Studio L3 Challenge

I managed to squeeze in some time to work on this week's Studio L3 Grungy Monday 33 challenge. It's a cool Tim Holtz technique using fragments, alcohol inks, and stamps. Here is my piece.

Cute right? I think I will take it on my trip to Portland tomorrow.

Week 3 of Doodles Unleashed

Sorry for the delay in posting. This past weekend I was in Myrtle Beach at a dance convention with my daughter. Fun weekend but alas no art.

This week I have been catching up on homework and getting ready for a trip to Portland.

However, I did manage to eek out a little bit of time yesterday and today to complete Stathmore's Online Workshop Doodles Unleashed with Traci Bautista Week 3. Here are my results...

 Stage 1

 Stage 2

 Stage 3

 Stage 4

 Final Piece

This is a doodle page we will be using in the final workshop next week. 

Exciting News!!

I just received the most wonderful and validating email ever! A Marketing representative from Strathmore Papers contacted me about using my painting from Workshop 1 Week 1 (see below) in a video for their homepage!!!

I know it isn't exactly like being published or having a gallery showing but it is incredibly exciting for me. I am looking at is as the first step on my road to being a "real" artist!

Thanks to the creative mind of my husband I have named it "Primordial"

Color Throwdown Goodness

I managed to squeeze one more art project in today and it is for the Color ThrowDown. I just couldn't resist the color palatte...it is fab!

Here is my entry....

Materials Used:

DCWV blank white card

Smooch Accent Sprays: Spun Sugar, River Moss, and Gold Glow

Distress Pad: Vintage Photo

Color Box Chalk Pad: Yellow Ochre, Chestnut

Red Lead Rubber Stamp: Foliage Statement Stamp 

ArtChix Image Sheet

Map

Vintage postcard

Ten Two Studios tag

Ribbon

Doodles Unleashed - Week 2

Today I am continuing my Stathmore's Online Workshop Series hosted by Traci Bautista. This week's project was all about water soluble mediums. It was quite fun but still a challenge to let go and just doodle. Here are my results....

 In Progress

 Final - Landscape

 Final - Portrait (I couldn't decide which way I liked it better. Eventually we are suppossed to hack up the piece anyways so it really doesn't matter)

Below are all the cropped (by photo not by scissors yet) views of the piece. I like the pieces much better than the whole.

Art Journal All Year

A few months ago I happened upon one of the neatest people I have never met! I am not sure how I found Elsie Larson and her blog but I did and it is a veritable wonderland of all things vintage and awesome! If you know me personally you are probably thinking..."You like vintage things? I would have never known!" It's true, there is very little about my outward appearance or my surroundings that display the funky cool person that lives inside my heart. But alas, I do love vintage stuff.

Anyway, yesterday is was browsing A Beautiful Mess and found that Elsie and her pal Rachel are offering an Art Journal All Year eCourse for $30!

So what's the big deal you may ask? Well I have "journaled" off and on throughout by life but never art journaled before. I always have good intentions but can never make the leap into that world. I guess it is like any blank page to an artist or writer.....very scary! Plus I was never really sure what to put in an art journal. Where do I start? What is it about? What is the purpose? What do I do with it when I am finished? Will I ever look at it again? I could go on but I am sure you get the idea.

Elsie's course is all online and can be accessed forever (yay, no printing!). It consists of 52 weekly prompts. Prompts is definitely something I can do!!! All 52 prompts are available when you sign up so you can go at your own pace. Everything about Elsie is inspiring to me so this seemed like a good time to finally take that leap.

I will be doing one page a week and will post my efforts here. To protect the ownership of the course I will not be sharing the prompts only the work I do.

Week 1 - Art Journal All Year

Material Used:

Used book - $1

Magazine ad from craft magazine

Red Lead Stamp Pad - Sihouette Flowers

Tim Holtz Distress Stamp Pads - Forest Green, Broken China

Copic Markers - various colors

White Uni-ball Signo pen

Micron Pens - .005, .02, .05

Various cut out images

Smooch Accent Spray - Gold Glow

I started with a used book distressed the edges Broken China, then glued down the full page magazine ad. I loved all the doodling and colors already present in the ad and felt it was a good place to start for me. Then I stamped the flowers at the bottom (using one of the stamps I shared last post) with Forest Green. I added the castle, Eiffel Tower, dream definition, and vintage swimmer images. Next came journaling and my own doodling.

Like most things I create, I like some of it and some I don't but it's my first page and I have decided not to stress about it. I am just going to go with the flow and what ever comes of this little project at least I know I tried!

Mail Goodies & 10 Fun Stamping Ideas

Well, today I haven't been able to do any arting (Yes, it's a word! I made it up but it's still a word.) as I had homework for my online Expository Writing course and the dreaded chore of laundry. But I did get some art goodies in the mail that I would like to share.

The dear ladies at Red Lead Paperworks have a wonderful selection of stamps and vintage images along with other embellishing goodies. Last week they are running a last chance sale on a couple of ATCs I wanted (see bottom two in photo) and since I was buying anyway I picked up a couple of other stamps I have been eyeing (see top two).

The sewing image stamps I plan to use to make tags for some of my custom clothing (cool idea, right?). Red Lead has lots of great sewing items from stamps to images to charms. Check them out HERE.

