Timeless

Postcard Challenge - Card 2

2012-01-14T08:30:00.001-08:00

Text:
"My Natalie,

They wanted me to go and see the bull fighting but I told them no.
I could not go and watch that and then come home and look you in the eye, knowing what I had seen. Not even for research or however they decided to call it.
I went to see Flamengo dancers instead, so I got my bit of culture for this trip.

Yours, M. "

Illustrated Journal (2)

2012-01-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

So I did a few more pages, drawing every single day and loving it.
It's funny to notice that you never really looked at a banana until the moment you started drawing one.

Two blind contour drawings that.. well.. I did tidy up a little bit:

My poor backscratcher that I had to stick back together with ductape. Can't live without it...

Crackers with cheese and chunky bits of cucumber:

Now I already posted this yesterday, but I wanted to tell you the story that goes with this drawing:

It was the day before Tye's birthday, which sadly he had to work so we decided to celebrate it a day early, and we went out for dinner with the inlaws.
The dinners were brought to the table and I took a quick picture of my plate, thinking I would draw it later. The waitress gave me a funny look, and my mum-in-law told me while we were eating that the bar staff and the waitress were standing behind the bar, looking at us. A minute or so after that, the chef even opened his kitchen door...

I think they thought I was a mystery client or something, ordering food to critique it later. I wonder what they would've said if I had actually got my sketchbook and paints out there and then......

Review: Fountain pen Revolution and Serwex pen

2012-01-12T04:59:00.001-08:00

Just before Christmas, there was a Tweet floating around about almost-free fountain pens. As I knew Father Christmas was getting me ink, and I wanted to try out drawing in fountain pen and ink, I of course very interested.

All I had to do was 'like' the Facebook page for Fountain Pen Revolution Facebook page and they would ship a pen for $2.50!

I sent them an email to make sure this amazing deal would be available to people in the UK too, and within half an hour I got a lovely reply back from Kevin Thiemann- he was more than happy to ship to the UK! So I kept my fingers crossed for smooth shipping and waited patiently for the sillocone grease and syringes I had ordered on Ebay so I could fill the fountain pen without having to worry about it leaking.

The Serwex Special 101 arrived pre-greased, which was very nice of them, and I had no problem filling it, but for some reason, it was difficult to get the ink to flow after not using the pen for even as little as a few minutes.

I mentioned this to Leslie and she explained to me how some pens have 'breathing holes' in the cap. Sure enough, my pen had one too. This can cause the nib to dry out, making it more difficult for the ink to start flowing when you first start to write or draw. Her tip: put some wax in it.

It worked! I now have no problems getting the ink to flow, even if I haven't used the pen for a couple of hours.

Here's the first two page spread I did using the Serwex fountain pen:

Even though it took me a while to fall in love with my Serwex fountain pen, I do love it now and have used it for all my drawings since. And Fountain Pen Revolution gets my vote too. They are an American family-run business in India, The shipping was incredibly quick, communication was perfect (so important when you have a few questions and a company actually replies!) and their website says ' Join the revolution and declare independence from overpriced fountain pens!' Can't go wrong there! ;)

Please make sure you check out their Facebook page as they keep coming up with great deals you don't want to miss out on.

Postcard Challenge - Card 1

2012-01-07T03:38:00.001-08:00

"Michael,

We were hoping for an unusual hotel for our stay in Austria - well this is it!
Sleeping in a sewage pipe is a lot more comfortable than it sounds.
Would recommend!

Nat. x "

(no stamp yet but I'm hoping to fix that soon.)

Illustrated Journal

2012-01-05T06:15:00.000-08:00

I have decided to call my sketchbook-with-drawings-and-writing an 'Illustrated Journal', which makes it more clear to me that it's not my Art Journal, even though it's art. I know it seems a bit confusing maybe, but it works in my head so I'll stick with it.

Annyyywayyy.... I've done some more pages that I'd like to share:

I don't think I'd ever done a drawing of my art supplies before, so it was about time. My Koh-i-Noor paints, a Pentel waterbrush and my Cotman Sketcher's set.

My clock and the tablets I take every day. I'm hoping to cut down this year. Fingers crossed!

My breakfast this morning. Because the Cotman Sketcher's Pocket set has a limited pallet, I had to be creative about my shadows. I really like the way this came out.

I'm really enjoying this new experience, finding little things to draw and using my watercolours to add more interest to the drawing. So far I've used my Micron 03 pen, but today I received the sillicone grease and syringes I ordered to fill my fountain pens with ink. I'll be playing with them for the next few days to see what I prefer using. Watch out for more Illustrated Journal pages.

Daily don't work - part 2

2012-01-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

Just over a year ago, I wrote my blogpost Daily don't work, a post which since I've written it I've linked to it in several other blogposts, including the one I wrote yesterday.

When I read my dear friend Blade's comment, I figured I needed to explain things a bit further.

Here's what Blade said:
"I keep seeing you say, "Daily don't work for me," but I know of tons of stuff you do daily. Sleep, eat, drink water... Make your art like that. ;) "

Right...

I do do art related things on a more or less daily basis. I draw, I paint, I stick stuff in my art journal, I journal, I write blog posts, I take pictures, I look for inspiration, I think of future projects. I might not do all of that every single day, but art is part of my daily life and has been for some time now.

So that's not it. The 'Daily don't work' comment is for all those 'create every day'-projects that you see so many of online. Creating an art habit after doing something for 20 or 30 days, not missing a day. And that's what the problem is. I can't do 'do this every day for 30 days'-things. I did do the Project 365 challenge and there were days where I really-honestly-Imeanrealllyyy had no idea what I was supposed to take a picture of. But because I did not want to fail, I had to.

And I did not like that feeling. And Tye sure did not like hearing me moan about it... ;)

So while I probably will end up doing my Everyday Matters-inspired drawings on daily basis for a while, I don't want to commit to a 'You Have To Do This Every Day For 30 Days Straight Or You Fail'-kind of challenge. Because I don't want to feel bad for missing a day or two or four.

Arting, or not arting, should not make me feel guilty. And that's why 'daily don't work for me'.

Creative License - a review of sorts

2012-01-02T06:26:00.000-08:00

I am probably one of the last people to ever hear of or buy (been gifted) Danny Gregory's The Creative License, giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are.
Now, it has to be said, the title made me rebel a bit. It's the 'permission' bit. I've always been 'permitted' to make art, but up until a few years ago I just never really thought of myself as capable of doing anything like that. The word just makes me itch a bit. But once you get over that part, it is an absolute awesome book!

Last summer I wrote about Gregory's book Everyday matters, and the same, if not more, is true of Creative License; it's a book that inspires you to finally get a pen and paper out and start drawing already! (Notice I said pen and not pencil, Danny Gregory feels that you learn more from drawing with pen than with a pencil you can erase.)

In this book Gregory talks about all the reasons people don't draw. They don't see the point, they don't have the time, they just can't do it. And then he explains how, even with as little as a few minutes a day (but hey, Daily don't work for me!), you can do simple drawings while actually looking at your objects instead of thinking you know what you're seeing. He shows you where in your busy day you could find the time to set aside a few minutes to do these drawings, and even thinks of what you could draw. And then a large part of the book is about keeping an illustrated journal and how that can benefit you.

Now I am currently working on my Art Journal number 10, in which I draw and paint and write in and stick stuff down in. It's not the same as a journal with just your own drawings. It's a completely different style. It reminds me a bit of Urban Sketching, which I am still working on from home.

The sketchpads I bought will be used for these drawings inspired by daily life, with some writing thrown in. I'm not giving up on Art Journaling at all, but I think this is something I want to explore for a while and see where it will take me.

And to start things off, here's my first drawing of the year:

Thank you Danny Gregory for being such an inspiration.

This is just a test

2012-01-01T03:04:00.000-08:00

Father Christmas brought me lots of art goodies, and for my birthday Tye signed me up for Sketchbook Delight 2, and the inlaws got me vouchers and money to spend on more art goodies... but by the time I got to the shop I could not really think of anything I wanted or needed. And yes, I know how spoilt that sounds...

On the market however I spotted some sketchbooks. Spiral bound, which I like because I have limited space, and the pages felt thick enough for what I want to do.
MIL did not understand that I spent some of my birthday pennies on what she thought look like cheap notepads, but they made me very happy, especially after I did a little test:

Using a Micron pen, calligraphy ink and Cotman watercolours, there was no bleeding, and the paper kept nice and smooth. I like it, I like it! I got myself 2 A5's and an A (see here if that doesn't mean anything to you), the bigger ones are my favourite size anyway, and the smaller one is perfect for just throwing in a bag when out and about. And they are cheap enough for me not to worry about 'ruining a page', because yes, I do suffer from that sometimes.

I can't wait to see these sketchbooks all filled up!

Postcard Challenge

2011-12-31T03:14:00.000-08:00

Just two more days and the Postcard Challenge will start!
I of course have changed my mind a billion times on who my characters will be, and still have not decided anything yet. I try not to let this worry me, when Darcy gives us the first country I'll do my art work first...

I'm still incredibly excited about this. I can even see this being turned into my Nanowrimo for next year.

But first I needed a book. The lovely who thought of this fie folder book offered to pre-fold some filefolders and sent them to people who did not want to fold their own or could not get any where they are, oh yes please! I got some sturdy cardboard to make the cover out of and used the same white ductape as I did for my magazine Art Journal.

So here it is, my Postcard Challenge book:

There's also a Facebook Group and a Flickr Group for those interested in seeing all the work done in this challenge. And of course I will be posting all my cards on this blog, so you can keep up with the story as it unfolds.

Roll on 2012!

Birthday Girl

2011-12-21T10:08:00.001-08:00

Guess who had her very first birthday last Monday? I had to wait for better weather to take some pics:

Night Daddy

2011-12-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

When first reading about Darcy's postcard challenge for the new year, I suddenly remembered a book I used to read when I was a lot lot younger called 'Nachtpapa', or 'Night Daddy' in English.

