Saturday, October 17, 2009

Happy Hallowe'en


A couple of Hallowe'en-y pieces from my little hemp journal. Text pages, watercolour, acrylic, oil pastel, coloured pencils, and more.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Maybekindasorta ATC addiction

I think I have a problem. No, not really! I've just been really busy lately, so the small, small format is working in my favour. These are all for iATC trades



I really need to get around to finalizing a few sketches for a book idea of my Aunt Linda's, but I'm kind of intimidated and I think my initial drawings reflect that. Wish me luck in getting over my self-imposed drawing block! Oy vey.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Ghost Fennec ATC


A custom card I did for someone over at Illustrated ATCs using acrylics, watercolours, Permapaque, gel and Pitt pens as well as some text pages.

Friday, September 4, 2009

One Bad Apple


This is one of my masking tape ATCs. Everything but the apple and the text had been done quite a while ago and sat waiting to be finished.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Fire Seed



I was doodling in my little hemp journal at lunchtime today in between perusing art blogs. I liked it and worked it up with some watercolours and Prismacolor pencils once I was home... never thought I'd be a fan of these colours, but I am now.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Flu week



So, no mono thank gawd but I managed to catch a flu bug and it laid me out pretty horizontal almost all week.
Whilst being stuck on the couch I had my ever-patient husband set up a tv tray with some drawing implements on it for me, so I at least could work in my little journal and make some ATCs.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

So not funny


I may have caught mono from my sister. *cue much rolling of eyes* Even if I haven't, I have caught something and I no longer have a voice. I'm also feverish and achey. Bleah! Bleah I say!
In spite of it, I am fairly happy... I've joined up at Illustrated ATCs and found a host of really talented folks on there. I'm in my first swap which was based on Colour Lovers palettes. My group was Braving the Brain and this set of four ATCs is what I was inspired to do.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Super-Amazing O'Sullivan and Sparky


Playing with pen and watercolour in my journal.

Monday, August 17, 2009

New book!



I discovered since I finished my last little square hemp journal that I missed having the little square format to play with. So last week I picked up another one! Here's the front cover and inside front cover. Fluid acrylics, some gold shimmer, some scraps of pretty paper and oil pastels for the flowers, which I drew on text pages.

Friday, August 14, 2009

A quick journal spread


Inspired by some leafy skeletons that Patti gave me and playing with green-gold fluid acrylic.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Some ATCs






I have actually been doing a fair bit o' arting, but nothing totally finished. Plus, I have this rather large painting on the go that's sucking all of my attention. :) In the meantime, here's a few ATC's that I've been working with while other things dry.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Happy Birthday Patti!!

It's my dear friend Pattio's birthday today and I hope it's been one long day of fabulousity!
Everyone (all three of you who read this blog ;) go on over there and wish her a Happy Birthday after admiring her journaling and arting prowess.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Aunt Linda and Tags




I was out at Patti's yesterday with some plain manila mail tags. They are no longer plain!
And as is usually the case I came away even more inspired than when I started. You'd think that 5 straight hours of arting would leave me wanting to go play table tennis or something, but no. I went home and finished up a portrait of my aunt Linda that I'd started a while back and got stalled on. Somewhere on the road home it suddenly clicked in my head and I knew how I wanted to finish it. I love when that happens!
I used some of our Mad Hatter's Tea Party paper as a border... I sure get a lot of mileage out of our homemade papers.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Quick Lily


I was on a roll tonight and just wanted to keep playing with the acrylics. So I did.

I know it's bad...



... it's an aggressive, invasive and non-native species that should be eradicated from our Island.
But to me it will always be part of the eternal background of my childhood summers along with khaki-coloured lichen, dark grey granite, ochre grass and cerulean skies. When it was hot enough to make the road shimmer we'd start hearing the POP POP POP of the scotch broom seed pods. We would take the flower buds and coax them open to use as puppet heads, and we used the sticks as swords or magic wands or roof arches, as the need arose.
I know now that it's a horrid weed, but I loved them as a kid. Isn't that always the way?

Anyways, I was stuck home today with an ill husband. While he moaned dramatically on the couch I painted in my little, almost-all-done journal.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Professor Snorq - Another ATC


Just finished this one tonight. Scanning it was a challenge because it's covered with iridescent gold, and the little edge squares are metallic red. Shiny doesn't render so well with my scanner, alas.

No title for you!





