Just a few things

1. Working on this :

 

2. Just a heads up: If you have signed up for Lifebook 2014 and you’re in the process of gathering your supplies, (or you are just generally interested,)  Blitsy has the Aquamarkers (including the metallic ones) today at almost $10 off the regular price. But hurry, Blitsy sells out really fast!!

 

 

3. I want to wish you and your families a most amazing 2014!

May it truly be the year of gratitude experienced, possibilities expanded , dreams manifested and abundance realized!

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Into 2014 And The Making Of My Latest Painting

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone’s Christmas was amazing and you’re all rearing to go to make 2014 the best year yet! There seems to be such a feeling of incredible potential and excitement about the year 2014, I can feel it already!

What can we create together?

Our Christmas was very different this year with just our little family and without extended family!

 

 

It almost seemed a little too quiet at first, but we soon got into the more relaxed and self-contained pace of it! Even though the kids got us up just after 5 AM ...

I was also able to do quite a bit of painting over the holidays.

A little Christmas Angel and my Winter Solstice Lady. Both of them seem to already be representing some of my word ( s) for 2014, which are somewhere between “Receive” and “Allow”.
I think I have mostly decided on “Receive” since it is, in many ways, the more active of the two, but elements of both keep on coming up for me!

In order to truly receive, you need to be very much in allowance and vice versa. Both of them need for the Ego to take a real back seat and there needs to be a true openness as well as a vulnerability! All the above are not easy for me at all, but I am ready!

So, for my Christmas painting, this vulnerable and almost fragile little angel emerged

 

And for my winter solstice painting there was so much feeling of incoming energy, of color and possibility - and receiving it from all sides!

 

I remembered taking photos and scans along the way for the Solstice lady, so I can show you my progress a little more!

 

Sketched the girl with graphite. I still tend to make the initial sketch on cheapo printer paper and then when I have a better idea of what she is going to look like, I sketch on the water color paper. It makes for less trial and error and rubbing out and all that!

 

 

Then I color in the face with Caran D’Ache watercolor crayons, white acrylic, graphite (black and colored) and watercolor pencils. It usually ends up a bit of everything!

 

 

Then I used a stencil and some acrylic inks and acrylic paints for the background. I used more or less the same colors I was later using for her hair. The hair was again done with Caran D’Ache watercolor crayons, white acrylic, graphite (black and colored) and watercolor pencils.

I forgot to take pictures of the next step, but basically, I used some white acrylic paint to brayer over the background randomly. I did go into the hair too, even though I was selective as to how far in I went. Then I added a variety of other acrylic paint colors and brayered those all over.

I used a script writing stamp and stamped that all over the background with a muted grey ink.

And the I started spraying a lot of different shades of glimmer mists on the top of the page (in stages, as it’s easier to control 2 or 3 drips, rather than 10 all at once!)
The shimmer mist drips don’t show up very well in the scan of the final painting, but here are some photos capturing them a tad better!

 

 

 

After that it was just a matter of finishing touches.

I stamped the large flower with one of my hand carved stamps, then cut out some more flowers from book pages and painted them with white acrylic paint and outlined with some graphite pencils. I mod podged those in position and then applied some more water colors around the page to darken certain areas and highlight others. As a finishing touch I ran some stamp pads around the edges.

And there you have it!

 

 

 

I can’t believe that faces are no longer this thing of frustration and avoidance in my art, but a source of expression and beauty! Sure, some days are better than others and if I allowed myself, I could find plenty wrong with them, but I no longer go there!

They look like faces - that’s what matters most to me and with practice I find that they are more and more looking on paper as they do in my head!
I think I’ve mentioned before that this sudden turn around on my face painting and drawing ability came about due to two courses I took recently, and I would highly recommend them, especially the “Fabulous Faces” class by Tamara Laporte! She is such an amazing teacher!

Speaking of courses and Tam! Starting January 1st, I will be partaking in a year of self-care, self-creativity, self-exploration and self-love! I joined Lifebook 2014 this year and I can't wait to get started!
I think something like 1500 people have gathered so far to do this course, from all walks of life, all ages, all countries and all ability levels! From total beginners to professional artists! How cool is that?

Anyway, I am really looking forward to the start of Lifebook 2014 in just 3 days (yes, I’ve been counting the days!) and more learning, painting and general artsy exploration!

If you want to join in or want to know more, you can find out here:

 

 

Maybe I’ll see you in Lifebook class in the New Year!

 

But for now, I want to express my deep gratitude for all you readers of my blog. For all of you who follow my little old blog, who are interested enough in my various ventures to come back again and again to read and comment. YOU are very much appreciated! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

And I also want to wish you and your families a most amazing New Year! May it truly be the year of gratitude, possibilities expanded , dreams manifested and abundance realized!

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Create!

Yesterday, I finally couldn’t wait any longer to play with my new Liquitex acrylic ink bottles that had arrived on Friday!

 

 

I started out by roughly outlining a hair-do with a brush, then wet the entire inside and went to town, using all the 5 inks that I had gotten. I would put a drop or so of ink in a spot, then get a brush full of water and let the color run and drip toward the same corner, helping it along with wet brushes of various sizes.

