Christmas is Near

WOW!!!  Time is passing faster and faster....I am trying to keep up with my Facebook and Instagram and will be looking into StreamZoo after the Instagram photograph ownership nonsense.  I haven't really done much in the way of art but I have done some creative things that keep me calm.

I gesso'd up some cheap large sized playing cards and made myself an art journal card.  It is about the amount of money that I spend on food!  I have to say that I am glad that I have the food chain credit card and I use it everywhere.  Really though, I do which I had bought shares instead!  However, I was thrilled when I got $310.00 worth of free groceries!!!  Actually, I couldn't help but tell everyone who would listen.



I had fun doing this and it all started out with ripping out a page out of an old telephone book!  It happened to be a page with No Frills on it (or fondly referred to No Thrills!).  Then there was a piece of junk mail that arrived from the Heart and Stroke!  I cut out the bundles of Canadian currency.  That put the next thought in my head of just how much food costs me each year! I added some images from a magazine and some melted ink images from another magazine.  I used acrylic paint, ink pen, oil pastels gel medium and watercolour, and metallic ink pad with purchased stamped swirly image.  Do I really need to add that it was lots of fun!!


Although I was very busy trying to get Christmas stuff done after my husband went in for double by-pass surgery in October...I had a chance to make some Christmas cards.  It was a bit of a assembly time production but each one was unique.

I forget where I got some of the ideas from but I used recycled paper for the image on the front of the card.  I used acrylic paint and things from around the house to make the marks.  The sky and tree were made from some paper that had been used at the store to wrap some glass jars.  The only purchased thing was the stamp to make the "cloudy sky".

I had some envelopes that had come in the mail and used it as my "snow".  

We had a great day!  My hubby and I did the food shopping for Christmas and stopped off to visit some friends.  Heading to visit family tomorrow for the holidays!!

Proto-types and Inktense fun!

I forgot to post the pencil drawing prototype to my perfume bottle below!  Bummer!  Afterwards, I realized that I had not measured the bottle properly;  the size of the upper glass piece and the lid size is off enough that it looks like a hat!

I still have a fondness for the glorious pencil!  There is nothing like it really: simple, easy to use, no need for a lot of expensive extra's.  The most expensive thing about this form of art is your paper or sketchbook!  At least my final coloured drawing has much better proportions.

I had time to enjoy a "play day" several days ago!  I love getting my hands dirty from using art materials.  In this case gesso and Inktense blocks.

 I really like these blocks because once the water dries the colour is permanent. It is permanent because it is "ink"!

I should have purchased the larger size but I didn't have the cash at the time!  So if you are thinking about going out to make the purchase...if you can afford it I highly recommend that you purchase the extra colours in the 24 pack.

I am using an old coffee table book purchased at a charity shop.  It is cloth-bound and has sewn signatures.  I ripped out some of the pages to make room for collage fodder.  On this page I slapped on some CHEAP gesso to cover up most of the photographs and printing on the page.  Then, I rubbed the Inktense colour blocks down randomly on the page.   As you can see, I broke some up to the size I wanted.  Once that was done that, I dipped a wide brush in water and slapped in on to spread the colour.  There was so much water that I let some of drip down the page.  

Bottom line, I had fun!  Not too sure where I am going with this yet but I do like it.

I have always been a camera bug!!

I have been spending a lot more time on Instagram and I have enjoyed it very much so far!  I joined or follow POPYACOLOUR challenge so it will make me take and post daily!  I need routine and at least all the photo's I take then have a place to be instead of being schlepped over to my external hard drive never to be seen again!

For some of the challenges, I have made some art.  Simple things but artful expression nevertheless.

I drew this with pen and then added the oil pastel afterwards.  Not sure if I like the result all that much but it is a drawing and I posted it anyway!  I find that if I don't do some sort of art for a long period of time then I get what one might call "withdrawal pains"!    It was fun to complete something in my sketchbook!

Life Changes

Life can imitate the change in weather....one day it is one thing and the next it is something altogether different.

Life can be slow-moving and very enjoyable.  Then again, it can speed up and become a whirlwind, a tornado of sorts

I am so glad that my husband is home from his heart surgery.  He is quietly watching television so I decided to take time out for myself today.  I did this drawing.  I can see now that my perspective is slightly off but it has been a dogs age since I have picked up a pencil so I will not be too hard on myself

I don't know what I was thinking when I started this because it didn't orient the drawing on the sketchbook page properly.  Regardless, it is simple 2B graphite pencil drawing with some smudging and voila...a graphite sketch of a Champs elysees eau de toilette bottle.  I love perfume bottles but find that the new minimal plainness of todays bottles very boring to draw.

