Art Journal Pages - New Beginnings

I've been making time every couple of days to paint two pages in my book at a time, and I find it really satisfies me.  The reason I got this book in the first place was to spread my wings a bit and be able to be free with my paint without the pressure of a canvas or having to make a complete work of art.  It's just casual, just an experiment, and I can make mistakes and play around, having fun, learning myself, and teaching myself at the same time.  I am also trying to find my voice in my paint, so this is a good book I can use to practice techniques I see that I love and try to translate those into something that is truly me.

And, quite by accident, one of these pages ended up being my first entry for the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge.  The challenge for August is Stencils and Pastes.  I made some of my own stencils, used them to add paste to some watercolor paper, and added some Dr. Ph Martin's Hydrus Watercolors to them.  You can find that post here.  I wasn't sure what I would do with these papers, but I ended up using the following one on this page.

Here's how this page started out.  I knew right away I did not like these colors together, and regretted using the brush I did because everything seemed messy in a bad way. 

Here are some lovely little messy hands.  I got paint out for my kids while I painted since my daughter had begged all day to paint.  First little Lula's hand.  She is turning five tomorrow!

And Grayson's hand.  He is two, and trying to get a picture of his hand was like herding cats!

I painted over some of the previous brush strokes with a different brush, but I didn't like the colors I used!  I stenciled some hearts on with my handmade stencil and added black brush strokes.  Still hated it!

Then I played around with my handwriting and doodling with a white Sharpie oil based paint marker and a pink Elmer's Painters paint marker.  I'm loving both of these right now so much!  Seeing my doodles helped, but I wasn't happy with the colors.

I put down some crackle medium and waited for the required hour.  I think the waiting helped more than anything.  Then I added some Caribbean blue, orange, and pink paint.  I also brushed the word "new" on the page.  I added strokes in green with turquoise pluses on them.  

I painted the opposite page black and placed a rectangle I cut from a gelatin print page down with matte medium.

Then I used my white Sharpie paint pen to doodle around the edges.  I'm not sure what I will put in the middle.  The pages are about new beginnings since my daughter will be starting kindergarten this week, so maybe a picture of her or a silly Lula quote about school.  

I thought the other page needed something else, so I doodled a bit.  I drew this cute flower, but I really took it too far by adding these big black dots.   I hated it!

I tried painting over it, but it didn't look right, so this is where I ended up using some of my modeling paste paper from the other day.  I cut it out into the shape of the curve and put it down with matte medium.  I waited until the matte medium was dry to trim the edges to the shape of the corner.  I really like it!  Looks like these are done for now, but I will probably add more stuff later on.

The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge is also on Instagram, user name @mixedmediamc, so follow them there too!  This is the third challenge, and I look forward to seeing what else they come up with.  Go check them out to find inspiration from their creative team as well as the followers who share their art.  

Wall Art - Huge Piece

I had a very large space on my wall to fill, so I took a couple of pieces of plywood I had around the house, primed them with white latex paint, and started painting them.  I used Folk Art and Apple Barrel paint by Plaid.  First step was to lay down a colorful background.  

I really wanted to do something playful and fun on this, similar to some of the pieces I have seen lately by Stephanie Corfee, so I kinda went wild with my brush.  And I hated it.  Hated. It.  

Not to worry, I covered it back up with more color.  I decided on some simple brush strokes to embellish the painting because I had so much room to cover (like 3 feet by 4 feet).

Here's a detailed shot.

And the finished piece on my wall.

Art Journal Pages - The Least of These

A few weeks ago I worked on a large painting for my dining room, and I mixed up a really cool color of blue; a really dark, deep, midnight blue that almost looks black.  I wanted to use it in my journal, so I made up a bit more of it today.  I covered a whole page with the color, then brushed a bit on the other page with a wide brush.  I added a bit of leaf green and sherbet green to it with a smaller brush.

Looking pretty good already, but this color begs for a bit of pink next to it, so I put some down with that same brush.  

I always end up with extra paint, so I have been using it up on loose pages.  These three are just about ready to use for a collage I think.

I thought some pink lettering would look nice, so I bought an acrylic paint pen.  This is one of my favorite scriptures, a reminder that while our love for Christ is important, we must never forget to love and serve others.  

Splish Splash Bathroom Art

I have been working on this new painting (well, a cover-up of an old painting) for the last couple of days while my one-year-old whines at my feet.  Even taking regular breaks to hold him does not satisfy him, which is rather contrary to his normal laid back personality.

