6.20.2012 Art Updates and a Color Challenge!

Hey everyone out there in blogland! Hope you guys had a fun, art filled day today. I know that I did. I have been really enjoying the arting everyday thing that I've been doing. AND I've loved coming here and sharing all of the things I've been doing with you guys! Just today, my blog got over a hundred hits. I don't think you guys understand how much that means to me. It's the first time that's ever happened too. And it might just be a coincidence, but today is my 150th post! And it's the first day of summer. I know that it's not a super hefty post amount. But, just next month, I will be approaching my 2 year anniversary for art journaling! And I'm excited for that day. I don't know why. It's just a day. But it's still a milestone. And it makes me happy.

Today's ICAD was based around the prompt 'Your Name'. Now, when I first read this prompt, the first thing that came to mind was my Doodle Your Name card from earlier this month. But I wanted to find another way to interpret this. And I wanted to do it in my own way. This is what I came up with. I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I was starting it out; I had a sort of basic idea in my head, but not all that much that I was super stuck on. I like the way the card came out though. It's somewhat basic, but I still enjoy it.

Today's 30-30-30 page though, is pretty much the complete opposite of basic. I was trying out a bunch of new techniques/concepts that I had dreamed up, as I was trying to figure out some ideas for an ecourse that I'm planning. Stay tuned for more details on that; I think there will be a free one and a paid one. If you buy the other one, you get some bonus features for the free one. That's what I'm thinking. But I'm still not completely sure.

There were a lot of layers involved in today's page, and I was working on it right down to the last second. I always love when that happens, because it shows me just how much I've been sucked into the work. Sometimes I just completely loose track of time, check my watch, and realize I have two minutes to wrap it up. It's all part of the thrill factor. And I've really enjoyed it.

The title of this page though, might not make sense to anyone but myself. I personally feel that the role of a director, or leader in any type of situation would and can be difficult. Maybe even rough. That was the basic concept that I was trying to reveal in this page.

Okay. So today the prompt was too late for me to be able to work on it for the In The Sun class. So, instead of work in that journal anyways, which I was considering doing, I worked on some art journal backgrounds instead. In my big, fat art journal that I really haven't worked in since I've started journaling again. I'll do two pages in my In The Sun book tomorrow. :) This journal (the one I worked in today) is actually almost finished; at least the painting parts. I still need to go through and put some titles and journaling on a lot of the pages. Though that'll be fun to do. I can't wait to actually have a completed journal in my possession. I think that will be fun. To look through an entire book of just my art. Something that I did. Something that I created.

This, like my 30-30-30 page, was composed of a lot of layers and experimentation. I had a lot of fun on these pages, and, even though I'm not really sure where I really want to go with them, I'm not sure that it really matters. I was using up a bunch of paint that I had leftover on my pallet from doing my ICAD (since I used all of those colors), and this was the result. See? You can't throw away that paint. At least I can't. Especially since I've seen this kind of stuff come from throwaways.

I think that I kind of like this circle page a bit better than I like the heart page shown above, but I honestly think that has a lot to do with the colors instead of the overall design of the pages. I like blue a bit better than I like green. Green is my second favorite color, but still.

So yes. These projects are the result of my creative endeavors in this day and age. Tomorrow will be different. And new. And will hold new possibilities.

However, for now, I do have one last announcement. Some of you may remember when I did the color challenge with Dede? I'm doing another one! At least something similar. I'm doing it with Barbara this time, from Reptitude, and we are going to be doing a total of five projects, with the same color pallet, over a time period of slightly less than two weeks. The final reveal, with all of the final projects will be on the 30th of June. I thought that was really fitting. The end of a month, the beginning of a new. Plus, I think it will be fun! If any of you would like to do a color challenge with me after the one with Barbara, please let me know in the comments! I'd be more than willing to do one! :)

Anyways, that's all I have today, and I'll see you guys tomorrow! Bye!

