Pam Garrison inspired...

Pam Garrison has a class on Creativebug called Creative Sketching.  These are my exercises from Part 1.  Neither of them look much like Pam's - apparently, I am too structured and uptight for that.  LOL  

It was fun using lots of colors and pen work - I prefer the one that is more earth colored - probably because it is the calmer one.  I do love my neutrals. . .

Linking to Art Journal Every Day and

Paint Party Friday

AEDM - Lisa Congdon inspired

This page was inspired from an exercise in the Lisa Congdon class - More Sketchbook Explorations.  I love watching her draw - she makes it look so easy - then you try and the easy part turns out to not be that easy after all.

Check out the other work daily on Art Every Day Month (AEDM)!

Big Hair Tale

In The Year in Janie's Diary our heroine is valiantly trying to look older and more attractive by, among other things, ratting her hair out to gargantuan proportions.  No wonder most girls needed an entire evening to wash and style their hair - can you imagine how much time it would take to wash out all that hairspray?

I haven't used much hairspray in the past decade or so but I will admit that in 8th grade I had some of the best feathered hair around - my technique was to curl and arrange the hair precisely where I wanted it to lay, hold it in place with clips, spray the whole mess into submission and then remove the clips once the hairspray had dried.  Worked like a charm until the wind blew or the rain fell.  LOL   What extremes did you go to for the perfect coiffure? 

Linking to Art Journal Every Day,

Paint Party Friday and

Art It Friday - Show Your Face

Sewer Flower

Good advice from the flora. . .

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

traces of the applied arts

"she was pretty but her skin betrayed traces of the applied arts"

Well, time is marching on and I'm not getting any younger - LOL!  The old dark circles have been creeping up so I've been watching some makeup videos and there are way too many choices these days!  Who knew that I should be applying foundation with a brush and not with a sponge?  This is what I ordered - IT Bye Bye Under Eye Concealer.  I'm hoping for the best - what products are your favorites? 

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

buy me this

The weather was gorgeous this weekend!!  Way too pretty to be inside drawing so all I have to show is a quick flower doodle on a prepainted ATC card.  How was it outdoors by you??

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Absent-minded girl

I don't know if I'm as absent-minded as I am easily distracted.  Maybe they are the same thing - what do you think?

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Illustration Friday - OUTSIDE

Haven't done a prompt from Illustration Friday in a while.  This girl was drawn in ink.  The cloud was too but was scanned in the computer and digitally resized to make the background sky.  I'm figuring that most people will view the topic OUTSIDE in a colorful way so I'm thinking this black/white version will be different from the norm.

Linking to Illustration Friday

The paper hoarder

Back in the day I was a scrapbook paper hoarder - I had a bad habit of buying several sheets of each pattern that I loved - or even liked.  Fast forward a few years and my papercrafting has slowed way down but my paper stash has grown and GROWN!  

Now, in an effort to grow my limited storage space and to shrink the unruly paper hoard, I've started cutting the paper into 4" x 6" sheets and using them for scratch paper, etc.   It sure is nice to grab a piece of paper and find a gorgeous pattern on the back.  In fact, when I turned a sheet I'd been using for the grocery list over the other day and saw the fun Basic Grey cloud paper I immediately grabbed a pen and sketched a girl.  Are you a paper hoarder too??

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Bike riding in the moonlight

Can you tell what the background of this girl is??  I see a lot of artists using security envelopes in their collage work so I thought it would be fun to use it as a background for a girl doodle. 

The best part of all is when I was done and folded up the envelope - look what I found!!

It was a total surprise to see her peeking out the window - I couldn't have done that on purpose if I tried!!  Made me so happy that I worked on finding a book quote that would work for the front and inside of the envelope.

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

29 Faces - last minute things

Not sure why but this girl is my favorite of this month so far - her mouth is crooked but it makes me happy.  Watercolor and graphite.

Check out all the fun with 29 Faces!

Linking to Paint Party Friday and

Art Journal Every Day

Sketching flowers in the car. . .

