Fall in Love With Art Journaling Fall Challenge

I never finished the thirty journal pages in the last challenge, but the newest one has started up on Facebook:  Fall in Love With Art Journaling Fall Challenge.  You can sign up by following the link.

The first challenge was to use initials or monograms.  I did a simple watercolor wash, some letters with black marker, and some doodles around the edges with gel pens.  Good type of work for watching college football games.

Here is a little beach scene I did on a 4" x 6" card. 

There was another rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on Friday morning at 6:28.  This time we were still at my brother's house before leaving for Sarasota.  In the picture below you can see the sun rising over Fort Myers, and the white clouds are the vapor trail from the rocket. Very cool!

Our beautiful weather continues here in southwestern Florida, while most of the east coast is swamped with rain from Hurricane Joaquin.  Thank goodness there was no direct hit, but there is a lot of flooding in the Carolinas.  More rain is coming their way.  Hope the sun comes back out soon for them.

And Now, Something Different

I have posted before about the 2012 free Strathmore Online Workshops.  The first one is hosted by Traci Bautista and is called Doodles Unleashed.  In the fourth lesson, we created a beautiful background with acrylic paints, stamps, stencils, doodled text, etc. 

We also created doodles on a separate sheet with India ink and paintbrush.

The final step was to paint a face onto the background, and collage some of the ink doodles as a headdress.  Traci's looked like this one on the cover of her latest book.

She creates stylized lady's faces that she calls "glam girls" who have one very elaborate eye, no nose, sexy lips and curly long hair.  They also tend to have green, purple or other colorful faces.

I did not want mine to be a copy of Traci's.  Since I have been trying to paint faces for awhile, I decided to try a more realistic face.  When I collaged some of my doodles, the India ink smeared all over.  I had to repaint them.  Here is what I came up with.


Island Bride, mixed media painting by Jeanne McBrayer



She ended up being a bride because I went a little too wild when I painted in her hair.  I gessoed over the black paint, and it looked like a bridal veil.  So I added some stenciling with white acrylic paint.

I have no idea what I will do with this.  Maybe cut it up into postcards or journal covers?  It is fun to try new techniques.

I also began several other backgrounds that have faces in progress, so I will get to those sometime this week.

Are you ready for the Super Bowl?  It is cold and rainy today.  I think I will spend the afternoon before the big game quilting my Cassatt portrait, and maybe its companion, the barn picture, as well.  I have almost finished stitching it.

Fun With Doodles on a Rainy Day

This is what it looked like on our greenway walk today.  Gray, beige, and wet.

Kasey and I were the only idiots out there.  Hope SHE enjoyed it! 

I decided it was a good day to work on fun, colorful journal pages.  First, I got out my hardcover watercolor journal and turned to a page that I had previously painted with some orange/pink watercolors.  This month's theme for The Sketchbook Challenge is DOODLES.  So, I used two widths of Sharpies to add some doodle designs.

Doodling is also the theme of the first of this year's Strathmore Online Workshops.  If you have any interest in mixed media or art journaling, you should sign up for this free series of online classes with well-known artists.  The first series of videos is by Traci Bautista.  In the first lesson, you make marks with a variety of paints, markers, and stencils.  Then you use India ink and white-out marker to add more marks.

Here is my first lesson.  I hear the Seventies are calling, and they want their Flower Power back!

Since I had an extra sheet of watercolor paper handy, I made another one to use up the extra paint.

It is my understanding that these are to be cropped and cut up in future lessons for use as journal covers or other mixed media creations.

I also started Lesson 2 with Traci, which involves painting big shapes with watercolor paint, then adding stamps.  When this is all dry, I will write all over it with transparent ink colors- probably my Tsukineko inks.

I highly recommend color therapy for a dismal winter afternoon!

Happy Halloween!

