Beaded Flowers

I mentioned doing beading in my last post. These are some of the flowers I made. The pot is about 2" high and the larger daisies are not quite 1 1/2" across. I also made some roses but they are not in an arrangement yet so I'll share them later.

Art Everyday

During Laure Ferlita's Foundation To Journaling class I made a calendar page. Everyday during July I put a red circle around the date if I did anything artwise. I also wrote down the main thing I did. I managed to do something everyday! It feels good to see every day marked off.

This month I probably won't be able to do art every single day since I'll be visiting family and doing lots of things they want to do but I will try to do as much as I can.

If you want to take her Foundations class you'll find a new one starting up tomorrow. Hurry over and sign up. It was a super class and you CAN do what she teaches. Really. Give it a try.

A Grateful Heart

While I was browsing blogs I came across a pretty picture with a quote I liked. It turned out the quote belonged to the blog author so I asked if I could use it for my journal. This is the page I made with it. Watercolor was laid down, some flowers collaged on and some penwork. Now I won't forget the quote. My word for this year chosen at New Year's was gratitude so this fit perfectly. You can see Jennifer Maroney's blog here.

Finished a Class

I've been taking another class. This class was called Foundations of Journaling and it was taught by Laure Ferlita. As you know, I've enjoyed some of her trip classes. Well this one was just as good! I've posted most of the pictures we did but not all of the exercises or pages. We covered a lot of ground and had a lot of fun. Again, this is another class of hers I highly recommend.

Now I am moving on to her Explorations class. She has room for a couple more people. See, she keeps her classes small so you get the attention you need. Why don't you click the Imaginary Trips button on my sidebar and see what is being offered. Hurry if you want in the class that is starting on July 20!

A July Challenge

Sarah at Curious Crow is challenging herself and anyone who wants to join her during the month of July by trying to do things to stretch and grow beyond just sketching in a sketchbook. I've decided to join her and the picture here is my first piece I've done. This is for day three. I would have done day two but it was to use the primaries and make a color chart. I've done a color chart which I will be posting about soon but it was for a class I took and since I just did it recently I didn't want to do another just yet. Day one was to add paint or collage to some of my journal pages just to present a challenge when I use those pages. The picture here has a piece of testing-out paper glued onto the page. It was sitting on my desk when I needed to add that collaging so I used it. Then I wondered how in the world I was going to incorporate that into a page.

So how did I do it? I used ink to draw my picture. I used some purple for flowers. I used the grid I had around the top red square in the window on my little adobe house which I drew from my imagination thinking about how it should look and using what I've been learning in watercolor painting with Laure Ferlita in her classes. I added some swirls to another corner and although all of that didn't fit that strip of paper in completely it no longer looks foreign either.

Why don't you check out Sarah's blog and see if you want to join in?

Continuing With Fake Journal

I know the Fake Journal month is long past but when I get an idea I am going to continue to add to my journal.

I was looking through my newest book I bought Drawing Lab For Mixed-media Artists by Carla Sonheim and I realized I bought it because I enjoy her fanciful, fake animals. Then I picked up my papers I was using for my fake journal and saw a bird on the top piece. So, I picked up a pen and doodled it out. It's a fake for sure so I decided to add it to my fake journal as an official entry.

Animals in the Desert

I rather enjoy watching the animals around our place. I saw these crows in the yard and wondered why they were hanging around - until I went out to water my apple tree. They had pecked apart every apple and torn off many of the branch ends! Couldn't they have just eaten ALL of a few apples and left everything else alone?

The bunny is so cute sitting in the shade of our tree. I'm sure he didn't expect to see me come outside with my camera but then they've surprised us a few times too. We now surround all new plants with chicken wire because the bunnies decimate them. They have even chewed off many lower branches on our oleander bushes but drop them when they realize they are poisonous. Once my husband opened his car hood to see why the car wouldn't start and there was a cute little bunny who had chewed the spark plug wires!

I still like watching all these animals. I don't know what to do about the apple tree. We built a garage to keep our cars away from the rabbits and rats. I have foil strips hanging from my tomato cage which is up on our porch away from the bunnies but evidently not the birds! I sure hope I get a few of the tomatoes.

Journal Page - Celebrate?

I was clipping words and pictures out of a magazine that I thought I could use for journaling and ended up making a quick page. I thought I'd share it with you. This is just some cut and paste work but is a lot of fun at times.

