Sun Kissed

It has certainly been a minute since I last posted!!!  Between my mom being in the hospital for a week (she just can't kick that bug that's been hangin around for a couple months now) and becoming obsessed with various digital scrapbooking challenges, I've been neglecting my friends in blogland!! In fact, I was in the middle of creating this post when I had to drop everything and head to the ER. I should just keep a bag packed....

Up until a few weeks ago, the only digital scrapbooking challenges I've done have been twice a year during the Club Scrap PSL gatherings. A good friend of mine, however, introduced me to the variety of monthly challenges available on several digital scrapbooking sites! It's been dangerous!!! These are a few of the layouts I've completed in the last two weeks....

Prior to my digi diversion, I had stumbled across another artsy challenge blog, Inspiration Avenue, and was immediately "inspired" by her theme "Sun Kissed." Below is my very late entry for the "Sun Kissed" challenge and my addition to this week's Paint Party Friday.

Now I'm off on an overnight road trip with a friend--i'm told there will be alpacas involved!!  

Have a lovely weekend and thanks for stopping by!!

Maria

Sunday Sketches

A quiet and easy Sunday morning to all!  I have several sketches to share today, some from (way) back in the day, and some newer.


Back in my college days (almost 20 years ago), I had enough fashion and costume design courses under my belt that I should have declared it a second major--oh well--One of the last classes I took was fashion illustration and I just recently put the only two remaining sketches, up on the wall in the studio. 

The next three sketches are from my "rough draft and practice" sketch book. When I worked for one of the Big Four accounting firms, we would go through quite a bit of letter head quality paper and when some issue was found with the letters printed on it, I would take a bunch and bind them for a sketch book--it is lovely paper for that! The fact that it is re-purposed paper and printed on one side makes it less scary to start sketching!! 

A mermaid from a few years ago:

Practice poppies from a few weeks ago:

And when you find yourself with a craving for a bbq sandwich and no one to go to the Patio with you, you take your sketch book and see what happens. This was from this past Friday, and I've subtitled them "Patio Pencils" ---lol!

A fabulous week of art-ing to you! And don't forget to click the buttons on the right to visit the fantastic artists for Sunday Sketches as well as all the challenges listed!!

Thanks for visiting!

Maria

Crusade 54--Mind Games

Well here is something that never happens. I read about Michelle's August Crusade yesterday, and I have a finished product to share today! As a twist on last month's challenge of creating new colors and naming them, this month we were to choose words or phrases and make colors to represent them. As I was reading about the challenge, I happened to be listening to a playlist on my iTunes that is a mix of songs from my life twelve years ago and songs in my life now. I chose four from each time that mean the most to me to create a 2-page layout of colors.

I could put you to sleep with a long convo about colors, emotions and the psyche, but I don't think that was Michelle's intent...lol...i will say this, the one i struggled with at first, "Spoiled" turned out to be my favorite. I listed to each song and only gave myself its length to complete each color block--no time to over-think--

If you are familiar with any of these songs, I would love to hear what colors they make you think of!! How fun!

Happy art-ing to my fellow Crusaders and my paint party peeps!!

Maria

3AM Art in the Dark

We have been plagued by alternating oppressive heat and fierce thunderstorms. The storms seem to hit in the middle of the night--thunderclaps awakening me just as the power flickers and gives way. Once I am awake, there is no point laying there as it will be a while before sleep finds me again. Many candles and my portable (chargeable) Ott light offer me the means to tidy the studio and then work on some art!!

Working on my orange piece for the last challenge for Summer of Color, i used acrylic paint and a printing surface i created from some scrap poster board and foam alphabet stickers to stamp the background with yellow letters and numbers. It's my first fabric design I've worked on in a while, and I am really enjoying it--do you see the little blue owl? he is going to be part of it as well!


Hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I'll be heading to a birthday barbecue...not a cloud in sight! 


Maria

Summer of Color--Purple and (surprise!) Red

So I am sorta behind on posting my Summer of Color Challenges. I do have one for yellow with metalic, but I think it is shy and will wait for me to have something brown to post with it :)
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But this week--holy carp--it is only TUESDAY and I have something purple and (shut my mouth!) with BLING for the bonus!!!!  It isn't terribly exciting as it is, but I believe it is meant to be part of something bigger...the Muses haven't told me just what that is yet...
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In order to get the purple and red done quickly, i had to go small--roughly ATC size. While tidying a bit in the studio, i found a tiny piece of paper on the floor with the number 10 on it-----

---probably came from my new purse, inspected by "10", you know? But, it also just so happens to be the month of my birthday!! With a bit of digging (less than 5 minutes...remember my Muse rule??), I found a "5" stencil (10/5 baby!!) and some scraps of mat board in just the right sizes for some quickie projects.

