February = More Light

Yee Haw.... more daylight will be wonderful. And just think in 2 1/2 months we might be able to think about Spring. Ah well. In the meantime, I'm finding the preparation of my calendar pages part of the ebb and flow of life...which I like, a lot. Each month over at  The Kathryn Wheel Kate Crane hosts a monthly calendar event, I guess you would call it. I started last year, and love entering a bit of something on every day of the year.

In fact I got so excited I gave myself an extra day in January! I used it to highlight my intent for this year, which is to learn. Try new things, really try new things, work on the basics and see if I can find my own voice....

To that end I am taking some on-line classes and have been pretty successful at getting into the Fun Room 4 or 5 times a week, so hopefully that's a  good start. 

My February page is a real wonder to me. I wonder why there is so much pink, why I used gold instead of silver and why, oh why is it so damn busy? --- seems to be a failing of mine in February -- It's odd to use colors you don't usually use, but I do seem particularly drawn to circles as of late. So much to fun to color in. The page started out as red, and I just kept painting, and painting... I did use one of my current favorites tho - a Sharpie Poster Paint White Pen...what a wonderful little score that was!! Thank you Dina Wakely for turning me on to that.

I wanted to try out new shapes and arrangements this year; this month seemed like a good opportunity for a vertical arrangement. I figured that entitled me to go back to my little 1.5 x 1.5 squares. With the background so busy I went back to my trusty dry brush technique for a bit of color on the days...and then of course I put way too much paint down so I used my finger to "edge" all of the blocks. I do that every month - they seem to stand out a bit better with that extra bit of definition I think. 

So there we have it. Happy month of love and more sun!!

WOYWW 191

Top of the AM to you - which is what my sister says when we wake up together!

It's Wednesday again (well almost in Alaska) and so it's time for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, hosted each week by the fabulous, and very patient and kind Julia Dunnit who for the past 191 Wednesday sets this lovely blog up so we can "visit" aka snoop around at other people's work space.

Here's what mine really looks like.

No matter how hard I try I seem to always have stuff on the floor...I prefer to think that I have too small of a space, rather than I might in some way have too much stuff.

I was working on some color collages for my Color Class with Jane Davies and I really enjoyed the combination of blue-green and red-orange but for this exercise we were supposed to stick to one color so I picked blue-green and it wasn't until I was just about done that I realized how flipping' dark it was. I finally couldn't stand it and used glossy accents to glue on some seed beads (note to self, must get a new pair of tweezers that aren't cut off on one side.) One of my bead canisters is sitting front and center on the desk.

This was from my art journal this week and I like the color combination much better here. Plus I wanted to use the Sunflower Perfect Pearls mist I got on Saturday. That's the mist there- on the orange page, under the tag, through the circle stencil.

I have lots to do this week - get my calendar page ready, make the tags for the February class, and catch up on my color class. Oh goody!!

Thanks for stopping by - hope you have a fun, creative week!

Fantastical Flowers

There's a lot of talking about a "word" for the year...I'm not sure I understand what  the word is supposed to represent - your intent, your focus...those sound good to me. For me, it's a goal. I want to LEARN this year. To expand, to try new things, to have fun. I've signed up for a couple of on-line classes including Lifebook 2013. About two weeks ago I did Christy Tomlinson's fabulous project. It was a blast to make.

Guess what the flowers are made of? Give up? Coffee filters and tin foil!! Okay there's a bit of tissue paper and napkin parts too; what a gas. You stamp or stencil the coffee filters, tear them into apart, and then layer them on tin foil with matte medium and then cut out the petals.

Or cut out circles and scrunch them up. Imagine all the shapes and colors and things you could make this way....

It was also really fun to make a LIGHT collage behind the flowers...Christy used alcohol inks for a great pop of color on her collage - you can see my sweep of yellow right next to the flower above.

