Month: May 2017

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WIP: Clay art dolls

Hi ho friends.  I have a few more clay art dolls in progress. They were created for the various stages of shooting the art doll tutorial series. The two dolls in the foreground are ready to fix cracks and add clay to the bottom. The doll in the center has been sanded and is ready for shooting the next stage.  The red head at the back is featured in the face-up video, which is shot but not yet edited. Last but not least, Isabella is on the back right.

The red head’s dress needs a little work, but I am out of that particular fabric so she is on hold until I find or buy more fabric.

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The rest of the shooting is on a short hiatus.  I got sidetracked with making cloth dolls, but that’s another post. My knee surgery is coming up soon, so I don’t know when I will be able to get to finish the clay doll video tutorials.  I hope soon.

Happy creating!

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Art Journal: Quotes and Mantras

Hi ho friends,

Choosing a word for the year came up for me in the first Life Book class I took.  I thought it was kind of a dopey idea, but whatevs, I picked a word to put on the page.  I didn’t take much more care during the next Life Book class. You may recall I put myself on a class moratorium and wanted to spend more time exploring techniques in my art journals.  I spent a couple of hours brainstorming words and came to: transformation.

For the second art journal in the Finish An Art Journal series, I started sketching a bird girl on the cover and decided to record the page transformation. There is still a bit more tending to do on the cover, but overall, I’m happy with it. I plan to film the future page transformations.

Here are the supplies I used for these pages: Gesso, Antique White Deco Art acrylic paint, Derwent Inktense pencils, Gelatos, Stazon ink, two of my favorite stamp (tiny words by Dawn Hauser and the stamp name I just can’t seem to find), Big Pitt pens, Tombow markers, Posca pens, black Pitt pens, a silver gelly roll pen, and butterfly washi tape.

My other transformative project this year is to move my shop from Etsy to this website. If you haven’t done so, please check out my shop.

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Duck, Turtle, & Koi

In 2004, I celebrated my 40th birthday with friends and family with a day of festivities at the Seattle Arboretum, the Japanese Garden and finished with dinner at the Queen Anne Sam’s Sushi.

Today’s photo is one of from the pond at the Japanese Garden. The flowers and critters were out in full force that day.

This photo was cropped and color enhanced in the Gimp.

03_12_2017_ArtKoiDuck-tenukihandcrafts

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26 Minutes to Armageddon

Back in 2004, I was working in the South Lake Union area.  Bus commuting from the South Slope of Queen Anne to South Lake Union was ridic (and still is). I won’t go into the silliness of that and leave it as I tried walking to work for a while.  I took the digital camera I had, a Powershot S50.

I like graffiti.  Not tagging mind you, which makes me want to run out, buy spray paint, and tangle around it.

There was someone going around Seattle at this time, spraying small bits of graffiti art. All unsigned, so I attribute it to that most prolific artist: Anonymous.

26 Minutes to Armageddon

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2017 Art Journal Adventures

Hi ho friends.

I’ve been a fan of joggles.com since around 2012, when I found the website.  I was google searching for something, fell down a rabbit hole and ended up there.  This is the site that introduced me to Zentangles and eventually, my mixed media art adventure.

In addition to the shop, which is terrific for mixed media artists, Barb offers a weekly video on the joggles youtube channel.  Barb’s style is similar to mine: untidy, page-filling goodness.

She also offers a year-long, free-to-join Art Journal Adventures group. You can find out more information and the themes on the joggles blog.

No, joggles doesn’t pay me a cent for sharing the love.

As I mentioned in Angel Dude, I’m on a new e-class moratorium.  My word for 2017 is Transform and I figured one way to transform my art is to join the Art Journal Adventure and see where my muse takes me.  This art journal is strictly for play and exploration.

The journal is a small, A5 hard bound planner.  I was going to use the planner for it’s intended function, but I found the A5 pages too small for my planning needs – I’ve gone back to a Happy Planner, but that’s another story.

I wanted to work small in order to be able to work quickly and intuitively and finish a spread on a Sunday afternoon.

Of course, things don’t always work out as planned. I had a good start in January. Got a new job in February in an entirely new industry. I’ve been learning so much that my brain has been mashed potatoes when I get home.  Most of my art in the past few months has been Zentangles. It’s soothing to work on those patterns.

Then the muse struck a couple weekends ago.  I sat down at my art table and was so inspired, I caught up to the current week’s theme.

2017 Art Journal Adventure Time-tenukihandcrafts

Today’s post is one of those pages. The theme was time.  I Pinterest searched for quotes about time and stopped when I found the one I used on the page.  As I said, I worked many pages, so I used a combination of the following materials: Derwent Inktense pencils, Gelatos, acrylic paints, Big Pitt Pens, Stabilo All pencil, various stamps, Stayz On ink, a Project Life journal card, Distress Stain, and washi tape.

How do you stay inspired to work in your art journal? Do themes work best for you? Or do you open up to a blank page with a plan? Leave a comment and let me know what works best for you.

Happy creating.