WOYWW #3

i got a late start today and didn't get to my desk or to my WOYWW until now.

my workspace this evening with the best socks ever!  i'm watching a video of tamara laporte for background inspiration because this is one of the spreads i have been stuck on. i plan on working through that tonight. remember, if you'd like to follow along with WOYWW you can do so here.

what it my journal spread looks like, this evening, as i begin working on it.  

collaging with some torn up pages of a book.

layer of watercolor crayons.

and since it's dinner time, i'll stop here and let this dry.

and i am so excited to be a part of tangie baxter's free art journal pockets class! things are coming together and i can't wait to start creating. come on over and check it out!

WOYWW #2

is it wednesday again? so soon?

where is the time going in such a hurry?

either way, i love wednesdays, it's time to nose around the desks of some of my favorite bloggers and see what they are up to! you can follow along by visiting the awesome julia dunnit's blog stamping ground.

i haven't really posted anything since saturday but i have been busy sketching faces in my art journal. i'm trying to retrain myself to draw faces and i'm starting to work on adding emotion to faces, slowly. 

i am loving it. there is nothing more cathartic than drawing a face to me.

so, for starters i've shared a better picture of my corner of the den.

i don't have the windows open fully but the morning is my favorite time to be out here as the light is the best!

 

the airplane you see in the upper right hand corner is not mine. my love builds them, puts electronics in them and flies them. he recently ordered an airbrush machine and both of us are so excited to see it come in. i'm looking forward to learning how to air brush a multitude of things from kids faces to those planes!

anyway, back to my corner and what is on my desk at the moment.

about to start shading faces.

a closer look at my favorite girl from over the weekend. inspired by tamara laporte and her fabulous faces class. i took a shot at this girl when i first started drawing and it was honestly pretty hideous. my inner critic has issues with this one too but she is leaps and bounds better than when i started, of course. i'll see if i can dig out the journal it is in for a throwback thursday post tomorrow and you can giggle with me.

i can't wait to start shading this one.

a couple whimsy girls from over the weekend. i actually started this one last week but didn't get to finish it until this weekend. much of saturday and sunday was spent on the couch watching football with my love and my art journal.

i'm experimenting with some different shapes in my whimsies.

 

this is another one i can't wait to start work on, it's not much at the moment but i have a lovely spread envisioned for her.

the ideas i have for this spread is heavily inspired by tamara laporte and a recent piece of hers called sister smoke.

this one was meant to be a whimsy but she has evolved into a round faced angel thanks to my 4 year old. i was sketching her last night and my daughter asked if she was an angel. i added a halo and rough wings and  said yes, she's an angel. i love when that happens!

i simply can not wait to use some mixed media techniques on the wings especially because i haven't been able to draw wings as of yet.

and lastly, another sketch inspired by tamara laporte and another recent work. i'm really looking forward to some of the classes on my wish list for the fall. learning solid background layering techniques can only help me out at this point.

i'm really having some issues with the positioning of the nose and mouth on the 3/4 face. i'll get it, though, if i have to resort to looking up videos or seeking out my old notes.

so, there you have it. that's what is on my desk today. what's on yours?

current favorite song to bounce around the studio to, macklemore's "downtown".

 

happiness is...

paint covered hands!

i spent the whole day spilling. it felt so good, to be warmed by that spark again. i just soaked it in, all day. i felt busy and accomplished today, and then dinner time comes and i look up from my art desk and realize... i haven't washed a dish in a whole day!

and so, it begins.

i started off with a layer of white acrylics and some stamped images. since i do not have a brayer, i'm using an old credit card to scrape and pull the paint around.

i love adding layers upon layers of paint, collage, and stamping.

on top of that went some pink acrylics. 

i love adding layers upon layers of paint, collage, and stamping.

i took my watercolor crayons to the background. 

i REALLY love this and i was seriously considering stopping there. i didn't...

some more white acrylics and some more stamping! 

i absolutely adored this spread at this point. i so should have stopped right there. i didn't...

 

well... this was supposed to be a very small amount of light blue craft acrylics. it turned into a mess! i liked the page as it was right before this little... we'll call it an explosion, but this is a great lesson in making the best out of mistakes and a beautiful photo op!

i heart paint covered hands

  so, to fix it i pushed and pulled some more white acrylics around the page.

yes, her little star got all ruined with the water i applied to wipe the blue layer down. i substituted.

 

a little drip drip drip and i'm happy with this spread again. 

i'm really in a good place here. *EVERY* mistake is fixable in art journaling.

yeah, i think she is pretty much done. i think she has come together really well. i have some words for the page. i'll work that out later tonight.

i'm excited to move onto my next spread, i've already got the inspirational spark.

 

successful spilling

another late post. however, i feel rather accomplished, i have "spilled" daily and posted the results almost daily since the night i cleaned my desk off.

i've been busy tonight and i should be sleeping but i spent a relatively lazy sunday cat napping on the couch and watching football because i wasn't feeling well for the most part. so, now i'm not tired.

i have a few classes i've paid for and made very little headway on in the past two years, but i really didn't feel like taking on those challenges tonight. tonight i decided to tip-toe my way into a free class offered by the very awesome tamara laporte called art, heart, & healing in hopes of providing my brain with a much needed refresher of many very basic techniques.

well, here's what happened.
but first, for fun...

mmmmm a brand new knead-able eraser. you know you want to smell it!

the beginning of the first project requires one to write down all the things your inner critic says on one of the two pages of the spread. all those nasty hurtful things that make me feel a whole lot less like a barefoot glittery princess. i've shared the spread but only after covering the page with gesso, because, while i love to share my art with people (because if i can do it, so can you), i am much less keen on the idea of sharing just how nasty and mean my own inner critic can be. plus, the idea here is to write it down, get it out of your head, forgive the inner critic, and then cover it up with paint and make something beautiful out of it.

