Bewilderment: Daily Art Journal Page

Hey guys! What's going on? For me, not a whole lot. School has been going good, although today, right before lunch, they had a major pocket/locker search. Six people had their phones confiscated. It kind of stunk, because everyone was storming around in a rage for the rest of the day. None of it really applied to me, because I never have any problems with the rules at that school anyways, but apparently some people do. I don't know. Anyways. Let's focus more on the art now, shall we?

I decided to do another portrait today; for what purpose, I have no clue. For some reason, I've just really been enjoying doing these pages. However, they do take quite a bit longer than any other pages I might do. Because I'm trying to get a recognizable subject matter, rather than a bunch of colors and patterns that look good together. It's not that abstract doesn't take work. Because it does. Definitely. However, for me personally, it comes a lot easier than realism. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I am very impatient. Not necessarily in a bad way, so that I can't wait at all in everyday situations. But when it comes to art, I like these things to be quick. However, if I can see progress, then I might be willing to spend more time on something.

This page took me two hours to create. When you start at 8:00 in the evening, that can become quite the ordeal. I enjoy doing it however, so I make time.

I used another quote today, which I seem to be enjoying. I'm not quite sure what led me to these, but I find that often times another person can express, with much more precision, what I was thinking. Today's quote is as follows, as I realize that the above photograph is slightly difficult to read:

"Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid."

I'm not quite sure why this felt so applicable to me today. It kind of goes along with how I've been feeling about some of the life situations I've been dealing with. However, it would be very difficult for me to try to explain, and I'm sure you people don't want to hear about my high school drama. :P 

Anyhow. I'll leave you guys today with a bit of detail shot of both the background and the face itself. The color and shading of the face is built up of many, many layers of paint; probably around 20-25. Also, I did it all with craft paint. I know a lot of people think it's not worth it to use cheaper paint, because you can't get the same effects. And maybe that's true. Maybe you can't get the same effects. However, you can get different effects. And sometimes that's what makes something unique.

I've also felt myself being drawn to these brighter colors as of late. Maybe it has something to do with my mood. Maybe it's about how I want to feel. However, any way I decide to take it, I do know one thing for certain. And that's that I like it. It's different, that's for sure. Perhaps it's not what I normally do. But maybe my style is developing. Maybe I'm changing into something new. 

31 Hearts: Day 2 + ATC Challenge

Hey everyone! Jordan here, and I'm back with you guys again today with yet another post. I have quite a few projects going, as most of you know, that I am continuously working on. I have quite a few things to show you guys today. The first thing that I want to show you guys today is my 30-30-30 page. 

This page is a bit more neon than I'm normally used to, and I really like the way that it turned out. The basis of this page really came from the photo of the girl. I got that photo out of a magazine, and then added a couple of other items to the page. Along with the watercolor background. And after that was done, the page was pretty much finished. With this journal, I'm really focusing a little more on the collage aspect of the page, rather than the painting aspect of the page. I'll find my own mix eventually. I'm just having fun with the experimenting aspect of it.

And here we have some ATCs that I made. I made four today, and I'm starting a challenge. For myself at least. If any of you guys want to join, feel free to post a link to your blog in the comments. Anyways, what I'm challenging myself to do, is, in the month of July, make 101 ATCs. I figured all of the math out. I make four a day for eleven days, and then the rest of the month, I make three. I don't think that it will be too difficult to do. Since they are so small. Plus, I can use up leftovers when making them. That's just a plus. 

If anyone wants to trade for these, let me know. As a group would be preferred, to save on postage.

And here is my 31 Hearts page. This challenge has been pretty inspiring to me thus far, and I'm really enjoying it. I love starting new challenges because I always get a fresh new flow of ideas, which I love. This page was based around the concept that I was talking about yesterday. The original thought was that I should create a colorful, patterned background, and then use black to mask off a heart shape. That's not quite the way that it turned out though. What ended up happening is that I used blue/turquoise paint instead of black, and, since I liked the way that the page looked without covering all of the background, I decided to leave it like that. Then I added the title, and that was that.