 

 

I was catching all the drips with a kitchen towel, and once I was done with the dripping hair, this lovely blotchy pattern had developed on the kitchen towel, so I smoothed it out, dried it and then pulled it apart (it was a 2-ply) and used it for the background!

It made for a lovely pitted texture throughout the background! And even though I mod-podged it on thoroughly, it was still receptive to color, stamps and acrylics!

 

{Stamped all over it!}

 

{I highlighted folds and creases with some distress ink.}

 

{With white acrylic paint rubbed over certain areas.}

 

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The Long Lost Blogger

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here!

It has been BUSY around here! Not that that’s new or different!

Catching you up will be a long and picture rich post, but here we go!

 

On top of the regular scheduled “programming” around our house, I’ve been busy with this:

 

 

My “babies” turned eight years old! (Seriously?! When did that happen?!) And we had a party! And it was an awesome party! And of course there were the cakes!

 

Anna wanted a Lalaloopsy cake, with figures she could keep! So, that was an easy one! Making all the buttons, butterflies and flowers was fun and quite easy - and then I just topped it off with some mini Lalaloopsies!

 

 

 

Max, of course, wanted an Angry Birds cake again, this time with the star wars theme! He wanted to be able to eat everything, so I made everything edible!

 

We also had a bouncy castle, and Daddy was manning the cotton candy machine and lots of friends came and everyone had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

 

And then there is also a lot of this!

 

 

Bumper crops, canning, freezing, prepping, freezing, jam making, drying, freezing,  pie filling making, apple sauce making, jam making, fermenting, you name it and I’ve done a LOT of it this year!

 

And of course, now there is also a whole lot of this

 

 

 

Unfortunately, our latest hard frost took out most of the zucchinis, tomatoes, peppers and egg plants. But a lot of the more cold hardy things have sprung up and are doing great! And since we have generally very mild winters, it’s prime gardening season around here even now!

 

And then there was the purging, because all of that wasn’t quite enough! I got some kind of bug which I like to call “no room left behind”, which basically includes every room, every cupboard, every box/basket, etc sorted through, organized, purged (if applicable) and cleaned out.

I am mostly through the house now (except for my husband’s office - I’m calling that one a lost cause ...) with only a couple more areas left to do!

It’s an ongoing thing really, but it is amazing how much accumulates in a family of hoarders  organizationally challenged people, even when I try to stay on top of it on a regular basis! And it always seems to be such a big deal with the husband and the kids, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth and all that!
Even though, once we are through it, all of them are quite clear that they feel much better without all their rooms/lives in a hot mess and all cluttered up! Go figure!

 

Anyway, then Thanksgiving happened, with family staying in town for a while and we were in the rather more unique position of also incorporating a little of Hannukah into our Thanksgiving celebration, making it a once in a lifetime Thanksgivukkah! With a variety of allergies running high in the extended family, it was an interesting experience, making all the familiar, expected and traditional goodies, while keeping everyone happy and healthy!

We had gluten-free Rugalach (nuts and honey as well as poppy seed filling,) gluten-free corn casserole, the turkey of course, dairy and gluten-free gravy, dairy-free and regular mashed potatoes, potato cakes with apple sauce, lingon berry and cranberry sauce and speaghetti squash! For dessert with had gluten-free dutch apple pie, marshmallow dreidels, gluten-free chocolate and cookie acorns. Wondering what our dietary restrictions are when we all get together? No dairy, no gluten, no coconut or derivatives, no soy or derivatives, no garlic, no fish, no artificial sweeteners and no red peppers and no beans. Those are the bigger ones, not including the “dislikes” that everyone brings along too!
Anyway, as you can see, we had a feast and everyone was safe and happy!

I have taken a bunch of Thanksgiving photos, but I can’t find them right now, so this will serve as a place holder for me to add them later! It’s not like I don’t have a lot of other photos for you to look at in this post!

 

And now of course we’re racing full steam toward Christmas! It will be the first time that our little family will be just us for Christmas! We have never had that and even though it is unfamiliar, I am really looking forward to a laid-back, nowhere-to-go, nothing-much-to-do, keep-your-pajamas-on-all-day kind of a Christmas!

 

The other thing that’s been taking up my time and passion again, has been art journaling/painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been doing two art courses (online) in the last few weeks. And I have loved, loved, loved them!
The first one was Tam Laporte’s (aka Willowing) Fabulous Faces class which is just plain awesome! Rarely have I enjoyed a course quite that much, I have to say!

 

 

The second one is a portrait class by Gabrielle DeCesaris on skillshare and it has helped me tremendously in the technical areas and I have had quite a few “AHA” moments in terms of proportions and realistic feature composition!

{In progress}

 

And I think I have left my “can’t do faces right” persona behind now and things are looking up - and a lot more like actual faces now! I still need a lot of practice, but this kind of practice is so much fun, so I’m looking forward to that!

And in that spirit I have also signed up for Lifebook 2014 and I am SO excited for it to start - I can hardly wait!

A whole year of artsy, messy, healing, journaling, learning and expanding goodness is waiting to be explored and I will be part of it! YAY!

 

 

So, yes, that’s the last 3 months or so in a nutshell!

What new things have you been tackling in your life?

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