CFC48, LIM63, OLW85 - Silhouette

Did I wake you up with the bright colors??  This is a very vibrant card for me but the colors were dictated by the current CAS-ual Fridays challenge to choose two colors from the opposite sides of the color spectrum.  Apparently brown, taupe, black, white and grey aren't on their color spectrum even though they figure prominently in mine.

This card also meets the requirements for the April Paper Crafts Connection Gallery challenge of Silhouettes, the One Layer Wednesday challenge to use no sentiment and the Less is More challenge of doodling.  At least I thought it met the Less is More challenge until I looked again and realized that it was a One Layer Challenge -

Never fear!  This card was quickly replicated as one layer.  I particularly enjoy her doodled shoes. . . The turquoise cardstock is cut with the Quickutz Trellis Die and the silhouette stamps are from Stampendous.

Happy Anniversary, Dave and Roni!!!  Hope you had a great weekend!

Humanimals and "Why my mom is great"!

A couple more pictures that were sketched while in the car on our recent journey to/from Florida.  Not quite sure why but I decided to sketch some girls with animal bodies.  Seemed like a good idea at the time but nobody seems to "get them" or even appreciate them like I do.

They mostly seem to weird people out.  I started with the bird girl - she started as a pencil drawing but I needed some color and the flimsy sketch paper I drew her on would never hold up to watercolors I had packed - that is until Corey pulled over and let me run into a Wal-Mart at the next exit and pick up some crayons.

When is the last time you colored with crayons?  It had been ages for me.  Not since the kiddos were little.  They were so cheap too - I got two boxes (two different brands) for a whopping total of $4.32.  Now I have so many crayons that I am thinking about doing one of those art projects where you melt them with a blowdryer.  (I will admit that I was a bit crabby when I drew snake girl but I felt much better afterwards - maybe I need to do that the next time someone aggravates me)

Now - Have you ever seen a more beautiful picture of a dessert in all your born days?  My mom hosts "family night" every Thursday at their house and my brother/I attend with our families.  It is a highlight of our week for us all to be together and mom never disappoints with her culinary creations.  A couple weeks back I commented that it would be so cool to eat a dessert like what was pictured on the Southern Living magazine and LOOK - Mom made one even more beautiful and it was as delicious as it looks!!  Jealous?
Linking to - Art Journal Every Day 

JOURNEY - Watercoloring in the car -

April's theme at Artists In Blogland is JOURNEY and my little watercolored bird is not only on his own personal journey but he was painted while we were literally on a journey - to Florida.  It is easier to paint in the car than I had ever imagined - I tried it back in December and I doubt that I will ever travel again without a few art supplies.  Makes a long car journey fly by. . .

While on vacation we enjoyed the ocean . . .

a trip to Disney World (we stayed until after midnight and didn't make it back to the house until past 1:30 AM - Caleb LOVED Space Mountain and Stella LOVED meeting princesses), visited Grandma Helen, played with our niece and nephew visiting from Seattle and spent lots of time

in the pool at Papa and Oma's house!  So much time was spent in water that Caleb has been battling Swimmer's Ear - thankfully it seems to be on the mend!

It is a treat to ride with us because you can choose from three genres for your listening pleasure:  Adele (me), Weird Al (the boys) and assorted baseball/sports games (Corey).  Diversity is good, right?  It is a good thing that I can distract myself with sketching since Weird Al and baseball/sports games make me crazy!  Linking to Art Journal Every Day - Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.

PDCC125 - Jane Davies Inspired

This week's Play Date Cafe Challenge (PDCC125) is to use Black/White with a splash of Brown!!  Was there ever a challenge more "Michelle"??!!  It stated on the Play Date blog that, "it's the first time we've ever done another 'neutral' as our splash".  That may be very true for them but when I saw the challenge online I was sporting - wait for it - a shirt that was black/white with a splash of taupe!!  YUP - I'm fashionable that way!

Decided to get artsy with this challenge - very fancy materials were used in the construction of these two cards.  I'll wait for you to get a pen/paper to write down this extensive list:

Black India ink, brown acrylic paint and a straw - yes, a straw.  It becomes an invaluable tool in moving the India ink around your paper before it dries.

This isn't the first time I've used this technique - back in early February Kim and I had a waxy good time but I never got around to posting pics of what I worked on until now.

Jane Davies is a collage artist from Vermont who posted a great video on doing Ink Doodles.  These were my first attempt at trying my hand at it.

The first layer is a collage of torn patterned papers that are then covered with a layer of gesso to tone it down.   Then comes the fun - squirt some random ink on your paper and blow, blow, blow with that straw! Yes - it can give you a headache but the most wispy feathery marks are the ones that look the best to me despite the dizzy aftereffects!  Geometric shapes were added with watercolor paint and then

a layer of beeswax added more dimension that I spent a great deal of time buffing up with a soft cloth to get that fabulous gleam!  Definitely a fun technique to try!
Linking to:  Artists in Blogland - Show and Tell Saturday #22 and Balzer Designs - Art Journal Every Day

CFC45, PDCC124, FTL183 - Thinking of you

One card - three challenges!  That's the way I like to do it!!  

The CAS-ual Friday challenge is to use pastels and black together - sounds so easy but is tougher than I anticipated.  Next up is The Play Date Cafe Challenge and last is the Fall To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping.

Swapped the circle in the layout for ovals that were stamped with the Cornish Heritage Art Nouveau backgrounder (retired) with A Muse Studio Papaya ink.  

A spritz of Blue Skies Glimmer Mist added the blue without being too overpowering.  The rounded corner and pink sparkly swallow help keep the card from being too "right heavy".
Other supplies - Swallow dies, Diamond glitter, Smile Inside stamp set, Bubblegum and Sky cardstock (all from A Muse Studio)

Cleopaisley -

While drawing a girl a couple days back the thought struck me that a pattern in the hair would be cool -  paisley seems to be my "go to" pattern these days. . .

She looks faintly Egyptian to me - I was calling her Cleopatra when I realized that a better moniker for her would be "Cleopaisley" -
Linking to Balzer Designs - Art Journal Every Day: Getting Started

Art Journal - Wild Flowers

Here is something completely different for me - a free and wild flower journal page - painted on the night that I made this canvas - same color palette but a completely different look.  Frankly, all that color scares me a bit but the family consensus is that this one is the favorite of the two. . . well, except for the black paint up in the upper right hand corner.  I did that to add some black to that corner of the paper but mom thought that surely must have been a mistake (a paintbrush mishap, perhaps) and not something a person would do on purpose so . . .

here it is with the offending black cropped out.  Since it is painted on canvas paper I am debating whether or not to cut it up and use it for notebook covers.
Linking to - The Sketchbook Challenge - Flowers and Balzer Designs:Art Journal Every Day