Something else that I worked on today was my Summer of Color: Week 4 Colors. The colors were a light pink and bright, summery yellow. I made a few more papers than this, but I didn't take a picture. I do love the way that they turned out though. The colors however, are a lot more vibrant in real life. I don't know why it didn't transmit very well to the screen.

And finally, last, but certainly not least, we have my ICAD for today. I did a bit of a collage today, without any paint at all. I decided to do it this way, because I wanted to sit in front of the television and lounge around, but I knew that I still had some stuff left to do. So I did this while sitting in front of the T.V. And I do like the way that it turned out.

ALSO, tomorrow, I'm going thrift store shopping with a friend of mine. We'll see if I find anything good! If I do, I'll be sure to post it on the blog. :) I'll be back tomorrow, and hope to see you then! Bye!

Color Challenge #2 Reveal: Barbara

Hey everybody! I'm here with my first post of the day. I may have another one for you guys coming up later tonight, with the rest of my art (My ICAD, 30-30-30 Challenge, and In The Sun post). But for right now, what I have for you guys is my color challenge REVEAL!! I've been working on this challenge pretty much every day since I announced it here, and have really enjoyed it. The colors were lime, light purple, red, pale yellow, and white. Barbara and I decided to do this in a bit of a larger scale than I did last time with Dede. With that challenge, we gave ourselves a week to create one art journal page. And that was cool. But for this challenge, we gave ourselves two weeks to complete five projects. It was a little more time consuming, but I love the results! So let's get on with it!

The first project is a page in my art journal. This is my big, fat art journal with the black cover and green spine. I don't know if I've ever put a picture on here of just the journal, not the pages inside of it. Maybe I should think about doing that. And perhaps a flip would be in order. That way you guys can see about how much I have left to do before the journal itself is done.

Anyways, focusing more in on the journal page itself, let's look at a close up of the page. You can probably see that in the very back of the page is a background that was composed solely up of dictionary paper that I tore up and then collaged down to the background in all different directions using Elmer's School Glue. It actually works just as well as Mod Podge from what I've done so far. Which I think is impressive. Though it could just be me. Anyways, with this page, I actually decided to blend the concept of this page with another challenge. A Year In the Life of An Art Journal. I really wanted to do all of the prompts for this part of the challenge, but I simply ran out of time in the month. That's okay though. There's always next month. :)

And here you can probably see the stamping a bit better. I used my circle stencil, along with 3 found stamps to create these circles. Something that I find popping up again and again in my work is circles. Whether it be deep inside of the layers of a page, the main focus of a page or accents ON a page, it seems that everything that I make these days has at least one circle on it. And if I don't want to use circles, it takes quite a bit to pull myself away from them. It's crazy. However, I have learned to accept it for what it is. Part of my art. And I'm not going to try and change that.

Here is the second project that I did for this challenge. I decided upon a spread for this portion of the challenge, and tried to do a portrait. I don't like it as much as some of the other portraits that I have done in the past, but I believe that to have something to do with my limited color pallet. I couldn't deviate too much from the colors Barbara and I had picked together, so I just went with what I knew would most likely work. However, this did inspire me to work more on my portraits, as this is certainly not my favorite. So I guess it was kind of a win-win situation anyways.

Also, just a question. Does this background look familiar to you guys at all? :) I slipped you guys a sneak peek a few days ago, I just didn't tell you. If you are still wondering where it is, you can click here to see. :)

One of the other projects that I decided upon was a series of ATC's. I decided to count this as a single project, instead of three. I suppose I could have done it either way, but I had some other ideas that I had floating around in my head, so I decided to go with those as well. So I created these three ATCs, simultaneously, as part of a series. They are not identical, but they go together. I would LOVE to trade these! One of my goals for my DayZero Project is to trade 101 ATCS. I am currently at 0. Even though this is only three, it'd be cool to have a few at least.

Here's a bit of a close up of the first ATC. It is titled "TAKE ME TO THE LAND OF JAZZ." As you can see.

Here is the second ATC.

And here is the third. They are composed of many layers of media on top of one another.

Here is the fourth project I came up with for this challenge. I decided to do a mini collage; it measures 6" on each side. I made most of the papers that this collage was composed of as well. The only one that I didn't make was the red grid with the lime circles showing through it. I painted the papers specifically for this challenge, and I still have a whole bunch left over. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with them, but it could be one of many things. Something that I love about this collage though, is all of the little details.

