In The Sun, 30-30-30, and ICAD2

Hello everyone! How are you all doing today? Well. I hope it's good. But you know I can't really hear you from my living room. However. If you answered me out loud, you are officially awesome. If you want to answer me out loud right now, then you can still be considered awesome. If not, then I guess that's okay too.

I had quite a bit of fun with my art today. And this my friends, is the reason that I love prompts. I'll get to the reason why in a moment. At least one of the reasons.

The first thing that I worked on today was my second page for the In The Sun Class. Today's prompt told us to write some things about summer. Or to summer. And then we were prompted to doodle on our magazine page. Or photo. Whichever thing it was that we happened to choose. Well here's how it went down for me. I decided that, for this particular page, I wanted to use an image from a magazine. i wasn't really sure which photo I wanted to use, or even how many magazines I was going to have to look through before I would be able to start.

But it just happened that the odds were in my favor today. Ever in my favor. I was looking at the pile of crap to my right. Don't question the pile. Just leave it alone. And right there, at the very BOTTOM (of course) of the pile, I saw a magazine page. I didn't have a clue in the world what was on this page. But I was so tempted to pull the page out from underneath the teetering stack, that I didn't even try to resist. And as soon as I did, I was glad that I had done so. For this image is what stared back at me. I was so excited about it, mostly because this journal is supposed to be celebrating summer. Well. In my opinion, there's nothing that screams summer more than lemonade. Besides a pool. Or cookouts. Or basketball. But that's beside the point. The point is that this photo was absolutely perfect for my page. AND I loved, and still love, the colors.

I cut a portion of the image out, making it purposely smaller than my page, so that I would have room to journal. Which was one of the prompted things to do. I wrote my little notes about summer around the page, and I loved the way that it turned out. I had just enough to say, and just enough room to say it. Don't you love it when that happens? I know I do.

Then I added the title. I wasn't quite so sure what I wanted to do about the title, but I decided on a very simple "I Love Summer". One of the reasons that I love summer is that school is out. But I'm sure that before long, I'll probably be ready for school to start back up again. We'll see. I seem to be keeping pretty busy, with the blogs and my business and all. If you think about it, perhaps consider visiting my business blog here. I've been posting little snippets about the upcoming fashion line, and today I started a "What I Wore Today" series. And my partner Sarah is starting hers tomorrow. I think. 

The final thing I did to this page, which I absolutely LOVED was doodle. I had been prompted by Natalie to doodle on my photograph. Well. I started out with just a little bit of doodling around the top of the cups. But the more doodling I did, the more I just couldn't stop it. I ended up doodling around the entire outline of the photograph, and I love how it turned it into an almost cartoon - esque photo in and of itself. I really love the way it turned out, and I'll probably try it again very soon.

Actually, I was so inspired by the doodling on that page, that I continued that on my 30-30-30 page today. I'm not really sure WHY there's a photo of lemonade (or limeade, or whatever it is in this picture) on a page about sports. But we'll go with it. I think it might have something to do with the fact that sports make you thirsty. I think that's probably it.

But yeah. I continued the theme of the doodling on photographs over to this page. And again, I love the way that it turned out. I did journaling on this page though, which isn't something that I did on my other pages. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that I didn't have a clue in the world what I was going to do in that blank space. But I had some red paint on my pallet, and so I painted on some journaling lines and got to work.

This page was a little more difficult time-wise than the other two pages have been. You would think that it would keep getting easier and easier. But it's not true. Not at all. At least not for me it isn't. The journaling took up quite a bit of time, as did the doodling. I was getting to the point where I thought that I wouldn't finish. It was kind of a race against the clock. But it felt good. Almost like adrenaline. A rush. Who knew you could get a rush from doing art. Ha. But I always do when I do math, so I don't know why this would surprise me.

Here's a bit of a better photo of the doodling that I did on this photograph. I was a little more free than I was on my other page, but the time constraint really fed into that. I had to work a little bit quicker, so I couldn't be nearly as neat as I was on the other page. But I like both of them. Both of these pages turned out quite nicely in my opinion, and I love the way that my art seems to progress as I work on it. Sometimes I look back at my old scrapbook pages and wonder what the heck I was thinking. But then I come to two realizations. One, these were my very first attempts at paper crafts. I can't expect them to be as good as what I'm doing now, or as good as what I want to do now. I'm sure that a younger me would be shocked to see how much they would improve. Two. I was seven.

