Heart Investigation 1.3: Wild

Hey guys! Heart Investigation is back, for it's third installation. And it's Valentine's Day! I feel like that's kind of cool. I hope you guys had a good day today; I know I did. I didn't think it was going to be too different from a regular day of school, but it was actually pretty fun. I got a carnation and a chocolate bar from one of my very good guy friends, because he's awesome. And know's I like chocolate. Or food in general. :P

However, getting away from that, and the day in general, let's focus more on the art. I played around with a concept that I've been considering for a while now; two overlapping hearts of different sizes. I was playing around with some cutouts the other day, and I thought it would be interesting to try and build a page around it. 

I didn't have a whole lot of time to create today, unfortunately.  So I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do for today's page. Normally I would have done some in depth collaged background. However, I knew that would take quite a while to do. So, instead, I just did a subtle collage. I let some of the lines from the original paper show through in areas, and put down random pieces of paper I had lying around my desk. It was almost a clean up sort of project, even though I'm not even close to having a clean desk. I used some graph papers, a couple of different kinds of tissue paper, a couple pieces from a magazine page, and some newsprint. Also, I used an ATC sized piece of cardstock I had written a few notes on. 

I didn't need it anymore, and had layered a bit of paint and india ink doodles on top of it. I just pasted that down and used it as yet another layer in the page, which I quite enjoy the concept of. Something that I would have otherwise thrown away being used. That's always nice. 

In this photo, you can see the layers quite a bit better. The cardstock piece is the one with the doodles on it. I collaged stuff down until I was satisfied with it, then used my fingers to paint in the rest of the gaps with pink and white layers. Of course, there was more done than that, but, for the most part, that was the general gist of it. 

Also, just as a bit of a parting farewell, I thought I would share a picture of how bulky the tabs are starting to get. Personally, this is my favorite part of my 2013 journal so far. Of course I love the individual pages, as it really expresses how I've been advancing as an artist, even over the course of just this new year. However, the collectiveness of it all is what really makes me proud. When a journal starts to get full and bulky, it just makes me well up inside. It just looks so cool, and is so fun to flip through the pages, just to see what's going on. What was happening in your mind when you did the things you did. And now I can tell when I was thinking those things, which is a cool aspect.

Also, I'm thinking that sometime over the weekend I'm going to be working on the cover for this journal. We're already halfway into February, and I still haven't done that. I think it's going to be a necessity, and I'm looking forward to creating something I'll be able to look at with pride for years to come.

However, before I go, I would like to thank you guys. I've been really enjoying being back with you guys again this year; I've missed art journaling in general, more than is even possible for me tho humanly explain. It's something that keeps me grounded. And when I separate myself from that, I'm lost. I'd like to thank the followers of this blog. The people that visit me and read what I have to say. The people that look at my art and leave me comments about how inspired they became after seeing my work. That's amazing. It makes me feel good, and is literally the highlight of my day. However, even though I may inspire you, it's you guys that inspire me. So thank you! And I hope you all have a GREAT day. :)

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!

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!!

Creative Experiments 1.3

Well, I'm back with another creative experiments post. Yeah. I've been having a lot of fun with this series, and I intend to keep it going for a while. It seems like it's such a vast variety of things going for it, that it makes it an almost unstoppable series. So I'm back for the third time with another post about experimentation with white acrylic paint. This time I was trying to use it as a substitution for gesso (making a good base) and also as a texture paste type substance. I started with the page on the left. I just used white acrylic paint and used a brush to stroke it on very heavily. Then I used the handle of the brush to draw swirls in the paint.

I made several notes about this one. Number one being that it dried very quickly, making it very tough to draw enough texture. It just didn't work very well in my opinion. I didn't like it so well. Also, the texture was the same as paint, then the texture drawings sort of merged into each other. There wasn't that much texture after it dried. The second thing I tried was setting the white paint out for a little while (a couple of hours) and THEN painting it on in the same way. It actually had a LONGER drying time, and it kept the texture. This one I was in LOVE with.

After I'd put on the base layer/experimental layer of white acrylic paint, I decided to use red, orange, and yellow water soluble chalk pastels to make a nice background to work off of. It turned out really good. I love the way the color blend so perfectly, and the way you can totally see the texture; especially on the right side. As you can see, the left side didn't really go that well. Even after I added ONE TRANSLUCENT layer the texture started to disappear. It was disappointing, but I really like the way the right side looks. Now I know that you have to leave the white acrylic out for a couple hours. And it works just fine.

Here is a bit of a close up of the right side. You can definitely see the texture in this piece; the swirls are the parts that I scratched into the paint with the end of the paintbrush. You can see it worked just fine.

And here is the finished page. I did a TON of layers on top of it. I like the way it looks, though I may just add a bit more color in yellow or orange in pastel on top of all these layers. You know? It just feels a little dull; not very vibrant. If you look at the title, you can see the words; Feed the Flames. The journaling part says: Summer 2011; A time to experiment, create, and EXPLORE!! This was for the first prompt of a free art journaling course. You can find that here: Art Journaling Course. It's a really cool course!!

One last picture before I leave today; a close up picture of the center of the pages so you can sort of see the comparison. See the difference? I love it, even though it's just an experimental page. I hope you guys liked this post; thanks for looking!!