An artsy kinda weekend

I have managed to do a couple more spreads in my altered art journal this weekend. Yesterday I played with a sort of 'doodle page' using spray inks and stencils and lots of doodling. This was totally inspired by Christy's Eclectic Art Journal class. It's great to have some pages prepared ahead of time and then sit and mindlessly doodle while watching tv in the evenings. I did this one while I was in the middle of a True Blood-athon this weekend.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night so I worked on another drawing of a girl from a magazine. I think there's enough likeness there that you could tell I used it for inspiration. But at the same time it's definitely not a realistic portrait by any means. She turned out kind of somber looking so I made up for that with lots of happy colors and cute flowers made from book pages. What can I say... I like the irony.

I plan on getting back to Rhomany's Portraits 123 class just as soon as I get my son's grad party off the ground next weekend. Until then, I will just continue doing pages like this just for me when I have time this week (which won't be much). I like to be able to sit down and really concentrate on class stuff when I work on it.

I drew something today!!

I know, I can hardly believe it myself. It's been so hectic around here I either haven't had the time or when I have I couldn't muster up the motivation to. I'm taking this weekend off of anything graduation related though and come Monday I'm back at it until after next weekend's party. Then other than babysitting one of the grandpunkins a couple days a week, the summer is mine to play with my art supplies all I want.

Anyway... here is my drawing. I put it in my first altered book journal. It's an old human development text book from the 70's I believe. The first page happened to be totally blank so I didn't do anything to it before I started sketching. Now I'm half afraid to screw it up by trying to paint or color her because I am actually quite pleased with this drawing. I've been going thru old magazines and picking out pictures I like that I might try drawing and this one really caught my eye.

This drawing was JUST for me. Not for any of my many classes and workshops I'm taking and not for any other reason than I just wanted to. I've been kind of stressing myself by allowing myself to feel behind in everything. There are no deadlines for any of these classes and they are all open for whenever I want to work on them. But for some stupid reason I sometimes let myself get all caught up in feeling behind or like I'm letting someone down. Who? You got me! LOL  But no more of that. I'll finish all my classes at some point. Art is to be enjoyed and I'm not going to stress about any of it anymore.


I also did a random page in one of my Eclectic Altered Journals from Christy's class. It's an old catalog. It's mostly collage and doodles and I really enjoyed playing on this one. The images make absolutely no sense together but I liked them all because they were bright and eye-catching.

UPDATE: I decided to play around with a monochromatic background for the girl I drew today. I used doilies for a stencil and and my ink sprays over acrylic. It's in my nature to really goop this up with a lot of stuff but I really think I like this very simple background with her and I like the idea of leaving it just as it is. I'm sure I'll change my mind a dozen more times or so because that is also in my nature! But for now I like this and it just needs some journaling. 

Catching up

I've been busy the last couple days again but not so much that I couldn't get a few artsy things accomplished. I played around with a couple faces yesterday. They aren't all that great because I was just quickly sketching on some excess book pages I have from altering a book for Christy's Eclectic Altered Journal class. But at least I'm somewhat caught back up with 29 Faces with face numbers 15 and 16.

I also doodled some flowers and played with my new Prismacolor markers on the book pages. I have a lot to learn with the markers yet. I only have a set of 24 but it's plenty to play with. I really like them so far. I played around with some of my sprays and stencils yesterday too with those book pages. I have SO many book pages I have a lot to mess around with. I will use these in my Eclectic Altered Art Journals... or somewhere.

One more thing I've played with is finishing the couple bound journals I made for my youngest daughter. She keeps a journal now that she's a freshman in college. Just a writing journal. She's not so much into the art thing at this point. But I made a couple coptic bound journals for her with plain copy paper and they turned out awesome. I recycled some boxes for the hard covers and used a roll of white paper I have here for the little ones to play with to cover those with and then used markers to doodle the cover. The second one I left plain for her to decorate herself. I am so tickled with how they turned out and want to make some for myself as well.

I'm not sure what it is about binding my own books that I love so much but I adore the process. I could easily just keep making them and end out with way more books than I'll ever get through so I guess I have to find more people to make them for!

