Some art while I was away

Even though I was at a conference I did manage a little work in my journal. This one had the spray painted background already done.




















I played with some collage elements over some spray painting.




















This pen and ink was fun to do just doodle my way through a lecture.




















I tried another castle/princess drawing in pencil. These are more fun to do in color.




















I drew in the notebook that I took for writing too.




















Another face I drew in that notebook.

Sarah is here for a short visit to renew her license and go to the dentist and all that jazz. Its great to be able to see her again so soon.

CED Drawing in Ink

Its time I posted something for Creative Every Day challenge. While I was in Yellowstone Park this past week I managed to do a little drawing.




















This is a ink drawing I did of the Yellowstone picnic area where we stopped to have lunch.




















These were some examples from a book that I trried to emulate. Now I am ready to try some from real life.




















This is a drawing I finished this past week, I really liked the way she turned out.




















I drew this one in while relaxing in the same picnic area in Yellowstone.

Investing in Yourself

My weekend trip was great. We had beautiful weather and I took lots of pictures. I will show them in a few days when I get them all sorted out. The new lens on my camera was fantastic.

On Thursday I pulled a muscle in my left arm and shoulder that was really painful. Being in Yellowstone before all the facilities were open was a handicap. I had to wait till Monday to get it checked out. After a trip to the doctors today I discover yes it was only a muscle pull. Now I have some meds for the pain and a muscle relaxant to take. Prognosis is if its not better in 10 days then I will need a MRI. I of course am hoping that the meds and some time will heal this. I was afraid I needed shoulder surgery so I am happy that is not the case.




















I realized I had not done a journal page in some time so I finished this one today. I see the up stretched arms of my silhouette as a way to embrace life. I found it cathartic to write out ways that I might embrace life more fully. Is there one simple thing that can you do to make your life more fulfilling?




















While I was away this weekend I drew these two ladies.




















I had a pre coaching session with Jamie Ridler and it was wonderful and enlightening. I really look forward to working with her in the coming month. I think it will be a great investment in myself. Now that is interesting, its easy to invest in many other things like art supplies or classes or redecorating a room but how often have I invested in myself. I know this really feels like a great time to be doing this. Have you invested anything in yourself lately? Maybe now is the time.

A few faces on the way

This was drawn at church a few weeks ago, just another face.



















Here I was trying a little girl using a painting I saw on the net for inspiration.




















I drew her in the car while I was riding to the Wool Trek on Saturday.




















I used a different kind of pencil here. It was more an experiment of trying the pencil than anything else.




















Just for fun I drew this bicycle. I call it Amy's bike because Amy was driving the car I was in and she rides a lot. Of course her real bike looks nothing like this.

Sue Bleiweiss posted this fun project on making books out of cereal boxes. It sure looked fun and easy. I ave been saving cereal boxes to use for ATC's but this is another great way to recycle an everyday item for Art. I love that idea. On the site she links you to there are a whole group of projects you might find interesting. She and Terri Stegmiler have a site called Two creative Studios where they offer classes and some free projects. What fun things they are doing.

The Next 90 Days

I was on twitter this morning and my friend Jen Louden posted this link to a blog called A box of Crayons. I really liked what the author said. Its about looking at how the first 90 days of the year have gone and start thinking about the next 90.

At first thought I really don't think they first 90 have been all that great. If I don't take control and make some changes my next 90 could be more of the same. I think I would like to make the next 90 days extraordinary. How about you.


















Here is a drawing I did while at the Doctors office yesterday. I like her eyes, they are a little different than I usually do.

My friend Kate and I are going to have an Art Date today. We'll play in the studio with paint and paper. I am not sure what we'll do but I think it will be fun. I need to start making my matchbox shrines for a swap and then Karen at Art in the Garage has a great tutorial on backgrounds that you make into ATC's. I might try that, I think I have a cereal box that is almost empty.

CED some faces

I drew some faces while watching the Oscars the other night. I have no clue why one side of the face is darker than the other.


















The other drawing I did would not photograph well so I tried a scan. The arms look funny here but not in the original and the scan looks to light. I have yet to figure a good way to photograph graphite drawings.

It seemed like I had something to say when I started and now I am at a loss for what it was. So I will either edit this later or just leave as is and do another post when my memory comes back.

Some more sketches

I managed two sketches today. One while listening to the sermon at church,





















The second during a forum talk afterwards. Another sketch of a mother daughter. I think I will do several of these and then try to paint it.

Since I started using this large sketchbook and doing drawings in it I somehow feel more like an artist. When I was drawing in church the person next to me commented that she thought I was really good. It was nice to be complimented and I did say thank you but I also said that I was learning. In hindsight I think I said that to excuse any mistakes in the drawing but on the other hand its true I am learning I am teaching myself to draw by drawing more. So maybe I did own myself as an artist today.

I have been watching a series called the Impressionists and it tells the story of Claude Monet and his contemporaries Renoir, Bazille, Manet and Degas. It is really fascinating to see what they had to go through for their art. They were so ridiculed for their styles. I have seen episode 1 and 2 and look forward to the rest.

CED - some sketches and a painted face

My entries for Creative Every Day this week. the first was done in a moleskine journal.




















... the second an artist sketchbook. I have been looking to try new poses so I have been using paintings of other artists as inspiration.




















... and this one I did using some of Sharons work as inspiration. I am trying to do the 2 women she did as friends as more a mother and daughter look. I find it hard to show age on a face. Do you think one looks younger? I think I will do another sketch and try to have the mother have her arm around the daughter.




















I decided to paint another face in my journal
trying out a new fluid color for the background. for a shade of purple I think it is more magenta like.














and a picture of the kitten for my daughter.

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

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.