From what I remembered, it was about a little girl who gets a babysitter for when he mum has to go to work at night. It's a man she starts to call her Night Daddy, and he's a bit of a character, because he's a Writer and he has a pet owl. The postcard challenge reminded me of the book, because the girl and the Night Daddy start writing to each other. He writes on blue paper and she writes on pink or yellow, I wasn't too sure anymore.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in Dutch anywhere where they could send it to me for something other than a billion pounds, so I had to settle for the English version.
It arrived the other day and I love it!

It's an old library book and it was last due 28th Feb. 1977!
(note the '2p per week or part of the week' fine if you're late returning your book!)

It's so strange to read it in English. The book sounds so.. serious. I can't really remember if it was like that in Dutch, it must have been. It's a Swedish book written in the late '60's, right smack in the middle of the first feminist wave. Julia does not have a dad, and is glad about that fact too.
' My mother isn't married, and I'm glad about it, because otherwise I'd have one of those ordinary fathers, and would have never had a night daddy. [...] They all look harmless, jusst like other old men. They don't talk much - the mothers do all the talking, but the mothers are always dragging them into the conversation. They are always saying 'that's up to Dadddy. Ask Daddy. Daddy said... I'm going to tell your Daddy!' I wouldn't like to have a life like that. '

It turns out the word 'Night Daddy' comes from the word 'Night Mummy' for 'babysitter'. The babysitter is a writer, just like I remembered, and he's writing a book about stones. Because Julia likes to write too, they decide to write a book about themselves, but they're not allowed to read what the other person wrote. Not yet, anyway.

'We write on loose-leaf paper, which we then put into a notebook. Julia writes on yellow paper, and I on blue so we don't mix up the notes and read each other's by mistake. We never write during the day - only at night when we're togegther. But we never work at the same time. It wouldn't do because then our thoughts might get mixed up.

Did I really read this when I was about 8? Wow.. Quite different from Horrid Henry or even the first Harry Potter book.

Anyway.... I'm off to finding some inspiration for my postcard challenge characters and finishing my Night Daddy book!

Tim's tags no. 2

2011-12-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

Here's another Tim's tags, inspired by his second tag of the '12 tags of Christmas'.

It was a bit difficult because of the background, but I just freehanded some musical notes and hoped for the best:

And then I got out my watercolours:

I've already had a little look and some of the next tags are very stamp-based. That will be a challenge. I might do 'essence of stamp' on my next tags....

Tim's tags

2011-12-13T03:46:00.000-08:00

Last week, I stumbled across Tim Holtz' 12 tags of Christmas, where he shows you how you can make 12 diffferent tags, using all his products and his techniques.

While the tags look great, my jaw nearly dropped when I saw the amount of products used for one single tag. Tim Holtz puts handy dandy links under each tag, and the first one had 24 products used. Incredible, especially when you realise that his stuff isn't exactly on the cheap shelf in the arts and crafts shop.

So while I was moaning about this on Twitter, the lovely Dede aka Inkiwell thought of a great challenge: why not paint the tags! Forget about all the expensive inks and papers, let's get our paints out and see what happens.

I did this in pen, water colours and a tiny bit of white acrylic paint:

Creative 2012

2011-12-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

It's starting to look as if 2012 will be my most creative year yet.

Not only do I have it on good authority that Father Christmas will be dropping some arty presents in my stocking this year, Alisa Burke announced new art classes for January and February and I've asked Tye if he would please-please-pretty-pleaaaase sign me up for Sketchbook Delight part 2 as a birthday present.

As if that wasn't enough, I found some free art classes on the Strathmore site that start in January, too.

And to top that off, I just learned that the lovely Darcy over on Art-and-sole.blogpost.com is starting a postcard challenge in which you let two fictitious characters write each other postcards from around the world. How amazing is that!

Roll on 2012! You're going to be so much fun!

(and that's without me mentioning that *cough*I'llbehostinganonlineclassoveronartjournalingdotningdotcom *cough*. There. I said it... kind of...)

Favourites

2011-12-10T04:09:00.000-08:00

You know how you work in your Art Journal and you completely love one page and another one not so much? And how when you open your book to start working in it you first go back to that favourite page?

This was my favourite page:

I gesso'd the page and suddenly I saw these figures in it. All I had to do was trace it. First in red, but that wasn't working for me. So then I used a black marker and traced it again. Much better. I filled in the figures and rest of the page in blue, but that didn't stand out as much, so they went back to white and that worked.

But then last night, after gesso'ing another page, and putting some watercolours down, and some of my DIY mod podge (I use about 2/3 glue and 1/3 water) I started seeing a face... So out came my black marker again, following the lines I could see in the background paint.

I decided to only use white paint on half of the face, leaving some of the background paint showing.

I absolutely love it! My favourite page like everrrr...!

Babywipes

2011-12-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

A while ago, I was watching Joyce's Ustream, and she was showing how she glues babywipes to paper so it's easier to use them later.

I use babywipes all the time, to clean my brushes before I stick them in water, to wipe my hands when they get covered in paint, or to wipe off a bit of paint from whatever it is I'm doing. So those get lots of paint on them, and sometimes they end up looking really pretty. But cutting babywipes and sticking them to your Art Journal page is difficult, the fabric tears and does not cut easily.

Annnyyyywayyyy....

Here's what I did with the first batch I glued to paper, then cut then sewed together:

I see what you don't see

2011-12-01T07:35:00.000-08:00

The Dutch game of 'I spy with my little eye...' would translate to 'I see, I see what you don't see...' I was thinking about that game today, when the last of our Christmas presents arrived from Amazon, in a big box filled with this:

What do you see? Do you see paper that needs to go straight in the bin, or are you like me and do you see... OhmygoodnessbrownpaperIcanturnintoajournal!!
(I have to be honest here and mention that Tye was the one who opened the box and said 'I take it you want to keep this?' He is very well trained...)

The paper Amazon uses for packaging isn't the thickest of brown paper, but on the plus side it's perforated so it can easily be divided into strips that you can then fold over....

I ended up with 28 sheets that I folded:

I will glue about half an inch into the fold (roughly where I put the bulldog clip) then put holes where I put the glue, stack all the pages up and put a ribbon through it.
I might take two sheets and glue them together to create a slightly more sturdy cover.

Because the paper isn't the thickest in the world I can't put too much on it. I'll do some test sheets on paper that was already ripped and I can't use for the journal, and see just how much paint it will take. I'm thinking of limiting my pallet for this to just black, white, grey and maybe some blue or red.

I've put the sheets in my flower press so the worst of the creases will hopefully flatten, and I'll start on the glue tomorrow. Yayy! Thank you Amazon for this free journal!!

Dripping Faces

2011-11-30T08:05:00.000-08:00

Of course I could not stop at just doing the couple of dripping faces I did yesterday....

(And as the title suggests, there are more videos to come in the next couple of days!)

An artful mess

2011-11-29T07:05:00.000-08:00

The other day I was watching something on TV where a girl casually mentioned that she makes paintings using a mixture of glue and paint and she paints with chopsticks*.
While I realise that this might be something people have done in school, I had never tried it. So what better place to try out this messy technique than in my Art Journal?

First I mixed my acrylic paint with PVA glue. I added a bit of water to make it a bit more runny, then adding a bit more glue until I got the consistancy I thought would work.

And then it was just a case of getting messy!

These are the first two I did, in my Art Journal:

Because I had too much paint&glue mix left, I also did one on a folder I use to scrape on my left over paint:
('Did you notice that folder before? No? Well, now she put a bird on it!')
and did some quick watercrayon backgrounds on some paper and did two more on them:

Oh how I love making an artful mess in my journal!

*)The documentary was on Channel4 'Amish: the world's squarest teenagers' and the girl is Lizzy Watson, and she takes this technique to a whole other level! It took me a while to find her but here's her website.

Urban Sketching from home (2)

2011-11-22T06:48:00.000-08:00

I did some more sketches of pictures I took a while ago:

Note to self: take more pictures of buildings!

Inspired by Leslie

2011-11-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

So the last couple of days I've been ill, and those who know me will know that I don't do ill. At least not as in, being-sick-ill. And I was being-sick-ill. And then I was panicking about being-more-sick-ill and it all just got horrible and awful and I haven't eaten for two days and I stayed in bed putting my pillows so I'd be half-sitting just in case... well..

As you can imagine the last couple of days have not been much fun.

So today was the first time I got the laptop out again (I had been on Twitter and Facebook but on my phone which isn't half as much fun but it was a great distraction - thank you my Tweeter/FBer friends!) and I was catching up on some Youtube videos and saw Leslie Herger's 'automatic drawing' videos. (here and here and she's done a bunch more)

Even though I'm still not 100% there yet and my tumtum is still playing up a bit, I got one of my sketchpads out and some cheapy markers and did this one:
(the colours are nowhere near as bright in real life but it's the best I can do at the moment)

It felt good to be drawing again, rather than slipping into another 'will I be able to reach the sick bucket in time'-panic (I am an emetophobic, so even though I'm joking about it here it really does set off a bad panic attack, just as panic attacks can set off the fear of having to be sick...) I calmed down and focused on just filling in the colours.

I'll be sticking this in my Art Journal as a reminder of how art can prevent me from going overboard in my head. Just breathe and fill in the colours...

Edit:
This is the page I ended up doing:

Say my name (right)

2011-11-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do this video for a while now, but never got round to it, so tonight I decided to take some time out and actually do it.. It's possibly the shortest video I've ever done, but would you believe it, I had to do a billion takes because I was stumbling over my words and then it took me forever for Youtube to not make me sound like a robot on acid...

But here it is...

I quit Nanowrimo

2011-11-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I know.

See, my heart wasn't in it this year. I couldn't put my finger on why. I had done hardly any planning, knew it was going to be a ghost story (a little bit more than that, but I'm not completely dropping the story, might end up finishing it one day so I'm not telling...), had two character names and that was it.

This would have been my 8th Nanowrimo. I did two in Holland and this would have been my 6th one in England. My first couple of Nanowrimo's were about whether or not I could actually write 50 000 words in a month. Turned out that yes, I could do that. Quite easily, in fact.

Then came the challenge of actually finishing the story itself, writing 50 000 words and actually come up with a beginning, middle bit and an ending. That was a bit more difficult, but I did that too. The last three Nanowrimo's were coomplete stories and I was ever so proud.