so, onward!

yay for putting the smack down on the inner critic.

opposite page of the spread is where i start my drawing. i am supposed to draw a girl that represents me. represents. she will not look anything like me.

ugh, i haven't drawn a face in over 3 years.

face complete, sorta...

i had A LOT of trouble with the nose, this trouble did not relent.

i really like to draw stylized and whimsical girls, so that is where i am headed.

yeah, mitten hands. what about it? i can barely draw a nose and you want hands? pshya!

so, my watercolor crayons, acrylics and i just aren't getting along whilst i shade this face. time for some... fun!

one of my FAVORITE mediums, prismacolor pencils and a blender.

after much more back and forth on the face, i reached a stopping point that i was relatively happy with. now you can see the direction i am going in.

done! (for tonight)

sure, she is far from perfect and there is A LOT of work to be done still. but i am a happy girl at the moment and my inner critic has been (mostly) quiet all night.

the post-dated-post

today flew by. i didn't make much progress at all and i forgot to post, so forgive the post-dated-post.

added more stamped stars and circles, this time in permaink. i didn't let my images done in water soluble ink really dry before gesso-ing so i lost most of them. these wont be going anywhere.

i decided, go big or go home, or whatever.

layer of blue acrylic.

now THAT, is what i was looking for.

let the blue dry... some. sprayed it with a water bottle and wiped some away.

my art journaling is really about exploration right now. exploration of my insides, exploration of techniques, exploration of cause and effect.

so, though i liked what was going on i slapped some white paint down on top of it, topped with some stenciling in red.

yeah, i dunno. this came out of left field.

wipe down = successfully grungified.

i really feel like this spread has gone full on fourth of july. *sigh* what did i really expect in using red, white, and blue...

i'm really going to have to decide if this spread is done and usable for something independence day related or if i am going to have to keep going with it and take it somewhere else.

so, i reached a stopping point on it but i wasn't done.

 look, purple acrylics in random places.

purple makes me very happy.

and it was time to add something else to this one...

watercolor crayons ftw!

i like it.

something about it just makes me happy.

oh, and... gesso.

yep. done. 

i *DID* crack the cover today

i did. i swear it.

i blended one layer...

i almost want to stop here and work on my girl.

and i laid down a new layer of fine shimmery blue craft acrylic.

this blue did nothing i suspected it would. i'm disappointed.

and the last of that blue paint that i decided that i hate went on a different spread. sad, i like it here much better.

little bear

13 years and september 11th never gets any easier.

however, i have another reason to dislike this date now.

my little bear passed away today. he had been our loyal family pet for 15 years.
he'll be missed so very much.

oddly enough, today was also the first day in literally years that i cracked my art journal and spilled. i had to paint to keep busy because i did not see my little bear this morning as i usually do in the back yard. i've had a feeling all day that something had happened to him. i couldn't find him anywhere in the backyard so i knew he had escaped to the very back yard where the bushes are taller then i am.  my love didn't want me to go out there by myself. he said it was dangerous. spiders, snakes, weeds with pollen that will make me break out on touch. i suspect it had more to do with the fact that he didn't want me to find my dog the way we knew i would. he also knows me well enough to know that my heart breaks when i lose one of my little animals.

he convinced me to wait until he got home. so, i had to stay busy.

he is digging my little bear a grave now that i can see from my kitchen window, i'll still be able to see him every morning. so very sweet of him do this for me.

so, today i turned this page...

this was my very favorite page, painted with a bright shimmery red paint that i no longer have.

into this with a little gesso and watercolor crayon, then i proceeded to copy down lyrics from a song my son introduced me to. i'm not a huge silversun pickups fan, but he is. and he never fails to tell me when he's found a super good song. this is circadian rhythm (last dance).

i hated this page as soon as i finished the watercolor crayons and gesso. HATED. what had i done to the brilliant red page? maybe i should have left it alone...

more gesso...

still hating on this page!

stamped images in permanent black ink...   

nope, still don't like it.

purple acrylics... 

now this, i like! of course i do, it's purple.

more stamping. these images are some of my standard background fodder, and they are stamped in water soluble ink here so when i apply gesso... 

who doesn't love stars and circles?

they blur and mute.

we are certainly getting there...

doodle... spirals are some of my very favorite things to draw.

at this point, i was just desperately trying to stay busy.

and this is where i stopped today. my love had come home and was able to find my little bear where he had laid down to rest.

it needed orange.

i plan to finish this spread for bear, perhaps with a she art doll and her dog or something similar.

look what i found!

it's been a rough day, one that i am likely very lucky that i made it through. i spent most of the day wishing i had a cathartic release. art came to mind several times over, card making or art journaling, but my craft area was buried under about 3 feet of toys, crayons, junk mail, and random junk that everyone in my house was likely just too lazy to put away. i settled for journaling my day away writing about anything and everything that i needed out of my head. but i made myself a promise, when i felt better i would find my desk again under the mess.

i did that tonight.

while i was at it, i dug out my hand bound art journal.

the one i bound some 3 years ago from effy wild's free bookbinding 101 course and has been sadly collecting dust since.

i fully intend to make use of it.

 

and below, a few of the backgrounds i had started way back when...

 

 

this one held a truth that is still valuable advice even (especially) today.

 

 

and inside, my passwords to the many classes and ning websites i had collected before the "art block".

tomorrow is a new day in which i plan to make use of that art journal.