The Artstronauts Club and Greeting Cards

Teesha and Tracy Moore started the "Artstronauts Club".  It is fabulous.  You can check it out at http://www.theartstronauts.com.  Their are lots of demos, free stuff, creative inspiration, videos and so much more.

My greeting cards were made after viewing some videos made by Teesha Moore on the ARTstronauts website.  I love the technique.

 

Christmas Day 2014

This is a journal page I made of our Christmas Day.  It was definitely a memorable day spent with friends.

New Watercolors

These are paintings from a class taught by Diane Walenda.  I made the mistake of photographing these paintings after I framed them.  The glass is causing the shadows in the backgrounds.  Another thing, the background for the hollyhocks is actually more purple not the blue that is shown.  Don't know why my camera doesn't always pick up the color accurately. 

My projects from Diane Culhane class

Diane Culhane is a wonderful teacher and artist.  I met her at the Bellevue Arts & Craft fair this summer.  She is a warm and friendly person.  This class was called "Between Speech and Silence".  It can be found on Carla Sonheim's class list.  Since this class was so much fun and I learned some new ideas from it, I plan to sign up for her new class "Table Topics".

This lesson was a great warmup.  It got my creative juices flowing.  I did procrastinate on doing this because it didn't feel comfortable for me.  So glad I did it.  It was fun and I want to do more of these line drawings.



 

Another fun project with collage and paint.

 

 The following 2 pieces were painted on wood.  I loved each stage of these pictures and the end results best of all.



Mixed Media and Watercolor

The past few weeks have been so hectic for me.  We traveled from Washington state to Arizona, from cold, windy, rainy, weather to sunny, and warm temperatures which yesterday turned to cloudy and windy.  I'm happy to be settled so I can now get back to creating beautiful and fun things.

 

 

This mixed media project is
a  folder to keep and carry my watercolor paper
supplies to class.




It is made out of cardboard and duck tape.

A watercolor class taught by Diane Wallenda. 
These are my finished projects from my first class.

This painting was done on Yupo paper.  The 1st photo shows the original colors without the spray webbing.  My camera did not pick up the colors correctly on the 2nd photo.  Second photo has the webbing sprayed on it.  I thought the paper was fun to work on and will probably try it again on future projects.

  

The olives were my first project in this class.  I loved doing this quick little painting. The shadows are added by the camera photo, the background is really very white.

Art Journal pages

The past few days I have been trying to catch up on my "21 Secrets Workshops for 2013".  I signed up in April but haven't had time until now to start.  All of the following pages have some type of technique from the workshops.  This is my second year to sign up and maybe my last.  I feel these workshops are geared for the beginner in Art Journaling. 

If you are new to art journaling the "21 Secrets Workshops" are a excellent way to get started.  Next year (2014) they have some fabulous teachers lined up and they are changing the format so you will have access forever instead of just 10 months.

Fall Leaves in Watercolor

I started painting the fall leaves while I was at the Samish Paint Out in September and just now put the finishing touches on it.  I used a photo that I had taken in Alaska for my inspiration.

I was playing with paints on some watercolor postcards and ended up with the following card. This would look very nice on a white notecard.  I would not buy these blank postcards again they are not easy to work on.  Better to cut my own from Arches watercolor paper.

Stamped Notecards

I decided long ago that I would not put sentiments inside the cards I sell.  The reason being that when I would purchase cards the words inside would determine whether I would purchase it, not the art work.

When I make cards I like to do layering with several pieces of different colored papers.  Some I tear, some I trim.  I put together combinations that I like.  Some of my background papers on the following cards are from a demo I taught at the Samish Paint Out, on using the Gelli Plate for monoprinting.  The rubber stamp images were from a used rubber sale I shopped at a few weeks ago.  I used watercolors for coloring the images.
 

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

Stamp Credits

 Queen of the Kitchen - the Kristen Powers studio collection

Friend - Hero Arts

Time passages - B Line Designs

Postcard - Jill Meyers for Inkadinkadoo

Scripted Butterfly - Stampington & Company

Photos from October Samish Paint Out

I love this place.  The views are fabulous, the food is wonderful, the artists are very special people I love to hang out with.  I learn so much about watercolor and other mediums and I improve my own skills.  Everyday I take time to walk and enjoy the scenery and fresh air.

 

 Midge made a friend.

 

 Photo of lawn light at night.

 

 Midge's home at camp.

 

 The cabins.

 

 Artist at work, enjoying the nice weather.

 

 I thought this piece of driftwood looked like an eagle.

 

TREES

Fun with Gelli Arts 'Printing Plate'

This week I've been playing with my gel printing plate.  Using watercolor paper as my subtrate, I combined acrylic and watercolor paints, stencils and stamps to decorate these papers.

The backgrounds were made by applying acrylic paint to the printing plate, which I then followed with stencils or stamps to remove some of the paint, hence the design.  I used several different templates for the white space.  The flowers were torn pieces of paper, the girl with no face was a dylusions stencil and the lady with the hat was cut from a magazine.  Watercolors were used to paint the white space.

Here I am showing the paper after doing the background.

 

 This is the finished picture after adding watercolors.

Background.

 

 Finished.

Background.

 

 Finished.