For You!! Free Sugar Skull and Sparrows PDF file

I learned today how to add PDFs to my blog, so I thought I would share this one with you.  Feel free to print it out for your own personal use (please do not sell prints).  Hope you enjoy, and let me know if you like this kind of thing and wish to see more.  Just click on the image for a link to the PDF file.

Baby Shower Present - "Rachel" Painting

I love painting for kids' rooms!!!  I have learned a bit about painting doing them, and had tons of fun.  Here's one I did a few days ago for a lovely young lady at church who is expecting in March.  Her darling little girl will be named Rachel, and I went with something very simple even though that is not what I had planned.

I started out with an 18"x24" canvas, already primed.  I picked a font from MyFonts, a fairy tale font I thought made her name look pretty and adorable.  The font is Blue Goblet Serif, and I love it.  It is a little too spaced out, so I took tracing paper and traced the letters, bunching them up a bit.  Then I doodled flowers and vines coming off the letters.  Once I was done, I used my Artograph Tracer Projector (got it a Hobby Lobby 40% off) to project the words onto the canvas in pencil.  I used the tracing paper under the projector, which was a big mistake.  I started to notice my words were shifting around as I traced, and finally figured out it was because the tracing paper was wrinkling up from the heat off the bulb of the projector.

I usually start painting at this point, but the white has a tendency to show through the brush strokes and the pencil is hard to cover.  I decided to try something different with this painting.  I painted a base coat of khaki colored paint over my sketch thin enough so I could still see the lines of the drawing underneath.

Painting, painting, more painting..




Pretty pink letters.

Overworked it - drat!

Fixing my mistakes.

 And done!  Not the best picture unfortunately.  Glad to have it done, and I am happy with the result.

Art Room Chalkboard - Pinterest Inspired

Thanks, Pinterest, for keeping me busy.  Like I had nothing better to do.  Okay, nothing really better to do, but I have lots of laundry and housework that needs to be done.  Instead of working on my chores I am surfing Pinterest boards and working on pins.  Here is an good example.  I have seen tons of pins on how to make your own chalkboard, whatever color you want.  I first spied this project on Design Sponge.  It was in a DIY post called Bonnie's Chalkboard Planting Pots. 

.The project was written by Bonnie from Going Home to Roost.  Here's her recipe....

I kept seeing DIY chalkboard pins on my Pinterest feed, so I had to make my own.  I used acrylic craft paints to make my board and mixed several colors to add layers.  This is how my board started out.

I didn't like it plain so I stenciled some citron colored paint over that layer with punchinella.  Much better.  To frame the board I decided to paint something bold in black and white.  Here's the coat of white with a little note-to-self written in chalk.  I had to test it out!

Work in progress of my detail trim work in black and white. I used latex paint to do the black and white flower frame.  I got a little farther than this and decided to call it quits for a few days, which turned into a few weeks.  Then I couldn't remember why I stopped but knew I didn't feel up to doing it.

I put a movie in a few days ago and got back to it.  Hubby kept asking when I would finish it.  When I got started working I remembered why I stopped - it was literally a pain in the neck, and my back.  I am so short and I had to use a step stool just to stand on my tippy toes and paint.  And I had to bend over to finish the bottom part.  

Whine, whine, whine, complain, blah blah.  I finished it and here it is.  It was worth it and I am so glad to have it done.  By the way, my couch is never this clean.  It usually holds the laundry I put off doing for days at a time.  When it's not covered in laundry, it is covered with tons of toys.

Tonight, Tonight

I promise I am still here, and I am still crafting.  Still taking pictures and making jewelry.  Just not making much time for blogging.  I know, no fun, right?  I just can't seem to find the focus to write.  

Here is a piece I have been working on for our bedroom.  I love The Smashing Pumpkins, and "Tonight, Tonight" is one of my favorite songs they have done.  I thought it would work well above our bed.  

I started with the picture above, which is a piece of old decor from a Subway store.  My mom had it in her yard and I asked for it.  It is huge and I thought it would be fun to paint over.  I took the frame off and put a coat of gesso over the picture  (which is two sheets of plastic with foam in the middle) and added texture with Liquitex Basics modeling paste.   Since I am not selling the piece I just used Apple Barrel and Fold Art fabric paints.  I printed the words out and projected them up with my Art Tracer Jr Projector and penciled them in.  

Here's the finished painting.  I am quite happy with it, and can't wait to get it up on the wall.  First I need to paint some shutters that I will used as a headboard.  

Hubby picked the font out.  I really like it!