Here I present you with ICAD #12: Experiment. Now this card; I tried a few techniques that I haven't before, and a few that I haven't done in a while. It seemed to be a nice little refresh of some of the techniques that I had almost forgotten about. Anyways. The idea for this card sprung from an old technique that I'm sure a lot of you probably haven't thought about for a while. Drawing on a piece of paper with a white crayon, then going over it with watercolors. Or markers. Or a wash. I used to do that when I was really, really young, and all I did was color. All day. Every day. I thought it was fun. But I was thinking the other day. 

It's the wax that resists the mediums you put on top of it. Not the color. So would it work the same way if I did the same thing with colored crayons? What would happen? Well, I tried that out. I took some crayons in yellow, orange, and red, and drew dark, waxy swirls all over the base of my index card. Then I went over it with a reddish-orange watercolor paint. And it did work. And it looked pretty cool. A couple layers followed after that; red artist quality paint applied with a pallet knife, followed by a layer of yellow poster paint, which blended with the not yet dry paint. And this was the result. I added the caption and was done with it. And I like it.

That's all I've got for you guys today though, and I hope to see you tomorrow! Bye!

Collage Unleashed Project. Week 1.

Hello all! Welcome back to yet another day of my blog. I hope you guys aren't getting tired of me yet! Cause I've still got a bunch more tricks up my sleeve... :) Okay, so today, I'm giving a type of update post on my Collage Unleashed project. A few weeks ago, I started working my way through the book "Collage Unleashed, by Traci Bautista". I haven't done that much yet, but what I have, I would like to share with you guys. I find that even though Traci's style is gorgeous, it just doesn't fit with my style in the very first try. If you look at the picture above, you'll see my very first color scraped piece.

I don't like it. I think the colors are just a little too muddy. Plus, they're just not as bright as my normal colors. I feel like it just doesn't represent my style. I don't really do too well with my art that doesn't represent ME. That's the purpose of my art. To express myself.

I tried it again. I did pretty much the same thing, just used different colors, and sort of interpreted it in my own way. I really like this one though. The colors aren't really my kind, but I like them anyways. I'm going to try this same technique (scraping and stamping) with some brighter colors. This just feels a little bit dull. But I'm still going to use this in my art. What I'm going to do with it is probably cut it up and then use it just as collage paper. That seems like a good enough idea to me. :)

The last thing I'd like to share with you guys is a piece of scraped fabric I did. Normally you do the scraping on paper or cardstock, but Traci recommends also doing it on a plain white muslin. It adds amazing texture, plus it's just really cool looking. I used yellow, orange, and red. That always reminds me of fire for some reason. And I love fire. It's just so cool. Of course, I don't like it when buildings get burned down. But campfires are just so neat!!

Anyways, just one last thing before I leave you guys today; I was thinking about maybe doing an art journaling course. An online workshop. With videos and PDF forms and everything. Maybe about different techniques and prompts. I just think it would be cool. But really, I don't want to go to all the trouble of putting something together, and then nobody buys it. I don't know how much it would cost or anything - just throwing the idea out there. Maybe if I did a short, 1-2 week course or something for free, then you could get more familiar with my teaching style? Tell me what you think!!

Oh, and just a bit of a side note... this morning my blog hit 1,000 hits!! I'm so happy! And excited! I'm just kind of wondering where the blog will go next. Who knows, really? So anyways, see you all next time! Bye!

Creative Experiments #1

Okay, I'm finally back, and this time with pictures!! My camera cord is still lost, but I managed to upload some pictures using my phone. I'm sorry it doesn't really take the best of photos, but I guess some photos are better than none. I know I like to see at least one when I'm looking at a blog. Especially when I really want to see what they mean. But now that I have new pictures, I can start to write about them and not ramble about random stuff. :)

This is going to be the first creative experiments post. I touched on this as a possible topic in the last post, and even though I didn't get any response, I'm just going to go on ahead with it. Basically, I'm just going to be experimenting with my supplies; seeing all the different things that each of my things can do, and pushing them to their absolute limit. And then I share my progress and the things I've been doing on here with you guys. So today's post is about one of the many things you can do with white acrylic paint. I decided to go with how well you blend with it. The background above was a failed attempt at trying to get a watercolor effect with NON water soluble colored pencils. Hehe. I thought that I might as well give it a shot. Well, I hated the effect. So I decided to try and blend with the paint.

Basically, I just took a bunch of white paint and then blended/massaged it into the colored pencil with my paintbrush. That helps the color to show through the paint, basically just making the whole thing just a couple shades lighter. In my honest opinion, I think that makes the entire page just that much easier to work on, even if my finished pages end up dark. Just a thought. My opinion.

