New Painting Class

I started a new painting class today with a friend. The teacher/artist is Tracy Marshall, and I was thrilled to find a weekly class so close by. It only took 20 minutes to get there from my house. Check out her cool artwork at www.artbytjm.com

Here is the image I used as an inspiration.

Here is the result of my first 2 hour class. I will work on the bear next week.




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Art journal sketch

Today's art journal entry was done while I was watching the movie version of The Phantom of the Opera on HBO today. I suppose I was subconsciously sketching Christine, lol.

I was going to finish it with acrylic after I finished the sketch, but I ended up liking her just the way she is.




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Today's art journal entry

Know where this quote is from? I think it's a great daily affirmation.




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Reworking an old canvas

Today I dug an old canvas out of the scrap pile and used a paint swatch to guide me for color inspiration. The canvas is 16x20 and the color pallets inspiration was as follows:





Here is the initial start at covering up the old content:




And here is the pile of collage papers I used to work with in keeping with the teal, cream, and light brown pallette:




I simply began placing papers at whatever place seemed right to my eye, being careful to turn the canvas often to get a fresh perspective. Herr are some in progress photos:










Next I brayered on some white acrylic paint to soften the look and added other circular collage elements as well as a focal image.




And lastly I added text. I wanted to leave this open to viewer interpretation a bit as to the meaning behind the piece. Here is the finished canvas. What does it say to you?







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Recycled Materials Art

I recently joined the Hands and Heart ning group, and there is such a wealth of good information, tutorials, art discussion groups and just good people over there.  I encourage you to go check it out here if you are interested in mixed media art. 

One of the groups on the site is Artful Recycling.  There's been a lot of good discussion about how to recycle materials such as cardboard, old cassette tapes, coasters, etc. by turning these things into art.  I love the fact that this is a "green" way to create as well as the challenge aspect of stretching the imagination to figure out how to incorporate various materials into my art. Also, I find this to be extremely thrifty because cutting a piece of cardboard out of a trash box is a whole lot cheaper than buying a new canvas. 

I wanted to share some photos of the pieces I've done using materials that were destined for the trash can.  These are all on cardboard from old cereal boxes, etc. and they are all approximately 4"x12" (ish).  Some of the other materials I used include old phone book pages, scraps of scrapbook paper that I dug out of my art room trash can, candy wrappers, old styrofoam which was used to give embellishments some dimension, acrylic paint (of course), old maps, and various embellishments I've had lying around for a while.  I hope to keep creating these so that I can have enough to use for trades for next year's Art and Soul in Virginia.

After doing these for a while you start to look at your trash in a whole new light.  My Husband has even started asking, "Is this trash or is this art supplies?" before He throws anything away.  LOL!!!

Have a great weekend all!!

Joy

A link to the fix that repaired my "comment" issues

I recently posted a gripe about how I was having problems replying to comments on my own blog.  That was so very frustrating for me, and I did an internet search to see if anyone else was having the same problems and might have a fix.

I found a wonderful post that detailed how to fix the problem.  I followed these steps, and my comment issues are fixed.  Yay!!!!!!  I wanted to post this link in case any of you were having similar issues.

Here's the blog with the repair post that details the fix:
http://livesmartbook.blogspot.com/2009/08/problems-with-blogger-comments.html

A Cool Technique for Polymer Clay

I have not yet used this technique, but I wanted to share the link since it looks like a very cool technique.  The folks at Craft Test Dummies have posted a video to share a way to use the Cricut machine to cut polymer clay.  It looks fairly simple and yet a really novel way to combine two crafty items that I wouldn't have thought to put together.  I hope to try this out, and I want to use the cut items to embellish mixed media pieces or to use in art journaling.

Here's the link:
http://www.crafttestdummies.com/craft-projects-2/how-to-cut-polymer-clay-with-the-cricut/

I'll share my results when I get a chance to try this out. 

Happy weekend!

Joy