Sunday tidying

I started doing my sunday clean up - I got a bit side-tracked and ended up in my studio... I did do a couple loads of laundry inbetween...

the coffee page is pretty rough textured, I mixed instant coffee with acrylic medium, the page even smells like coffee!

this page is weird, but I like it

I reworked this page a bit, still needs something, but getting better...

I'm not sure what this guy will say yet

Journal - Friday

Too big to scan, so they're kinda crappy images...

Zentangle Mandala

I've been really unwell for what seems like forever. I've finally made it out of bed after 9 long days. I opened up my laptop and came across this doodling thing I never heard of called Zentangle. I felt like it was my speed so I gave it a shot. I came up with this Zentangle Mandala, or Zendala... kinda fun to play with, and a calming thing to do, I guess that's why they call it Zen.

whoa, I just spent nearly 4 hours painting this tiny thing!

ATC explosion

This atc has doors that open...

Tiny Fables

These were pretty fun to make, and I think they turned out kinda cool. I used finger paint (yes, Crayola finger paints) and smeared them around on an ATC, then took another ATC and plopped it on top and squished. Then pulled them apart and they had some neat textures and designs. Then I stared at them for a while until I saw an image, and started drawing with pen. then a little pencil crayon to distinguish the characters, and as I coloured, a little story came in to my head...



on the back of the top one I wrote;
And Tug chose his words very carefully as he explained his plight to the great King.

and the bottom one;
And the longneck warrior rescues the strangest bird from certain peril and thus is granted one wish.

inspiration...

I was checking out my art friend Pattio's cool image of Oriental Poppy Seeds, and was inspired to 'borrow' a couple pods to alter... Thanks for the inspiration Pattio!!!

Here's Pattio's lovely post:

And here is what I saw when I looked at the two largest pods...

long time - no blog!

I find myself with some time on my hands, an annoying little cold seeping into my system prevents me from my whirlwind existence for the moment...

So on a whim I pick up my journal, and then Samar appeared. He's like a monster from world of warcraft, however I don't play much these days, so I'm not sure why he manifested himself on my page. I'd like to give him some atmosphere, but the appropriate one alludes me for now. So he will have to be satisfied with banana watercolour paper to be his world for the time being.

watch out for bad bunnies

Next time you're out strolling in the woods keep an eye out for these crafty little devils. They hide out in convenient spots along the trail waiting for an unsuspecting hiker. They won't do too much damage with their small demeanor and tiny teeth, but they can give you quite a scare. This one was none too happy I took a picture of him, he lunged seconds after the shutter clicked... good thing I was ready for him - this time.

dancing zebra

When snails wish they had legs...

Art Gift

For my art gift, I decided to make bookmarks. Some out of canvas, some card. All using acrylics, stamps, and some embellishments. I'm giving one to my Mum today, she is going in for surgery tuesday, so I got her a book, and maybe having this bookmark with her in the hospital, she will feel a little better?
The rest I'm giving away to my bookworm co-workers, I think they'll like them.

create in the style of a favourite artist

I chose Maxfield Parrish. I love his paintings, I really wanted to attempt some of his style of clouds and trees, but I was way too intimidated, so I chose to try and imitate a simpler painting. I couldn't really come up with anything on my own, so I tried to mimic his painting of stars.

Egypt

My word is Egypt. I like anything Egyptian, so I felt like doing a collage with this theme...

Beware

I actually did a bit of work in my physical journal this morning, then following a good clean up of my studio, I was back creating cyber-journal pages. In this one, I tried to create a collage, similar to how I would work in my paper journal. Interesting, but another thing that will require a lot of practise...

Pink!

That's right! Pink Koi! I am practising bubbles, and trying to make things look like they are underwater... I am finding both tricky, but I know I'll get it.

4 hours later...

I finally finished my little bird... Wow, the ability to zoom way in and get details done is awesome, when you zoom back out it looks so real. This little guy has a lot of feathers, that took a long time!
He's all done in acrylic, mostly a dry brush to give the feathers detail.