So this year, I didn't feel the challenge. I wrote 5004 words yesterday and I didn't enjoy it. It felt like a chore. I was thinking of all the things I couldn't do this month because the writing does take up a lot of free time. I was doing it because I've done it for so many years now.

So I quit. I feel bad about it, but at least I quit now and not forced myself to keep on writing for another week, hating it more and more each day.

And hey, this gives me more time for art! Yayyy! Be prepared for more 'Urban Sketching from home' posts. Ohyeah!!

Almost Nanowrimo-time!

2011-10-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

It's getting dark more and more early, tonight the clocks here in the UK 'fall back', shops are filled with Halloween costumes and sweets and you can hear fireworks near enough every night... It must be getting close to Nanowrimo-time!

Now if you haven't got a clue what Nanowrimo is, here's a link to my older blogposts on it, but in very short: Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month, it starts November 1st, and the challenge is to write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days. That means that you need to write about 1667 words every day to reach this goal.

Riiiight...

Normally, I get all excited about Nanowrimo quite early on. End of September, I'm there. I'm thinking of my novel, planning out my story, thinking of my characters, etc. etc.. and this year.. nothing!

I have a very vague idea of what I want to do this year, it will be a ghost story. And that's as far as I got. Bad, isn't it? Especially considering that on Monday night at midnight, I'll start writing!

I did buy myself a notebook that I'll be using for Nanowrimo. I've written a blogpost about my Nanowrimo notebook here, and I'll be doing the same thing again: writing down the daily goals, leaving a column for the number of words written so far, and whether or not I'm ahead or behind.
During the first week I tend to be ahead of myself slightly, because I try and write as much as I can on Day One (start at midnight for a quick writing session, and then again in the morning, and again in the evening before midnight soon adds up!), but as the month goes on, I have days where I don't write anything at all. And I don't really worry about it because this will be my 7th (or 8th? I lost count when I moved to the UK) time and I've always 'won' the challenge.

So I should probably be off now to sort out my characters, places where I want the story to be set, and oh yeah... the story itself!

Urban Sketching from home

2011-10-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days I have been drooling over other people's amazing drawings.

I love Liz Steel's travel journals. I love how she draws all her food and drink. It may not be picture perfect, but you can tell what it is with a few simple lines and her use of colour. Amazing stuff.

Her blog lead me to Urban Sketchers, a site run by a group of people who enjoy, as their name suggests, sketching out in urban areas. They go to busy market squares and draw all that's going on there, or find a run down building and draw that. There's a huge list on that site of urban sketchers from all over the world, who are all taking their sketching outside the comfort of their own home.

I've never done any sketches of buildings. I took Art until the 2nd year of high school and we were not allowed out just yet. People who took Art beyond that got to go on cool trips to Bruges and Ghent and draw all day long. (I grew up not all that far from the Belgian border, so those were daytrips. Still annoyed me when my friends got to go on a trip all day long and I was stuck back in school...)

But hey, I've got pictures, right? Lots of them, on my Flickr account. So why not use those?

This is a picture of Fata Morgana, a ride in Dutch fairytale themepark Efteling where I used to work:

and this is the drawing I did last night:

And this is a picture I took of St. Paul's:

and my drawing:

Now I know there's a lot of things wrong with these. I know nothing about perspective, the colours are wrong, the scale is wrong, St. Paul's looks like it's on the wonk far worse than Big Ben is, but I'm doing it.

I've stuck these drawings in my Art Journal because I want to see where I started from. If I keep this up, using pictures already there on my Flickr, I will hopefully get better and better each time. I'll learn how to use lines and what colours to use and if I draw one window this way, the other one should be at least the same size and not a billion times bigger.

And who knows, maybe one day I will be ready to do some proper Urban Sketching. Outside, out in the open where people can watch me...... iiiieeeee....

Introducing Art Journal 10

2011-10-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

on Youtube this time.

Now, it was getting a bit too dark inside to film, and I figured I could go outside and film in the garden.. forgetting that there was this canine wanting attention...

See for yourself:

I'm journaling my life

2011-10-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

At the end of my previous Art Journal, I was thinking about 'my style'. What do I like to do in my journals, what kind of pages draw me in when looking at other people's work, that sort of thing.

I had done some pretty pages like this:
which I really enjoyed doing because I adore working in watercolours and pen/ink.
But I also love getting more messy with acrylics and then adding oil pastels and more paint and maybe some gesso and creating pages like this:

I love the texture that creates:

But Art Journaling is about more than getting messy. It's about documenting your life, working through stuff you need to 'think about on paper', (I now write a lot in my Art Journals too and I've added paper especially in my new journal so I can keep that up) even if that means the pages will not come out as pretty as you might like.

I have to admit, when I first saw Connie's recent pages I was worried something horrible had happened to her. But then I looked closer and saw the beauty in what aren't necessarily considered pretty pages. I love them because they are raw. They mean something. They are real and rough, not polished to look all nicey-nice. Working through stuff on paper.

Now I don't claim to have much going on in my life that I've got to be angry or scared about, no deep pain hidden away needing to make its way out. But it's a great feeling to let go of the idea that your pages have to at least be nice to look at if you don't want them to.

Here is what I did the other night, on those gesso-disaster-gone-good backgrounds, in calligraphy markers I had forgotten about (Cult of Stuff anyone?)but loved using and now put somewhere where I can grab them a bit easier for further use:

So does that mean I'll never stick in any more watercolour work? Of course not! I can be a bit schizophrenic when it comes to my Art Journal because hey, it's MY Art Journal, right? If one day I feel like watercolour and ink and being more neat and tidy and the next day I create a huge mess with acrylics and crayons and oil pastels and more acrylics and the day after I only write a few bits in my journal and the day after that I stick in a picture with some DIY tape and a shopping list and a doodle I did when talking on the phone, that's just fine.

I'm journaling my life.

(The 2nd half flip-through video of Art Journal 9 can be found here.)

Oh no gesso - sticky pages

2011-10-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

So there I was, gesso'ing away in my new Art Journal, letting the pages air dry before putting some greaseproof paper between them to move to the next spread. I managed a few pages like this a day, so I had my first section in my book ready to go, feeling all proud of myself.

Until......

I opened the book the next day and found most of my pre-gesso'd pages sticking together. WT..?? They had been dry before I took the greaseproof paper out, why were they sticking? And, more importantly: how to fix this?

And then Tye said 'But you like that distressed look, don't you?' He's right! I do!
So instead of 'fixing it', I figured out a way to keep it but make it workable.

I inked up the pages, and used a water/white glue mix (thanks to Rhomany's link on her Whimsical Workspace workshop for 'DIY Mod Podge'! But I used more glue than water so it would not be as liquid as it says on that blog.) to seal it.

Now the pages don't stick together, I don't have bits coming off anymore and I love the look! I might not be able to write or paint on it because the surface is so smooth now (and I don't want to add more gesso and end up right where I started) but I'll probably end up sticking stuff on there anyway so it's not a problem.

Meet Art Journal number 10!

2011-10-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

I'm just about ready to start a new Art Journal. Number 9 took me a year (!!!) to finish, but then this is the year where I started to do more drawing and watercolouring, so I've been doing lots of art, just not as much in my journal.

So I was on the hunt for a new journal. I still had one that I had bound myself, but seeing as I had just used a similar one for my 'Week in the Life' book (still need to upload those pictures to Flickr..), I didn't feel like using that one. I'm already using a Moleskine for pen and watercolour work, so I don't want to use another one for my Art Journal...

And then I saw Paula aka Journal Artista's blogpost about her magazine journal. How cool! With that idea fresh in mind, I went to the magazine aisle and spotted one I liked, and when I got home, I realised it was the same magazine Paula is using: a Glamour. Not too big, not too small, with enough pages to keep me busy.

Paula in her post said that (Re-)Joyce, who uses a magazine for her daily journal too. Joyce puts lined paper in her journal as well, Paula told us. So of course I had to go and check out Joyce's Ustream to see how she did that. I have been using Number 9 for journaling a lot, so I think that's a great idea!

So the last two evenings I've been sitting here gluing pages together. Three or four, depending on if the next page was one I wanted to keep or not. I'd put a weight on it overnight so it would dry nice and flat (well, ish, because it's still thin magazine paper glued together..) and loving the result.

Last night, I was looking for some sturdy paper to stick to the covers to make them more durable when I decided on using the white duct tape I was going to use for just the spine. It took three layers before you could not longer see the original cover shining through, but that only makes the covers more sturdy so I don't mind.

So here you go, Art Journal number 10, who I'm sure will be as much an 'everything goes' journal as number 9 is:

Can't wait to start working in it! Thanks Paula and Joyce for the inspiration!

Keesha's new toy

2011-09-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

We're currently enjoying our 'staycation' and that includes lots of time with Keesha, of course. The other day we got her a new toy, by the company Ruff 'n Tuff, who makes strong and durable toys. We love them, and so does Keesha, so we decided to give this one a go: the 'Eggstraordinary Baffler'.

It is a food dispenser or puzzle toy. You fill the bottom up with dry food, either kibble or treats, decide whether or not you want to adjust the gap through which the food will have to make its way to the top half of the toy, screw the top half on and then just sit and watch your dog have a great time.

(Can you believe she's 9 months now? Oh how time flies....)

I want to be these people when I grow up

2011-09-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

Tommy Kane

Danny Gregory

Alisa Burke

And then there's the amazing Mattias Adolfsson and the supercool Miguel Herranz aka Freekhand.

All these people are such great inspiration! I love their use of lines and colours, how most of them draw from life but change it up a little according to taste, their amazing photos, how bright their work is without making your teeth ache, their eye for detail without getting all anal about it and feeling the need to have every single line on paper.

And I love you, dear Internet, for making it possible for me, and anyone who is interested, to soak up all this inspiration and then go out and create our own art work, using our own observation and our own favourite subjects to draw or paint.

Playing conkers, the arty way

2011-09-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I woke up to a new point and shoot camera. Tye picked one up from Tesco's on his way back from work. I love it when it buys me flowers, but a digital camera is much-MUCH nicer!