For example, this layered circle that was composed up of multiple layers of paper and paint on top of one another. I love the way it turned out, and is was so much fun to work on. Plus, I love the way the stamped title looks when it was layered with the circle.

Here's another part that I love. I laid down a stripe of lime green paint down onto the page, then punched circles out of the red graph paper. Then I glued it on top of the green. Then, of course, I added the red to the green, and the layer of red stamping along the side. And the lettering. Can't forget that.

Finally, we have the red circles that I added to very bottom to accent the pale yellow and purple background. I tried to go without putting something in every spot, but I just didn't like the way that it looked. So I filled it up. And I quite like the way that it turned out.

And then, for my fifth and final project for this challenge, I have a little mini "canvas". If you follow me on twitter, you might have seen this picture. I was giving you TWO sneak peeks. ;) I wanted to see if anyone would notice, and then put two and two together. Anyways. I was greatly inspired to create this "canvas" by this post. And, the reason that canvas is in quotes, is because it's not actually a canvas. It's a box. A little cardboard box.

You can see that a little bit better here. It has a bit more depth to it than normal canvas. But I really like the way that this one turned out for me. I used pink words on this, instead of one of the colors, but only because I couldn't find any that matched. And this just looked good.

And THAT my friends; that was my color challenge reveal! I hope that you guys enjoyed it! Make sure to check back later for another post. :)

Graphic Art Journal Page

Today I've got another unfinished page for you guys. This happens all the time, I know, but I'm just hoping that you guys are liking it too. :) I just like sharing. This page is a very graphic type of page, which is very different than most other pages that I have done in the past. Normally, I do a bunch of layers, which will eventually end up looking pretty cool. But this was inspired by a class on 21 Secrets, which I enjoyed while it was still alive. Now that one is dead and I'm being forced to work from the PDFs. :) Actually, I don't care as much as I'm trying to make it sound. I think that it's fun, and forces me to use my imagination more than it would otherwise. Also, the colors of this page are a bit different than what I am used to working with. I enjoy using pinks and purples on occasion, but it seems like I'm using them more and more lately because that's what I have left. Yeah. That's the way I roll. Anyways, because it's getting kind of late, I think I'm gonna go. I know that I don't have that much for you today, but I'm hoping to come back tomorrow with a tutorial. We'll see. We will see.

Watercolor Spread

Hey guys! I'm here again with you guys, and so far I've been doing pretty good on the whole daily posting deal. I know that I generally have been posting later in the day than I have in the past; maybe when we have breaks at school and stuff it will be a little bit earlier. I know that I don't have that much to share with you guys today, but I'm going to give to you what I have. I only have a single spread. On this page I used a bunch of stuff that I bought yesterday; some of the watercolors and acrylics, and I did a lot of experimentation with different brush strokes and scraping some white paint over top of the page. I'm sorry that today's post isn't all that long, but that's all I've got for you guys today. TOMORROW however, I'll come at you with a nice and long post. :) See you guys then.

Paper Towels and ICAD Card

Hey guys! I'm here with you guys again, and, even though today's post is a bit shorter, I'm kind of excited about it, since I pretty much love everything I'm sharing. I worked on quite a few things today, but these are the only things that I'm sharing today. 

Let's start off with the index card, shall we? I think we shall. 

Today's index card is a fun one; most of the ones I've been making are kind of bright and in your face. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that... it's just that I wanted to try something new.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. So today's index card is quite a bit different. It's darker.

The background (the initial base) is a technique that I've been working on perfecting.

I know, I know.

Another technique. You're probably sick and tired of hearing of me inventing new techniques by now.

But then again, maybe you're not. Maybe it depends on the person.

Anyways, getting back to the initial subject.

My index card background. I was working on taking some paint (I've been trying out student acrylics), and actually mixing them directly with glitter.It takes some manipulating;

But you CAN get the paint to show...

As well as having the glitter show too. It's tough though.

That's why it's a technique in process.

And not a tutorial.

Anyways. Again, getting back to the index card (Sorry about my rambling).

After that I actually went over the top of the whole card with plain black poster paint.