The next thing I need to catch myself up with is Rhomany's Portraits class and the latest Art Geeks prompt. I've fallen behind again. I think that catches the blog up for now. I should be able to get some play time this weekend to do some more before next weekend's big graduation craziness. My baby is graduating. The last one! I can hardly believe it.

Finally some play time!

I took my time getting myself motivated to do any sketching today. The coffee just wasn't doing its thing! But once I got started I have been on a roll. I put this charcoal sketch in a recycled art journal I recently started. It's not the greatest but it'll do. I played with some sprays and stencils in it last night before I got too tired and just decided to do the sketch there. I used a few pan pastels for some color. Two more to go and I will be caught up with 29 Faces again.

I am hoping to get started on Rhomany's Portrait's 123 class with my next faces. I joined this class earlier in the week and have had next to no time to even look at it, let alone work on any of it. I did watch some of the videos last night though and I have to say this is probably one of the better portrait classes I've seen yet. Very thorough and well organized! I am looking forward to diving in and getting started with the exercises.

I'm also signed up for Christy's Eclectic Altered Art Journals class coming up on the 15th of this month. I am chomping at the bit to start that one! I love making hand-bound journals but I also love the idea of recycling things I already have here or can get free or cheap somewhere. I was at the Goodwill store yesterday and bought several books to use as altered journals for this. I also got some sheet music there and an old dictionary to use the pages in my journals. In the meantime while I wait for the class to get started I've tried a few things on my own. I'm a little unsure of how successful I am with it at this point but it's all learning, right?

Yeah... this art journal crap has pretty much taken over my life. :)

Journal love

Looking at my journal this morning makes me so happy. I made this journal by hand and I absolutely love it. There are four signatures in it and there is only one signature left to fill up with artsy goodies. I have another one already put together and waiting to replace it once it's all filled. I will be looking for another cute charm to dangle off the binding like this, too. I honestly didn't think I would keep up with this but I am loving the whole art journaling process. :)

Six of 29 Faces

 I am up really late once again tonight. This time not necessarily by choice. Yes, I'm still dragging ass from the insomnia last night but tonight my son just HAD to go to the midnight Avengers movie with a bunch of his senior buddies. I'm sure I could go to sleep if I wanted but I still like to wait up and make sure he gets home ok. Yes... he's still going to school tomorrow. Morning should be fun!

 As much as I was dragging my feet about doing this 29 Faces challenge, I'm really having a ball with it. Most of these are going in my first handmade journal. It's going to be all filled up before I know it.

I had this partial background already started so I decided to put my next face on it. The colors were bright like my last spread so I wanted another bright and fun girl and I think I succeeded with that. LOL  She turned out a bit wacky but I love her. I put some texture in her hair with Golden glass bead medium. Love that stuff! It's hard to tell in the picture but her peace sign on her choker is purple glitter (Love my Stickles!). She's probably not quite completely finished yet because I think I want to do a little journaling on this page but I will save that part for morning.

#4 and #5 of 29 Faces

This spread will count for numbers 3 and 4 of my 29 Faces for May. It is also my Duality spread for Art Geeks. I haven't done much in the way of painting over a big goobered up background before. I used to always paint my face and then put a background in later or as I go. I really actually liked this process a lot. I love having bits of the background coming up through the girls.

We all have different aspects of ourselves. I'm sure most of us have even more than two but I combined pretty much the positives on one side and the negatives on the other. I try to be a pretty positive person and when I am positive I am quite happy. But on the other hand I can also find myself in this sad and lonely place because of certain circumstances. I try very hard to not let these things take over me. And this is precisely why I used bright and happy colors throughout... on both the positive and negative sides. Because I fight it! I fight it every day and will continue to do so til when hopefully I won't have to fight so much anymore.

Anyhoo... this is probably going to be it for the day. I'm BEAT from not sleeping so great last night and I did this big spread and some chores around the house AND went out to lunch with my youngest daughter and some of her friends before they went home (from college) for the summer. Long day already!

#3 of 29 Faces

I can't sleep tonight for some reason. Probably because it's a little too warm for my liking. But I like to turn that into something positive so I decided to go ahead and do my third of my 29 Faces. I'm not always this productive when I get a bout of insomnia but I try to be. It tends to happen a lot in the summer time since the heat doesn't agree with me so much. At least I'll be filling up a lot of art journals that way!