So that afternoon we went to Hylands House Park, taking lots of pictures as we went for a nice walk, to get to know this new camera, and of course so I'll have some reference pictures to draw and paint from during the winter or these grey and horrible days like we've been having.

I also stuck some plastic baggies in my bag, so I could bring back leafs and feathers and other things I found. I came home with three of them filled with things to draw from.

Even though I like to work in pen/ink and watercolours, I'm not confident enough yet to start off that way, so before I grab my pen I'll do a quick sketch in pencil, just to see where I am and really look at the object:

And then I did my pen drawing, using a Micron pen this time, and added my Koh-i-Noor watercolours. I did two paintings: one on sketchbook pad so I could take it out, and one in my Moleskine large sketchbook that I reserve for pen and watercolour work. For some reason, the loose leaf page got a Dutch text, and the one in the book an English one... I hadn't even noticed until I saw the two next to each other.

I think drawing and painting them is a much nicer way to play than using these chestnuts for a game of conkers, that truth be told I had not even heard of before moving to the UK. Strange people, these Brits...... ;)

The right order of eating M&Ms

2011-09-08T09:41:00.001-07:00

It drives Tye mad: whenever we share a bag of M&Ms, I have to sort them out by colour and eat them by colour. I can't help myself, I've always done it, and the order never chances:

Blue - brown - red - orange - green - yellow.

I'd even go as far as to say the blue and red have a very chemical taste compared to the yellow, which is the best tasting one out of the lot. (But don't test me on this, I'm sure I'll fail horribly).

Do you eat M&Ms in order of colour, and if so, what order to you stick to? I'm sure I'm not alone in this, right? ....... right?

Playing with purple

2011-09-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

Wrapping paper

2011-09-03T15:30:00.001-07:00

In about 30 minutes, Niece will turn 11. She's been here all day counting the hours until her big day, bouncing off the walls. We bought her a nice prezzie, but tonight I suddenly realised that we haven't got any wrapping paper!

Ohnooooeees!

But then I remembered the brown paper I got ages ago, thinking I'd use it for bookbinding, but never got round to it.

I started with a black outline:

and then added white and turquoise:

Wrapping up the present, I almost like the back better than the front:

It was such an easy, fun project, I think I'll be doing a lot more of this!

Scared no more

2011-09-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Not many people I know online will know this, but people who know me back in Holland certainly do; I have been scared of dogs for a good part of my life. It's rather strange, as I grew up with a Bouvier des Flandres, but it got to the point where I would not go to a park or forrest, and I would cross a busy street if I would see someone walking a dog coming towards me. I would not visit friends who owned dogs, I knew all the dogs in my neighbourhood and knew roughly when they got walked so I knew what time to be home by.

And now, I'm walking a German Shepherd every single day and loving it!

Anyway... Nephew Aaron (6) has always been a bit scared of Keesha. She is rather big and can get a bit jumpy and tends to nip when excited, so I can see his point. He came over today just as I was going to walk Keesha, so I suggested taking him to the park on his own, and walking Keesha when he left.

At first he agreed. We went to the park and he had a good time on the slides and climbing frames, but after a little while he started thinking out loud of all the things we could be doing with Keesha. Like, running with her and playing fetch and maybe hiding her ball 'so she can sniff it out'. I asked him if he was absolutely sure, because Keesha would be going off lead so she could run, and yes, he was absolutely sure. So we went back to get Keesha!

Aaron did great! He was a little...let's say uneasy, at first. I could tell, because he kept saying how Keesha was 'a good girl, really, a really good girl.. isn't she?', reassuring himself more than anything, but after a while he was running with her and playing fetch. I was so proud of both of them!

And then, on our way back, he asked if he could hold the lead. Now she's on the Gentle Leader she can't pull like she used to, and I showed him how to use it. Not pull it really hard, but ask Keesha to come with you.
He did great!

They got to walk together for a little while, and I don't think I've ever seen Aaron more chuffed with himself. So very cute!

When we got home, Aaron told me that he will never be scared of Keesha again, and that next time he comes over he will play with her and come for a walk with us. Yay!

Cheap is not always cheerful

2011-09-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

So the other day I purchased an A6 notebook (that's 5.8 x 4.1 inches for those who don't know), and filled it with patterns. You've already seen it, although in the previous post I did not mention the notebook.

Here are some more patterns I made in it:

which effectively makes the notebook my self-made colouring book. ;)

I also bought some more cheap watercolours, as I could see myself going through my Koh-i-Noor set quite quickly when adding colour to these patterns. There's 80 of them in my book!
So here's cheap set by Farrel & Gold, bought at The Works for £2.50.

I had tested them out and was rather happy with them. The colours were nice and bold, and they took to watercolour paper quite nicely.

But when I used them in my little colouringbook, something awful happened. The paints turned very creamy and thick, and it looked more like a child had been splashing on some watery acrylics that did not have a nice glossy finish after they dried:

Trying to outline the patterns in the hopes of saving it did nothing but crumble the paint:

At first I thought that maybe it was the water brush I had used, but then I tried the same paints again on watercolour paper, and they are fine:
They're not turning to thick blobs and you can actually outline them again with pen.

Maybe some (cheap) paints just don't take to notebook paper.. Looks like I'll be using my Koh-i-Noors for the pattern-colouring-book anyway....

What a difference a black outline makes

2011-08-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

When adding watercolour paint to my patterns (they're not doodles, I always think of doodles as something you scribble on a piece of paper while talking on the phone, or in class while pretending to listen to a teacher, not something you do on purpose), my outlines fade a little bit.

It's amazing how retracing those outlines with a black pen will make the colours pop:

More colour

2011-08-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

I am learning more and more about colour and colour combinations and why certain combos work better than others. Youtube is a great source to learn more about colour theory, and it doesn't have to from be videos on painting and mixing paints only.

This lady shows how to work with a colour wheel and certain combinations in flower arrangements. Here she is explaining anagolous colours:

Colour!

2011-08-29T03:41:00.001-07:00

One of the lessons in Alisa Burke's Watercolor Bliss is to look at pattern and colour.

So I've been doing this, for days:

I forgot how much fun colouring in is! There's a meditative quality to just doodling and then looking for a nice colour combination to fill in those doodles with lots of great colour. ....

Watercolour Wednesday; a review

2011-08-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

When I started Alisa Burke's Watercolor Bliss course, I felt I needed some new paints. I am very much part of the 'these supplies are too good to be used on nothing important'-club, which I know I shouldn't be, but hey, it's an excuse to buy some goodies, right?

After some searching, I found the Koh-i-Noor 24 pan stacking set.

The set is tiny, fits in my hand, but the colours are amazingly vibrant. I tested them by using the colours straight from the pan, and then adding more and more water as I went along. I really liked the results:

Then I tried them out even more, pairing colours together, seeing how they looked.

For what are considered a school supply, I am happily suprised by these paints. The colours are vibrant, they mix really well. The set is small enough to throw in your bag for on the go arting, and does not take up a lot of space on your desk (space is a huge issue for me at the moment!), and they don't cost the earth.

This Koh-i-noor 24 pan stackable set gets a thumbs up from me!

Shower!

2011-08-18T06:05:00.000-07:00

OK, so I didn't post any more Week in the Life pictures. I'm not sure if I'm going to. There's tons more pages and now that the project is over, I'm a bit bluhhh about it. I might just do a flip-through video of it all.

But this is my favourite page of the whole week and I wanted to share it here. I had so much fun taking these pictures and the page itself really stands out in the rest of the book:

A Week in the Life - Wednesday and Thursday

2011-08-05T05:54:00.001-07:00

Here are my A Week in the Life-pages for Wednesday and Thursday:
The day starts at midnight, so the first picture is usually that of my alarm clock, so you get to see what time I go to bed.

On Thursday I decided to take notes throughout the day and then refer to the pictures:

A Week in the Life - Monday and Tuesday

2011-08-05T05:08:00.001-07:00

I first heard of 'A Week in the Life' at 23.30 on Sunday night, a whole 30 minutes before the week would start. Not that much time to get things organised, but hey, I had a book, I had my Pogo printer, so I could get started.

Unlike most of the people doing this A Week in the Life-project, I'm not a scrapbooker, and I was doing this project every day at the end of the evening. From what I can tell most of the scrapbookers took notes and pictures throughout the week, and are now starting on their scrapbook pages.

When I first started doing my pages, something was off:

The pages needed PAINT! So I spent every night giving the pages a colour wash before adding pictures and words.

Much better! On Monday night I also spent a lot of time adding my DIY tape, and carving journaling spot-stamps for me to use throughout the book. I stamped a few pages and put them into a new pocket I made at the back cover of the book, so it was all in one place and ready to use.

So here we go, A Week In The Life, the pages for Monday and Tuesday:

Mad dog

2011-07-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

We heard Keesha barking in the garden, something she normally doesn't do. When we went to have a look to see what was up, we saw her barking at David, trying to get him to play with her. But it didn't work. Then she got her chicken out, one of her favourite toys, pushing it into his arms. But it still didn't work.

Poor Keesha, why was David refusing to play with her?

Well...

He's a statue!

A week in the life

2011-07-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

Why do I always hear about cool new projects at the very last minute? It was about 30 minutes before midnight when the lovely Paula aka Journal Artista Tweeted about 'A Week In The Life', a fun project where you document everything in your life for a week.

Take pictures, collect paper stuff ('daily ephemera' sounds so posh), journal etc. etc. about everything going on, and the good thing is: it does not need to be anything fancy. Even if you do the same thing over and over again for a week, that's still great to document!

So right away, I was hooked. Figures, right? But then I started wondering what I would use for a journal for that week. Or would I use my current Art Journal? Nahhh..
I decided to go with a journal that I bound over a year ago, during Leslie's bookbinding class, finally putting it to good use.
What I have in mind is a travel journal a bit like the ones I've done before, but without the traveling. Sounds like fun, right?
I've already ordered some more Polaroid ZINK paper for my POGO printer, because I'll be taking tons of pictures, I'm sure!

Please let me know if you are joining this Week In The Life project, I'd love to see your pages.

Everyday matters.

