My Newest ATC/ACEO Drawings

I am so excited about working in this small form (2.5 in x 3.5 in) that I went online and found free photos to use. I know what you are going to say, "but, aren't you a photographer?" The answer is yes I am and I have a lot of photos to draw from but what happened was that I was not in the physical frame to go downstairs to my studio to find a photo to use (and the other part was that I was being lazy;-) My goal for this month is to organize my photos into groups of 'to draw' and 'to sell', etc.

I am enjoying being an artist again and seeing how my skills develop. Some day I wish to sell my art, but for now I am having fun creating it.

I created the horse, my first horse by the way, using graphite pencils in 2&3b. As I look at the horse I drew it seems a bit off. I think that it is the nose, it may be too short. Once again, practice makes perfect. (I downloaded the photos from this site: http://freeartisticphotos.com/?cat=3 )

I created the sunflower using Prismacolor colored pencils. For some reason the scan makes it look duller than the original. Both drawings were done on Bristol paper. (I got the flower photo from this site: http://freeartisticphotos.com/?cat=6 )


I am off to create another masterpiece ;-) and will of course share it here with all who stop by my little blog.

My Work for the Week & EDM 216

I found another wonderful group of artists on the internet. It is a community of women artists run by the artist Milliande: http://milliande.ning.com/ (Sorry fellows it is just for women, do check the web for a guy artist only site) There are many talented women on this site and a lot of art to look at. On the site I found out that there are sub-groups to join, such as photography, groups from certain countries, and so forth. I joined the Milliande's Artist Dates. Each week she posts a challenge or activity to do and then post to the website. Others can then comment on your work if they wish.
I decided to do week one and four. Week one was to create a work that included a postage stamp and week four was a piece using the colors yellow and blue.
Wow! Once I got started I could not stop, because instead of drawing my EDM#216, "draw your inner critic" I created a collage of me overpowering that critic. My yellow and blue collage is one devoted to affirming my artist /person. In some ways the two collages are a set, even though I created the EDM piece after the yellow and blue collage.
I have them both up in my living room where I do most of my drawing so that I can be reminded of my artist self.

I AM AN ARTIST!!! I CAN HEAR MY MUSE!!! I AM DEAF to my inner critic.........

Journal Pages & EDM 215

Spring came for a few days but now has left for who knows how long. One week we have warm sun and then the next we have cold and more snow. I am ready for spring to come and stay for awhile. In Utah the weather can change quickly. One of the sayings we have is "wait 5 min's. and the weather will change!" I have gone camping at the end of June and be caught in a snow storm and needing coats and the heater turned on. Okay, it was at an elevation of over 9000 ft. but still it is a crazy thing to be in a snow storm in summer.

This is my EDM 215 drawing, 'Draw your thumb'. It is actually my first drawing of my hand not sure what is wrong with the picture other than my wrist is too fat for the size of my hand. All in all I had fun drawing it. (I do have Reubenesque hands and body;-) more to love I suppose)

First ATC or ACEO

This is my first ATC or ACEO project. It was made on bristol paper with a combination of inks, stamps, scrap paper and ribbon. The poem is a left over from a altered book of Emily Dickenson's poetry that I made for my daughter (you can see that book on my Flickr page.) The amount of time it took to make the ATC card was about 15 mins. I had to clear my art desk first and then cut the cards from the sheet of bristol paper. It was fun working on a small piece of paper and not having any expectations about it. I did not even hear my inner critic wake up. My Muse got there first and we had a fun time creating together.

It will be exciting to see what else I can do with these little canvases. I did a Google search of this art form and found some amazing pieces of art. It is crazy how much detail can be put on a 2.5 x 3.5 surface. You all that have yet to try making an ATC/ACEO should cut some paper up and have a go at it.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Journal Title Pages and That Annoying Critic

On the EDM email list we had a discussion about beginning a new journal and how hard that was. Is it the blank page that scares us or is it our inner critic that is nagging us? I think it is that nagging critic telling us that we are not good enough to fill those beautiful empty pages. It is very difficult to quiet that critic and nearly all artists have one. Some artists are good at keeping that critic quiet and some cannot. At times my critic is yelling at me telling me that I am not good at all and that I should just give it up. I am getting better at letting my Muse help me to shut that critic up.

The first thing I do with a new journal is to create a title page. At times the title pages are very involved and at other times it is just simple writing. Some journals have two or more title pages. One at the beginning and then another in the middle. This happens when I change my mind or add a new direction of the journal. The top two middle layouts above are in one journal. I like doing fancy layouts using different media to create the page.

It is still difficult at times to start a new journal and I know that as soon as I buy my Moleskine (may have spelled that wrong;-) that critic is going to be yelling at me and telling me that I am no good and to leave that pretty new journal alone. I am going to yell back and just start drawing and writing in my Moly! Because by then I will have filled a drawing journal and my Muse will be helping me.