Then rubbed it around with my fingers. I thought it looked pretty cool.

After that I simply stamped the word "Dance" in the corner.

And colored around the edges with a glitter crayon that one of my friends sent me.

Another thing that I want to share with you guys are a few more paper towels. 

Yep.

More paper towels.

I'm sure you guys are probably sick and tired of paper towels by now as well.

Or then again, maybe you're not.

I tried a couple of the suggestions in the comments of this post.

Including one about using the paints undiluted.

And it worked like magic!!

See.

This is why I have a blog. Without you people, I wouldn't know WHAT to do.

You can see a couple of the towels I did above; 

A cool black flower with an orange and blue background. As well as some green and blue 

pieces in the back.

I think you can see them.

At least I know I can. *shrugs*

Another idea I saw in the comments was using FOOD coloring to dye the towels.

I personally thought that idea was GENIUS.

So far I haven't gotten to it, since I've been so busy with volleyball.

But I will get to it. I will. I swear.

Speaking of volleyball, my first game is actually tomorrow. Wish me luck.

I think I'll probably need it. 

Actually, if you're a reader of this blog, you'll probably notice I'm using a new format.

Do you like it?

Let me know. 

ALSO!! THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!

If YOU are interested in doing a one-on-one challenge with me,

Like I did with Dede,

Let me know in the comments. 

I'm looking for a new partner. Okay.

See you guys later. Comment away.

Some ATCs and A Gouache Experiment

Yo. I'm back once more, and I've got some more arty goodness to share with you all. So I guess I'm just going to jump right in there and get it done. There is a sheet of playful/just plain random doodles above. I was really bored and sitting at the dining room table. I grabbed some colored pencils that just happened to be sitting there and just started to doodle out some random stars, circles, etc. onto the paper in different colors.

For the most part, I hated them, and was just doing it cause I was really bored. But as I continued to work on them, I sort of became more attached to them. I started to like their wonky quality, and didn't care that they weren't perfect. Now I really like them. I'm probably going to work with this a bit tomorrow. I was thinking of using it for either a collage paper for an art journal page or an ATC background. Or maybe both. You never really know 'til you try it you know. That's just how I roll. Not knowing what coming next, or what I'm going to get rid of. I'm more of a spontaneous person myself, if you can't tell by now.

And I know that you guys are going to totally scold me for this, but I started another project. I know, I know. It's wrong. I haven't even worked on the knitted cable gloves I pretty much started this blog off for a long time. But I tell you the truth, those are going on my list of things to work on tomorrow. I promise.

So anyways, getting back to the topic. I started a new crochet project. It's a basic single crochet afghan that serves several purposes. One is that when it's done it's going to be really warm. That's pretty much a bonus. Another thing is that it's really easy. I just chained about 150 stitches, then single crocheted up from there. It's a scrap project. I specially started it just to use up those little balls of scraps that you literally can't do anything with. I know I already have two of these types of projects started (I haven't shown you the second one yet...) but I thought it couldn't hurt to have another scrap buster!!

But the final and real reason that I actually decided to start this is that I just needed some simple, mindless crochet. You see, I homeschool. And there's a whole lot of reading involved in that (my Mom reads aloud to us) so I need something to keep my hands busy. I'm not the type to just sit around doing nothing. I either need to be doing something totally active (sports, working out, running, biking, etc) or doing something with my hands. I just can't sit and listen. So that's the beauty of this project. It's so simple I don't even have to think about it. Just listen to what we're learning about.

The picture above is a flatter version of the first picture so you can sort of see how it's working up. It's really a lot longer than this, but I wanted to have a pleasing picture rather than just showing you how long it is. Basically I'm just doing alternating stripes of white and cream with colors (so far I've only used blue and green, but that's because that's what most of my stash is made up of), so it's going to be pretty colorful when it's actually finished. Also, the stripes aren't measured at all, I just do some thick and some thin. It makes it more pleasing to look at.

