Evan's Owl

Aside from the things I'm working on, I promise myself to TRY to create something by hand everyday - today I created a collage for my nephew Evan, he loves owls (who doesn't? they're so cute with their huge huge eyes!)

Evan's Owl, Collage on Paper
Materials used: Various Scraps of papers, acrylics, white and black china ink, cray-pas, highlighter, glitter gel pens and License Alpha Collage Sheet by SherrieJD for Evan's name, sample frame by me.

Say Goodbye to Fear

A lot of things stood out for me during the first week of Flying Lessons.  (I took snippets, sentences, paragraphs of thoughts that called out to me and copied it onto my notebook, so I could go over it again and again.)  One thing that really caught me was what Kelly said about delaying our creative yearnings...because when we do so, we procrastinate our life's potential because we are afraid of it.

I no longer want to be afraid.

Today, I recognize my creative spirit and BANISH the fear of a) my art not being good enough, b) of being afraid that someone with more money to throw around will take notice of what I am doing and have the resources to do it and compete with me and I will fail to take off, c) fear of being labeled mediocre, d) fear of charging what I feel my work is worth.

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In between reading and re-reading the first week Flying Lessons e-course, I have been busy creating (yay!) layouts for a client who will be celebrating her debut this August and creating doodles for a company that is a major sponsor of this humongous wedding supplier show this June 26th (this one I'm particularly excited about!).

This company will have a booth right in the center of the venue, they are promoting their place as a wedding destination.  Lets just say, they will use my doodles for the floor, to print and wrap around jars of candles, be made into place cards, menu cards and a themed wedding cake will be made according to my design.  Isn't that exciting? In exchange for my creative output, I get to advertise my services and will be acknowledged as the illustrator, along with the event stylist/florist and the cake maker. 

I am very, very thankful for this opportunity and right now, lay claim to all the goodness that will come out of that exposure - more clients, more opportunities, more partnerships, more connections and yes, create more art. 

Here is a sneak preview of the cake design, the theme is central to the clients facility which is being promoted. I'm waiting to hear if I need to revise anything:

My initial sketch:

Transferred and tweaked in photoshop:

There may be more revisions, but golly, can't wait to actually see the cake for real and the set-up on the event date.  I'll definitely post photos after the event.

Hugs!

Return to Art

I took the advice of Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio and just:

Hahaha, lovely right?  Although I do use the computer a whole lot for work related stuff doing photoshop, I also get sucked into the whole Facebook vortex.  What do you do when you hear and see all those notifications popping up that comments were posted, messages sent, photos tagged?  Ah, just one little peek...turns into one whole hour of browsing...and peering into stuff friends and relatives have posted.  Then there is the browsing the forums, blogs, etc. etc.  Checking emails....the list goes on and on and on.  Oh my, where did the rest of the morning go? Anyone familiar with that scenario?

So yesterday, I took Connie's advice after browsing her blog and reading one of her posts.  No, I did not shut down the computer (is that considered cheating?) but I set it to the side, did nary a glance at Facebook, pulled out all my art materials...my journal...and sat and read through Kelly Rae's first flying lesson.  Then I started to create in my journal.

I still haven't answered the questions posed...but I got my art journal ready to write in (at least 2 pages to write in) and more in the works.

Here is what I've created so far:

How I love doing this! Thank you Connie for your suggestion :)  Paper, scissors, paint, glue, pens...how I love the whole creative process. 

Hello :)

Just dropping by to post some photos of my super cute nephew, played around with some photoshop trying to get the dreamy, vintage look..here's what I got:

Isn't he adorable?