New Project

I have noticed that many of the artists on EDM have their own challenges that they have set up for themselves. One is taking a photo everyday others are drawing certain items like lemons or doing fancy doodles. This to me sounds like an excellent idea. I started thinking about a personal artistic challenge today wondering what it is I would like to do a lot of. Then it came to me that I had already started a challenge a couple of weeks ago and that is to draw portraits from photographs.

The first photo I started with is one of my youngest grandson, August (or Auggie Doggie as I love to him, after the old cartoon of Auggie Doggie and Daddy Doggie;-) Anyway, the drawing is still in progress, because after working on getting the detail of the lips and eyes I realized that I needed an eraser that was pointed and small. I did not have one and the closest art supply store is 35 miles away and I did not want to go all that way for an eraser. I went online and ordered a bunch of Prismacolor pencils, paper, the pencil erasers and a couple of cloth portfolios that were on clearance. The shipping was less than $6 for over 7lbs of material. The only problem with ordering online is waiting for the shipment to come to my door. Hopefully the material will be here on Friday as the tracking information claims. Until then I can only work on the larger areas of the next portrait to do which is of my other grandson, Gabriel or Gabe as Nana calls him;-)

I will post the final projects as they get done. Now off to have fun I go! Have a creative day!!!

First Week of March

Okay, I drew my challenges out of order, at least I got around to doing them. That is a good thing, right?

It was a weird week for me. I felt off for some reason, probably female reasons, still strange. I just did not have the energy to do any art and I really wanted to do art. One bright spot is that my 22 year old son is on his way home for a visit. He is in the Navy stationed in Virginia and this will be the only visit for six months. They are off to do another high seas adventure. I miss him when he is gone but he is doing well in the Navy which has been good for him.

Another good thing this week was that I got to order some art supplies from Utrecht.com and they will be here sometime this coming week. Yeah!!! One piece of art equipment I really need is an eraser that is shaped like a pencil so I can get into those tight areas on my drawings. I am still very much attached to my erasers. I just love to draw with pencil or pastel pencils and erase my mistakes or put highlights in. We all have our quirks and this eraser biz is one of mine.

This drawing is my Mirror Image challenge. I used the photo that I just uploaded to the right side of my blog. I had fun drawing this, trying to get the effect I wanted. Could have been better if I had that eraser pencil, but it is good enough. It only took about 40 minutes to do it. My 9 yo son, Liam asked how it is that I can draw so fast. I told him it comes with practice. Right my artist friends? Practice, Practice, Practice!!!

This journal entry is my draw a microwave oven entry to the challenge. So I did not draw the outside of the oven, but I did draw the most important part. It is called a magnetron and it (I think) makes the microwave oven be a microwave oven. Check out Wikipedia.com for some fascinating information on microwave ovens.

Finally, this was just me goofing around with my pastel pencil on a the day this week that I was at my strangest, a very gloomy day. Hormones I guess and weather to match. It helped to at least doodle in my book and talk about my new art materials I ordered.

Have a very creative and happy week, y'all!!!

Colored Pencil Drawings

Sometimes I wonder if I am on the right track when it comes to my art. It makes me think, do all artists at some point in their career or development question their abilities? Is this questioning always a part of the artist's mind, is it what makes their art so intriguing to those followers of their works?

I am not sure about the answers to these questions. All I know is that creating art in some form or other seems to be in my blood. Just as I cannot do without my blood, I cannot do without being creative. Every day I feel as though I must create. Some days I draw, others days it may be that I want to paint, take photos, experiment on the computer or even writing a poem, a journal entry or what have you. What is at the core of it is that I ache to create, not a painful ache but a thrilling one. I go to bed at night thinking about what it is I wish to create the next day and on many days, more so now that my physical pain is under control, I go about working on that creation I dreamed of the night before. Of course, the first activity I do in the morning is schoolwork with the boys, but after that I start or continue working on an art project. Before my pain and jerky head was under control I only managed to get the schoolwork done. On rare days did I ever have enough energy and less pain did I do any art. This made me very depressed. Now my days are full enough to make me very tired and satisfied when my head hits the pillow. This makes me very happy!

About these two drawings:

I did the daisies this last week with Prismacolor colored pencils on black drawing paper. It took a bit of work getting the flowers to look bright. It was a lot of fun working on the drawing. I nearly used up a whole Pumpkin Orange pencil, mostly because the lead kept breaking. It made me nervous because to get another pencil I would have to go 35 miles to the nearest art store. Not that that would be a sad thing what would be sad is that I did not have the money to get other materials while there. What would be the point of only going for one pencil and nothing else? No point!

The second drawing was actually started several years ago and only finished this week. It was an experiment with tones of grey on black paper. The problem with the paper is that it was cardstock and therefore it is not pure black. All in all, I love the way the trees turned out. At the time I had started this drawing I had finished a drawing of Christ using tones of grey on blue paper, using the blue as the shadows and the pencils as the highlights. I remember this assignment as a trying one, because I was used to filling in the shadows and leaving the highlights the paper or a white pencil and this drawing was the opposite. Perhaps I will try this technique again. Create, Create, Create!!!