Here's something else that I've been working on. Some ATCs for a swap I'm participating in. It's called the 'One Good Egg' swap, and basically you just make some easter eggs using any technique you like. Zentangling was what immediately came to mind. Soo... long story short I made six cards, and am going to be sending them to the swap coordinator here soon. I just love how they came out. Especially the wonky one on the bottom in the middle. :D BTW, in case some of you were wondering, it was either a 3/3 or a 6/6 swap. Normally if it gives you a choice like that, I'll go for the larger number, since it means I'll get more in return. :) I know, it's sad. It's an addiction. But I love what I do.

I also did another card for the 365 Card challenge today. The theme/challenge/topic was pure contentment. They wanted to know how you would depict those words on your card. I basically just went through some of my images and found a picture of a girl who looked contented. I then just added a sentiment to finish it off after some stamping. But here's something... I decided to do a cute mini card today!! You can't tell in the picture, (I should have put something in for comparison...) but it's an ATC sized card! I'm not sure why, but I like the small size of an ATC or the large size of an art journal or scrapbook page. There's that card size in the middle that's a bit intimidating. Don't ask me why, though, cause I don't know. :D

Okay, so I've got a couple more pictures for you, and they're both of my new art journal page. I don't know why, but I'm not quite fond of this page in general. It's kind of weird, and the colors don't really go together. Also, I don't know if the phone book paper really matches the theme of the rest of the page. But anyways, I'll probably end up layering a whole buttload of crap on top of this until I'm finally satisfied with it. Or, if that doesn't work, I'll probably just layer white paint on over top of it and start over again. :D

Here's the same page, just further away. The idea for this page just was to experiment using gouache. I had gotten some of this for about 50 cents from a thrift store, just wondering what it was all about. I did a little bit of researching about what I had gotten, and it turns out I got a really good deal. An original tube of this stuff in a smaller size goes retail for about three bucks. It's literally the best of the best. And to think I had no idea what it was when I got it.

If you were wondering what gouache was in general, I think that it's similar to watercolors, only they're more solid. You squirt it out onto a pallet and mix with water. But these things have better cover than the acrylics that I use. Personally, I think that's pretty good! I just have to do some more experimenting to see what else I can do. Hopefully to make them look better. One last thing I'd like to share with you before I go is to try and post a list of what I plan to work on tomorrow. There's no way I can be precise to a 'T', but I'll do my best!!

Art List For 4-7-2011

-Art Journal Page

-ATCs

- Knitted Gloves

-Cross Stitch

- Crocheted Blanket

-365 Card Challenge

And of course, anything else that may pop up!! See you all tomorrow!!

Color Scheme!

Yeah! I made it back for the fifth day in a row. I've been doing pretty good so far on my commitment. We'll see how long it'll last. So today was also day five of Art Journaling Daily. It's pretty awesome. So today I thought I'd do a little bit of experimentation with doodling. I don't think I've done that yet in my journal, so I just messed around with it a bit. I used the colors blue, green and orange. I actually got the color scheme from the 365 Card challenge, and it's going pretty good so far. I couldn't actually find a challenge to use for my art journal page, so I just decided to try that. I doodled the stars, then painted, stamped, and collaged over TOP of the doodles.

Also, you can see that along the edges are a line of glitter. I did that in the normal way, just using regular school glue and shaking the glitter over top of you. I kind of like using it, though it's not really my style.

Here's a version of it a bit closer away. I'll probably add more to it, but that's all I'm going to do for now. I like it a lot. By the way, this is my official 100th page!!! I'm totally freaking out. I can't believe that actually happened. It feels like it happened so quickly. It's strange. But so cool!!

Okay, so this photo above is simply a view of a color scheme. This was on 365 Cards. I love this color scheme. It's totally my style, and I love the brightness of it.

Here's the card that I created for this challenge. I know it's a bit messy, but that's sort of my style. I used more of that zebra stripe ribbon. I seem to be addicted to this lately. I'm not quite sure why, but I just am. Crazy huh?

Here's another view of it. In this picture you can see the stamping a bit better.

I know I promised you guys yesterday that I'd show you what my cross stitch is supposed to look like finished. And here it is!! Do you like it?

One last picture. This is my progress. I know I showed one yesterday, but you can sort of see some progression. I like it a lot so far, and think it's turning out perfectly. You can sort of see in the dark brown in the back the two extra cars forming.