Traci Bautista Inspired Page

Hey guys! I've been experimenting a bit in my journal today and for a few days now. I've been having quite a bit of fun in it too. Traci Bautista is hosting a free e-course over at the Strathmore Ning site, and I was just experimenting a bit with the week one prompts. This page isn't finished at all yet, but these are just some of the first few layers. I have quite a bit down. I don't really know how to count these layers, since the entire style and work process is way different than what I normally do, but I still had a whole bunch of fun. This is what I normally do when I'm working on my journals. I take these courses (free and paid) and I'll experiment with their styles in my journal. And after I've done that for a few pages (as few as 5 or as many as 20), then I'll find small ways to incorporate their style into my work. An example of this would be Traci Bautista's style. I love it. So much. But I really enjoy my style as well. Since this is the first spread that I've really done a full out Traci style on, I don't really know what details of her work that I'm going to incorporate into mine yet.

But I can list a few of the things that I definitely like about her work. I love the bright colors that she uses. She can combine the colors into the most amazing combinations. Some of the most unexpected things ever. But they work. Something else that I love about her work are all of the amazing patterns that she uses. She will have the most graphic, vibrant doodles. I just love the whole vibe. I'll probably end up adapting the paint doodling. That would probably make a pretty cool layer for my pages. That's what I do. I take the stuff from it that will make cool layers. Because you guys know that I love layers. :)

I just thought that I'd share an extra picture with you guys today. Normally you guys just see my pages, which I hope that you're glad to see. But I thought today I would share with you guys a picture of the same page if you just zoom out a little bit. I just thought that I'd show you my workspace while I'm working on a piece. Some people are perfectly tidy when they work, but I just can't understand that. If I break every three seconds to put something away while I'm in the middle of a page, then I'll totally get out of the groove of my whole page. I like to work very quickly and spontaneously, and I can't easily do that if I have to stop at regular intervals. Well, that's really all that I've got for you guys today, and I'll see you tomorrow!! :) Bye!

New Materials and a Canvas

Hey guys! So I'm back with all you guys once again today, and I've got a couple of things to share with you. I went to Michaels today, and got a whole bunch of stuff, plus started painting my first canvas!! The first part of my blog post today is going to be about the canvas, and the second part is going to be about the stuff I bought today. Okay. So let's just get started here, with the canvas. I did this canvas pretty much the same way that I do the rest of my art; lots of layers, bright colors, and distressed effects.  I've been experimenting with a new technique, and that is sort of shown on this piece, but I still need to perfect it a bit before I tell you what it is. For now, you're just going to have to deal with the look of this piece as to see how it works out. :) Now I'll go through a few of the layers I did on here.

I started out with a layer of lime green paint as the base. I love the way this color looks. Then I took a piece of plastic canvas that I had bought and stenciled a circle through it. I added a little bit of text stamping, and, after letting those layers dry I sprayed some glimmer mist over top of it. I made a wash, then added the two layers of drips. And that's where I ended the layers. I know that more layers will be added in the very near future; I was already prepping some more stencils to use on this before I took the picture. Now let's continue on to the stuff that I bought at Michaels.

This is the first set of stuff. I got quite a bit of stuff, so I had to separate it all into three separate piles to photograph so that you could see all of it. In this stack I have a piece of plastic canvas, 2 Sharpie paint pens (a white and a black), a drawing set, a 36 pan watercolor set, a dollar set of clear stamps, a set of 12 tube watercolors, a set of 12 acrylic paints, and a 16 pack of Cray-Pas. Some of this stuff I've never worked with before in my life, so there will be quite a bit of experimentation that you are going to be seeing on this blog in the very near future. I love, love, LOVE experimenting, especially when I get to play with new supplies. So I'll probably be doing that quite a bit.

This next picture is really quite simple, but I really wanted you to see it. I got a 2 pack of 8"x10" canvas' for $5.99. Plus, they were buy 1, get 1 free, so I pretty much got each one for $1.50, which I consider pretty good for canvas'.

This is the last picture of the stuff that I bought today. This is more the paint materials. I got a big thing of white tempera paint because my white paint was gone. Then, I got six different paints for 59 cents each. I really wanted to get one of each color; a pink, a red, an orange, yellow, green, purple, brown, black, and a gray. I had picked out one of each anyways. But what ended up happening was that I had to put some back because I wanted to have some money left on my gift card. And I did. I have about thirteen dollars left on a fifty dollar gift card. So I got all of that stuff, including one last thing of black glitter glue, which is also shown in the picture above for a grand total of $36.18. I would say that I got a lot for my buck. What do you think?

