to buy 2 different parts. One is all the stamps and the other has the holder and the attachments, you can do a single letter, one line or two lines. They have other alphabets and stamps of words so there are other options. My set is called rummage and comes with small and capital letters and punctuation and numbers. They come in a metal tin for storage and are really nice. I can't wait to start using them. I did find that you do have to think backwards when you are lining up letters to spell your words. The d and b were hard to distinguish for me. I think that will become easier after using them for awhile.

Contest ends soon

My mail art contest ends on October 25th but if you tell me you are mailing something I will hold it open till I get all the mail. Remember the prize is a copy of Art & Life along with some miscellaneous goodies.



















Here is today's drawing.

Day 19 the drawing continues

I drew my face today in church, I find it easy to listen well when my hands are creating something and my minister does not mind at all. The people around me are always intrigued by the process too. it does a body good when people really like what you've done and say Oh you are an Artist. I try really had not to not say oh it really doesn't look like the picture I was trying to draw from. I swallow and say Oh thank you. I think that becoming is an Artist is all a process and part of that is owning the title for yourself.

I finished my cat for the swap, I will show it on Halloween, it has to be kept a secret until then. It was fun to do but now I am glad I have all my art commitments done.

Poetry

I went to a Poetry Slam last night. They are held here twice a year and I always seem to forget about the dates and never get to one. My friend Jeff called to remind me about it. I wish I had taken the camera, but alas I did not so I have no pictures to share. Here is how it works, 5 people from the audience are chosen to be judges. They had a 2 piece band a saxophone player and a drummer who played between poems. The top five get to perform a second poem and then there are 2 prize winners. The age ranged from teenagers to senior and everyone else in between. The poems were funny, serious and tragic. There were several people who were real performers and it was incredible to see them perform. The poetry was great. I really enjoyed.

Check to see if anything like this happens in your town and go to it you will have a great time.

Nights in Rodanthe

I was sent this video this morning and thought I would share. Its all about art and sharing your process. I love how she took childhood pictures of herself and her sister and made them into small mermaids. They are really cute.















I wanted to go see The Secret Life of Bees last night but it wasn't showing here so I saw the Nights in Rodanthe instead. It was beautiful, sad, touching and emotional and very well done. Diane Lane is a favorite actress of mine and when you throw in Richard Greer on top of that how can you lose.

I just found out about this new blog called Urban Sketchers, it looks like it will be really interesting to see. Several people around the world who sketch their city and surroundings.

















Here is todays drawing.

Lilttle Gifts of Nature

It was a beautiful fall day today so I made a trip to the Snake River in town. I sat on one of the benches and drew a picture and then wrote in my journal. This little one came to visit and did not want to leave. She sat on the open page in my journal and then I tried to move her and she flew onto my shirt and stayed for the longest time. She had the tiniest wings and their shadow looked so pretty. I was trying to decide what message she was bringing to me today and I thought perhaps it is to appreciate the beauty around you, no matter how small it is.














This is how the river looked today, what a peaceful place it was.

















This was today's drawing. I like how she turned out. She was really fun to draw. Maybe it was because I was outdoors enjoying the weather.

















I got this new toy today. I had a 50% off coupon so after hearing about it on Sharon's blog and then an email from another blogger, thanks Suze, I decided I would just get it. I got the version with the carrying case and it came with 400 eyelets. I want to do a book like she did here So now I need to get a hold of a big old book to steal the covers. That is my next mission, time to hit the thrift stores.

A Novel Approach

Well the paper is finally out. I am featured in the front page article "A Novel Approach". You can read it here. I have already gotten emails from two people interested in doing Nanowrimo so that is pretty exciting. I had wanted some press coverage for Nanowrimo this year and was happy to be able to arrange it.

I just voted and oh I felt so privileged and proud to vote for Barack Obama. That felt so good. I voted early because I may be off working in Montana for the campaign on election day or perhaps before that.



