A Plan to Create

There are a lot of people who will do crafts or art, and they will do it with absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. I know that sounds like a normal way to do it, but even though it's normal, doesn't mean it's the right way. I know, I know. There's no "right" way to create. Though that is true, having a plan for your crafting isn't exactly the art itself. It's just a way that you can get more time and enjoyment out of your craft. So here we go. I guess I'll show you guys a certain way to come up with a simple plan. Some people have their plan in their head. And then there are others (like me), who would rather write it all out. In my honest opinion, writing it out is a better way of doing it since then you can see the whole thing; all of your ideas and future plans for working. Especially if you want to start a business selling your crafts, crafting a plan is especially important to the success of your business.

So let's get started in crafting an arting plan. The most important parts of writing a crafting plan is the goals. I know that we briefly touched on the importance of goals in your crafting in the last post, but right now I'd like to just say that you need goals for your crafting plans. I'll give you a couple of examples of good goals in this post, just so you can have a sort of idea of some goals. Feel free to come up with your own, or use mine. The basic idea of goals is to have a bunch of different types of goals. Such as some easy, intermediate, and long term or hard goals. Let's start with goals for ATC making. An easy goal would be to try a new technique; such as working with distress inks, or setting eyelets. A more intermediate goal would be to create something like 30 or so cards within a time limit; say 30 days. Some harder goals would be something like create a card every day for a year, or, perhaps my personal favorite and currently one of my goals, trade 1,001 cards with other artists.

It is important to have more than one type of goal. It's sort of like when you're working with money, trying to save it. Especially as a kid. You have short term goals (like action figures) and at least one long term goal (like a new bike or a car.) It's the same way with crafting. If you have short term goals, you'll have the pleasure and enjoyment that comes with completing something, but the long term goal will give you something to work towards. Another part of your creative/artistic plan, is that you work towards those goals. And you use one spot to track your progress towards those goals. That's sort of what I'm doing with this blog. You however, can do it on a blog if you want, but, if you'd rather, you can do it through notebooks. This also works very well. In fact, before I started this blog, that's what I was doing. I also used a ton of other blogs. But I thought that it would be a better idea to just have one blog and post everything on here. It'll probably work a lot better for me.

So now that I've at least somewhat explained to you the importance of having a plan for your crafting and arting, now it's time to give a type of progress update/first post on my art. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures yet, but I'm hoping that soon, hopefully next time, I should have some. So today I was working on some ATC's for a technique swap I'm in. I think I did two or three. Also, I did a little bit of planning for a clothing line/collection that I'm working on. So far the colors are turquoise, lime green, chocolate brown, and an ivory color. The lime and turquiose are pretty much my favorite colors ever, so you can understand why I picked them, and I just think that chocolate brown goes so well with bright colors. Black is another that works really well in combination with blacks. Also, earlier this afternoon, I actually started a new project. It's a knitted project. Fingerless gloves.

You see, I've been wanting some fingerless gloves for a long time now, but it seems like I'm always broke, even though I don't really buy that much stuff. And these gloves are sometimes going for as much as twenty bucks, which I personally think is ridiculous. So anyways, long story short, I was searching through blogs (like I always do) and I came across somebody who was making these gloves. And I thought 'Hey, I've been wanting some of those! I bet I could do it too...' And then, one thing lead to another and next thing I knew, I had another started project. So these are going to be my first knitted "garment" if you could actually call it that. Also, they have a knitted cable running down the center of the top of the glove. And this is also my first time ever working with cables in general. So here's the dealio. Now you know how normally, when you're working with cables, you need to have an extra needle known as a "cable needle"? Well, I didn't have one. And I didn't have the money/I was too impatient; to go and buy one. So I searched for a tutorial for knitting cables without a cable needle. And it came up with a ton of results.

The first one I found worked like a charm. So that's another lesson. If at first you don't succeed, go do a search! It always works for me. As a side note, the part of the glove I've done so far is about 4" into it or so. And they're black. Yep. Black. I'm more of a bright color girl myself, but I thought I'd try something different for a change, and get away from blues and greens. Plus it was the only thing I had in my stash. Besides a soft baby pink, which is pretty much my least favorite color in the known universe. I don't know why I own it. But who cares. Some people like it, so I'll probably make something with it and sell it. Who knows.