Build Me Up

Being skilled in many different mediums sometimes leaves me feeling fractured at times.  It's hard to know what to do and what to further pursue.  I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I can combine many of my talents and passions.

Woodworking and watercolor painting are my two biggest creative passions.  I did this as an homage to them.  I am currently working on expanding and playing more with the pyrography (wood burning) and painting on wood with wood dyes.  I also need to build a frame for my blue jay feather.  I plan on dying the frame as well.  

Once I have honed this skill a bit, I will give some insight on the process.  Since I am still learning and playing with it, I need to figure out what works and what doesn't.  I am currently in the process of doing a butterfly.  I need to get rid of this cold before I can continue on it since I need to sand it down and I don't want to do that when I can barely breathe. 

How To: Messy Line Drawings

I love, Love, LOVE messy line drawings.  I have been working on perfecting my technique for this and have found such an EASY way to get this look and I will show you how.

First, with either a Cricut, Silhouette, Cuttlebug, etc...start with a die cut.  I have been working on trying to catch up in my scrapbooking and I needed a train, so that's what I used.  Aside from a die cut, you will also need a marker.  I used a 03 (which is approximately 0.35mm thick) prismacolor art pen.  I have done this with fine point sharpies too, but you would need a larger die cut since it creates a thicker line.

Look at your die cut and think about the shapes.  Everything can be broken down into shapes and lines.  Then start with one outline.

When you start drawing your shape/outline again, it doesn't have to be perfect.  The more imperfect it is, the better it looks. 

Keep repeating this same process all over your die cut and once you are done, you have a perfectly messy line drawing that you are going to love!

Creative Exercise: Monsters

I have been crawling out of a creative funk and it feels GOOOOOOD!  I started with cleaning up and rearranging my craft/art room.  I have set forth a few creative goals.  I also just want to start drawing and painting for no real purpose other than to do it because, it makes me feel relaxed.

Today I decided to do a creative exercise.  I asked Colton what I should draw/paint and he said monsters.  Monsters it is!

I started out with a stack of ATC (Artist trading cards).  They are small pieces of art paper that are 2.5 x 3.5 inches.

I heisted the sticky googly eyes from the kids craft box.  I randomly stuck them on the ATC's.

From here, I took an artist pen and drew my monsters.  The inspiration for each monster was all about the eyes.

I then grabbed my watercolor paints and a few markers and brought my monsters to life with color.

I love all my monsters.  It was so much fun and relaxing to make these little monsters.

Does anyone want a monster?  I am willing to mail out monsters to the first six people who comment.  I will e-mail the first six for their addresses, so please make sure I have an e-mail address to contact you with.

Sharing this over at:
Tatertots and Jello:  Weekend Wrap Up Party 
So I Married A Craft Blogger:  Man Up Link Up XII

It's For the Birds

Since my son took an interest in birds a few years ago, I have in turn also taken a liking to them.  I like to photograph them and the two of them research to find out what kind we found.  I haven't done much with the photographs but decided that I would change that. 

I took a brand new watercolor journal and decided that I would fill it with sketches of birds from the photographs that I have taken.  Both of these were done with watercolor, colored pencil and pen.

This Yellow-rumped warbler is one of Maben's favorites, all because it has a yellow butt and he thinks that is silly.  I have to agree.

Drawing

I haven't posted my creative goals for 2013 yet.  I can assure you that one of my goals is to draw and paint more.  I want to do at least one drawing or painting per week.  

The rest of the goals...I honestly only remember one other because, I lost my list.  AWESOME.  What a way to start off with some goals, huh?  My other one is to get this house more organized. 

Want to know what else I lost?  The cute painting I did last week of a robot.  (Can you understand why one of the goals is to organize?)  I think it's out in my car, but right now, I can't find my slippers and the pavement is a little chilly and I don't feel like going out there to check. 

So, I will leave you with the one that I did last night.  I'll post the other one when I find it.

This was completed with sharpie markers, pencil and colored pencil.  I also had some classic rock that has been stuck in my head all day.  That may have influenced part of this piece.

Rock on Steve Miller band and Pink Floyd, may your songs in my head be replaced with something equally as awesome.

Zentangle Bird

I've done some more drawing recently in my Skywriting Journal.  I really am loving drawing in it.  The only downfall is that I wish the pages were thick enough to stand up to markers.  They handle drawing pens fine, no problems with pencils or colored pencils, just no markers, unless you don't want to draw on the page behind the one you are using markers on.