Well, that's about all that I've got for you guys tonight, and I'll see you tomorrow! Bye!!

Art Journal Spread and TEXTURE!!

Hey guys! Sorry that I'm so late getting to today's post, but trust me, I didn't forget. I was doing homework. Yes. Until 11 at night. I know. The first days back to school after a break are absolutely BRUTAL, and the fact that we're getting ready for our final semester exams doesn't help anything. It's almost like we're cramming for the exams. Yeah. So anyways, I did manage to work on a few pages today, but that was very difficult. I managed to take a short 20 minute break from doing my homework to do some art. I really missed it, even though I only skipped one day. I was really frustrated though, and the page above began to take some sort of a shape. I really like the way that it's coming out, even though there's only three layers down there currently. I'm already coming up with new layers, but I definitely don't want to ruin it. Maybe I should make a photocopy before I add more layers to it... that might work.

But it was really a very simple page. I started out by mixing a very deep, dark green color from just blue and yellow. I just used barely any yellow, and that made a much deeper green. I painted over top of my whole page with said color mix, and, on top of that, I layered a yellow Fresco Tempera Paint. Then, I pressed some papers on top and pulled them off. The paper caught the color and lifted some of it up, thus creating the texture that you see here. Then I pulled out my trusty stencils and stenciled some red hearts all over the page. Yet another example of what you can do with stencils. I promise you guys that tutorial will be coming up, as soon as they stop overloading me with homework at school. But I still love school anyways. Just sometimes the homework can be a little bit overwhelming.

This is the second page that I worked on today. It was a nice page in the first place, but I really didn't have any idea whatsoever of where I wanted to go with it. So I decided to do this. Some masking tape was already on the page. I was thinking about bailing on this page forever, and just put the layer of orange tape on top. But the masking tape was calling out to me. So I pulled it up, and I personally think that it looks really good, probably better than it did in the first place. This type of layout also gives me a good place to put a title and journaling when I actually get to that point in this particular page. :) And although that's all I have for you guys today, I'll be back tomorrow with another post here on The Creative Artist. TTFN. Ta Ta For Now.

Stencil Tutorial Introduction

Hey guys! I've been wanting to start doing some tutorials a little more often around this joint, but I just seem to get so caught up in recording my new creations that I forget that you guys probably want more content than just pictures of my art. :) Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to that today, and, in fact, I couldn't do any art. I'll probably try to do a little bit later, but I don't know about that. I didn't get to go to the craft store yesterday like I had hoped, and I'm going to have to wait until Saturday I think. It feels like it's going to be taking forever, but I guess that I can wait it out. But basically this is just an introduction to my tutorial that I'm going to do for you guys ASAP. The picture above shows some of my favorite stencils with my absolute favorite on the top. It's a nice, simple flower shape, but it has practically endless possibilities. And what I like about it is that it looks cool without looking too girly. Depending on what colors you use of course. I've used pinks and purples and it does look rather girly. So I use colors to decide the theme of my page.

A good example of this would be if you look at the picture above. This is the cover page of one of my homemade magazine/catalogue journals. I think you may have seen this before, but even if you have, then you can still see a lot in it, I hope. You can see that I used the flower stencil almost right below the layer of magazine clippings. I used this with gesso, but you can also use paints, glitter sprays, spray paints, watercolors, and lots of other mediums! I'll be showing you a few different ways to do this, and we'll hopefully have a lot of fun! So continue checking in here and I'll get it up soon! See you guys tomorrow!

Art Journal Prompt Page

Hey guys! I'm back here with you guys today with a page that I was working on today. I started another journal (I know, again. I need to stop that. But I'm out of blank journals now, so that should help) a few days ago, and I'm filling it using the questions from the 5,000 question survey as prompts. I think that it's really cool, and I'm really enjoying the process. This is something I just started today, and I love the way it looks. I'm not sure if it's done yet or not. I think I'll add a title and some journaling yet. This is the fourth page in the journal. I worked on this for about an hour today, and already I'm this far. :) I think it's pretty cool.

I kind of like the color combination, even though I didn't have any type of idea for the page when I started it. It just sort of evolved on it's own. It's cool. I don't really have all that much to tell you today, but I just wanted to share this one page with you. And I'll see you tomorrow. :)