Make art often

 I think all artists should try to make art often. Even if you are not making art to sell, a little creativity each day can spark new ideas that you want to expand on. That is why I like the online classes because they inspire me to try things I may not have thought of.

These cards come from a 21 Secrets class with Kate Crane. It was called Journal Soup. 

 This page is done with sprays, acrylics and cut outs.
 

 Acrylics and collage. The image is one of Alphonse Mucha's designs.

I forgot to add the little red hearts to these angels. They now have them on their dresses. 

Inks and stamps on this page. 

Acrylics and hand made stamps for this one. A little home made collage as well. 

This page is transparent and stitched together. The images are sandwiched in between. 

Another 21 Secrets lesson I have done is with Jodi Ohl.

First we made a journal using an old painting for the cover. This one was my calendar picture a few years ago. Now it has a new home.

This page uses a stencil for the leaves.  The tags were printed and inked then the flowers were painted and cut out before I stuck them on here.

 This page has a tile printed background. I used scrapbooking letter stickers for some of the words. The rest were freehand drawn.  I drew the dragonflies and cut them out for this page.

None of these art journal pages is any great work of art but there are ideas here that could be adapted to larger pieces. I would really like to make a transparent journal.   Maybe soon....

The first week of ICAD is over already.

I have found so much inspiration from ICAD that the week has seemed to fly by. I love the freedom to experiment. If I mess up I just get another card out.

ICAD #4

 This card's prompts were green and recycle. I used magazine ads for all of the page except for a little striped washi tape on the left and some recycled packaging for the word and swirl border.  I colored the packaging to match and added shading with pencils and pens.

ICAD #5

 Prompts: blue and crown. This card was a pen sketch coloured with one Twinkling H2O (blue flame shade).

ICAD #6

 Prompts: indigo and paisley. I sketched the paisley pattern in then colored it with Koi watercolors. The watercolors didn't blend as well as they do on regular watercolor paper but I don't mind the blotchy look.

ICAD #7

Prompts: violet and calligraphy. I used to play with calligraphy a long, long time ago but haven't done it for ages.  I never had the discipline to do all the practice so I was only ever average at it. This challenge saw me getting out my old pens and cleaning them up so I could play again. The ink ran a little because I colored the card first with distress stain and it raised the grain on the index card making the surface a little rough. I don't care because it is only temporary art but it is something I will consider for other cards.

If you haven't signed up for the challenge yet consider it now. It is never too late to join and is 100% free. I am following the prompts but you don't have to. Some people are stamping, painting, drawing, collaging and doing all sorts of things. I am getting tons of ideas from others in the group that will keep me busy in my journals for years to come.

ICAD 2013

blank index card

So what is ICAD 2013 I hear you ask? It is a challenge by Tammy Garcia to create some art work on an index card each day for the months of June and July. I will post the link on the right. There are no rules other than the work must be done on an index card either 3 x 5 inches or 4 x 6. The reason for this is explained by Tammy but basically it frees you up to experiment because if you really don't like what you have done you can just start over with another card. You can use lined or plain cards, tabbed or not. I am using a selection of lined and plain cards from my stash in the 4 x 6 size.

There are prompts posted on the challenge page but you don't have to use them if you don't want to. I am using them at the moment. The weekly prompt was colour and the one for this card was wallpaper.

 I did use distress stain to colour the card first for another idea then changed my mind. I decided to use fiber paste to create a raised effect. I placed the stencil over the card and spread fiber paste across it using an old credit card. When I carefully lifted the stencil off I was left with the flower design on the card. I let it dry for a couple of hours.

Note: if you don't have fiber paste you could use texture paste, molding paste or even a thick gel medium. They will give you a smoother finish.

 I then used twinkling H2Os by Luminarte to paint the whole card. I let this dry for about an hour.

The next step was to spray the card with Lindys Stamp Gang spray in the Jolly Roger Red shade. I sprayed it quite generously while it was flat and left it to dry overnight. The sprays are a lot darker when wet. When it dries the spray collects around any textured areas and highlights them.  It also washed some of the watercolour off the raised areas.

I like the finished index card. It reminds me of an old piece of embossed wallpaper.

#1 This card was the first one I did using the prompts colour - red and zebra.  I sketched a zebra from a photo then painted in the stripes with twinkling H2O (hot cinnamon shade). I then sprayed a little water along the bottom and watched the colour spread. Simple technique but very effective.

#2 This card used the prompts colour - orange and candyland. Another experiment using twinks and black pen outlines. I think in the future I will be using some of these cards as a jumping off point for a journal page.

If you are interested in joining in it is not too late. Check out the link on the right.

Stitch and paint

Another 21 Secrets lesson I did was with Joanne Sharp. She is known as the lettering lady and taught us to stitch over our writing. We made an embroidered journal cover for a hand made journal. I love lettering and embroidery so this was a lot of fun for me. I used an old art quilt for the background.

 Ro Bruhn had us using the inside of envelopes to make flowers and backgrounds for our journal pages. I didn't have many envelopes to use but I have now collected a few more designs.