I drew a bird using zentangles as inspiration.  If you haven't tried drawing/doodling with zentangles, it's really easy and fun.  Zentangles are drawing with structured patterns.  Check out the this link to learn how to do zentangles. 

Paper Costume: Tutorial

Maben's school does a vocabulary parade.  It's really fun as each grade level is given different parameters of how they need to choose their word and dress up as it.  For Kindergarten it's pretty easy, their word needed to start with a consonant.  Maben's first idea was to dress as the word, "was."  Yeah, not happening, so he chose, "is."  I explained that he should pick a noun, like paper.  "Okay mom, I want to be paper."  (face palm) 

Since it was my awesome idea, I needed to deliver.  I decided to transform a plain white t-shirt into a piece of notebook paper with a doodle on it.  It's fairly simple and I had all things on hand.

You will need a t-shirt, a ruler and a red, blue and black fabric marker.

I used the ruler to draw a straight line and use as a spacer for the lines on the paper.

Seriously a very easy project.  The most difficult part was to freehand the paper airplane doodle.  I actually made a paper airplane as a reference for my doodle.

Tip that I learned, it's easier to use a soft touch when drawing with the markers to prevent the marker from catching and dragging since the shirt is stretchy.  So, I drew lightly and just went over it a few times.

I heat set the fabric markers in the dryer for 30 minutes on high.  You could do that or run an iron over each spot for 4 minutes.  The dryer was easier.

Maben loves his paper shirt.  He was so incredibly excited to see it for the first time and was probably the most originally dressed up kindergartener.

Most of the kids recycled their Halloween costumes, which I can't blame the parents since our district does not allow dressing up for Halloween.  So, lots of princesses, firefighters, fairies and super heroes, but only one kid dressed as paper.  I couldn't be prouder!

Linking this up at:
Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party
Sew Many Ways: Sew Darn Crafty Linky Party 
So I Married A Craft Blogger: Man Up Link Up

Sun and Nature

I have been drawing more lately.  I picked up the Skywriting Journal to go along with my Walls Notebook. 

I decided to take one of the clear sky photos and create my own sky.  I also injected some quotes about the sun and nature into my colored pencil drawing.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains. - John Muir

Not all who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien

Excuse me while I kiss the sky. - Hendrix

Turns your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. - C. Whitton

Clouds come floating into my life no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. - Tagore

I love the fusion of my drawing mixed with the quotes.  I will definitely be trying this some more.

Decorative Rocks

Last year I painted some rocks, you might even remember my lady bug rock.  Anyways, I had prepped a bunch of the rocks with gesso and never got around to painting them.  Instead of painting them, I sharpied them.

I love the way they turned out.  Most of the colors laid very flat on the surface and didn't give me a lot of lines.  The greens seemed to give me the most trouble, but I don't mind the look of the "lines."

This was is definitely my favorite of the set.  It's Maben's favorite too!  He declared that he is going to take them to school to give his teachers.

I am definitely going to need to do more of these with markers.  It is so much faster than hand painting all the details.

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Splatter Paint and a Bird

Like I said previously, I have deemed this the year of creativity.  I want to push my boundaries and release my mind from the walls I have put up.  I would like to be a little more like Dr. Seuss and whatever I dream of, can exist...at least on paper. 

So, I took some watercolor the other day and put some drips and splatters on a piece of watercolor paper.

Nothing too exciting here.  The lines at the top made me think that I could make an umbrella.  But, there was still something missing.  I figured out what I wanted to put under the umbrella after I captured this beauty at the park yesterday morning.

Once all of it combined in my head, I needed to put it all to paper.  This is what came about and I love it!

Striving for Greatness

I have learned a lot about myself in the last year and a half since taking the plunge and trying to lose weight.  It's been a long hard journey, but I wouldn't change it because of the lessons I am walking away with.  I often felt during this journey that I was alone when all I wanted was to surround myself with people striving for the same greatness that I knew was possible.  I wanted to be healthier, stronger, and smarter.  Because of this I started a Fitness Group within my MOMS Club.  There are several of us that have taken the plunge and are doing a Biggest Loser style challenge that will last 9 weeks.

Last night I stayed up late because I wanted to give each one of my ladies a little card of inspiration.  I love quotes and so many of them are so inspirational and can really lift and change your attitude.

That is one of the things that I have learned during this journey...your attitude towards your goal will determine if you reach it. 

I am hoping that when any of these ladies get discouraged, that they can look upon the card and feel inspired to keep going.