2011-07-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

It must have been at about six years ago when I heard about Danny Gregory's book Everyday matters, on a blog by a Dutch woman who kept her own visual journal much in the same style. I remember reading about it, thinking it was pretty cool, but not for me. I can't draw, you see.

And then I started making ATCs and keeping Art Journals and taking drawing lessons and learning about watercolours and then all of a sudden, that book popped up again and I decided to order a copy.

It is not a 'How to' book. It is not a book you just sit and read. It is a book you read, absorb, get inspired by. Because as much as the fact that every day matters, everyday things matter, too.

And after reading the book from cover to cover, and looking at all those amazing drawings, I grabbed my sketchbook and started drawing myself. And then I got my Moleskine out and draw those drawings again, in that same fineliner pen that bleeds a bit but gives a nice effect when mixed with watercolours.

And then I added some journaling:

What book has inspired you to art?

My Twitter has been hacked

2011-07-23T06:46:00.001-07:00

Warning: My Twitter has been hacked. It is now sending out this message:
"Someone said this real bad thing about you in a blog.... http://t.co/pBlolYK!

Please understand that this is NOT me. The link will take you back to the Twitter homepage. There is NO blog saying anything bad about you, it is just some hacker having fun.

I've already reset my password on Twitter, deleted my Tweetdeck account and then setting up another one with the new password, but it might not have worked.

*siiigh* I love my Twitter and now it just all went to poo..... I'm so sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Oh, and until this mess gets sorted out, I can't send any DMs either. I can receive them, but not send any myself. Lovely stuff!

Arting at the desk

2011-07-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I had this burst of creativity that kept me arting at my desk for hours.

First I did some more face and then coloured them in with my Cotman studio set:

Now I could say that the bleeding of the black liner was intentional, but unfortunately I had not checked to see if it would bleed. Doesn't matter though, I rather like the effect:

Earlier that day I Leslie had reminded me of the original blogpost about making your own washi-tape, using watercolours and doodling on them. It's so easy, and so much fun. I ended up with lots of new designs in pale colours that will work so well in my art journal.

And then I tried out making my own DIY old school Polaroid pictures, after Crafty Moira's tutorial. I love the look with the tape, although maybe I need to trim my cardstock a little bit:

New faces

2011-07-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

So last night I stumbed across this Youtube video:

It's a different way to draw faces. I start with a shape and then eyes, and work my way down to the mouth. So I decided to give it a try:

I like! When I draw the mouth, I have no idea yet if the face will be a man or a woman, a child or an older person. I just let my pen decide, not so much me, if that makes sense. (Might be the allergy pills at work, who knows?)

And they become their own little characters.
The spoilt child:

The librarian:

The 70's schoolteacher:

The man who, in a previous life, was quite the big man in town:

The shy 30-something:

Think I'll keep this up for a while and see how it will develop for me.

Ironic Allergy

2011-07-14T15:47:00.001-07:00

So a few months ago, I noticed that my skin started itching. And where I had itched, my skin puffed up like puffy paint.

At first it was strange, then it got annoying, and then I wondered if there was something wrong with me.

I took a picture of what happens if I 'draw' a smiley face on my arm

and did some googling. Normally I'm not for self-diagnosing your illnesses, but I stumbled across people who suffered from the same skin-thing, and learned it is called Dermatographic urticaria or 'skin writing disease'. Some people even turn it into art! Here is a Flickr group where people show off what their skin can do.

But because the itching got worse, I decided to go to my family doctor today.

He was surprised to see it, as it is rare and he had not seen it in years. He confirmed the Dermatographia, and asked if I had any pets. Um, yes, Keesha.... He said that it's a rare allergic reaction, and is often seen in people who are allergic to pets. I told him that we said goodbye to our labrador a few months ago, and that I never had this back when he was alive, but as my doctor explained, you can be allergic to some dogs and not others, especially when the allergy is not so much hair but saliva. Ahhh.. Keesha is (still) quite nippy, so that would explain a lot!

Doc got me allergy pills, and told me that the condition does not have a cure, but the pills will make it occur less and/or make it less itchy. And because getting rid of Keesha is not an option, pills are the only choice.

I think it's incredibly ironic that I now turn out to be allergic to dogs. I've been scared for dogs for most of my childhood and adult life, only since moving here and living with dogs again did my fear finally go. I take Keesha to the park every day (except when during those incredibly heavy rains we've been having lately), and as of Wednesday I'll be taking her to dog training. And now my doctor tells me that I should try and avoid most contact... As if I could do that! No way!

Anyway, hopefully the pills will kick in soon and Tye can stop calling me his human etch-a-sketch or post-it note. ;)

Index Card A Day

2011-07-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Just because I haven't said all that much about the Index Card A Day challenge does not mean that I have not been doing my cards. OK, so sometimes I have done a few cards in one siting, but still...

Here are a couple of videos of me doing my cards:

And the June flip through video as promised:

Once again, thank you Daisy Yellow for starting this challenge and for keeping me busy throughout the summer months!

Bugs, a video.

2011-06-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I did a video sitting at my desk. I did all that needs to be done: converting into a format Youtube likes, editing, finding music that fits the video, and then saving it to my computer... that last bit did not work. At all. It would take 300 minutes, Windows Movie Maker said. Oh no wait, it would take 599 minutes. Or 780.

It was music I had already used on a previous video, I didn't do anything different, but WMM just flat out refused to work. After several attempts a couple of days in a row, I just gave up. I might upload the video as a silent one, or talk over it or something, but with the music it's just not going to work.

So today, I tried again, with different footage and different music, but from the same source I always use, Incompetech.com. And guess what.. it worked! The video saved to my computer in less than a minute, and Youtube took no time at all to post the video:

I have no idea what I did wrong with the last video, but hey, it's working now so I'm not complaining!

Some pictures of the bugs up close:

Gesso, or: The Science Project

2011-06-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

I've never done a science project for school. No mouldy bread in my fridge (at least not for that purpose) or vulcanoes being created on my dining room table, nothing exciting like that. But then I opened my gesso today, and...
What the hell is that? Gesso is not supposed to be orange!
Or crusty...

And that crust is not supposed to burst like a marshmellow that's been on roasting above the BBQ for just a few minutes...

Is it bad that I want to keep it to see how much worse it will get?

Art Journal flip-through

2011-06-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

About 1/3 into my current Art Journal I realised that there is tons of pages in this one and it would take me a good while to fill them all. So now, half way through, I decided to do a flip-through video.

In this Art Journal you will see a lot of test-pages. I'm testing out glazes, mixing my WC crayons with graphite and gesso, and trying out my Pearlescents in my mad scientist kind of way, lots of journaling, you'll see how I store my DIY tape, the piece of sheet I nearly emptied one of my pots of Pearlescents over, one of Keeshe's teeth (and I did not punch the puppy in order to get that tooth!), lots of photo's, daily emphemera, paintings, drawings...
And I'm only half way through yet!

Thank you for the music Big Man

2011-06-19T03:11:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many blogposts, tweets and articlces yesterday and today have mentioned the following line:

when the change was made uptown, and the Big Man joined the band

It seems like such a small line in a song, but it changed Springsteen's music forever. And now that Clarence Clemons is gone, it will never be the same.

Here he is, doing the Jungleland solo in Stockholm in 2009:

Paradise by the C in 1988:

I'll wait for you, if I should fall behind, wait for me:

Thank you for the music, Clarence Clemons. You were well and truly a Big Man.

Arting in the park

2011-06-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

A month ago, I took my water colour set to the local park and had a blast. My video editor program however decided that the video I took of me using my water colours only had the sound but not the picture. Great! So all you could hear was kids screaming and wind blowing and me mini misting my water colours but you couldn't see anything. Hmpf.

And then our laptop refused service, and we had to reset it to factory settings. As bad as that was, it somehow made the video editor program think that hey, there's picture here too!

So here it is, arting in the park, using my Cotman studio set, Pitt pens and a BIC pen in my Moleskine Sketchbook:

Keesha the water dog

2011-06-16T06:11:00.003-07:00

Keesha will be 6 months old on Sunday, and here she is splashing around in the puddle left after heavy rain this morning.

But of course it's much more fun to see her in action, esp. when you know the song I got from Incompech.com is called 'Fluffing a duck':

Cult of Stuff, a page

2011-06-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

Remember when I last talked about the Cult of Stuff, and the workshop Less Herger is hosting on Artjournaling dot ning dot com (oh yes, I said it again!)?

For last week, we were challenged into using 'personal ephemera'. Now, when I first moved to the UK and started all this creative madness, I would read the word 'ephemera' and have no idea how to pronounce it. Then I'd hear it on Youtube and still have no idea what was meant. I threw that on Twitter not that long ago and guess what, I'm not the only one! It's not a 'ohyousillyforeignerdon'tyouknowwhatthatmeans' situation at all! I was so relieved!

If you look it up, emphemera means 'Items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity'. So basically, anything you can stick into your journal, paper, pictures, collage materials, etc. etc. etc. 'Personal ephemera' would then mean that it's stuff you did not buy in a shop, but things like receipts and shopping lists, photo's from your daily life, junk mail you cut up and stick in your journal, the stamps from a letter you received..

Last week, me and Tye went to the cinema and then out for dinner. Here's what I did with the stuff I collected during that day, including the little flags holding our Nando's chicken burger in place.

Index Card A Day

2011-06-09T05:12:00.000-07:00

I think it was about two weeks ago when I did my usual round of creative blog favourites and stumbled across the lovely Tammy's Daisy Yellow (I highly recommend this blog if you've never been there, if only for the yummy pictures not to mention all the great ideas and inspiration you'll find there), and noticed she was about to start another project.

Index Card A Day: doodle, paint, write, collage, stamp, stitch, whateverrrrr you can think of, one index card per day for June, July and August (you get to have one ICAD-free day per week!). Start any time before the 15th of June, there's no need to 'catch up' (but of course I already decided to do just that), just start!

While I know I said 'Daily don't work for me', I think one index card per day sounds very doable. And if I don't do one every day I can do two every two days, or three every... well, you get the picture.

Now who knew it was so difficult to get your hands on simple index cards? I had to go to three stores to finally find some, and then they turned out to be smaller than the regular ones. But oh well, I've bought them and I will use them!