And to close the circle, what did I learn? When making a collage work vertically and horizontally which helps give the piece structure, and don't be afraid to have a light-light and a dark-dark within your flower petals. The contrast is what make the piece come alive. 

WOYWW #190

Ah yes, it's time for the snoop-a-ram hosted each week by the beautiful Julia Dunnit over at the Stamping Ground. This is what was on my desk at the end of Tuesday night.

I've started covering my desk in brown painters paper and I kind of like it. I don't have to worry about where the over spray is going - unless of course I neglect to actually look at the nozzle and end up spraying myself.

The color wheel and the grids in the window are from a on-class I'm taking from Jane Davies on color. I'm enjoying it a lot. We mixed paints the first week - much harder than I would have thought.

Last week I had a page in my art journal open....sometime in the last week I finished it up. It had looked like a palm tree and an umbrella/palapa and so that's what I made it into!

Other goodies include the usual assortment of tape, scissors, "kitchen roll", and distress ink chart. I had most of the ink colors in my mind before the seasonal inks showed up - this helps me decide what new color combinations might be fun to play with. The Ranger website has the chart  - all you have to do is print it out....very handy.

Have a colorful, fun week fellow WOYWW'ers!

WOYWW 189

Greetings oh fellow WOYWW'ers. Not sure what that is? Every week Ms. Julia Dunnit, she of the Stamping Ground blog invites folks to post a picture of their workspace and then we all go snoop around looking and commenting on them.

Here's what my space looked like this morning

One of my art journals is the lower left hand corner. Started out as scribbles and colors and is waiting to be turned into a palm tree on the beach...thank you Dina Wakley for this fabulous technique. Most of the other stuff has been there since the weekend; I got the flu and am hopeful today is the day I actually have some energy ... The container has some paper beads I made from playing with Tim's marble stains technique on about 50 tags one day....now that was fun!

Lately I have been concentrating on a having a CLEAN space somewhere on my desk. That's what there is a tear of the brown paper painters use (picked up at Lowe's - discount hardware store), then my craft sheet, and then a piece of construction paper. When I was making my canvas last weekend, the mat lived off to the side and I did all the misting on the brown paper. It came front and center when I was finally ready to glue everything together. I seem to turn stuff over and it gets dirty, or I get some type of adhesive on it or something. Happy to report the three levels of working space actually kept it clean this time.

Have a great week!

Paying It Forward #1

A week or so ago there was a challenge going around Facebook which said:

Pay it forward 2013, I will make something....handmade...for the first 5 people who comment on my post...you will receive it in 2013 before the year is over and it will be handmade To qualify, you must repost this and commit to doing the same for your first 5. Have Fun. 

My friend who posted this is a ceramist and I jumped right on that band wagon, so reported and some of my friends signed up with me. I've been wanting to so come canvas work, and when I saw Hels Sheridian's theme for Sunday Stamping this week was DREAM, I knew where I was going.

This is where I ended up:

I've been following Creative Jump Start - an amazing group of lessons brought to us by the dedicated, talented, and oh so kind Nathalie Kalback. If you haven't heard about this jump over to her website and sign up for the newsletter. Every day there is a new post with the possibilities for give-aways by the sponsors and a lot of video lessons from a lot of folks I was unfamiliar with...what a gift!

The canvas is for a good friend that I had lost touch with and incorporates a lot of what I've been looking at, but I feel like it is also totally mine. Which is a VERY fun feeling. Colors I love, I've always loved and still are drawn to. Lots of misting and water, and drying and re-misting and stencils and stains and my absolute "can't make art without it" Picket Fence Distress Stains.

Something too dark? A couple of coats of picket fences and your problem is solved. I even used it on the corner pieces...which I stained with alcohol inks but then they were too dark. No problem. Picket Fences Stain to the rescue. I had a ton of fun with the alcohol inks too....I really like how the clock came out. 

In the lower left hand corner is one of the hand made beads I made last spring from small manilla tags covered with all sorts of Distress Stains using Tim's distress marble technique. 

