Nurture

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in."

               - Morrie Schwartz

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

My Super Hero

ME - "Look!  It's my first super hero. . ."

CONNOR - "You can't call her a super hero."

ME - "Why not?"

CONNOR - "She's not super." 

Put in my place by a 17 year old boy - apparently dressing a girl in a tight body suit with rays surrounding her head doesn't make one a super hero despite what I think.

Check out 29 Faces at Ayala Art!!

If you are willing to do something. . .

"If you are willing to do something that might not work, you're closer to being an artist."

                            - Seth Godin

Linking to Paint Party Friday and

Art Journal Every Day

Check out 29 Faces at Ayala Art!!

A girl and her monster. . .

Once upon a time there was a girl -  

There was nothing special or unusual about this girl - she had hopes and dreams like all girls do. 

And like all girls she had her share of stresses and uncertainties.

However, when she thought too much about her stresses and uncertainties they took on a life of their own - rather like a large scaly monster that grew to be as big as she was!!

The more she fretted about these stresses and uncertainties the bigger and closer the monster seemed to be!  Until she came to a realization - she could shut her eyes and hum a little tune and ignore the monster. 

While her stresses and uncertainties did not miraculously disappear, her new perspective helped her to deal with the monster and it began to shrink.

Sometimes that is as close to happily ever after as we get, right?

THE END

Check out 29 Faces at Ayala Art!!

"Bad hair" sisters

What do you do when you can't think of something to write about your picture?  You could ask your husband and he would say, "I thought I was having a bad hair day - now we can have a bad hair day together!" 

Seriously?  Their hair was my favorite part of this page!!  Obviously, not my husband's though.  LOL

At least I am caught up with the 29 Faces challenge now - these two are #5 & 6.

Linking to Art Journal Every Day,

Paint Party Friday

Check out 29 Faces at Ayala Art!!

Illustration Friday - EXOTIC

More crinkly watercoloring in my moleskine notebook - 

I consider pink, yellow, orange and blue hair to be exotic, do you?

Linking to Illustration Friday - EXOTIC.

Check out 29 Faces at Ayala Art!!

Be willing to be a beginner . . .

Very few words tonight. . . 

I am tired -  

so tired that my head was bobbing while trying to edit these photos. 

BTW - when will I ever learn to be careful about wet ink?!  I smeared her nose all over the place - do you know how much faster I could draw if I didn't have to spend time cleaning up all my mistakes?! 

She looks pretty cool here - a big part of me wishes I had stopped at this point. 

Linking to Paint Party Friday,

Art Journal Every Day

Inspired by Henri Matisse - Part Two

This first week of Studying Under the Masters has just flown by and tomorrow will be a fresh artist.  I wasn't quite ready to let go of Matisse and wanted to play around with one of his works tonight.  

This was based on STILL LIFE WITH FLOWERS AND FRUIT a 1947 aqcuatint by Henri Matisse.  We learned from class that Matisse started with a sketch - I used pencil and then followed it up with 

India Ink applied with a liner brush.  Obviously, Matisse used a larger brush when painting his so I'm sure it took me longer than it did him but I did learn to loosen up. 

While Matisse's work stayed in black and white, I went a step further and got out the watercolors and made it look "Matisse-like" by adding bright hues and a patterned wallpaper background.  Below is the original work.  This was great fun!

Linking to Sunday Sketches and

Creative Every Day

Illustration Friday - SEARCH

Quick journal page for Illustration Friday - SEARCH. 

Watercolor and ink heart layered with text over dried teabag paper.

Linking to Paint Party Friday and

Art Journal Every Day

"Fancy a Chinese?"

While cleaning up the detritus of our Chinese dinner I picked up the bag that it came in - gorgeous, thick, brown paper that was just begging to be used as more than garbage. . . so I did. 

My family is used to me cutting up the "garbage" to draw on - our younger son brings me interesting wrappers on a regular basis - things he thinks would be cool to collage with other pieces - like the saying from the cookie that I put with the girl.

Our English friends say, 'Fancy an Indian or do you fancy a Chinese?" when deciding what to order for take-out food.  It always made me picture picking up an actual person to eat with us - not just getting the food.  Tickles me so much that I've adopted the saying too!

Linking to Sunday Sketches,

Creative Every Day

Illustration Friday - TIME

"Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions."

                               - John Randolph

The passage of time has been on my mind quite a bit this week.  Our older son just turned 17 and, as every mother knows, the time has flown by since his birth.

A recent car conversation went as follows:  

CONNOR (age 17) - "Mom, did you realize that the year 2048 is as close in time as the year 1980 was?"

ME - "Thanks, Connor - you've managed to make me feel even older than ever." 

CALEB (age 12) - "Mom probably won't even be alive in 2048."

This girl was drawn in pencil over a wash of yellow ochre watercolor in my sketchbook.

I recently found The Ink Draw blog and LOVE how she draws hair and wanted to give it a try.

The different sections of hair do not stand out as separately as I'd like but all in all I am happy with my first attempt. 

Her eyes were initially painted only in gray and blue but a little addition of orange pencil seemed like a good idea in the moment and made such a big difference! 

Linking to Paint Party Friday,

Art Journal Every Day,

Illustration Friday