So I spend about half a day yesterday hole punching them, adding reinforcers on all said holes and pre-gessoing one month's worth of index cards. The rings I wanted to bind them with were too small for all three months' worth of cards to fit, so I'm binding them per month.

Here are the cover for June and my first few cards:
Kraft tape and Sharpie, can't be more simple!

I named this one 'Sleep'.

Derwent Inktense and Pastell pencils and Pitt pen.

Derwent Inktense pencils, ink, hand painted Micropore tape and postage stamps.

Derwent Inktense pencils, ink, hand painted Micropore tape and postage stamps.

Ink and Derwent Inktense pencils.

I don't particularly think that all of these cards are Masterpieces, but my view on these is that it's not so much about the individual card as it is about the collection I'll have when I finish this challenge.

Over the next few months I will be posting regular updates on these Index Card A Day cards, and I'll be Tweeting about it using '#icad'. I hope you'll join in on the fun! Oh, and there's a Flickr group too so you can show off your work! And if you're stuck on ideas, go to Daisy Yellow for weekly prompts!

What do you call your Art Journal?

2011-06-09T02:18:00.000-07:00

I just discovered that I call my Art Journal different things.

When on Twitter, depending on how many characters I still have left, I call it my Art Journal or my AJ. Usually my AJ. And consequently I call working in my Art Journaling 'AJ-ing' on Twitter. I thought I'd clear that up for those of you who were wondering, although I suspect that most of you who are reading this blog and/or my Twitter feed are interested in Art Journals anyway and had already figured that one out.

Here on this blog, I always call it Art Journaling. With a capital A and J. Because it's important to me, I guess that's why I do it. It's not something I've given a lot of thought to. It just looks weird without the capitals.

When talking to my niece who is very interested in all my creative stuff, I call it 'my journal', even though she gets confused sometimes because she sort of keeps a written journal and this is completely different.

I tried 'Visual Journal', which I suppose my Travel Journal (see, capitals!) is more than an Art Journal, but it didn't sound right for some reason...

When out and about though, I call it 'My Book'. Tye over the years has become quite used to me collecting things 'for My Book'. Even the other day when we were at Nando's I asked for his little flag that was holding his burger together, so I could 'stick it in My Book'.

What do you call your Art Journal?

Travel Journal

2011-06-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

For our holiday, I made a travel journal, of course.

For the cover, I used a punctured air bed, thanks to our friend's dog...

and for the pages I used cardstock and patterned paper. The patterned paper was too big, so I folded it over to create pockets, which came in handy for maps and tickets and receipts.

I then inked all the pages, put some white paint over the patterned pages that otherwise were a bit too bright for my taste, and stamped my handcarved stamps all over the pages. I also added a lot of my hand decorated tape, this time using Micropore tape to give it more of a washi tape feel.

Here are some pictures:

But better than that, here's the video of me flipping through the Travel Journal.

Mad scientist

2011-06-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, so I know I haven't blogged in a while. Life takes over sometimes and you end up with lots to say, but nothing you'd want to throw out on The Internet. It happens.

So let's just pretend these last couple of weeks, months, didn't happen and go right back to Art Journaling, how's that?

My dear friend Leslie Herger from Comfortable Shoes Studio posted a series of rants on her blog, about what she calls 'The Cult of Stuff'. It's about how we all get talked into buying 'the right tools' for art journaling and other creative outlets, and end up not using it at all. And yet you still go back to the store for more stuff. Go over to Leslie's blog to read her posts, they are so dead on!

Annyyywayyy... That series of blogposts inspired her to start a workshop over on Artjournaling.ning.com (Oh yes, I said it!) where in turn she inspires us to look at all those supplies and tools we've got in our drawers and in our stash that we don't use or maybe don't even like using, and actually try them out in your journal. She calls it 'be a mad scientist in your art journal', and she encourages everyone who's taking part in this workshop to give it a go.

So here's what I've done:
I've had my Pearlescent paint set for about two years now, and I hardly touched them. They are too glittery for my taste, and I've only used them for accents, and only sparingly. So what could I do to change things?

What if I mixed it with gesso?
It of course became a bit more pastel, and more opaque, which is great for this journal I am currently using, a ruled and squared notebook. Also, the glitter completely disappeared. Great news!

What if I mixed it with charcoal?
I put down a lot of charcoal, and then added the paint. The glitter was still there, but it was a nicely grunged up and I absolutely loved the effect!

Let's keep going.
What if I mixed it with charcoal and gel medium?
I put down a lot of charcoal, then a thick layer of gel medium, and then the paint. Oh yes, I love that! The paint is not as fluent anymore, and you can really see the brush strokes. Nice!

What if I add water or alcohol drops?
The water made the already fluent paint run even further. The alcohol drops did not do all that much, but then maybe I should have first put down a different coat of paint of maybe gesso. After it dried, I doodled a bit, answering another question: yes, you can write on top of Pearlescent paints.

What if I stamp with it?
Two layers of gesso and then stamped on it. What I like about it is that you can use two or more colours with this method, but the paint is probably a little too thin for stamping.

And then....

I forgot that I was sitting on my bed and I knocked over one of the bottles. It went all over my duvet cover:

Nope, that's not art, but I'm sure that stain will somehow end up in my journal.... It's all about recording your life, right?

If you want to join the fun, and I really hope you do, please sign up for the Cult of Stuff workshop over on Artjournaling.ning.com. The ning site is free to join, and the workshop is donation based. If you like it, we'd appreciate the donation to keep the Ning-site going. Hope to see you there!

Link Love Friday (11)

2011-03-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in painting, especially in painting BIG, and art journaling, chances are you know Connie of Dirty Footprints Studio. And if you know Connie, you must know her beloved Hansel. This is his Link Love Friday.

I think this was the first time we got to see Hansel, at the end of this video:

And then there was this one:

Hansel is an amazing self-taught photographer, who has a great eye for the beauty in the city as well as in nature. His work is so full of colour you can almost taste it!

If you want to see more of Hansel's work, go to his Flickr page or his website where you can purchase his works.

Happy Friday, Hansel!

Water colour Wednesday (9)

2011-03-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today, I played with masking fluid.I got it for my birthday, but had not really had a chance to use it yet.

So I started off with making a few shapes on the paper:

Then I let it dry completely (long live the fan) before adding the first colour:

Then I made some shapes within the rectangle and the squares.

I let it dry completely again before adding a second colour and then some more doodles in masking fluid:

After letting that all dry again, I painted all the shapes black:

Then I let it dry for one last time before pulling off all the masking fluid:

So there you have it, three layers of paint and three lots of masking fluid:

It was a lot of fun and I like the results. The only thing I had not thought of was how long it would take for the masking fluid to actually dry. It does take quite a bit of time, depending on how thick you put it on. The thicker the layer of fluid the easier it is to peel it off, though.

One thing before you try this: do not use your best brushes. The masking fluid when dry does really mess up your brush. Or you could wash them out immediately afterwards, of course... but, yeah... umm... nevermind..

Puppy fix

2011-03-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Remember how tiny she was?

Now look at her!

This is not the most charming picture, but you can see the markings on her back:

And she loves to poke through your legs and then look up at you:

Isn't it amazing how much she's grown? She's got tons of energy and loves her walks now, but it's difficult to take pictures or even video when I'm on my own so next time Tye goes with me I'll take some video or pictures or both.

Speaking of Art Journals...

2011-03-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my latest pages. I've been doing a lot of faces lately, don't ask me why because I haven't got a clue.

I stuck some sweetie wrappers on the page and painted a face on top of it:

Here I layered a lot of paint and then saw this little face:

This one started of the same: layers of paint and then finding a face shape in the paint. But I added more charcoal than in the pervious one, and some white pastel pencil:

I'm almost half way through my book. I think I'll do a half way flip through, because it's such a thick book. Watch this space!

Art journals caught on film

2011-03-20T06:05:00.001-07:00

The lovely Rhomany recently wrote two blogposts about art journals in TV-shows.

I have to say, I always get excited when I spot someone in a TV-series or film with an art journal or even a cool looking notebook. Unfortunately it's usually the loonies or baddies that keep a journal with lots of paint, scary pictures or thoughts dripping off the page, but still, I love it when I spot one!

And then I remembered Elisabethtown, with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. I thought the film itself was rather boring, I watched it a year or so ago and can't even tell you exactly what the film is about (thank the Internet gods for IMDB, "During an outrageous memorial for a Southern patriarch, an unexpected romance blooms between a young woman and man.") but what I do remember is the journal Kirsten Dunst's character makes for Orlando Bloom's character in the film.

It's a visual journal come road map kind of thing, and from what I remember it was packed with pictures, actual maps and little notes and it even had a 'mixed tape' CD in it for him to listen to while taking a road trip. A travel guide but much, much cooler.

I tried to look for images online, but could not find any.
So here are the only two I took from Youtube clips, no copyright infringement intended:

Keesha's first walk

2011-03-16T08:21:00.001-07:00

Little Miss Pup (13.5 weeks) had a problem (or rather, we did): she refused to walk on a collar and lead. No matter how much we tried to 'bribe' her with nice food, with toys or how much we tried to let her follow us, she stayed put. She refused to even move a toe while on collar and lead...

When her food was running out, we went to Pets at home, a huge place which is also where our vets is, so there's always people with their pets in the shop. We got to talking to a man walking a huge GSD, who said he'd had them for 40 yrs and every now and again there was one that refused to walk on a collar and lead. Funny enough, the one he was walking then was on a body harness.

Then Tye remembered that Suzy, the shepherd mix his parents adopted years ago, used to walk on a harness too. When they adopted her she was covered in bite marks and could not walk on a collar because it was too painful. His mum had actually kept the harness!

We adjusted it to Keesha, and guess what: she walked! In the harness, lead attached and everything! After a few walks around the house, we decided it was time to cross the road and go to the park.

She had a brilliant time sniffing all the new smells. She even got to meet a few other dogs, played with a tiny fluffy white thing on a pink lead, got to meet other people and saw some on bikes and loved it all.

I'm so glad she's finally figured out that the lead is not a bad thing and that is leads (ha!) to all the fun stuff outside!