At this point, I wasn't sure what this week's color was going to be, so I confess, I had to look it up. Could it be?? Purple and BLING???? Two of my favorite things!! With my birthday just laying around, tell me the Muses didn't plan it that way! Some purple watercolor, ink, radiant pearls, glitter and more glitter I now have this...

As promised, I also have red, with the bonus challenge "wings." My obsession with hearts and love (or lack there of) continues to be represented. This found its way to something else that's been sitting on my art table for a while...but I'll share that when it's all finished....

Don't forget to check out all the other fantastic artists participating in Summer of Color by clicking the button in my right sidebar!!  Thanks for stopping by and happy art-ing!

Maria

Studio Wonderland

Greetings gentle viewers!!  It has been a truly hectic last 10 days or so with my mom in the hospital with pneumonia and then working lots of extra hours this week to catch up on the data that piled up while I was in the ER with her! I don't know that I will have any art to share with you this weekend, but I thought you might like a composite view of where I create--Studio Wonderland! I took pics from all angles and smooshed them together to get this:

It looks so much bigger than it really is! LOL! and it was so nice and tidy! The gremlins have since been in it and made a mess :p

If I'm not battling the forces of nature to keep water out of the basement this weekend, maybe I will have something else to post :D

If not, I will enjoy living vicariously through my PPF and Sunday Sketch friend's blogs!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Sunday Sketch-

Hi Everyone! And welcome to Sunday Sketches! Just a quick post to share a couple of sketches from the week--I've added some color and a flower to last week's sketch., but it is still in progress---

And some work with marker and colored pencil.  

Hope you have a fantastic art-filled week! And don't forget to click the buttons on the right to see all of the great art for the Sunday Sketches, Paint Party Friday, Summer of Color and the Crusades!!
Maria

Many Challenges, One Project

A big welcome and thank you to folks from many of the challenges that I participate in for stopping by to visit! Today's project started out for Summer of Color's pink challenge from three weeks ago, but ended up being considerably more labor intensive than I expected. As June transitioned to July, fate would have it that this same work also meets Michelle Ward's Crusade 53 challenge. Lastly, as it includes variety of painting techniques, I'm also sharing it for Paint Party Friday!


I'm inclined to think my muses guide me by leaving bits and pieces of things on or near my work table that they mean for me to use. I seem to have the best outcome by using whatever is laying around, so it is meant to be, right?  How many times have you had your mind set on a specific thing that you KNOW you have somewhere in your stash...spend hours or even days looking for it and IF you manage to find it, it ends up looking horrible?! Next time this happens to me, I will stop myself about 5 minutes into the search and see what is on the floor next to my table instead....


but i digress....


Summer of Color
To begin the pink challenge for summer of color, the Muses left me the backboard from an old desk calendar to use for my base substrate, a book of piano sheet music and two miniature heart-shaped art quilts (one that I made, and one I received in a swap). Re-using one's art is a topic that has come up frequently lately, so I photographed the two hearts, worked some photoshop magic on them and printed out several sheets in different sizes.
The bonus option for the pink challenge was to include wax in your work. Though it has been YEARS since I first (and last) used wax, I really enjoyed the technique and love the truly unique look and feel it gives to the finished piece. I used a blend of paraffin pellets, pure beeswax and a tiny piece of red beeswax left over from a candle to seal and adhere the hearts to the background.

Crusade 53

For this month's Crusade challenge, Michelle wanted us to experiment with the colors we mix up and give them names. When creating the silhouette, my muse whispered a reminder that i should always mix and layer my colors--so black by itself would never due. Since i was working with a pink pallet, red was the obvious choice to blend with the black watercolor.

and something kind of reddish-purple color emerged...

and i call it Bittersweet Berries.

And for all my Paint Party Friday friends, there's acrylic, watercolor and slightly colored wax...lol....

I really enjoyed working in the larger format (18x22). 

Thanks for stopping by!

Maria

Sunday Sketch--Empty

Been a few weeks since i posted a Sunday Sketch, but never fear, it isn't because I haven't been creating--its because I have been working on a LOT of projects! I was finally ready to take pictures of the studio and the latest arts and the camera battery died. Figures. So this will be a short post to share a sketch with you--the beginning of an art journal spread...

Happy Sunday!

Crusade 52--Seasonal Wardrobe

This month, Michelle asked us about colors and the changing seasons. Do we change pallets the way we change our wardrobe when the weather changes. I have to say--do I ever!! I have favorite color schemes for every season and every holiday!! i had hoped to have a sampling of a bunch of them--but well--you know me--i'm lucky I'm getting this posted before the end of the month! HA!