Last year I participated in the 21 Secrets online journaling class.  One of the workshops was Doodlicious Daybook, with Tracie Hanson.  We made funky journals out of painted brown paper, old calendar pages, duct tape, zig zag stitching, and other fun stuff.  On one of my painted pages, I took the paint blobs and made them into ghosties and goblins.

Then I got this card from my dad a couple of days ago.  He likes to make color photocopies of his artwork and make note cards.  This painting from Sunset Beach came with his version of ghosties and ghoulies!

Great minds think alike.

We have not had a trick-or-treater at our house in about six years, probably because of our long driveway.  But I hope that you have a safe and happy Halloween!  It is a very cold one here in central North Carolina.  My grandkids live in South Carolina, where you can usually count on it being in the 80's on Halloween.  Avery and Lily did not look too pleased to be wearing their fur monkey suits on this Halloween a few years ago, but they would be perfect for tonight!

Wednesday Work in Progress-Zentangle Hand

Here is what I have done so far with the Zentangle-doodled hand.  This is a little challenge that my Anything Art quilt bee started last month.  I was fairly pleased with my doodled hand, but in what context would a severed hand appear in a quilt? I don't do macabre!

The first thing I decided was to fuse a white backing fabric to the hand, because the PDF (Prepared for Dying) fabric seemed a little thin to me.

 

I toyed with black and white solid and print combinations, but my delicate doodles seemed a little lost among the stronger prints.  To set it off, I finally fused the hand to a gorgeous hand-dyed coral fabric.

added some patchwork in bright colors that was left over from another project.  Now I had a crazy quilt going.  But first, I added a bit of black lace to the wrist to avoid the amputated hand look! Now it is a gloved hand, or at least a glove!  And some definite color pop is going on!

Some blue-green hand-dyed fabric surrounded the patchwork to give the eye a rest.

Now what?  It needs something else.  Maybe just quilt it, and then add some hand embroidery or buttons.  Or more trim, a la crazy quilt.

This is just a fun project- no stress!  Just playing!

Trying Out Zentangles

Yes, it is still very hot here in central North Carolina, and the HVAC guys have been here since 9:00 AM installing a new system to replace part of our sixteen-year old air conditioning units.  I got up at about 6:30 AM in order to clear off the steps and landing to my finished attic rooms so they could install the new duct work and returns up there.  We are told that the new system will be much more efficient, which is good.  Usually it is too hot or too cold upstairs.

Anyway, I have been staying downstairs again where the A/C still works.  I decided to try my new sketchbook for making Zentangle Doodles.  I bought the Zentangle Basics book to help me get started, since I really didn't "get it" with Zentangles.

I had heard my art bee member Ruth-Ellen Flanagan mention Zentangles, and  the vendor newsletters from Joggles. com always mention Zentangles, so I decided to jump in.  The first thing I drew was the illustration above.  Nothing like not beginning at the beginning.

That was fun, so I copied another demo from the book.

Somewhat addicting!  I made a few boo-boos on the above attempt, so I decided maybe I should actually practice some of the doodles before doing another big sketch.  I tried drawing what they call "tiles" with the helpful step-by-steps.

I immediately realized that many of the Zentangle patterns were similar to quilting blocks or quilting designs.  Flukes looks like Log Cabins.

Of course, the Squares grid looks like patchwork, and the Flying Geese are familiar to all quilters.

I will probably apply some of the doodle designs to my machine quilting.

There is a Zentangles web page with lots of information if you are intrigued by this art form using repetitive patterns.

While reading Melanie Testa's blog, I decided to check out the Laura Marling album that she was praising.  Well, look at the cover art of Laura's first album (Alas, I Cannot Swim)!  Whole lotta doodles going on!

Artistic Journaling Workshop

I have been in somewhat of a lull lately, artistically speaking.  The grandkids and I did two  paintings with watercolor pencils when they were here last week, which I forgot to scan before sending them home to Mommy and Daddy.  Yesterday, I signed up for an online workshop with Jodi Ohl at Creative Workshops.  Jodi did a workshop at Jerry's Artarama in Raleigh recently, and although I did not attend, I started following her on Facebook and reading her blog.  She lives about an hour and a half south of me in Southern Pines.

