Week 17 - Channel your inner Picasso

This was a really tough prompt for me...I'm not a person that draws well.  I'm just not.  My artistic abilities are barely good enough to clue in my "partners" in Draw Something, but sometimes I like giving it a shot.  And I was thinking, oh, well, Picasso, how damn hard can THAT be?  Harder than you would think!!!

But I took a pencil to one of my backgrounds and started playing around...first, I drew a fish.  Extra fins, an extra tail thing...but it didn't look weird enough, so I started adding some extra facial features....extra eyes, kissy lips.....and I got so excited,












I decided to try a crab.  But first...well, first I had to figure out how to draw the damn thing!  So off to pinterest I went, but of course, being an artist who doesn't "draw", my crab looked NOTHING like any of the ones I looked at for inspiration, but it's Picasso-esque...sort of...maybe, so what the hell?  So, again, I started adding stuff...











Then I decided to try my hand at an octopus...not exactly a spot on rendition, but still having some fun...so again I added the extra features..














and THIS is what I came up with!

And since this is supposed to be about stretching ourselves past our comfort zone,  I didn't redo it and try out some "cubism" that Picasso was big into.   This isn't my favorite spread I've ever done, but I don't hate it.

Week 16-Earth Day

Earth day is this week so we decided to do a post in honor of the date. We take her for granted, our planet. And so many people don't even realize or care that they do it.

I was late getting my prompt done. Weather, legal issues and other assorted things distracted me and had to have my undivided attention, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss this prompt. So here's my take.  

I hope you enjoyed taking a peek...thanks for looking!

Week 15 - "found" poetry

I didn't think about it when I suggested this prompt for the group...found poetry...using letters and words cut from all manner of print sources.  That's all well and good if you have a bunch of sources you can use.  I, however, like pictures...and colors...I buy books for my words...so when I came time to do this prompt, I didn't have anything to cut up.  So, I printed it off on my computer and changed the font for every word....thank God I'm a font ho...I had plenty to choose from...lol.

So, working in my large Dylusions journal, I started work by creating my background using 3 colors....Titanium White, Turquoise and Brilliant Yellow Green...The white and green were Liquitex Basics, while the Turq was Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Series.  So, grabbing my 1" flat Dina Wakley brush, I started laying down color.  Once it was finally dry (got a little heavy handed with my paint) I cut out and added my words, then traced around them with my Scarlet Lime pen, so they'd jump out a little off the light background.

I hope you like the spread.  Please leave me some love, I love hearing from you guys!

Here's a shot of the full spread....I love how the colors just came together on this....now to figure out how to achieve this without using so damn much paint!

This quote....I think everyone of us feels this way at some point in our lives.

Week 14 - Doodled flowers!

This week at Artful Journeys, our prompt is "Doodled Flowers"....after that the interpretation is left up to us....fill the page, use just a few, create a border, whatever!  So, after seeing a pretty cool border on some pin on Pinterest, I had myself a little fun...grabbed my large Dylusions journal, my black Dylusions blendable acrylic paint and my white UniBall Signo and got to work....

I started with a skinny brush...1 or 0 maybe...I don't pay attention to that shit, I really don't...I just grab what I think will work and get to going...I'd make a terrible teacher....but, just so you know, I almost never follow recipes to the letter, either...lol.  I'm always adding shit, or taking something out that I know I, or the kids, won't like...it's just the artist in me refusing to go with the flow.

So anyways, with my skinny brush, I drew/painted a border outline....nothing straight or any of that....nope!  It was all squiggly...looked like something my husband had drawn while on shore leave...lol.

 Once that was dry, I grabbed my white UniBall Signo and went to town!  Of course, by the time I was done, there was more than just flowers in my border, but since there were flowers, I figured that was ok...

So, here's my border and I hope you like it. 

Thanks for stopping by to take a look. Please let me know you stopped by and happy arting, y'all!!!!!

Clarity and a Calendar for April

Every once in a while, I shock the shit out of myself with the art I put onto canvas and in my journal....today was really no exception to that, except that there wasn't my usual string of cussing when I screwed up!

So, I grabbed my large Dylusions journal and started off by gluing down a bunch of paper scraps, then adding paint....

As you can tell, I am not afraid to use some color...and a lot of it!  But, to be honest, looking at it like this makes me kind of nauseous...lol.  That's a lot for a brain to take in right there...but I knew that was only the beginning....the 2nd layer as it were.

Next, I used a homemade "mask" to create my flowers, then put white gesso down between them.  Of course, there were a couple of times, when I got carried away and painted right over one of my flowers, so I had to repaint them, but all in all, not too terrible.

Next came the black....This was the total tip over point for me.  Those flowers didn't just jump off the page, they exploded!  This layer took the longest...mainly because when I first went in with the black, I used my acrylic paint, which dried shiny and tacky, and I did NOT want my page ruined by the damn thing sticking to itself, so I went back over it with black gesso.  I really love gesso...so helpful!

Then I grabbed my white uniball and made little dots all around all the flowers...so far, so good.  But it was still lacking a little something.  Stamps!  I wanted to add some stamps...something I probably should have done BEFORE I did all the painting around the flowers, but you know....hindsight is 20/20...so I grabbed my flower and a piece of copy paper to make a "stencil".  Lining it up over the flowers I then stamped thru the stencil onto the page.

Now I'm getting somewhere!  I don't know if it's finished yet, or not, but I do love how it's looking so far!  Here are a couple of closeup shots....

I have to say, while it's not my first time doing a page like this, it is the first time I've set out to do this, and I am so pleased with the results.

And, since it's a new month, that means a new monthly calendar in the journal....This one was actually quite a bit of fun....Purple and white...that's it...just 2 colors of paint, some scrapbook paper, a punch and some rubber stamps.  In my creative frenzy, I got carried away and punched AND glued down 31 squares for the month of April.  This was right after I'd done the how many days in a month thing in my head...go figure...I blame shit like this on my teenagers...it's more fun than saying I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed...lol.

The big stamp in the bottom right corner says "I love Paris in the spring time"...I don't know if I do or not, but maybe one day I can find out....I'm going to say that I probably do...I can't think of too many places that aren't made perfect by Spring.

That's what I have for you so far this week.  I hope you enjoyed looking...please leave me some blog love so I know you stopped by!  Thanks 

Later, y'all!