Anywho. I did make a few new pages with my most favorite color schemes for the summer--beach and sea!!

if it's got mermaids, sand, shells, sea glass....i'm all about it :)

Thanks for taking a look! And stay tuned for my first blog give-away coming soon!!

Paint Party Friday--Change

I haven't had too much studio time since last weekend, but i am always sitting in front of a computer--my "painting" for the party is digitally rendered from a photo i took with my phone last summer :) I will try to give a bit of instruction on how I got from photo to finished painting. Keep in mind, I don't know what I'm doing....lol...just went with something that gave me the look i liked! and i didn't write down the specifics as i went, so this will be a very GENERAL tutorial--lol---i'll pay more attention next time ;)


This is the photo i started with: i opened it in PSE (photoshop elements--i'm using 6.0)--as a safeguard, it is a good practice when you open a photo/background/etc to alter to go to "File:duplicate" to make a copy and then close out the original. Once i have my copy, I select the "background" layer in the layers pallet, right click on it and chose "layer from background." If you don't do this, your background is locked and you can only make certain changes to it.

I started by trying to add artistic filters directly to the photo and wasn't liking it at all. 

• I decided to duplicate the layer and turn it to black and white. 
• I applied the "paint daub filter" to the black/white layer--adjusting all the paint daub options until i thought it looked like watercolor. At this point, i had two layers--the color photograph and the b/w with the filter.
• Selecting the b/w layer, i changed the blending mode to "hard light"--way cool, but i wanted more...
• I duplicated the b/w layer (3 layers now) and changed the blending mode to "luminocity"--sweet.
• I did a "merge visible" to get back to one layer and increased the saturation some. 

So this is where we are: (oh--forgot about the mask i used to get that extra bit of color around the edges--i'll save that for another time)

• I decided the lower right of the "painting" needed some text, so I added a .png file from Club Scrap's Papillion digi scrapbook kit.
• i changed the color of the text to match the blue in the grunge border and then added a "simple bevel" and "low drop shadow" (adding a drop shadow is the key to making any object in your digi art look "3-d")
• merge visible again

If i stopped here, they would be lovely printed up as note cards...but I wanted still more...

• I opened and duplicated a background "paper" from Club Scrap's Raku kit--then drag-and-dropped the painting. I resized and centered it, making it above center just a bit.
• Use the eye dropper color select tool to select a nice shade out of the flower.
• Select the painting--go to "Edit-->Stroke". Make sure the yellow foreground color is chosen, and change the outline width to 30 pixels (more or less to your liking). This put a yellow border around the painting.
• add a simple bevel and drop shadow to the painting layer and voila!!

Whew! that took me a while...lol...for more detailed info on the techniques I used, check out this site--the tutorials are fantastic!


Happy Arting to all and stay tuned for my very first blog give-away!!

Summer of Color--Green with Citron, part I

Is it obvious yet that my latest obsession is all of these nifty "weekly prompt parties" I'm finding?? Not to mention all of the fantastic art I get to view from them!! I could sit in front of my computer all night drinking it in!!


The latest promting fabulousness is Summer of Color--it started last week with blue, but I am just joining in this week with green.  I opted to go digital for this challenge, but after printing it out, my muse hit with another great idea that I'll share later :)


for now--step into the pond...grab yourself a frog....

Happy Hump Day! May the rest of your week be art-filled!

Sunday Sketch--Destined to be Dinner

When working on projects, I keep various journals nearby to be the recipients of left over paint, papers, glue--waste not want not and all that....eventually, something is drawn to those random backgrounds and art is born.  Such was the case on the final day of my weekend art retreat...


You may have encountered recently, folks being "given" a letter, which they must then list something they like, dislike, love and something bad (or some such variation)...I first saw this interpreted in sketch and of course thought it was great! A few days later, a friend on FB gifted me with the letter "V."  The girls at the retreat and I had a fantastic time coming up with all sorts of things that begin with "v" and I started on my sketches.  A few of the items, such as Venus flytrap (who doesn't like a good Venus flytrap??) required a google search to find some images I could sketch from.


Upon finding a photo from (I kid you not) flytrap.com, I felt the fabulous flora was worthy of its very own page. I set that thought aside while working on some other pages and ideas (I usually work on multiple projects at once). while leafing through a small journal (that I came very close to tossing because I wasn't so keen on the content...and more on that in a moment), a page covered in dry-brushed blotches of red, yellow and green screamed ME! ME! PICK ME! to be the home of the reddish/pinkish/greenish wonderful Venus Flytrap.