This workshop is offered continuously, so you can join in any time and work at your own pace.  The lessons are on video.  Last night I did my project for the Doodling lesson.  We started with circles, doodled designs, added text, and then added color.  I was using my Field Watercolor Sketchbook and failed to notice that the first page was sketchbook paper, not the heavier watercolor paper.  So, I just used watercolor pencils dry to color my page.

The text in the lower right circle reads, "Do my doodles look like quilting designs?"  That is what I tend to doodle, and it is good practice for machine quilting!

I already had almost all the supplies on the class list, but decided to go to the nearest Barnes and Noble yesterday since they carry Moleskine journals.  We were advised to purchase the "Lavender Stripe" kind.  Duh, I kept looking for one with lavender lined pages, wondering why we would want a lined page for an art journal.  Finally, it dawned on me what she meant.  Note the packaging:

Yes, the different styles of journals have different colors on the labels.  The lavender stripe version is called a Sketchbook, The legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, Chatwin.  Sounds like good company!

Since I also have two more April birthdays in the family, I browsed B&N for a few more gifts, visited my favorite clothing store, did a few errands.  By the time I headed home it was "Rush Hour" traffic.  Stop and roll, stop and roll.  All of a sudden:  BAM!  Something struck me very hard from behind.  Oh, yes, it was a BMW sedan containing a family of five, including an infant.  No one was hurt, thank goodness, but Sweet Sue the Subaru sustained some damage to the rear end. 

But,  you should see the other guy!  The BMW's whole front end was destroyed and it had to be towed.  The young man driving said he had been "distracted."  Sigh.  I have an appointment Monday to get it inspected.  Although I drove it home, the damaged fender is perilously close to scraping the right wheel tire. 

Don't think I'll be driving it around until it gets fixed.  I thought I might be sore today, but so far, so good.  By the way, doesn't Sweet Sue look shiny and clean?  DH Charlie just detailed her for me on Sunday.  She looked very nice when she attracted all the stares from the Lookie-Loos who passed by on Capital Boulevard.

A Little Art

I don't think I have shared the little baby portrait that my father, Pete Turner, painted of my new great-niece Ragen. Isn't it wonderful! She looks so angelic. He did this from a photograph.

Not this one...she has already changed so much!


Last night I was thumbing through my new Journal Bliss book by Violette and suddenly remembered, "Hey! I have a journal!" It is really just my quilting doodle sketchbook that I made in an online class with Sue Bleiweiss. I created this little fantasy garden while watching TV last night. First I drew the doodles with gel pens, then colored with watercolor pencils. Then I decided, "Why not wet a paintbrush and get the watercolor effect?" Well, I found out why. You lose most of your sharp line designs. You can see that by the little blurry flourishes on the top right. I guess I should use a more permanent ink if I want to preserve the lines. I went back over some of them with a black marker. Can you see any secret garden creatures watching you?



Here is another older page of doodles, drawn in gel pens and colored with colored pencils. This one reverts back to my Green Man quilt.

I had made a few divider pages for this sketchbook by painting Lumiere on heavy watercolor paper. I doodled some quilting designs over top with a gel pen. This might be a nice background for a collage or scrapbook page.

I think I mentioned that I made my husband a scrapbook for his 60th birthday using old family photographs from a couple of awful old albums his mom had put together with cellophane tape over the photos. I have been scanning like crazy to preserve the pics and crop out the bad corners. My hope is to make an album for each of Charlie's two brothers and his sister. I have them sorted and scanned, and am working on another one. Time-consuming and not my thing, but I want to do this for these wonderful siblings I inherited when I got married almost thirty-eight years ago.

Now, time to pack for a grand-parenting trip to South Carolina. We are leaving as soon as I get home from school this afternoon! Yippee!