I'm a big fan of neutrals - my favorite colors are brown, black and gray.   However, after weeks and weeks of winter weather with all my surroundings being dull and neutral a splash of color was just what I needed!! 

Started with flowers that I sketched in the car while waiting to pick up the kiddo from school - blechy and rainy outside.  I loved the black/white sketch and was tempted to leave it but the urge to play with color wouldn't be left alone!

Much brighter than what I usually do but I'm really happy with how cheery this turned out! 

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

make a new ending. . .

After lots of nice advice from this post, I decided to try my hand at lettering again and am pretty pleased with the attempt even though many of the words look as wobbly as a drunken sailor on shore leave.  My theory is that once the princess and her wonky stars were added the wobbly letters look more like an "artistic choice" than "making the best of pitiful lettering".  What do you think?? 

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Bird Brain -

She laughed when the bluebird of happiness landed on her noggin - maybe this will be a good year after all. . .

Got a new Strathmore soft cover art journal with "toned tan" pages in it!  It's rather small - 5.5" x 8" and I am envisioning lots of inky drawings in it over 2015.

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Bonfire anniversary. . .

(girl sketched in the car while traveling home)

Just got home from Mississippi where we were celebrating my cousin's 25th wedding anniversary.  Such a great time - no formal party for these two - instead there were ATVs, fireworks, a hayride, bonfire, a few sticks of dynamite exploded, gobs of good food and catching up with family/old friends.  Just about the most perfect way to spend a weekend - ever!

(picture of Caleb by the cabin - wouldn't you love a cabin like this back in your field?)

What made this party even more special is the fact that my cousin and her husband were "set up" by my husband - which makes us all best friends and makes these special times even more special.  I will spare you pictures from the wedding but you can imagine how BIG our hair was in 1989.   All the kids were laughing at our coiffures (even Corey, my husband, had surfer hair - "Duuuuude")

(amazing bonfire cake)

It is good to be home but I sure do hate to think about getting up in the AM and heading in to work.  sigh. . .

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

4 doodled flowers

Started with a watercolor background - 

If you are going to paint one you might as well paint four, right?

Doodled some inky flowers - I dig how neutral they are but I know that look isn't a favorite for everyone.

Which one is your favorite?

Linking to Creative Every Day and

Sunday Sketches

trunk full of loot

Sketched this flower in the car and watercolored once I got home.  The part that is my favorite is the old book quote - 

"Therefore, that trunk full of possible loot could hardly have belonged to Jack."

Cutouts from old books are a treasure trove of nuggets that can add invaluable and unexpected personality to the pages in your art journals.  Have you tried adding cutouts from old books to your art?

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Painting in Public

While this doodled/watercolored flower may not be a showstopper it is certainly a milestone for me.  Why?  Because it was painted in public - in the cafe at Barnes & Noble!

My friend Kim has no fear (Instagram - @artfullyvintage).  She's got her bag packed and is ready to create anywhere the mood strikes.  I was wigging out from the word go about drawing in public.  I simply would never have had the confidence to attempt such a feat without her prompting. 

Plus she brings me presents - great friend, huh??

Linking to Sketchbook Sunday and

Creative Every Day

Inky, inky flower

I filled an entire page of my art journal with a big inky flower! Lisa Congdon is a master of filling pages with amazingly quirky images and she often features them on her Instagram feed.

It was such a great idea until I got to about this point and then it started becoming tiresome,

but then I was on the telephone for a while and before I knew it the entire flower was finished!  I am really pleased with how it turned out- I need to try that again! 

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Digital stripes girl. . .

I sketched this girl the other day and decided to use the computer to have some fun with the background.  Do these stripes look familiar?  Last month I posted the picture below with a girl painted directly onto the stripes but beforehand I scanned the painted book page into my computer.

Photoshop Elements allowed me to add the stripes to the background of my newly sketched girl.  Do you use digital manipulation much with your art?  Do you consider it cheating since that actual piece doesn't exist anywhere outside of my computer (or if I print it out)?  Can it be considered cheating if I painted/sketched each piece though and then morphed them together?  

I'd love to know your thoughts on this. . .

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day