I had forgotten how hard it is to make glass look like glass especially the shadow created by glass.

Pen and Ink Sketch

I am a bad, bad, girl!!!  Try as I might, I seem to be having some difficulty keeping my own pledge to write here often!  The month of September seems to have gotten away from me somehow!

I haven't been doing too much with my art these days either but I have a couple of drawings that I have been able to complete!  Pen and ink is quick and easy!  I have left all of the marks that if I had drawn it in pencil I would have erased much to keep the drawing "pure" and error free.

I would like to "redo" this and see if I can improve my drawing.  However, I have to say that I like it for all of its "imperfections" too.  I think that often we shy away from drawing or even from posting one's drawings because they are "perfect".  I fall into this category too even though I try to espouse the fact that I am free from self-doubt!

This is a very small drawing....but it in fact, for a "sketch" it took longer than I had thought it would.  It is hard to get the shading that I wanted so that the hat would look like a hat and not have that flat look.

This drawing was created using my Strathmore Mixed Media journal and a Sharpie pen.

I am so happy that I did take the time to make some wild Oro grape jam from the fruit that grows wild around our house!  I had fun and I loved taking snaps of the results!

Where did summer go?

Wow!  It has happened once again!  Time has sped up and flown by! I can feel fall already and nature's harvest is becoming more apparent.

These wild grapes are ready for picking!!!  I will be heading out shortly to do just that!  I am in a jam making mood.   I am itching to get out there and get started.

I have been enjoying using Instagram lately!  I just love some of the fabulous photographs that people post there.  Amazing really!!

Here is a quick sketch that I water coloured overtime the Sharpie pen marks.  It has been such a long time since I have been able to find the time to put my pen to paper that I was just so thrilled to have done this very small drawing.  I can be negative about all of the mistakes that are clearly visible but I can't beat myself up too much since I am so very "out of practice"!

I was leafing through a Vogue magazine and found this model with an intriguing face!  Of course, this isn't the exact replica of her face since I drew this free hand because I just wanted to get some marks down on the page but I was happy never-the-less!  I have touched it up a bit more to darken the hair and the jacket.  I can't hide most of the unwanted marks so there is not much point even going there at all.

I had a watercolour paint set for quite some time that I had never used.  I got it out and was happy with most of the colour.  Not to thrilled about the skin tone but I will have to work on my painting skills as well as the drawing.  Regardless, I had fun!!

So off I go now to get my supplies together and get canning!!

Experiment in digital art

The pace this summer has been brisk!  I think that I have missed way too much summer this year; it feels like it has passed by me in a blur. The nature of time is marching by me and before I am aware days and weeks have past and summer is technically almost over.  At lease for all those people who need to abide by that calendar; parents with kids and all that.  This week was the first anniversary of my fathers death, so that kept me down a bit!  Really though, it is because I worked too much overtime this year; my greed got the best of me so I will just have to face the fact that it was my choice.

Also this week, I got some very nice comments from my fellow postcard swappers! I just think that it is so awesome that these small works of art can make there way to like individuals all over the world.  I mean I got mail from Singapore and New Zealand; how cool is that!!! Definitely the power of the internet and of course I have to give a shout out to snail mail!

Earlier this summer I tried my hand at distressing some paper pages from National Geographic using Citrasolv (only available State side).  It was fun to do; slapping the solvent/degreaser on the page and viola; you never can tell what the results might be.  It all depends on the colour of the ink on the page and the amount of degreaser that is applied.

 I found a new app and I was able to piece some of these pages together ....

I like how I was able to "collage" these different pages into a whole.  There was even an area to add comments as show above.  I put it in the centre of the image for ease of placement.  I really like how the Citrasolv moves the ink around on the page and as in the case of the two pages on top the solvent left puddles of ink leaving some cool looking marks and circular shapes.

For the above page on the left, it seems that I didn't add enough solvent but I do like the way it left some of the image.  The face page had the symbol of Route 66 on it and it left a mirror image on this page after it dried.  I thought that it looked kind of cool too.  I don't think that any of these pages have anything to do with each other; I just added them together because they had a similar colour palette.

I definitely will have to play around some more with it.  I'm not sure how I got turned on to using the PicFrame app but I saw a YouTube video.  I would love to watch it again because I have forgotten some of the tutorial but as you can see I have the basics down pat.

I used some of the left over paper pieces in some of the postcards I made for the last swap.  I might just have to investigate this some more for the next one!!