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!!

Realistic Tiger Drawing

Yo all you peoples!! Okay, so I'm back once more for a post with some more of my art. I'm glad that I'm finally managing to get into at least somewhat of a rhythm with my posting here, because I really like sharing it with you all! I guess I can only hope that you enjoy looking at it as much as I like creating and sharing it. So anyways, as a little idea of what I'd like to do, is to post on here daily. I know that sounds impossible, but I really think that it would encourage me. I don't know why I think that, I just do.

So looking back to the first picture on today's post, you see an art journal page with a zebra painted background and a little zebra doodle. This was a printable piece from Milliande's page, and it was also from one of her prompts. I know I'm a little late to the party as this prompt initially came out on January 1st, but when I find a good art journaling prompt series, I just can't help but play! It's simply not in my nature!

So as we look at this page, the first thing that probably pops out at you is the zebra. That's the prompt. Z for zebra. The zebra type background was drawn by me, freehand, and then painted with a paintbrush and acrylic paints. Black and white. If you look at the white sections up close however, you can see where some of the black pain mixed in and created gray. Though that's not quite what I was seeing for the page, I let it go anyways.

I added the doodle and a couple of spritz of glimmer mist, then stamped a few words and doodled a bit with a marker. So far I am kind of liking where the page is going, but it's far from done. I don't like it currently. But I have a vision for it, so I'm going to keep going and try it out anyways. As far as I know, it should work. And nobody's going to tell me otherwise. :P

Next up on the list of things to show you guys is a card. It's a card for today's challenge on 365 Cards. To use a bit of pink on a masculine card. Now I'm not so much of a card person, but when I do make them, I have fun with it. So I don't know why it doesn't happen more often. You see, I think what happened was when I discovered art journaling, the more structure aspect of cards and scrapbooking just didn't seem fun. The pleasure just disappeared. And when I'm crafting, the last thing I want it to feel like is a chore and that I "have" to do it. I need to have fun.

That's what gave me the idea to start putting pictures in my art journals. That would give it the same type of art journaling pleasure, with the pictures, memories, and practicality of a scrapbook. I may try that out tomorrow, though I'm not sure. I'm considering joining a monochromatic challenge for scrapbooking and entering art journal picture pages instead of the average type of layout. *shrugs* We'll see.

So now I've got another crochet/yarn arts type project to show you guys. I do quite a bit of crochet and knitting work over time, and if you've ever done that for any extended period of time, you know that you come up with tons of little scrap ends that are really short - anywhere from 6" to 3 feet. That you can't do ANYTHING with, but feel horrible throwing them away. So here's the deal. I had been stashing these little thread ends for about a year when it finally dawned on me - why not just create my own pattern just to use these up?

It's done entirely in single crochets, making it extremely simple, and it's fun to work up since you are constantly changing color, thus you never get bored of the project. Plus, all of the little thread ends are constant reminders and memories of finished/half finished projects that have fond memories attached to them; who would have thought that yarn could be so sentimental? I sure didn't. :)

And now, what you've all been waiting for; my first EVER realistic drawing. All in pencil, on an ATC sized cream cardstock. I can't tell you how long I spent on this single card - it was for a swap I'm in, and I thought it was worth a shot. If I had to give it a guess, this single card cost me about 3 hours of my life. And 2 of those were spent perfecting the eye. I guess you can imagine how late I stayed up last night. :P I thought I couldn't draw, but I guess I was wrong. Okay, very wrong.

This is a perfect example of how you should never doubt yourself when it comes to art. I spent four to five years thinking that there was no way I could POSSIBLY draw anything realistic. So I resisted the temptations I had to try. But here I am, my first try EVER to do something realistic and it turned out almost photographic. I know. It's strange. But don't doubt yourself. I learned that the hard way.

An Update

Hey people. I'm back from a couple of days break. Sorry about that, but it couldn't be helped. I had a bunch of stuff going on, and I was just really busy. So yeah. I've got a bunch more pictures for you guys too. So I went to Hobby Lobby for the first time the other day and had a ton of fun. I just about fainted when I walked in the door because of the size, but it was all good in the end. What ended up happening was that I got some pom poms for a vest I want to make, some embroidery floss for my next cross stitch project, and some aida cloth to go with it. I also got a few mixed media/scrapbooking supplies. So anyways.

Here are some yarns that I've been working with lately, and they are all for a challenge that I've been working on. It's for crocheted jewelry on Craftster. The moment I saw the challenge, I knew what I was going to make, and pretty much got started with it right away. The winner of the challenge gets their pattern and pictures featured in a magazine (I can't remember exactly which one right now). Mine is pretty much done so far, but I'm just posting pictures of the yarn currently. I used all shades of blue along with accents of white and green.




Here's a full photograph of the cross stitch that I've been working on. It's not quite completed yet, but I'm still working on it, though not as much as I was before, since I ended up starting the new cross stitch pattern (I just couldn't help myself!!). What I like about this is all of the shading and the variegating that works through it. This was my first bigger piece.


Here are some pictures of the embroidery floss that I bought for my new project in rainbow order. It's pretty cool looking. I tend to do that when I make stuff, just because I get to fondle the materials a little and mess around with them.


Here's another.

And, on a finishing note, I want to update with a bit of progress on my second project made using the supplies above. This is going to be a toy train. I've got quite a bit more done on it since this was taken, but I'll post that another time. Tomorrow I'll try to get on again. And I'm hoping to have an ATC tutorial for you all.

I know that I've talked a lot about my ATCs in the past, but still haven't posted any pics yet. I think that a nice tutorial might be a good way to showcase that. Of course an ATC can be done in many different ways, but I thought you guys may like to see my progress. We'll see if I can get pictures. I might go work on that now. Thanks for the inspiration!

An Introduction to Me - An Artist

Hello all. My name's Jordan, and I'm 14 years old. I have tried in the past to start blogs but I always suck at keeping them updated. It's really quite annoying. But those were all single topic blogs. This is for all of my crafts and art forms that I do. That means that pretty much any artist or crafter can find a good source of information here, since I do quite a few things. I've done so many things, it's verging on ridiculous, but I just can't help it. I love to work with my hands, and crafting and arting gives me that satisfaction that I need.

I do a lot of different things, such as scrapbooking, quilting, clothing, ATCs, inchies, twinchies, crochet, knitting, cross stitch, and probably a whole lot of other things that I can't think of right now. It's actually kind of sad. It's annoying. But I can't stand being without them. It keeps me from getting bored. And I can continuously change my mind about what I'd rather be doing. For example, if I'm sewing one day, the next day I may possibly get bored of sewing and put it away, getting out something else, maybe knitting or cross stitch. The next day may be ATCs. Then crochet. And then back to sewing. Maybe I'll change crafts several times in one day.

More lately than in the past, but there have been days when I've done four or five different crafts on the same day. Just the other day as a matter of fact, I was making ATCs in the morning, sewing in the afternoon, crocheted a little, also in the afternoon, and knitted in the evening. I know it's sort of weird and maybe a little annoying and unorganized to some people, but, there is a method to my madness. If I time everything just right, it all works out in then end, and I get a lot of joy and pleasure out of it. That's what matters to me. But anyways, I just wanted to post a sort of introduction to me and this blog. And the way I work.

And if you think about the way I work, then you won't be SO confused when I post about making inchies one day and the next I'm sewing clothes. That's what works for me. I live it. I breathe it. I love it.