Water colour Wednesday, a day late

2011-03-10T06:59:00.001-08:00

Yes I know, Watercolour Wednesday is a day late. I have been using my water colours a lot lately, but more as a colouring in kind of thing than to use it in actual water colouring. That may sound confusing, but water colour as a medium is different than using it as a way to just add some colour to a page.

And I have to be honest, I was running out of ideas of what to try.
So last night, I was having a look around on Youtube to see if I could find some easy techniques to try.

I found this video:

and decided try it, using the colours suggested in the video.

It's so fun seeing the colours mixing right there on the page!

then I tried out this one:

but I used cadmium yellow instead of cadmium orange. (I messed up, alright?)

Tye, being the ever loving and supportive sweetheart that he is, said he was suddenly craving broccoli and cheese for dinner tonight.......

Sketch Tuesday (8)

2011-03-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

Because I liked the ink and water colour work I did last week, I decided to do it again this week. The theme this week seems to have been food... Well, goodies really.

Link Love Friday (6)

2011-03-04T05:55:00.000-08:00

When I first stumbled across The Main Meal's Youtube channel, I could not help but laugh. Guy Francis, as his real name is, does 'Tourette's Karaoke', singing songs while letting his tics get the best of him. This was one of the first videos I saw of him, and needless to say, if you are in a work environment right now or are sensitive when it comes to swearing, do not click play:

Lately, Guy has been doing some more serious videos. He's still ticing away, but answering questions any viewers might have about the Tourette's and Asperger's syndrom from which he suffers, and if you try to not listen to all the swearing and not look at the movements, he's actually a real funny guy who is making the most of a rather poo situation.

Here he is talking about his tic cycles:

And here is THE question: can you still have sex when you've got Tourettes or do the tics get in the way of it all?

I think Guy is doing a wonderful job in being open and honest about his syndroms, and has a great sense of humour about it as well. I hope he keeps up the videos not only for entertainment value, but also to make people understand what his tics are all about.

Water colour Wednesday (7)

2011-03-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

It's Watercolour Wednesday again!

As I'm in Teddy mode, let's see if I can do one starting off without any outlining.

an cotton bud to soak up some of the water and pigment:

Letting it all dry:

And then adding some coloured pencil details:

I liked the effect and I carried on going, now with water coloured pencil.

Did I take it too far? Yeah, maybe. The purple did not come out as nice as I thougth it would.. but hey, if you don't do, you'll never learn, right? I guess I need to figure out when to stop...

(And also... how come my teddy is now a doggy? You'd almost think I've got puppies on the brain! *LOL*)

Sketch Tuesday (7)

2011-03-01T07:01:00.001-08:00

I'm slowly getting back to art. Yes, I know, about time, right? I'm still trying with the Daily Drawing Challenge, but I am so far behind now I'm not even thinking of trying to catch up.

Next up, Teddy... I did one in pencil:

then one in pen:

Don't they look cute, side by side?

And then I thought, the pen one could do with some colour. The paper in my sketchbook (a notebook really) is too thin to take any wet media, so I decided to go back to my Moleskine in which I've already been working for the Sketchbook Delight course, draw another teddy in pen and added water colour:

So now I have three teddies

We finally got to meet the twins!

2011-02-27T05:16:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to finally see our twin nephews for the first time, a parcel arrived. I was a bit surprised as I had not orderd anything, and the name on the back did not mean anything to me. When I opened it, I figured out it was from the Magic Bartender, a very nice lady I talk to on Twitter.

In the parcel she had put a symbol of good luck and blessing for the mum and dad, dollies for the boys and even some fingerless gloves for me! Yayy!

I also fiiiinally finished the baby blankets for the twins, so I wrapped them up, too.

And then we finally got to meet the twins! They have grown a lot, 7lbs for Jenson and 6lbs8 for Lewis, but they are still so tiny, and still on oxygen. But they are doing well and are getting more kisses and cuddles than ever now that they're home with their mum and dad and two brothers and sister.

Here's Lewis on the left and Jenson on the right, held by their mum:

And I got to hold Lewis, too!!

Once again, thank you everyone for asking after the twins and sending your prayers and thoughts. It means a lot.

Link Love Friday (5)

2011-02-25T03:45:00.000-08:00

I know this blog has become all about the puppy lately, but I can't help it she's just too cute not to talk about her.... I'll get back to art again, I promise!

Even before we had Keesha and I was trying to work with Luke who refused to learn anything new at his old age, I've been following some cool dog trainers on Youtube and learned quite a bit about how to get your pooch to walk on the lead properly, what clicker training actually is and how you can use it, and even how to get your dog to do cool tricks.

Here are some of my favourite dog trainers on Youtube:

David the dogtrainer:

Emily of Kikopup

Ashley of Hunkymonkeykaine

Katie of 3LostDogs

If you know any more great dog trainers on Youtube, please let me know!

Get your puppy fix

2011-02-21T14:15:00.001-08:00

Keesha, 9 weeks and 1 day old..
More pictures here

Sketchbook Delight

2011-02-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

Those who follow me on Twitter already know; I'm taking the Sketchbook Delight course by Alisa Burke and am really enjoying it! It gives me even more reason to play with my watercolours and that can only be a good thing, right?

This week, the topic was 'inspiration' and I suddenly remembered my Project 365 pictures. What an inspiration!

In the next few weeks, be sure to keep an eye on my Flickr set, I'll be posting more pictures there.

Water colour Wednesday (6)

2011-02-16T14:25:00.001-08:00

Today's Watercolour Wednesday started out being about layers.

But then it became about mixing colours. The different blues and greens make even more beautiful turquoises.

Tye asked why I was painting wallpaper....

Filling in the page with paint in all the shades I could come up with..

The more I learn about how to mix these paints the more I'm enjoying them. Even though I know I'm not the first person to mix sap green and cobalt blue, it feels like I'm inventing something completely new, making these paints my own.

Great Joy

2011-02-12T01:56:00.000-08:00

While my heart and head are still trying to catch up with everything that happened in the last week, we have found that we quite agree with the saying 'a house without a dog is not a home'. (Or without a cat, or a gerbil or any animal that you prefer).

So meet the new addition to the family, the lovely little Keesha. Her name means Great Joy, and aside from all the bitemarks I've already got on my hands and ankles, she's living up to her name.

She is a sable German Shepherd, and looking at her feet, she will be a big girl before we can even blink.

I can see a lot of puppy posts and videos in my future. Hope you're ready for that....

Sketch Tuesday (6)

2011-02-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough couple of days and sketching has not exactly been on my mind that much, but I do have a few drawings to show you.

Bye bye Luke

2011-02-07T13:26:00.000-08:00

Last October, our crazy labrador Luke had his first stroke. It was scary, he was yelping and seemed 'stuck', not able to use his legs, no bladder control.. By talking to him and stroking him, he came to. It took him about half an hour and then he seemed back to normal.

The vet said older dogs get these, and other than doing what we were already doing, there wasn't a lot he could do.

Last night, at 11pm, he had another one. This one was a lot lot worse than last time, lasted a lot longer and seemed to have effected him for much longer. It took him 45 min. to get up and walking again. Then at 2am he had another one, at 4am another one.... just before Tye came home from work he had another one... Before we could take him to the vet he had another small one and one big one at 10 this morning.

It was time.

Thank you Luke, for being a great dog and for showing me that not all dogs are scary (before I moved here I was so scared of dogs I'd rather cross the streets in busy traffic than to walk past him, but with Luke I even dared to walk him at the park, meeting all kinds of dogs!). I already miss you terribly, but it's good to know you are no longer in pain.

Bye bye Lukey-boy...

Link Love Friday (on a Saturday)

2011-02-05T04:58:00.001-08:00

Yeah yeah, I know, I'm a day late with my Link Love Friday.... but here it is...

This last week has been about Loving Kindness, as you may have spotted on Twitter, Ustream and Flickr. It has been about being true friends, and not standing for those friends being attacked. It has been about art and coming together as a group. It was about getting to know new people and making new friends.

So this Link Love is about those who made this week possible, who participated in the Ustream-a-thon or just watched, who posted their Loving Kindness art work on their blogs or the Flickr group dedicated to this cause.

Thank you so much for this last week:
JellyBeansDesigns
Leslie Herger
Paula aka Journal Artista
IKerriLove
Lily aka ArtJourney
Tammy Ozuna
Dede aka Inkwell
Deina aka TheAmpleGoddess

I know this is an incomplete list and I apologize if your name is not on it because there have been so many of you who have made this week a brilliant success and one to never forget. But please know that I have loved every minute of it and that I appreciate you being part of it.

The week may be over now, but The Loving Kindness Project is something that will only grow bigger and better, so please keep posting your art work.

Thank you all for a wonderful week!

Water colour Wednesday (5)

2011-02-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

Once you start working in a new medium, you suddenly see it everywhere. People using it in ways you never even thought of.
See, when you think of water colours you think of landscapes and flowers and traditional things like that, but then I stumbled across this blogpost by Gentian and completely fell in love with her style.

I am far from the world's best in drawing faces, but if you never do you'll never learn, so...

I sprayed the page a little:

I started painting by mixing sap green and Payne's gray:

and then Hooker's Green light and Payene's Gray and using some of the grey on its own:

Of course my result is nowhere near Gentian's work, but I quite like it...

Sketch Tuesday (5)

2011-02-01T07:26:00.000-08:00

It's Sketch Tuesday number 5, can you believe it? Time sure does fly...

This week, I've been trying to catch up with the Daily Drawing Challenge, and ended up with 18 sketches. That means I've sketched from 9 pictures, not bad for a week's work.

Now, I will not be showing you all 18 pictures here on the blog, but if you're curious, you can go to my Flickr account to see all of them.

Love love love

2011-01-30T09:29:00.000-08:00

After a lot of Internet-drama that I don't want to get into right now, a few lovely ladies on Twitter decided that it was time for LOVE.

And so, last night, we had a Ustream-a-thon, going from one show to the other, watching each other do pages inspired by LOVE and the colour PINK, which I don't use that often but yesterday was using more than ever.

So here you go, my PINK(ish) pages...

(Please be sure to check out The Loving Kindness Project on Flickr, where you'll see other people's LOVE inspired work.

