On Holidays...

I've been negligent posting again, and I'm now on holiday - and this is the first time I've pulled out my computer. I'm just going to share, today, the index cards I completed in order to catch up - and I'm still behind by two.

Anyway - the above mandala is one I did over breakfast this morning at the hotel I'm at in Montreal.  I don't usually do things in pencil, but the paint doesn't work well with Sharpie - so this was the easiest alternative.

The prompt for this card was "longitude and latitude".  I used the top of my modpodge bottle to draw the circles and then drew in the lines.  The card has been coloured with water-colour pencil crayons.

Ya use what ya have available on holidays - the prompt is Yellow and I went through the hotel brochure cutting out everything I could find that was yellow - not really an easy task this time.

That's it for now -I'm having a good time keeping up with my trip journal -including the journaling and arting, so I'll share that sometime soon.

Create something everyday

Joan

3rd Week of ICAD

Prompt 15- Bouquet - I painted a small bouquet on watercolour paper with watercolour paints.  I'm not to good with flowers yet, so I kept them as simple as possible.

Prompt 16 - Wallpaper - I found the ugliest scraps of wallpaper that I had and layered them on top of one another and stapled them to the index card.  It seemed true to form to have layers of wallpaper, since in the days these babies were used, you would slap one layer of wallpaper on top of another.

Prompt 17 - landscape.  I came across an index card that had a stroke of gold paint on it, a wee bit of blue and a blob of yellow and orange at the top; so I decided to create a dessert scene - complete with oasis.

Prompt 18 - Orange - I love doing monochromatic anything. So it was fun to find orange  bits and pieces in  my stash.

Prompt 19 - Snow.  I used one of my Stampin'Up! snowflake stamps and embossed it in silver on a paper I had added some turquoise toned alcohol ink to.  Then I added some glue and sprinkled some micro flakes on top - voila.

Prompt 21 - 1960's.  When I think of the 60's I think of the Peter Max posters that were big at the time and Flower Power.   I copied this dove poster and wrote the icad in bubble letters - which was kind of a new thing.  The background is suppose to have a hot pink stripe in the middle - but it didn't come out very well.

Prompt 21 - Create your Own Prompt - Black and White.  I said I love monochromatic!  I took a piece of black card stock measured to index card size and drew a mandala with white water based paint Sharpie.

Create something any size everyday.

Joan

f art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. 

John F. Kennedy

Mandala beginning and end

I thought I'd share the beginning and ending of this particular mandala.  I don't always start with a skeleton, but sometimes I just don't stop making lines.

I don't always work in colour either - but I'm loving this paper in this mixed media journal.  It takes the sharpie really well - although I'll have to paint the backsides because the sharpies do bleed through.

Here's another printer's tray I put together.  It took quite a number of weeks before I finally decided what was going to go into each section.  I had fun doing it though.

Create something everyday.

Joan

The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has. 

Michelangelo

More Zentangles and hot glue

I'll tell ya - I had a bit of a hard time remembering how to use a compass properly from math class!….but I finally got the hang of it again.  I had fun filling in all the sections and learned to do a new sort of flower and leaves.

For Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday this time round we used hot glue guns to create our own stencils.  What fun!  I will be making more of these for sure.

Especially when the pages turn out like this.  I put gesso on the pages as a bottom coat, put down the stencils (once they were hard and dry) and then painted with watercolours, letting the stencils stay where they were while the paint dried.

You can't tell from the picture, but the paper sort of rippled into the stencils too - probably because it wasn't water-colour paper.

I will definitely be doing this again.  Tons of fun!

Create Something everyday.

Joan

My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.

 Agnes Martin

Journal Pages

I have this stencil of eye glasses that I just couldn't pass up for some reason.  Here I paired it with a pair of wooden glasses that I painted bright green and added rhinestones to.   And staying curious is an important thing to do - especially in anything artistic. What will happen if I do ….this…?  Music, painting, dance, acting, are all open for curious minds.

I did follow an "Artist Gang" tutorial for this journal page and I'm glad I did.  Creating a background and then using the "Mask" portion of this stencil was a new process and a good one to remember.

I attended one of the Urban Scrapbook journal nights and this is the page we created.  Imagine how happy I was when I saw we'd be including zentangles!  Right up my alley.  I also liked the process we used for adding the text.  I adhered sticky letters of various fonts onto the bare page and then covered it with gesso.  Once all the layers of colour were on, I outlined the letters in sharpie to make them pop off the page.  Too Cool.

Create something everyday.

Joan

Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly.

 Pierre Bonnard

Doodling...

I was at an event a week ago and I brought along one of my doodling books that I can carry in my (big) purse.  Over the course of the evening I worked on this mandala…I don't usually make them so intricate, but I like how this one turned out.

I'm trying my best to work with zentangles that are not "contained", but rather flow around the page…..and to use colour rather than just black sharpie.  This particular book is bound with Mixed Media paper by Canson - boy what a difference paper makes.  I'm usually doing my doodles in my found paper books, which are fantastic, and work perfectly.  But the flow of the sharpie on this paper is wonderful. Now - what would happen if I changed to a "good" pen.

Create something everyday.

Joan

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person. Abraham Lincoln

Former Dancers?

A few months ago I was in the scrapbook store I go to to take classes and buy products.  I spotted three "old lady dancers" stencils and asked my daughter which one I should get - being a former (and now old lady) dancer myself)  She told me to buy them all, so I did and two of them are posted today.

The above page is inspired by a tutorial from the Art Gang attached to Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesdays.  I used a different image, but the theme of balance and the round circles were part of the "lesson".

I absolutely love the tissue paper that Aritzia uses in their packaging when you purchase something from their store - these huge feathers are wonderful…..so I knew I had to include one with this second dancer as she lept across the page.  Not much leaping in my life anymore, but it's fun to imagine.  The funky circles are from the same thinlits set I used the other day - "Swirly Scribbles".  I cut the pieces out of gelliprint paper that I'd made previously and matched my colour scheme.

Create something everyday.

Joan

Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal. 

Egon Schiele