This face was done in my coptic bound journal that I made to do Suzi Blu's journal workshop, A Lovely Dream. I LOVE these journals! I use Stonehenge printmaking paper for them and I really like that paper for how affordable it is. It can take a beating with the mixed media! Anyway this face is serving a dual purpose. It is my third of my 29 Faces and it is also my Lesson #13 project for A Lovely Dream. She is done in mostly Pan Pastels. I have limited colors I can use for skin tones so it was a bit of a challenge but I think I made it work. I mostly used white and a darkish brown as well as a magenta. I definitely need to work on my writing. I am not too happy with that part of the portrait but it'll do.

If I'm not too worn out tomorrow from being up so late tonight, I hope to work on the next project for Art Geeks. Duality is the theme.

Second of 29 Faces for May

Three posts in one day and it's only just now lunch time! Raging cramps and all... I'm gettin' things done today dammit! LOL  I had a fold-out flap in my journal that just had a painted background on it and it needed a little something so I decided to use that for my second face for 29 Faces for May. She is just a simple charcoal sketch with just a little bit of Prismacolor pencil for details and I added some stamping to the page and left it at that. Cute and simple. I like that some days.

Now I suppose I should probably get to some "real life" chores now that I've spent the morning playing with art supplies. But who knows, I may get in another project before the day is through.

Finished Angel

After a few cups of java I went straight to my art desk and worked on painting my first angel with watercolors. I don't find watercolor quite so forgiving as a lot of people do. I think it's probably because I don't really have the proper techniques down yet but I will continue to work on it. I wish the photo showed my pearly paints though. I used them in the halo, the wings, and the banner. Maybe I'll try and get a better photo later.

I'm not sure straight watercolor will ever be my thing. I do admit that I used some Prismacolor pencils to help this painting out a little bit. Also some pen as well. And I probably will continue to do so as long as my watercolor paintings look as messy as they do when finished with the watercolor part. I just can't leave it like that so in comes the mixed media! I put this angel in my art journal instead of making a painting for display. I may keep practicing though and try working on one to display eventually.

First of 29 Faces for May

I didn't get done as much as I would have liked to yesterday unfortunately. I ended up going to visit my youngest daughter in her college dorm yesterday instead of working on my first angel for Angels in my Studio. I did, however, get the sketch done so she will be my first face in 29 Faces for May. I do hope to get her painted today though. I don't have much else to do around the house today since I got myself caught up yesterday.

As much as I love my cooler seasons, I am loving the slightly warmer weather we're having. If for nothing else, I love that I am able to start wearing dresses again! I love the new(ish) maxi dresses and bought myself a bunch of them several weeks ago and haven't been able to wear them much until now. It's actually supposed to be a little TOO hot for my liking today... in the mid 80's. Ugh! But hey, at least I can wear a cute dress, right?

A new beginning...

I used to keep a blog once upon a time. I just looked and it's been two years since the last time I updated! That's a long time! I thought I might just restart that blog back up but the more I looked at it the more I just really wanted to start fresh with a new one. I've changed a lot since then. My style has changed a lot since then. My obsessions have even changed a bit since then. This past year as brought me a LOT of changes, not just in blog form. So yes... I will be starting fresh and this is where I will share my latest obsessions. And lately that is art and art journaling.

My latest finished project is this "madonna-ish" woman. I was thinking a lot about and feeling a lot of gratitude on Sunday when I made it and this is just what I ended up with. She is done totally in oil pastels smooshed around with my fingers. The best way to do art, I think! I used funky colors on her and I'm pretty pleased with how she turned out. She could be better but I'm not going there. I will just keep plugging along and practicing.

Soon I will have a link up to some of my other finished projects thus far. I also need to finish my first face of the 29 Faces challenge for May. I am using my first watercolor angel from Angels in my Studio that just started up this morning. I was totally NOT going to do this challenge but after watching all the talk of it in some of the Facebook groups, I just couldn't stand it anymore and I decided to give it a go. I'm hoping to get caught up on some of my other projects by doing the challenge. Here's hoping anyway!