As if i could say no to a screaming journal.

After the sketch was complete and inked, I used watercolor pencils to fill in the traps. And if you are wondering, yes, the fly was in the original photo. Gross.

Needless to say, both the journal and I are very glad I did not toss it. It was a complete "DUH" moment and I can't believe I entertained it.  I mean, who gets rid of a journal just because the content isn't current and meaningful? Yes, it was so three years ago, but with my memory as bad as it is, without those pages I would likely forget that time of my life. Seriously. What was I thinking?


Mind like a steel flytrap...


But I digress. 


So there you have it. Sometimes you are the trap....and sometimes you are the fly....don't forget to click on the Sunday Sketches button in my right sidebar to view other great sketches this week!


Say....what's for dinner??

Home Sweet Home--complete

A few posts ago, I shared the journal pages I was working on for Crusade 51, Home Sweet Home, and now they are finally complete! 

Not having any desire to create using "evidence" of the house i live in or the "home" it falls short of being, the prompt of Home Sweet Home left me at a loss for most of the month. As May ended, it was this statue and a precious sentiment the reminded me "Home is Where the Heart Flowers." 


In keeping with the French title of the statue, i looked up the translation and added it to the upper left of the pages. The "Je t'aime" hides in the flowers in the lower right. 

Home is where the heart is...so hold those hearts gently.

Artfully yours,

Blink and you'll miss it

So in my last post, I made some mention of my fab mini vacation to Michigan.  It was a wonderful, much needed escape and I got to spend it with some of my fave peeps :)


We stayed at a lovely lodge tucked away in the woods (ticks, mosquitoes and bugs oh my)...

a doorway to a place of enchantment....

and my peeps dodging the paparazzi....

couldn't get away from the rain....

and this was just too cool to not photograph it....

Never having had the pleasure of viewing a small town parade, we found a spot on the sidewalk and sat to enjoy some fresh baked cookies and await the fun. Keep in mind, we were accustomed to Chicago parades--you know--like the Pride Parade--that is at least a three hour spectacle. While not expecting anything as elaborate as that, we certainly weren't expecting the parade to be over before we were finished with our cookies. I kid you not. If it was 15 minutes I'll eat my hat. It consisted of three squad cars, a politician, a handful of vets....

one float with the worlds smallest light house.....

a duck...

another squad car, 2 fire trucks and an ambulance.

That's all folks.

The cookies were really good....

Hey Tomato--Catch-up!!

I am always amazed at how time slips away so quickly.  10-hour work days, birthday parties, weddings, refinishing cabinets, purging, relegating things to storage...there's barely been any creative time, much less time to blog about it all! 


But today, my muse has lead me in this direction so I could reconnect with my peeps out in the world :)  The result is a post that will rather be all over the place and involves nothing that is complete as of yet--but thats what spontaneity is all about, right? 


So let me start by saying HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! Here in Illinois, Civil Unions became official on June 1. I have many  friends who will be taking their vows, and some that will be renewing them in the new future. I wish them blessed lives together with much love and happiness, laughter for the good time, and strength for the hard times.


For the holiday weekend, I headed up to Michigan to visit friends I haven't seen i a good long while. Now, as a sidebar note, my friends like to tease me about the only thing I am truly afraid of--sharks. They always tell me how good it is that I live in the midwest where sharks can't get me (and then i point out I could fall into the big tank at the aquarium...freak accidents happen all the time)...a week after my visit, I am having buyers remorse because I really should have bought this when i saw it:

Oh well--i guess I can either look for it online...OR sounds like an excuse to go back!  LOL!

I have discovered that when i clear off my dedicated "paper arting" table, I have no choice but to work on something! I am compelled! The first work in progress is my interpretation of Michelle Ward's Crusade 51--Home Sweet Home. The topic is a bittersweet one for me, and I didn't know at all how to approach it all month. But in the last hours of the month, the inspiration came. I'm not sure what I think of it so far, but the meaning behind every bit of it is very close to my heart.

My second WIP, is also inspired by Ms. Ward. I read this post several weeks ago (ok, i'm sure it was well over a month ago), and knew i had to do some "poppy art."  Did you ever notice how, when something is on your mind, it turns up everywhere you look? In the weeks while I was waiting for poppy art time to happen, poppies in my stash that i didn't even remember/knew existed, made themselves known, I've been seeing other people's poppy art, and even drove past a completely unexpected field of poppies on my road trip last weekend! If you've got poppy art, I would love to see! Please leave a link in my comments!

After all this talk about my works in progress, i feel compelled to get back to them! Guess i have to clear the table....

Happy arting and thanks for stopping by!