Another part of Ro's lesson was to use fun foam to make stamps. I made these daisies and used them to do another journal page.

21 Secrets 2013

I decided to join 21 Secrets again this year because there was a lot of new artists that I hadn't heard of before. I still think this type of mixed workshop is the best way to test out an instructor's teaching method and find out whether it suits me.

The first lesson I did was  with Dion Dior and concentrated on adding sparkle to your pages. We used Twinkling H2Os, silks, glitter and various other supplies.

The first page is an abstract using all the supplies. 

 

 

  The next page was a simple flower image. 

 The last page was morning glories and spiders web, designed by Dion. The web really sparkles a lot.

The next lesson I did was with Tammy Garcia. It was a watercolour workshop and had a few exercises and a completed journal page. I had fun with this and although I have done some watercolour I still learned new things.

This lesson was about blending the colours. I loved the chance to play. 

 

This lesson was about adding words to the page. I did squash mine in a little, lol. I should have chosen a smaller quote. 

 

 

This bubble writing was fun to do. 

 

For my final page I chose to do a garden theme because I like drawing flowers. I really enjoyed this watercolour playground lesson.

Warning!! Very long blog post here.

I signed up for Life Book again this year because I thought it looked very different to last years class. There were a lot of teachers who I had heard of and would like to learn from.
The class started well and I was inspired a lot but slowly I have become a little disappointed with the way the lessons are going.

The first lesson was with the coordinator Tam of Willowing.org It was a fun lesson with two components.

 

 The next lesson was taught by Christy Tomlinson and was fun too. It is very mixed media and I still have some of the paper we made for it left over.

 

This lesson was taught by Dion Dior and involved white on black with silhouettes. I chose to do a hand with butterflies and I like the way it turned out. 

This lesson was to make some cards with affirmations on the back and put them in a pocket on a journal page. I did that last year and it was too bulky in my book so this time I made more cards and did one large flat page with them.The images are collaged atc images.

 This lesson is another with Tam and involved using masking fluid and watercolours. I loved the chance to experiment with sprays and watercolours.

 
This was not a lesson taught by any one but a simple prompt to put a bunny on your page. I again chose to do watercolour.

 The next lesson was taught by Jane Davenport. It was the same lesson she has taught in her online course that I did, so I found it easy. I continued to play with watercolours and pale colors that are not my usual style. I was just in the mood for that.

 This lesson taught by Danita was about painting over a printed image from a magazine. It seemed a bit basic to me, especially after we had already learnt to draw figures in Jane's lesson. I did it my own way and again went with pale colours.

The next lesson with Tam saw us making rolled paper hearts. I had fun doing this lesson but I prefer drawing or painting something less abstract. 

I didn't like the week 11 lesson at all because it talked about hate and I don't have hate in my heart. There is no room for it with all the love and happiness in there. I chose to ignore that lesson and do one from the Willowing blog about an angel. This is probably one of my favourite pieces so far. 

 The next lesson was a lot nicer and taught by Mindy Lacefield. She paints the most adorable little people and this is my take on that.

 The next lesson was a fun one by Tam. It was quirky birds and everyone seemed to love it. If you look at the Life Book 2013 group on Flickr you will see hundreds of quirky birds.

 The next lesson was a simple page with only writing on it so I have not done that one.  I moved on to this lesson based on stained glass windows with Joann Loftus. It was another fun lesson for me because it is a little different.

 

 I did two designs and couldn't decide which one to do so I did them both at the same time. I was a little disappointed when I finished the landscape because it needed more variation in colour. I realised I shouldn't have stuck with the greens for the hills and should have used some of the pinks and reds I used in the other picture. That would have added life to the image. Next time I will do that.

This weeks lesson is another one that is mainly writing on the page and very little art so I will have to go my own way again. I think that is why I am a little disappointed. Last year we did so many faces I was starting to get bored with it but at least the lessons were challenging. This year the art lessons have become more simplified and I am sometimes not inspired to do the work or I end up doing something that is not anything to do with the lesson. I will continue and see what happens. It may be only these few lessons that are like that. I have enjoyed most of the class so far and would still recommend it as great value for money.

Where have I been? you might ask.

I am sorry I have been away so long. Just a couple of days after my last post we had some major family emergencies that have kept me from wanting to blog. Both are  resolved and I hope, done with for now, so I am back to the computer again. I have not stopped making art because it helps to keep me sane but I just haven't written about it. I finished off the Life Book lessons and I will share that today.

  

This last lesson was taught by Bonnie Rose and was meant to be a self portrait but I just did a girl with wings. I love the way the page turned out and can see how much improvement I have made since the start of the year. I am tempted to redo some of my earlier work but I won't. It is good to look back and see what has changed in my art after lessons with so many different teachers. 

When the teachers were announced for this year's Life Book I could see many changes had been made and it looked like another fabulous year of lessons with lots of new teachers. I signed up because it is so cheap for what you get. I will share some of the work I have done in my next post.