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