Link Love Friday (4)

2011-01-27T16:24:00.000-08:00

Now the last couple of Link Love Fridays have been serious stuff. Diseases are no fun, but getting some awareness going is a good thing and that's what my Link Love Fridays are for.

But, to balance things out a little bit, I HAVE to show you this..

OK, so the kids are on the annoying side, but still.... can you believe that!!
Who knew you could train a goldfish to play fetch? I mean seriously, a goldfish!!

When I first moved out of my parents' house I had some hamsters because my then boyfriend used to have them when he was little. I did not take to the hamsters at all. Sure, we bought them the Sam cage and the labyrinth and the ball, but still.. Not for me.

I did have a few fish, those black ones with the huge eyes, and yes, they are relaxing to watch and I used to sing to my one fish because his name was Mickey and I could never pass the tank without singing 'Oh Mickey you're soooo fine....' but had I known that I could have trained him... mannnnn!!

I wants a goldfish now. I wants one I wants one I wants one. And the training kit, of course...

Try It OutThursday ; stamps

2011-01-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last did a Try It Out Thursday post, but, inspired by Traci Bunkers' 30 days of carving I decided to try out stamp carving.

Well, that's not completely true. I have done some stamp carving before, but I did those using a silly little knife that did not cut properly. I bought a woodcarving set and I can tell you, that makes all the difference!

I got some cheap, soft erasers that I knew would not be any problem carving.
First, I sketched out a design on a piece of paper, and then on the stamp. I put some markings on the pieces that needed to be carved out, because knowing me I would cut the wrong bit...

Then I started to cut:

and tried it out:

I carved three more stamps:

And these are all of them together:

It's such a fun little project that did not take up a lot of time but had maximum results as far as I'm concerned. I can't wait to do more, including different shaped stamps. I'll be keeping an eye out for stamps!

....ohhhdearrricanfeelanewaddictioncomingon.....

Water colour Wednesday (4)

2011-01-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

When I got my water colour set and water colour Moleskine from Father Christmas, he also brought me a water colour brush multi-pack by Royal Langnickel.

I had tried them out previously, but unfortunately, I am not enthusiastic about them. The lids keep popping off, you have to squeeze reallllyy hard to get water out of them, and some of the pigment in the paints will even get into the water barrel, which effectively means that you're working with dirty water.

Thankfully, I also have Aquash from Pentel, and I love them!

I started my water colour session today with putting some of that mucky water from the Royal Langnickel brushes on my pallet, to see just how bad it was.
Adding some greys and oranges, and I was painting away...

Now, what are one of the first things a child will draw? A house! Or even a whole street...

Adding more layers:

And some outlining:

So here you go:

(And no, I haven't decided yet what to do with last week's water colours. I guess I'll leave them as is for a while and decide later.)

Sketch Tuesday (4)

2011-01-25T14:04:00.001-08:00

I've been sketching more this week, but somehow it felt like I've done less.. How strange.

First I sketched with niece J. (10). She got to use my pencils and loved it.
She made me draw an apple, using Derwent 'wash' pencils, which as the name suggests are watersoluble. I had not really used them that way, and I found out that the paper in my sketchbook isn't exactly made for water colours...

Then back to the Daily Drawing Challenge:

I really like the brush:

I find it so weird that the drawings look better on camera than they look in person.. but maybe that's just me.

Link Love Friday (3)

2011-01-21T16:02:00.000-08:00

I don't normally talk about the subject here on my blog, but up until about 12 years ago, I had an eating disorder. I suffered from binge eating disorder (BED), which meant that I was addicted to food like a junkie is addicted to drugs.

After some group and individual therapy and lots of help from people on a Dutch website especially for those who suffer from eating disorders, I beat my BED, and have since been a moderator for that very website, trying to help others who are now in the position I once were.

Now because I know most of you who read this do not speak Dutch, I want to give my Link Love this week to Something-fishy.org, a website where you can find an incredible amount of information on different eating disorders as well as healthy coping mechanisms, online support and links to sites and organisations that might be able to help you deal with your problems.

If you are suffering from an eating disorder, or know someone who does, please check out the site. And remember: you are not alone!

Water colour Wednesday (3)

2011-01-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

Week three of Water colour Wednesday!

Can you see what I see?

I did a quick sketch of what I saw in the curtain:

and then I got my water colour Moleskine out and my water colour set and started drawing and painting:

I kept track of the colours I used, not only because I'd like to remember what I used, but also to start learning all the different names and what effect mixing them with more or less water and with other colours will do.

I'm not sure if they're finished yet. I might do an outline, but am not sure what to use. Do I use Inktense or other (water colour) pencils? Or maybe ink? Or pen? I'm slightly worried it will ruin the work. But then again, I'm learning to see what works best.

Guess we'll find out next week!

Sketch Tuesday (3)

2011-01-18T11:46:00.000-08:00

Ohhhh yes, it's Sketch Tuesday again!

This weekend I've been trying to catch up with category/daily"Artistic Biker's Daily Drawing Challenge and managed to get up to the Candle, for those who are following along.

I have to say, the sofa was verrry difficult, and my plate does not look anything like a plate, and the candle was hard because both colour and black/white picture were not as clear as I'd like them to be, but hey, here are my pics:

I have come to the conclusion that it works best for me to look at the full colour picture first, study it, and then use the black/white one to draw from.
And when drawing, I like to do the pencil one first. That too feels like a study.
And then the pen one is a stripped down drawing, for lack of a better term.

Are you taking Blade/Artistic Biker's challenge? Have pics? Let's see them!

Link Love Friday

2011-01-14T05:24:00.000-08:00

For a while now I have been following the Vlogbrothers on Youtube. John and Hank Green send each other videos of under 4 minutes (if not they will punish each other!) in which they talk about the nerdy things in life. They are highly entertaining and have a great following.

So this Link Love Friday is not about them.

It's about Samantha aka MakupCrazyArtist, a 13 year old girl who posted ta video response to them. She suffers from a rare skincondition called EB (Epidermolysis bullosa) which causes the skin to blister, tear and even fall off at the slightest touch. Blisters can also form in the mouth and throat, making it difficult to eat, drink and even breathe.

Samantha talks about how difficult it is to be in pain, how it's so easy to take things for granted like being able to pick up your iPhone but how she can't do that because she can hardly bend her fingers anymore. If she doesn't wear special gloves, her skin disease can cause webbing.

All she wants is to do is tell people about this disease and hopes that some day, there will be a cure.

Here is Samantha's video, but please watch it on Youtube so you can see all the links to other sites as well:

Let's hope that cure is on its way!

Water colour Wednesday

2011-01-12T16:03:00.001-08:00

My second Water colour Wednesday and I decided to start off with wet page. Soaked.
The little drips and drops of water colour started to spread as soon as they hit the paper, forming what looked like rose petals.

So I went with that, adding more layers and then ink.

I don't like most of the flowers. I like the combination of water colour and ink, but the water colour looked far too messy, which in itself is strange because normally I love messy.

I do like this one flower though:

Exploring this new medium is great fun, even if the results are not always something I end up loving or even liking. But hey, I'm learning!

Sketch Tuesday

2011-01-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's Sketch Tuesday!

I have to be honest and say I haven't done that much sketching this week, but I've got 3 more to show you. I've decided to do all the Daily Drawing Challenge sketches in both pencil and pen, just to see what the difference would be. I quite like the pen sketches.

New issue of our 'zine is out now!

2011-01-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

Please order your copy here and allow 24 hours for processing.

Oh, and if you would like to share your pictures in our gallery, want to tell us about a great class you took recently, have a cool article in mind, please get in touch with us at artjournalingitsallgood@gmail.com !

Brothers reunited at last

2011-01-10T06:27:00.001-08:00

After weeks of being on different wards, and even miles apart in different hospitals, last week the twins were finally reunited, and their mummy got to hold them for the first time.

Aren't they gorgeous? And I can see their sister in that frown, it's amazing that they already have those family features at that age.

Here you can see just how tiny they are, look at Mum's thumb:

They instantly recognised each other. Lewis was pulling Jenson's nose, and they were licking each other's arms as if to make sure that it was really the other brother! Especially little Jenson, who is the weaker one of the two, completely relaxed when he was being held with his brother.

Here another indication of just how small they are:

As long as they are still in ICU it's only parents, siblings and grandparents who get to see them, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that they will get more healthy and grow strong so we can finally go and meet these precious little boys.

I can just look at these pictures all day long.....

Oh, and... those cute hats? You might remember them from this post. Thanks again, Sue of Prem2pram!

Link Love

2011-01-07T16:11:00.000-08:00

One of my jobs on Art Journaling It's All Good, our art journaling 'zine, is to come up with the link love page. So I get to look all over the internet to find new sites that I think everyone should know about.

As much fun as that is, sometimes I come across amazing sites that just don't fit in our 'zine. Because they are not about art journaling but photography, or needlework or other forms of art. Or because they have nothing to do with art at all.

So I decided that every Friday, I will give some link love to a site that for whatever reason does not fit the 'zine. Or maybe one that does and has already been featured but I feel deserves a little more link love anyway...

Here is the first one: A Girl's Guide to Homelessness. Bri, a young woman who became homeless through no fault of her own, keeps a blog about what it is like to not have a roof over your head. You can read how in 2009 she became homeless, and follow her story of how she and her biiig dog Fezzik try to keep going strong. It is an amazing story that makes you wonder if you too could do it, if you too could make it out there on your own.

In April, her book will come out, The Girl's Guide to Homelessness, and I wish her all the best!

Water colour Wednesday

2011-01-05T14:37:00.001-08:00

Father Christmas has been exceptionally nice to me this year and has given me all these art goodies, including an amazing Cotman 45 half pan water colour set.

Not having much experience with water colours, I had to do some test pages first.
First of all, swatches for all the colours, including the names so I can remember them when I finally run out.

Then, I took out the water colour Moleskine Father Christmas got me, and doodled a bit with my new dip pen and ink:

And then I had the best time using all the different colours, playing with more and less water, mixing colours together...

Oohh, I can see how people can get completely lost in water colours and end up doing nothing else! And I haven't even scratched the surface yet....