Starting off the new year with some art

I came across this tutorial from Dina Wakely on Pinterest yesterday - just a quick simple page with some basic supplies. So I pinned it and went to do other things. But I kept thinking about it and so decided to just go ahead and do it.

Usually I think way too much about what I'm doing and fuss over all the details but not this time. It only took me about 30 minutes from start to finish and I love it!

Here's to an artful 2015!

Catch up time!

The last quarter of 2014 was filled with lots of crafting projects leaving no time for the 48 Weeks class. But I was still being creative and that's the important thing.

Here's how I spent my time during the past 3 months.

Halloween Horribles 2014

Holiday Horribles 2014

And last but not least, a few magnets. I made more than these but forgot to take photos before I sold them! I changed the way I did the snowmen magnets this year and really like how they turned out. I plan on making more like this for next year.

Looking forward to getting back to my journal!

48 Weeks with Donna Downey - Week 32

Another abstract this week, this one a little more on the grungy side. Here's Donna's:

And here's mine. I find myself more and more attracted to this type of work. I love the layers and textures. And probably because it's so unstructured and doesn't involve any drawing which I'm lousy at.

48 Weeks with Donna Downey - Week 31

This week was about texture again but using the medium as the base and carving into it. Here's Donna's.

She laid down a thick coat of super heavy gesso and then carved the branches into it with various tools like a pencil and a skewer. Then once it was dried, she glazed it in raw umber and then olive green to highlight the texture, leaving the paint in the grooves as the branches. Then when it was dried she used a super heavy acrylic paint for the flowers.

Here's mine.

I didn't have enough super heavy gesso so I used joint compound instead. It works well as long as you seal it with a couple of coats of  matte medium, otherwise it will crumble right off the page. This was a pretty simple lesson and I had fun with it.

48 Weeks with Donna Downey - Week 30

A challenging lesson for me since I still struggle so much with faces. Here's Donna's:

For the face, she used one of her own rubber stamps. She stuck on the butterflies to cover up a mistake she made - a very clever solution. Here's mine:

I used a face stencil (from Pam Carriker) and it's OK but obviously I need lots of practice on faces. My favorite part of this spread is the black and white abstract design at the bottom.