Here is todays drawing. That makes 16 so far so I guess that we are past the half way point.

Self Portrait

I started with a photo, I converted it to grey scale and then I printed it out.

















Then I tried to draw it. Self portraits are not very easy for me to do. I have to admit that it is better than the last one I tried. I think I will do another one at the end of the month.

There's a Raven in my studio

Well here we are on day 14, I did my drawing around 3 am when i was wide awake, now I have the day to do other things.













This weekend I thought I need to finish my collage for a black cat swap I am participating in. Look what happened though. This raven flew into my studio and landed. It doesn't look like he wants to leave so now the pressure is on. I have to start over. I need a cat this time now where can a girl find a cat when she needs one.

More Mail Art

I got some Mail art today or I should say it must have been Saturday since there has been no mail delivery today, I just never looked in the mailbox all weekend,










Kai sent this lovely letter and included a wonderful story from when Madeleine L'Engle was writer in residence for Victoria magazine. She's a favorite of mine. in fact a few years back I wrote to a few authors and she is the only one who ever wrote me back. I kept the letter, its safely tucked away. I relaly thought it was nice to get a hand written letter from her.













I got this from Sioux, this is truly amazing, I think its called a zentangle.

















I also got this ATC to match, well not really match but they do complement themselves.

A heads up to all Misty Mawn fans, she has a video on Youtube where she is painting a face. Its amazing to see. I have always gone light to dark and she seem to go the other way around. I am going to have to try that technique and see how it works for me.


















and last but not least is todays drawing.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada

A Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian Friends. I hope you are having a wonderful weekend of thanks for all the bounty you enjoy.

We ended up getting a couple inches of snow which will most likely melt this afternoon. There really is not enough to make the trees pretty or I would take some pictures.

I went to see Get Smart last night. If you enjoyed the TV show you will find the movie quite funny. I really like Steve Carell and he was great as Maxwell Smart. Sometimes an evening of laughter is just what you need.


















Todays drawing is supposed to be a small girl but somehow she looks like an older lady. Oh well this is all about practice.

Art Play Dates

It seems to be snowing in all the surrounding states but nothing so far in my neck of the woods. Now normally I would be happy it isn't snowing but I am prepared now. I have a fire going, Spaghetti sauce cooking in the crock pot, books around me to read. It would be lovely to see those white flakes falling just to set the mood. My kitties seem to want to cuddle more so I think winter is definetly on its way.












My friend Kate and I have been getting together to make Art and its been fun. She calls me Alpha Kate and herself Beta Kate. Thursday we met at her house and worked in our Art Journals.













I worked on these on these Crow pages first. Last week I started thinking how I could use a crow image I have as a stencil. I ended up getting up in the middle of the night to try it out. The second crow is using the actual picture. Now the next day when I drove to church there were 2 real crows waiting for me at church. They cawed at me and then flew away. There have never been crows in this spot before. I usually see Raven's quite often but these were definetly crows. I have seen some since then and there are always two of them. I am sure they have some message for me.















There was no real message here I just liked the images I had.
















I started this page by gluing down some old paper and putting gesso on the page. I then used Portfolio oil pastels. At first I didn't like it at all but now the color is really amazing. I put a layer of gel medium over the top. The photograph really does not capture the color well at all. I was going to draw or collage on top but it was time to clean up and go home for the day.
















I had signed up to do this collage with a group but I have failed miserably at doing them on time and so forth. This was my first try at using images that many other people also used.


The interesting experience that I had while working at someone else's house was that I was limited to the items that I had brought me. It really forced me to be creative in a different way. I found myself challenged and had to jump out of the box a bit. I ended up with new ideas that I never would have thought of before. So try limiting your available supplies and see what you end up creating.

















Todays drawing is a Tibetan woman but she really didn't turn out the way I planned but I think the Big Draw really is helping me do better faces. Hopefully you won't get tired of seeing them.