There's a couple of things I would do differently next time, but for a start, I'm good. Thanks Hels!! If you want to play with Sunday Stampers, pop over to Hels' blog Ink on My Fingers and join the fun. 

WOYWW 188

Today, or more precisely tonight, I am getting a jump start on the weekly What's on Your Work Desk photo sharing that the ever so nice Julia Dunnit hosts on her blog, Stamping Ground. Each week we post a picture of our work spaces and then are invited to go see what others are doing. One week I found a great jeweler and managed to score a cool, and reasonably priced pair of earrings from her Esty shop. You just never know what you will find.

This week I  started Lifebook 2013, a year long journey through art taught by Tam (can't seem to locate her last name on her blog) and a number of other folks. I've taken classes from a couple of the teachers and enjoyed those and even though I've only watched one video from Tam, I'm thinking I'm really going to like it. 

Our first warm-up was drawing a whimsical Fairy Art Mother. Because all of this is new to me, I practiced a couple of times with my new water soluble crayons in my small art journal. OH MY. They are just TONS of fun. I can tell I want more colors already. 

Since this is OUR Fairy Art Mother, she says nice things to us like

 and

And although I can't draw yet, I sure do like color, so I used just about every one of them to draw her...

It's going to be a good year!!

WOYWW #187

Wow - It feels great to write that!

I've been away. Not really, but we moved a couple of times and are finally settling down into the new house, and I feel like I can get back to the wonderful Julia Dunnitt's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (even though it's Thursday - I took the photos on Wednesday).

I really wanted to do it because I caught that New Year's organization bug and after hastily setting up the craft room in September, and then not being able to find anything during the Christmas craft season,  it is truly organized. And I'm sure it will never again be so clean.

So what's on my work desk? NOTHING!

And here's the rest of the new room!

And some eye candy.

When my sweetie looked at this he said "Laugh, is that what you do when you see all that stuff?" Nope just some things that make me happy. Have a great week!

2013 - Bring It On!!

It's gonna be a great year. And one of the reasons I know is because I like my January calendar page. What 's a calendar page you ask? Well, the talented and beautiful Kate Crane came up with a lovely little challenge which you can find on her blog, The Kathryn Wheel, three years ago. Each month you make a page with a place to make art, or notations every day, and we all link up here. It's a great way to keep track of things, try new ideas, etc, etc, etc.

I was new at this last year and used little squares all the time, so my goal this year is to play around with daily shapes and layouts and see what I like. Small problem though, can't count, so the middle row/week has eight days. Whoops.

So voila! I have a bonus entry for the new year. Lol. I wanted the page to reflect the blues that are so prevalent in the Alaskan winter skies this time of year. I also want SNOW - badly. Today it was 38 and raining. Bummer.

My background started with gesso, and then a layer of London Blue Dylusions Ink and Tattered Angel blue of some sort with lots of water. I let it sit for a bit and then wiped it off with paper towels. A layer or two of Picket Fence Stain, a bit of an accent here and there with Shaded Lilac Stain and then white acrylic paint through one of Dyan Reavely's fabulous stencils. Actually white acrylic paint through a couple of Dyan's stencils. I thought it needed a border so I just drew a couple of lines with dashes and dots with a gel pen.

The tickets were made pretty much the same way but with some added extra Evergreen Bough Ranger stain applied in many ways, including plobbing it down a few times to get splash marks. I cut the tickets out with a Tim Holtz Sizzix die,  and a nod to Marjie Kemper who really opened my eyes to the possibilities with a ticket. I mean, who knew?

Lastly the snowflakes had to bring some glitz, and some of the purple back in by applying the Shaded Lilac ink pad directly onto grunge paper covered with Picket Fences Crackle Paint. I also took the Dusty Concord Distress marker to the top of the flakes.

This seems more me, than my December. But I still loved HAVING a December...

That's us dancing in the upper right corner....you can tell right?

Here's the rest of my year.