Sunset in Sooke

Obsession

I'm sure this will pass, but I am so obsessed right now with this tablet. I'm totally out of my realm with this piece, I'm usually not into creepy, but as I was airbrushing, it just kept getting cooler and creepier, so I kept at it. He's quite deliciously creepy now...

Happy little koi

This piece reminds me of the little app I have on my iPod Touch that has lovely little koi swimming around, and you can splash in the water. it's quite calming really, and actually, so are these koi. I am experimenting with my logo, I thought an oriental look was kinda neat in this case...

Watercolour afternoon...

Today I spent a long time trying to figure out animation on Painter... I made some cute little things, but I can totally see how much work it must be to produce anything decent... phew!
So, I gave up and went back to painting, and recreated an old sketch I did of an avocet. I realized today I can bring new life into some of my old fave drawings, I can take them to the world of colour.
I'm not comfortable with painting water yet, and especially with some limitations that Painter seems to have, where you can't do certain things on watercolour layers? So for now, plain water, maybe I'll fix it up later...

Red...

Here's a red rooster, I guess I am really liking oil pastels...
I really need to stop having fun for a bit and do some chores!

I really should take a break...

This was another oil pastel, many layers, learning a lot about layers...

Then I found a way to change the whole look of a painting... This is called Impressionist Scheme. I like the colour change, but I like the original too.

uh oh, mad bear!

Looks like Bear is not happy...

hug a baobab

acrylics are fun too, this is me hugging a baobab in a botanical garden in Hawaii.

White

interestingly I got yesterdays colour 'green' without knowing it was 'green' day.

Today I did an oil painting in Painter. It's pretty addicting creating in Painter, although I have found many bugs in the application:-(

I should sleep...

mmm... 2 am - better go to bed...

I finally got my Wacom Cintiq tablet!

It's pretty Cool! It's not easy learning to adapt to a tablet, but I'm trying hard. Here's an altered photo of the jungle in Hawaii

Here's a pear I did from a lesson. The first is just sketched with pencil crayon, and the second one I blended. It works so much like the real thing, only you don't get your fingers messy :-(

Neato! Oil Pastels!

Hey, more oil pastel... this is a hand painted pastel of a bird photo I took (below)

Aura

I can't seem to do anything more with this page... after finishing the paint, I thought it looked quite cool just like it is, it feels like it is my head when I'm in a good space...
obviously rules are being broken here, no monochromacity. (probably not a word) but that's me - I'm a rule-breaker!

Hopefully not me...

As I hope you can tell, I'm not really following the self portrait theme... *.* Here is the dragon I drew earlier, painted him up in Painter and here he is! I'm still waiting for my tablet, but in the meantime, I am learning Painter a bit, so hopefully I can have fun and not frustrated when the tablet arrives...

Serene

Today I tried something new. I downloaded a trial copy of Painter X and was playing with one of my pics of a lotus I took in Hawaii. I am actually eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new toy, a wacom cintiq 12" tablet and a full copy of Painter! So while I wait, I play with mouse and application to try and get a sense of the brushes, cloning, and effects. Now I can print this out and add it to my journal (likely with embellishments)

You can SO go back...

I had a lot of fun with this one today. It's a fold out journal page and it's all about... well here's what it says ' People say you can never go back ever but I did and I do and I love it I know where I am but isn't it nice to go back and feel the wet squishyness of delicious finger paint swirly and twirly fun then tracing your hand and drawing big eyes and playing with crayons and loving every minute of it
Sometimes you can feel inspired to new heights by going back and indulging in childhood delights when you began creating works of art that were proudly displayed on the family fridge if you can recapture some of that childlike wonder of colours and textures and the imagination that created the world you lived in...'

Wow, it was fun! I used finger paint, and I went through some odd but delightful emotions while painting, and I am really impressed with the finish, it is nice transparent paint that mixes well, and drys a little shiny (kind of like my eyes were while painting with it)
For the background journal page I used crayon ( I splurged and bought the 64 colour box!) covered with black pastel, and scratched out kind of paisley things...
I highly recommend fingerpaints and crayons to all!

it's me, but different...

I drew this not long ago, using 2 mirrors. I really don't have any people drawing skills, and I'm not sure why my eyes are all googly, but it's probably one of the best I've done of people.
I need more practise.