The birds and flower silhouette stamps I will use for ATCs, cards, and other various collage pieces. You can purchase the Bird stamp HERE for only $2.65!!! The flower image is gone but you can find more sale items HERE.

I never really considered myself a stamper before and I don't really now but after participating in a myriad of challenges I found I used stamps for many different things. One day I looked around my studio and realized I have a healthy collection of stamps! Once I realized that stamping didn't have to be just a simple stamped image a whole world opened up.

The options are only limited by your imagination. Here are 10 fun ideas you can try:

1. Layer stamped images for a 3D look
2. Stamp on patterned paper rather than plain paper for a unique look
3. Mask parts of a stamp to create a different image
4. Create a stencil: stamp image on stencil grade plastic sheets and cut to create a negative image
5. Stamp on transparency or acrylic sheets for another kind of layering
6. Transform stamps you are tired of by cutting them up and rearranging them or using only parts of them 
7. Stamp on collage pieces to add dimension and layering 
8. Create a pattern: stamp an image on plain paper, cut out the pieces/parts to make a pattern, use the pattern to recreate the image using other paper or materials
9. Create a resist: stamp image with embossing stamp pad and emboss with clear powder, use inks, stains, or paints over the image, the embossed image will not take the paint creating a cool line image
10. Try a new medium for stamping: instead of ink use craft acrylics or fluid acrylics to "ink" your stamp, this will create a softer more blurred image, works best on solid stamps rather than outline.

I hope you will give some of these ideas a try. Enjoy!

Today

Okay, I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped (slept late and had to grocery shop) but I did manage to eek out two Lotto entries for my ArtChix yahoo group.

 " Ladies in Red" is for a lotto titled The Lady in Red. Normally I stick very closely to the theme and create realistic type ATCs but this time I decided to be a little abstract with the theme. All the images are from the ArtChix Studio except my handwritten sign.

"Wanted" is for a lotto titled A Cowboy's Dream. The image is from The Graphics Fairy. If you have never been to her blog and you use images in your art you must go check it out. The text and German scrap border are from ArtChix Studio. I played it a little cheeky on this one.

This last bit of art is from the monthly Fat Book Pages swap we do on the ArtChix-Sister-Site. This month's colors are Black, Silver, and Red. Yesterday I posted a card I made for another challenge (that happens to have the same color theme) which will be using to mail these fat pages in.

 Fronts

Backs

See you tomorrow for more excited adventures! (Cheesy, I know)

Color Throwdown here I come...

I haven't participated in the Color Throwdown for a long time and I have missed it.

Not familiar with this little gem?  Well, each week the lovely ladies over there challenge us to a new set of colors and you create a card using those colors. Neat right?

I use these little challenges to create cards for future use or an upcoming event. For instance this particular card will be sent to the host of one of the other challenges I am doing that is coincidentally using the exact same colors! Lucky me!

New work as promised

I am super excited to share my first piece from the Strathmore Online Workshop Series - Doodles Unleashed by Traci Bautista! If you are in a rut, have trouble with abstract painting, have control issues, or just want to learn a new technique you have to check out this workshop. It's free to, so no excuses!

It took me two days to complete this piece for a couple of reasons: 1. This type of thing is way out of my comfort zone. Freely drawing anything goes against my sense of order. 2. I spent a lot of yesterday getting back into the blogger groove and preparing for all the new challenges. 3. Life, you know the routine...chores, dinner, business, dance (my daughter, not me), etc.

So here it is presented in stages. I am not going to go into too much detail here because if you are really interested in the process.....go take the class (nudge, nudge, hint, hint) :)!

Stage 1

 Stage 2

 Stage 3

 Stage 4

 Stage 5

 Stage 6

 Stage 7

 Stage 8

 Stage 9

Final Piece

Materials Used: Water color paper (10"x14", 140#, cold pressed), Smooch Accent Sprays, acrylic paints, DecoColor Opaque Paint Markers, Copic Markers, oil pastels, Uni-ball Signo Broad white pen, India ink, various size paint brushes, stencils, feather, small dowel, rubber bands, chain, clothes pin, and a paper drink umbrella

Process: building of layers with paint and doodling

Result: new skills and techniques, patience, and fun!

Happy New Year!

Are you a resolution kind of person? Goodness knows I am not! For one thing I am just not interested in being regimented...we'll blame the artist in me (hehehe).  The other reason is that life changes and things happen and inevitably monkey wrenches will fall into the middle of your pretty little plan...."why set yourself up for failure," I ask. Nope, this girl simply looks at everyday as an opportunity to be better regardless of the time of year.

I do have lots of dreams and desires for myself though and I am actively working on those. First, I have signed up for a few free online courses: The Craftsy Block of the Month Class, and three Strathmore Online Workshops. I am very excited about all of these! I have also joined The Sketchbook Project Limited Edition again this year and am looking forward to more journal exploration and pushing myself farther than last time. In addition to all this fun stuff I will continue to play along in lottos and swaps on the ArtChix-Sister-Site Yahoo group and various blog challenges

So what does all of this planned activity mean? It means I will have lots of art and experience to share with you in the coming weeks and months. I look forward to it and I hope you do too!

Hugs,
Marnie