Little castles

Sharon over at All Norah's Art has been doing these paintings with this tall houses or castle. I thought I would try one. I think she is painting the entire piece. I took a little different tact at it. I had the entire background spray painted. I made my houses with collage papers and some stamping and paint on top. My lady's face was done with Shiva paintsticks and the rest Golden fluid acrylics. It seems I always resort to using painsticks when the face I paint is not turning out.

One of these days I will remember that if you do the same thing the same way you get the same results. I think its time I watched Paulette and Sharon's videos on painting faces again. Maybe it will click this time.

Have a wonderful Fathers Day!

Tree Flags

Warning: these are addictive.

Sharon from All Norah's Art posted a video on making these and I couldn't resist. I picked up some medium weight cotton fabric and cut it into 3" wide strips. Sharon used a micron pen but all I had was a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens so I used that to draw the ladies or tree sprites as I like to call them. Then just as Sharon did I used Caran d'Ache neocolor II watercolor crayons to color in the areas. I used a small filbert brush and water to bring out the color. I was only going to try one but as you can see I couldn't stop. Check out her video on the process here

I have to admit this was the most fun little art project that I have done. The possibilities are endless. I had to force myself to stop doing them or I won't get the laundry done or cook any dinner and so forth. I think I will go out and tie them on some of my trees now.

Here they are in their new natural surroundings

The Apprentice

As you can see I don't mean the Donald Trump reality show. Its Somerset Studios new special issue magazine. Yes its fantastic, yes you want it I know you do. I found mine at Barnes and Noble. It has some things I thought were too basic but others I want to try right away. Sharon has a great article in it. One thing I have never managed sucessfully is doing transfers and their are several artists in the magazine doing them. So its time to try again.

My friend Kate and I were paying hooky from our writing date at the Villa. It was too nice outside to be in a dark cafe. It must have been 50 degrees with the sun shining and the bluest of skies. We planned to go to lunch instead but stopped to see if B&N had the magazine yet. It was funny to see both of us reading our copies while we waited to get a table at Johnny Carinos. It was a fun day enjoying the weather. We ended up at the Art museum seeing a display of prints done from copper plate etchings. Quite a process that was. It was a great day.

Tomorrow I am having major dental work done so I don't know if I will be blogging for a few days. I am having 6 crowns done and have no idea about how long the recovery time will be. I imagine I'll be sleeping a lot in the next few days.

Day 23 - favorite artist

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As part of 31 days of Art Journaling with Misty we are to choose a favorite artist and do a page like them. I chose my friend Sharon Tomlinson who works with napkins a lot. She makes it look so easy but I know its not. Sorry the picture is crooked, its late and I am too tired to take another picture.

A little painting

As some of you know I really like Sharon of All Norah's Art. I consider her to be a real art sheroe to me. When she taught this class and showed her students work I thought, I'd love to learn from her in person. Since I can't do that right now I decided that I would pretend I was there and try to do a little face with a napkin addition on my own. This was done on a 6 x 6 gallery wrapped canvas. I used Golden heavy body and fluid paints, shiva paintsticks,some craft paint, stamping ink and Stablio marks all pencil.

I have debated showing this or not. You see I was not happy with it at all. I kept trying to fix the eyes and the skin and the lips. Then I would make it worse and try again. At one point I almost put gesso all over it. Then it started to get a little better and although I still see a million flaws I figured I was finished with it. I decided to post really because of the Big Draw. Doing all those faces and looking at ones I did last year I can really see some improvement. I think that will come with the painting if I just continue to practice it. So this little one will be my starting point that I can judge others by. I find that I really feel better about my work when I can see what came before and how far I have come. Go look at your old work and see if you don't find the same thing.