My little House

I've been working on this one for a few weeks now. I like having a few pieces going on at the same time it gives me new inspiration which can be refreshing. I used a rolled paper technique I learned from a video by Christy Tomlinson to create the roof, window, rainbow and door I love the dimension it adds to my work. My background was created with acyclic paint and different mediums like bubble wrap, dry wall tape, washi tape, paper borders and other household items.  The flowers were from a stamp inked with archival ink and painted in with red acrylic paint. I stamped a rainbow in the rolled paper I had in the upper right corner. I colored it in with fine tip sharpie markers. I highly recommend keeping a sketch journal it's something I go back to time and again to gather inspiration for what I want to do next!  Grab your paints stamps and any other things you have laying around and give it a try!

My latest Canvas!

I love love love how this turned out! It started with some paper that caught my eye. Then came a problem I've never faced before I couldn't figure out what colors looked good with the paper. I remembered I had bought a cheap color wheel a few months back. Boy am I glad I did it really helped! It pointed me towards using the green & yellow with the violet purple. This will be a hard one to let go! I suggest investing in a $2 color wheel for those times when you need a little color help.  I'm contemplating adding some words or a quote but I may just leave it be.....

Art Journal Cover

I finished the cover for my Art Journal and wanted to share it with you. (don't have many "you" but I'm believing that will change!!).  I love owls and they seemed to fit this background. The texture on the bottom is from gauze I got at target during halloween. I used Golden gel medium to adhere it. It's very easy to put down just cut a piece a little larger than the area you want to cover. You need extra material to be able to maximize the texture. When the gauze is coated with the gel medium use your fingers to create your desired look. (Medical gauze would work great if you decide to try something like this.) Once the gauze was dry I used a few shades of green to create the look of grass. I drew a few flowers and did some doodling swirls with fine tip pens. Now for the swirly cloud(ish) looking things I glued kitchen twine down with some pva glue. My sky was made with mixing some blues with white until I had my desired color. I added some white highlights and used a white gel pen on the clouds. I put the owl stickers on and applied a coat of collage podge over them to be sure they would stay in place. My art journal is just a small spiral notebook I got at a secondhand store. I will do a post soon that will show you how to prep the book pages like I do in my journals. The pages can then be written on, painted, embossed, zentagled, stamped, glued on etc etc etc the possibilities are endless! you should try making your own art/visual journal. Merry Christmas!!

Poppies are so fun to paint!

I'm loving how this is turning out. Poppies are so much fun to create I really like the bold red. They aren't hard to make I used some old book text and tore out some roundish (not a word?) shapes. I used a Americana cherry red, golden pyrrole red, golden transparent pyrrole orange, golden quinacridone magenta acrylic paints ob the poppies. For the stems I used an green acrylic pen and glued black beads down for the centers of the flowers with pva glue. To make the background I used various colors on things like dry wall tape, bubble wrap, stencils and I added washi tape sealed with collage podge. Just play around with different materials to create texture and add the colors you like. After I got the background done I put the poppies on & painted the stems. I used a couple different stamps over the background and finished flowers with black archival ink.  One of the final touches was some paper border glued down with craft glue. Now I'm just debating adding text. I'll post again if I decide to add anything else. I challenge you to make some flowers with book text there are endless possibilities!

One of my current projects!

It's not quite done yet but I thought I'd share one of the projects I'm working on.  I've got several things going on at the moment but this is one of my favorites.  I love the rolled paper roof & door. I got the rolled paper idea from artist Christy Tomlinson if you haven't seen her work check out her blog www.christytomlinson.typepad.com she is an amazing artist!  I'm getting a little anxious Christmas is quickly approaching and I don't feel ready. I need to finish a couple pieces I'm working on so I can get my girls wall art done. It will be some late nights for me so they don't see what I'm doing! Tis the season!

Love thrift stores!

I was shopping at a local thrift store & came across this box. If was a little rough but I knew with a few fixes I could make it into something cute and useable. The edges were coming up so I used some matte medium to adhere those back down. I had a couple things cut out for collage so I put them on with matte medium also. They were too white so with a couple oil pastel crayons I grunged them up a bit. I'll probably add some more collage elements to finish it up. Always keep an eye out for hidden treasures that you can change and make your own! It was definitely worth the $2.99 now I have to figure out what I'll put in it!!