So Busy...and the Art of Non-Conformity

I haven't touched my art journal since last post...just so busy trying to finish some work before we head off to the beach for a family vacation this Thursday.  And I probably won't be able to do anything until next week.  Aww! But I'm so excited about the trip because it will be my sons first time to see Boracay which is just such a beautiful beach with fine powder white sand.  This is such a treat for us and I have my dearest brother to thank for treating my family to this vacation.  I shall post pics when we get back ;)

Before I go, I'd like to share a link to this site that I stumbled upon, its called "The Art of Non-Conformity" by Chris Guillebeau.  He talks about unconventional ideas, travel, art, life, work, personal development.  Very interesting.  I found a recent article of his, An Interview With Yourself to be a very good prompt for art journalers - he asks you to ask yourself questions like:

Dear self, you are x years old. What do you have to show for it? Are you living the dream?

As you look back on your life, what are you most proud of, what do you regret, and how do you feel about each of those things? Here are a few follow-ups:

• What’s next, self?
• Why do you do the things you do every day?
• What do you really believe in? (What do you know to be true?)
• Where do you find your security?
• What bothers you, and what are you doing about it?
• What worries you?
• If you had one year left to live, how would you spend it?   

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It's a great exercise,  I'm a little scared to answer it, LOL! Might find out I'm not living the life I want to live, whoa!  But I do know these questions would be great prompts for our journals - surely I will find some time next week to sit with my art and an interview with myself. 

Great big hugs everyone!

March Art Journal Challenge

Joined the March Art Journal Challenge over at Art Journaling.Ning.  These are the mechanics: "Prompts will be posted, which could be one word, a material, technique or even a quote and the challenge is to use it in some manner in our art journal that day."

"The idea behind this is to jump start daily art journaling. The goal is to art journal daily but not necessarily to finish a page or spread every day, just to open the journal and work."

Week 1 prompts are as follows:
March 4th: "Doodle"
March 3rd: "Blue"
March 2nd: "Credit Card(s)"
March 1st: "Start Your Engines!"

I started some pages, they are by no means finished and I will continue to be working on them...

Blue:  (far, far from over..experimented with lace and sequins and beads, 

ugh I don't know what I was thinking....)

Doodle: Uhm, yeah, I don't know where this is going yet..

And this is something I just doodled today while working,
maybe I'll play around with pastels and color her in.

And of course, that led to another...

 

And another...I kinda like her, she's cute :)

Recycled Tags are Cool!

I've been in a fog today, been waking up tired with my back aching although I see no reason for it to ache since I'm supposed to be sleeping on some kind of orthopedic mattress (or so they claim!).  Maybe its the jogging, I've been jogging lately and for the last 2 weeks have been doing 3 kilometer runs.  Today was especially hard because I kept feeling like my eyes were about to fall, even after 3 cups of coffee. 

I've also been so, so behind on my journal entries even if I have been trying to create something each day.  Although today I really could not help it and would putter around to my big table and sit for 10 minutes or so to dab some paint here and there.  I finally succumbed after dinner and sat down at my work table, keeping my son Enzo company while he was doing a school project.  I finally finished this "tag" project I had been working on sporadically for about 3 or 4 days now.

This project was inspired by a tutorial by Alisa Burke my newest mentor, even if she doesn't know it :) She had this idea to re-use those clothes tags and paint over them and use as gift tags.  What a cool idea.  Great thing I have this penchant for keeping tags I like (always thinking I may have a use for them later) Ha! You see, I just knew I'd need them (LOL!)

Except I created little miniature canvases out of them.

This is  where I started:

I still don't have gesso or gel mediums so I just brushed it with white acrylic paint 

and did some stenciling.

Next I just added some patterned paper I cut up from here and there.

Drew my images

Added some more paint and waited 2 more days till I could figure out where

I was going with this (hahaha!)

Could not resist just working on it today and just added more details, paint, collage...still something missing...

More details...That's better.

Pasted some scrapbook paper I had lying around at the back of the tag.

 

And here they are up close:

 

 
Miniature art, ready to hang on my wall, or maybe on my Christmas tree, my door, as a bookmark...I think I'll scan it and print it out on nice thick paper so I can give it away as bookmarks. 

Fun project.  Definitely!