For One Moment - Little Snippets of my Life and Art...

...a Little Mind Yoga Needed some "me" time today so I decided to do a little playing with my alcohol inks.  The brand I used today are the Brea Reece alcohol inks by Memento.  I used Lavender, Mustard, Olive Green and Ocean Green (not pictured) on Yupo paper. I also used Pinata Brass and 91% alcohol along with USArtQuest Duo adhesive and Heidi Swapp foil in champagne. I started out playing with the inks with no real plan in place other than experimenting with just the Brea Reese inks and alcohol.  I didn't use any blending solution or extender today.  I just added dots of color and alcohol and blew them around with my airbrush...pushing the color out and in until I was pleased.  I put a good sized drop of the Ocean Green ink (which is really quite blue) and then contained it by putting a medicine bottle cap over it to keep it within a circle while I played with the yellow and green around it and removed it when I was done and let it all dry ...

Pear Studies #1 and #2 My poor, poor neglected blog.  It's been so very long and I should hang my head in shame.  My only excuse is that is has been a very busy couple of months... I know...I know...that isn't any excuse. All is fine on the home front, summer break is over  and my youngest heads back to school for her Senior year tomorrow and hopefully I won't neglect my little blog. At least I've been able to carve out some time at my art desk,  although I haven't blogged about it. This week I p ulled out my acrylics and did a couple of Pear Studies. It all started with a YouTube video that I watched by Bob Burridge on the Cheap Joe's YouTube channel on How to Paint a Pear Quick and Easy. Then Betty Franks, Mystic Tulip Mixed Media posted some Pear Studies that she had painted following his video.  She posted a couple of videos of her own explaining how she created one of her little paintings. ...after that I just had...

In the Heat of the Summer Had a go at acrylic finger painting today in my Art Journal today. I used the Week 14 Prompt for the Journal 52 Project  - Rain or Shine - which was to create a page about weather or your favorite season. It also meets the Week 7 prompt for The Documented Life Project which was to draw a shape and repeat it multiple times. I call this one "In the Heat of the Summer" I've had a whitish page that's just been sitting in my art journal.  I say whitish because it was a page gone wrong that I covered up with gesso.  The original color was a green Silks glaze and it wasn't quite dry when I covered it in gesso, so it tinted the gesso just a tinge of green.  I had taken different size bottle caps and twisted a bunch of circles in the wet gesso and had left it to dry. I've looked at it several time and wondered what I was going to do with it and so when I sat down at my desk today and opened my journal to that page, I decided I...

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday? Work in Progress...

Hi everyone!  Finally had time to check in and give a short update here on my blog.  School started back a couple of weeks ago, and life has been hectic getting everyone back into the school routine.  Although I haven't been posting on my blog, it doesn't mean that I haven't been at my art desk.  I've made quite a few Birthday Cards and Get Well Cards this month, but didn't slow down to take pictures before I sent them on their way. I also joined in with PaperArsty 3UP Challenge   on the PaperArtsy Blog.   Every participant was sent a little bundle of goodies to use. Included in my package was their Nut and Meg 7 stamp set. As the little elf didn't have a body...this proved to me a bit of a challenge.   For the first piece I used the small Hanging Chunky Board that was also included in my package.   The package also included a color swatch that we were supposed to use so that all the projects posted the same ...

Blogalong 30 Posts - 30 Days Art Washes Away Decided to play in my art journal today.   There was a page that I created a few months ago that didn't quite feel finished  and when I was mounting and playing with my Zettiology Stamps the other day,  I knew one of them would be perfect for that page. I sat down with my supplies and just played.   I didn't think about what I was doing, or how it was going to look, I just dabbed, rubbed, painted and scribbled.   I'm thinking I like it.  Love the big dust balls being washed away!

Happy Birthday Tracy Weinzapfel! May has been a special month at Mixed Media Mondays with Tracy Weinzapfel  as we have been celebrating her birthday with a month of fun! My gift to her was this 10 x 10 inch canvas and just as promised in the sneak peek in  this post , here is a look at the completed project. A list of the products I used will be at the bottom of this post. I started out by spreading on a layer of  101 Artist's Cement Light on my canvas and impressing it with  stamps and bottle tops, etc. to create texture. Next I started adding layers of paint. ...with each layer adding a bit more depth and dimension to the canvas. Here's a little closer look at a portion of the canvas showing the texture created in the Artist's Cement and some of the layers of colors.  Several more layers of color were added after this shot was taken.  While layer of paint were drying on my canvas, I cut a heart out of a heav...