I had a gigantic blast with Seth's Buried Treasure hunt. I now have far too many new blogs to keep tabs on because there were so many talented folks taking part in this. Thanks again Seth, you art enabler!

Playing with ATC's yesterday was fun and relaxing when it was so very hot outside. I'm also showing a spread from my journal where I played with scrap paper and paint and a ballpoint pen. I don't think any of these are "done" just yet, but they are at a good stopping point for now.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Resurrecting a fun post


Seth from The Altered Page put out a request for bloggers to repost a favourite of their creation.
"Cat-Like-Thing in Tree-Like-Thing" is mine at the moment. It was fun to make and I still smile when I look at it. C&Ping the original post below:

This creature was inspired by a doodle from the sketching I did at the Vic Poetry Slam, oddly enough.
The media is so mixed that I can't quite recall all the steps I took with it. The original background that you can see peeping through the aurora strip was, if I remember correctly, a watercolour and chalk wash with chalk overtop and was done months ago. It sat in my book waiting for inspiration to strike. After the poetry slam, I knew I needed to draw the little creature, so I did and that sat for a couple of weeks. The bluey-purple nightsky and leaves are acrylic and I did that at Patti's place last weekend. The rest I did last night with my fave white pens and Prismacolor pencils. The photo sucks, unfortunately, but I can give the gist of it at least.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Art to soothe my aching head



I was down and out with a horrid sinus headache yesterday (and still haven't quite shaken it today, but it is better) and didn't have the oomph to do much of anything except lay on the couch with pencils, paints and paper nearby.
So here's the rather-bare-bones illo for "chapter thirteen" done in acrylics, sepia ink and Prismacolors.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

A Drive-By Posting



Before rushing off to work I thought I'd share the first two pages of my new journal.
Oh, and don't forget that Patti over at Jazzgoil is having a give-away! Go take a look, it's awesome.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

A new journal is like...



... discovering a whole new world with creatures and plant life that you've never seen before!
I realized last night that it's been one year almost exactly since I first started working with art journals. Pattio and I hit Island Blue Print yesterday at lunchtime and I bought the successor to the first little hemp journal I bought in July 2008. I was tempted to get another just like it, but then Patti and I found some awesome, ready-made half-lined/half-blank hardcover books from Daler-Rowney's Cachet line. Mine's an interesting 7"x10" size which is bigger than the hemp one, but still smaller and more manageable than the rest of my current "stock".
I had meant to not do anything with it til I went to Patti's place tomorrow for some arting, but... BUT... Last night the cover called to me with an inspiration I couldn't ignore, and since I do have this wonderful new black gesso that does NOT smell like it's associated with the devil's nether regions (see my post about Jo Sonja's black gesso ewwww), I went ahead and played.
So first is the new cover where I taped off the outer third, sanded it to get rid of the shiny and then painted it with the black gesso. Then I took my favourite Speedball nib and some white acrylic ink to draw the main outlines and finally a very sharp Sky Blue Light Prismacolor pencil to do some of the detail. Eventually I'm going to wrap the dragons and clouds around the inner side of the cover as well, but by the time I'd finished this much, it was 2am. Oops!
Second is the cover of my first art journal, where I discovered the joys of phthalo green, blue shade, for the first time. It makes me remember being in Patti's studio and being in awe of how comfortable she was with EVERY single art medium known to mankind. Heheh.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A quick update




Had the worst birthday ever, last Monday, but some good news later in the week and getting myself two new paints made up for it! Art does wonders. ;)
The first piece is in my journal and is a mix of paper, acrylics, watercolour and ink with Esme The Vicious sitting there (maybe) temporarily. She might get a better background at some point. The second piece is in my small journal that I'm going to have to replace soon! It is on its last few pages. The background is built up paint and paper with leaf ribbon and even more paper on top. The chimera-type-dude was done on some japanese dictionary page. The third is an 8x10 canvas board with my two new acrylic paints and some cheesecloth and bubble wrap. I think I'll be putting a fish or two in there to finish it off at some point.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Catching up with my journal




I've had some of these sitting and waiting to get uploaded for a while, but just haven't had time to take photos during the day. I still didn't have time during the day, so the photos aren't the greatest, but I'm crossing it off my to-do list anyway! Oh, and the side borders for the cat-like-thingy are from my pieces of the art paper we made at Patti's tea party. Neat, neat stuff.