The finished thing, after white paint, is shown above. I liked it a lot. In order to get that aged effect, though, I had to take a baby wipe and wipe away a few layers in certain areas. I love the aged look, and when it was finished it totally reflected my style, which automatically made it an excellent starting point for one of my pages. For my style (bright, layered, stamped, and distressed), this was perfect, and even though my finished pages ALWAYS end up dark, I started on the light page and it worked perfectly.

After the page was done, this is what it looked like. I LOVE this page, and you can't even tell that it started out as something that I hated. I love the way the colors just go together perfectly, and look like I made a lot of complicated decisions. I totally didn't. I would just look over and see something and think "hey, I bet that could work on my page". Then I would put it on. I used acrylic paint, white and colored, stamps of all types (carved, acrylic, rubber, and found), stamped with both paint and ink. I also used masking tape, water soluble pastels, stencils, and foam letters for the title.

That's the end of this creative experiment; though it doesn't really reflect it on the finished page, adding that one layer of white acrylic paint actually helped me a lot in the long run. I think that if I would have just worked directly onto the color pencil, I don't think it would have turned out quite as well. Maybe that's something to experiment with. Anyways, tomorrow I think I'll do a link post, with a TON of links I've found this week... I've been bookmarking them all. :) Then tuesday, expect a nice post with an update on my Collage Unleashed project! See you guys tomorrow!

Finding Your Personal Style

Your style is something that should be very important to you as an artist. And don't even try to tell me you're not an artist. You are. And even though I can't really "instruct" you in how to find your style, I do have a few guidelines that may (or may not) help you. Basically, your style is YOU. Your style is what you like, how you work, and what a finished project represents and looks like. Sometimes (and for certain people) it is harder to describe, while with others, it's very simple and straightforward. Either is correct, as long as it's what you are.

My style is the former; it's actually very tough to explain, but I'll try my best for lack of a better example. At first glance, my work may seem strange, because it's different. But that's good. If you start to notice a change and uniqueness in your work, then that means that you have broken out of a specific "stage" in your artistic journey. You have stopped copying other styles and have begun to develop your own.

Anyways, back to my own style. I like to classify my general "look" as eclectic. I like anything and everything. Plus more, all in one big bundle. That shows in my work. I used to think of myself as modern, bright, and colorful. But now, it's quite different. Sure, those elements are still there, but they are mixed with vintage, distress, urban, and even more styles. This gives an overall elaborate theme. I also have hints of steampunk mixed into it. That's just the way I roll.

So now that I've sort o described my style, maybe I'll give you a couple hints how to find your own. First off, try to determine what you like. What shapes you like, the colors you like, and the general things that attract you. Squares and neutrals are most likely modern and streamlined. Circles and bright colors are commonly youthful and playful. A mix of all this stuff probably has a more eclectic flair. There are more ways to find your style, but this was just through words. Let's do a little experiment, shall we? This one is for art journaling, but maybe I'll do some on other crafts a little later on.

Here's the deal. Get yourself something to work on. Whatever you feel comfortable using. Paper, cardstock, a journal, cardboard, or any other thing that makes you feel happy. You could even use shaped pages if that's what excites you. Having a single circular page is exciting every now and then. Now just go crazy! Do whatever you feel like doing. Lay down a first scraped layer, or use a paintbrush. Perhaps us a wash. Or splatter paint or maybe some india inks. Work with chalk or glitter, photographs or baby wipes. Just play with the materials and mix the supplies; try things that may not be first thought of and show your style. Only stop when you feel like it represents you. But here's the hard part. If you haven't gotten out of the first stage in your art yet, and you are still copying other styles, you have it a bit harder.

You can't look at any reference materials while you work. You're trying to work out your own style here, and you can't really do that when you're looking at somebody else's work. I know it's hard, but it has to happen sometime, right? Why not now? After you take the first leap into developing your artistic style, it will feel really good. You'll feel more independent as you create and you'll feel better about yourself as an artist. That's right. An artist.

MORE Knitting!!

I don't really have that much today - only knitting for you guys. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to have some more paper crafts, including today's daily card. Today I finished school late, so I didn't really have that much time to craft. I've been doing a lot of knitting lately, as you've been seeing on here. :P So yeah. The little sample above is a little knitting made from the yarn I showed in the last post. You know, the one that was made up of lots of different colors and textures?