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday ? Just a quick peek at my desk today.  I'm working on a project that I can't really show yet...so I'm just going to show you the what I've used so far and one little tiny peek into the project. If you want to see what everyone is up to for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday , check out  Julia's Stamping Ground and take a peek at workdesks around the world.  I'll have to take some time to do that later tonight, since I've on my lunch hour and headed off to a Board Meeting in just a few minutes. I promise I'll be back with a complete blog post once I finish up the project and it has been delivered. ...and here is a little peek at the project.

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday? ...as for mine, I took a bit of time to paint earlier this week and the remnants of that are still sitting on my desk.  I've been taking a free class from Kat McBride called Let's Paint Fabulous Faces! and I finally got all the right paints and brushes for the class and had the time to actually try my hand at it.   I want to be able to add little faces into my journaling and art and I'm hoping that with a bit a practice I'll at least get  faster  at painting, as it took me forever to get this far.  I like how she looks so far though...so I know it is just a matter of practice, practice and more practice! My son brought home his prom pictures yesterday and they are sitting there waiting for me to divide them up so he can give part of them to his girlfriend. ...and there is also a lovely postcard from a friend in a postcard exchange group that I belong to that came in the mail yesterday.  It has a wonderful litt...

Saturday Morning Gelli Time! Took some time this morning to play with my Gelli Plate by Gelli Arts .  Boy was that fun!  Time slipped away as I layered paint and pulled print after print from the plate. I had started out the morning with a headache...and somewhere along the way I realized it was gone!  Gelli Printing worked better than a pain pill!! Here are just a few of the prints I pulled.  I played in all kinds of colors...but I did realize I need to make or buy a lot more stencils.  You'll notice a few Eiffel Tower and pig prints in the mix.  My youngest daughter loves purple, pigs and the Eiffel Tower, so we have decided to do some artwork and to write a children's book with illustrations called Purple Pig in Paris.  I cut the pig stencil and the Eiffel Tower stencil and these are my first attempts at putting them together...still have some more stencils to cut and planning to do before we do the final prints. Just another sho...

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday? Whew! I I almost forgot WOYWW !! Crazy busy week with little time to sit at my art desk, but I did manage to pull out my new Gelli Plate from Gelli Arts and throw down some paint one evening.  The papers were still laying on my desk where I had spread them out to look at them after they dried.  Can't wait to dig out the Gelli Plate and play again soon! I'm posting this over at Julia's Stamping Ground for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday. Everyone has been posting pictures of their art desks and let me tell you, it is so much fun to have a peek at what everyone else is working on!  You should check it out and play along!

What a Wonderful World This canvas was created for Tracy Weinzapfel's Mixed Media Mondays  March Creative Dare . The challenge is to create a piece of artwork illustrating one of your favorite song AND to incorporate a button. I took a day off of work today and spent a good portion of it at my art desk playing in my paints and working on my canvas. One of my favorite songs is "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong.  I am always in awe of this wonderful and beautiful world we live in, so that is the song I picked,  ....and f or the button portion of the challenge I used little tiny red buttons for the roses. I'm thinking I should have used some modeling paste  or artist cement  to build up texture in my tree.  Oh well, I'm not going back to rework it. It really was a challenge to photograph once I finished, because I added just a tiny bit of Perfect Pearls  and even though it looks great in person,  it doesn't tr...

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday? Good morning everyone!!  I'm up and at it, getting kids off to school.  I can't believe that it's been a full week since I sat down at my desk...but it's been a busy (and rough) week and I've been productive in other ways. I actually spent some time at my desk last night playing with DecoArt Americana paints and a canvas. It was very relaxing and I even remembered to snap a picture to post over at Julia's Stamping Ground for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday?   You should check it out and play along! I do have to say it was a bit of a challenge though, as both of my Quality Control Officers, Sneakers and Momma, kept walking across my desk to check on my progress.  Luckily I managed to keep them from putting little cat footprints on my canvas. I have something in mind for Tracy Weinzapfel's Mixed Media March Creative Dare and I'm hoping that I can translate my vision to canvas.  So f...