C is for Color

I got the new book The Journal Junkies Workshop. Using a few of their ideas I made this page. I've previously done a page for the letter A and have started (barely) one for B so I decided to do C here. Since this uses mixed media I decided to post it on this blog even though it is also on my drawing blog.

I used watered down acrylic for the watercolor looking background hoping it would somewhat seal the page. This is done on drawing paper and the paint was watery enough to soak the paper and bleed through to the other side almost ruining my page there. Adding watercolor pencil lines, I had to rewet the paper to blue them out. Then I let it dry and stuck with drier stuff like a photo I took of a flower in my daughter's yard and some butterflies from gift wrap. A little inkwork and I called it done at least for now.

I think my next journal will only have watercolor paper in it. I like painting on the 140# but it's so thick you can't get so many pages in a single journal. Could any of you tell me how 90# paper works for doing wet backgrounds concerning bleedthrough to the other side? I don't mind buckling as it flattens some when the book is pressed close.

Baby Birds Have Hatched

The baby birds have hatched! These are the two not-so-cute-yet babies! In a week they'll love so much cuter. I'll try to catch another picture then.

Imaginary Trip to England

It's been another fun trip with Laure Ferlita. This time we went to England and what a comprehensive trip we had! We went to some pubs of which I painted my favorite. We went to a national park in Wales called Snowdonia. Touring some interesting neighborhoods was part of our trip as you can see by the house and castle doors I've painted. Seeing some historical stuff like a ruined abbey and Stonehenge were even part of the trip as going to the palace and seeing the changing of the guards.

Exciting and I learned so much about sketching with watercolor. I encourage anyone who has wanted to try watercolors but has been too afraid to hop onto one of her trips and have fun while learning. She is starting up a couple of general (no trip this time) classes in watercolor journaling also so click on that Imaginary Trips logo button on the right and join us.

Fake Journal - Page Seven

I know Fake Journal Month is gone (and I only did six pages for it) but I've decided to keep it going and when I see or think of something fake I will add it to my collection. This drawing shows something so very fake it is hideous.

Now mind you, I am not slamming all TV dinners. I love the Marie Callender meals and both are made by Con Agra but some like this Bangquet are simply trash. Reading the ingredients the chicken patties are made of chicken, soy and lots of other stuff. I don't mind soy. I eat it in my Jack-in-the-Box tacos I think but here it does not taste good and if you look at what you get nutritionally you'll find it quite dismal. Many of the calories come from fat. By the way, the veggies they show on the cover are MORE than what I found in the dinner. I tasted it and threw it away. Really. Marie Callender dinners have lots of real potatoes/rice and vegetables with a small amount of real meat. They are very different items and I was shocked to see they were both made by the same company. Worse, I go to the store and see some old men (they are older than me so they are OLD) buying huge stacks of the Banquet dinners when they go on sale. Can't beat 88 cents can you? Well maybe if you want some food....

This time I used a dark brown Pitt pen and watercolors to paint in my drawing. I didn't think the watercolor would work so well on the inked background but it turned out fine.

Note: If you'd like to be able to draw and paint like this and better then look at my previous post about a class on journaling here.

Dove's Nest

The doves that built a nest in this tree last year are back. This year's nest looks rather flimsy to me. I sure hope the parents know what they are doing! The eggs arrived some time about a week ago. I don't know the exact date. It looks like two eggs again.

Journaling Class Coming Up!

If you've been thinking about journaling and thinking about watercolor with it especially then I would like to send you over to Laure Ferlita who is offering a beginner's and not-so-beginner's journaling class in June and July. The link is here and it looks mighty good. The picture here is one of Laure's and it's along the lines of what she'll be teaching. And don't even think you can't do it! I've taken her trips classes and she is a great teacher. Her classes are loads of fun and worth the money. I am signing up for the journaling classes myself just to have more fun and more guided lessons as I am not quite getting what I want on my pages yet. Will I see you there?

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers. It's a quiet day for me with my husband still recovering from surgery. I spent the morning drawing this sketch, then baking a Burnt Sugar Cake which I will have to eat all by myself since my husband doesn't like it and there is no one else around. Aw, poor me, lol. Then I went back to my sketch and added gouache. Now, what to have for dinner is the question. It seems today is mostly art and food for me! My son called to say happy mother's day and I am waiting for my daughter to call later. Life is pretty good.