I know that I promised you guys a sample swatch, and that's what I've been doing all day. Knitting for you guys. But I don't mind. It's kind of cool knowing that somebody's actually gonna look at it. It makes me feel good. I don't know why. Don't try and ask me. Cause I really don't know. :)

Now here's the beginning of a new project. We'll see if it goes well enough. See, I started a sock. That's right. A sock. I know that most socks are knit on either double pointed needles or circular needles. But I decided to try and find a free pattern for some made on straight needles, mostly because I can't afford to buy any circular ones. Though I'd like to have some to make a sweater eventually. I just think it might be fun. I made the sock cuff above from a blue to white variegated, but I don't know it I'll be able to even finish ONE sock in this yarn. It's just a bit annoying. I'm going to try and maybe go onto ebay to find a similar yarn.

And my one last thing that I've been working on - Fair Isle Knitting. Using two different yarns at the same time. You can sort of see how there are alternating colored loops on the actual needle, and two colors of yarn on the back of the needle. Try searching on google, and I'm sure you'll come up with a bunch of results.

I'll probably be working on this a little bit more on this pretty often, so I'll probably be showing this to your pretty often. This is a technique that I've been working with a lot lately.

Knitting! (And Some Paper Crafts Too!)

Hey everyone! I'm back with you guys again with another post. Today's card was for an accordion fold challenge on 365 Cards. I decided to keep it simple in this one. As I was working on it, I had other things planned, but as I put the butterfly on, I realized it actually looked best this way. I really like it. It's not common for me to be this simple in my work, so when it does happen, it happens every now and again.

See, here's a slight example of this difference. You have the very simple example of the previous card, and then a page that I was working on today - it's very different. It's actually very dark compared to the card as well, as you can probably see. I used a bunch of different stuff on it, and it was pretty fun to make.

Here's a more close up of the title as well. I really like how the black letters are so different from the 'e'. I'm pretty sure that I just ran out of the black letters, but I think that it sort of makes sense with the whole theme of the page. You know; how my style is so unique. It's just like that.

Something else that I've been working on is how I could actually make my own type of yarn. I just mixed a bunch of colors, textures, and types of yarn. I like how it looks, and I know that it could be used in many different projects. I'm thinking of knitting and crochet first off. I like the knitting aspect of it. That however, is probably because I've been really been into knitting lately. I don't know why, but I just think that it's a bit more calming and relaxing than crochet. Many crochet patterns are a lot more complex than in knitting, and in crochet there are DOZENS of different stitches, while in knitting, there are only two different stitches; knit and purl.

What you do is mix the two stitches. There are about a million different ways to do that, and you can do lots of things; such as cables, squares, triangles, and other things. It's known as a magic ball.

Here's more of a close up of the different textures in the yarn. I'm considering selling this yarn; how much would you suggest putting in a single skein, and how much would you pay for something like this? I'm just wondering... maybe I'll work up a swatch in this so you could see sort of you it works up.

One more thing that I've been working with - knitting with fibers. You know, the fuzzy yarns and such. It's such a pleasure to work with, even though it does get difficult in some places, and slightly bulky in others. You can sort of see where I switched from the stockinette stitch to the garter stitch. I've just been messing around with it. *shrugs*. I dunno. I just think it's sort of fun. Experiment. And play. Try it.

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.

The First Post For April!!

Hey everyone! I'm back, once again, and I'm here with a new post. Just today I broke out my good ol' art journal and started messing around. I always have a lot of fun when I do, so I'm not sure why it doesn't happen more often. But anyways, I did. So here's the deal. I used several different types of prompts. Number one was Balzer Designs "art journal every day" prompt/series. I discovered this near the middle of last month and just thought that I'd wait it off until this month rolled around. So the thing is that you do SOMETHING in your art journal every day, whether it be just a simple doodle, or a complete technique. It doesn't even have to be a whole page.

In fact, when I started this page, I had initially planned on only doing a little bit, trying to merge my way back into it... the thing was, once I started, I couldn't stop! It just felt so good to create; to work once again freely with absolutely no fear. I started off the page with another prompt from daisy yellow, another blog that I thoroughly enjoy. She is just so inspiring, and her projects are so bright and "in your face"... exactly my style! Anyways, she was having a prompt session that she referred to as her Creative Experiments page. Apparently it's a monthly thing, and it seems like something I'll work with often!

There is a list of prompts and creative experiments to try, and I picked one to try out. I chose "switcheroo", which she prompted us to switch out one of the things in our art. She actually used this example, but I liked it so much that I couldn't help myself! I normally use acrylic paints in my journal, but this time I used watercolors! They aren't that thinned, since I still wanted the bright, bold colors, but they are watercolors never the less! They look so cool!

And, one last picture before I leave; a picture of my cross stitch!! Last time I showed you, all that was here was the train engine and the leg of the kid, but now there are 3 stacked alphabet blocks and about half a football. Also, all of these pieces aren't quite completed, but they will look even cooler when it's actually done! I promise! :P