Poppies Art Journal Page

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone on the East Coast in the path of Hurricane Sandy. It's scary to even think about a storm this size and severity let alone having to live through it. May it downgrade before landfall.  

Here is an art journal page of mine. I've long admired Donna Downey's gorgeous work with poppies and decided it was high time to sit down and take a crack at the theme myself. Since drawing scares the heck out of me, I did these on gessoed index cards with a pen and acrylic paint. As you know, I LOVE index cards. No risk! You can see more of my index card posts HERE. 

I made five poppies and chose my four favorites to include in my art journal.

 Left Side

Right Side

Thanks for visiting.

Alt Girl Collage and a Peek into My Process

Hey Everyone, Happy Friday!

I was thinking you all might like to hear a little bit about how my collages come to be. Usually I start with an idea but sometimes I'll be flipping through catalog or magazine and I'll fall in love with an image.

Like this one from the Nordstrom catalog:

If it's a size I really like, I'll make a photo copy in black and white, trace the lines I'm interested in with a thick black Sharpie and then hold the copy and my patterned paper up to the window and trace out the general lines.

If they are different sizes (this is most often the case) then I have to draw out the pieces myself and trim them until everything fits together how I imagined it.

 it's important to remember that you don't need to use all the elements in a photo, for example, in a crowd shot you might like one person or even one person's dress - that's okay and that is what makes the work uniquely yours.

For this piece I kept the proportions very similar but changed the wardrobe, skipped the bracelets and shirt etc.

How do you like the results? I think it captures the mood and general concept in a brighter, more artistic respresentation.

Available on Etsy

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As of this morning, my blog has 600 followers.

To celebrate, here is a 10% coupon for My Etsy Shop
WOW600

Nobody is Impressed with How Good Your Excuses Are

I've been wanting to make a little run of "Honest Girls" my Modern Girls but with more... er... direct sentiments. My personality leans that way and sometimes a saying like,

"Nobody is impressed with how good your excuses are."

resonates with me, personally, a little more than,

" She flew with her own wings."

Which just makes me scratch my head and wonder how this winged woman would fly with someone else's in the first place. 

" It was just dreadful darling, the maid's wings were in the shop and I had to fly with my own wings."

I know - it's a metaphor but still.

Mermaid Collage

 

I have been wanting to make a mermaid for a while now but I couldn't decide between a sweet, youthful mermaid, a scary one (the kind I think they would actually be if you made a creature half man and half fish) or a gorgeous siren who lures sailors to their death sort of gal. I think this style of art lends itself best to the first type so here we are.

 

 

Check out the glitter!

And if you're going to be a mermaid, you might as well be an undersea princess.

 

One interesting technical note,  I used a torn piece of paper as a stencil and did the edge distressing with spray paint instead of ink or acrylics. I kind of love the effect. Spray paint is my new favorite thing.

 

Did you see the Bombshell Stamps starfish in the bottom corners? One of my favorite things about Shannon's stamps are all the complimentary images that come in each set. They're always so versatile and handy.

Available on Etsy

Don't Waste The Person You Are: Modern Girl Collage

  

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

Available on Etsy

Ballerina Collage: Introducing Modern Girl Skinnies

We've got skinny mochas, skinny jeans and now I've been making skinny Modern Girls.
 They're 3.5 x 12 and I love how the new proportion changes the look and feel.
Working with a new size is so fun. It just helps my brain think about collage in a new way.

Here's my first, I call her Sascha.

 

 

Did you see I got to use my new Hexi stencil by Balzer Designs for TCW? 

Sorry the pictures are a little less than perfect, we're expecting a big snow storm and the light is terrible. So exciting though, SNOW!!!

Paint Your Story: Practice Heads

So... yeah... I have pretty much no talent for this. 

My faces are both not weird enough for the assignments and are too weird for my usual art. It doesn't matter if I make square or triangle head shapes - they all end up egg-shaped and humanoid. *sigh*

And I'm struggling with the supplies. As a person who prizes knowledge of water-solubility as her best art skill, I boggle at how a water-soluble caran d'ache pastel in turquoise is not going to turn my white paint turquoise when they meet (spoiler alert: it does!)

They kind of remind me of actors playing support group attendees in a movie like Fight Club. Sad, sickly and a little cracked-out. Or maybe just severely insomniac or hung over. And puffy.

I thought I'd share them though as:

 1. They're what I've been working on.

and 

2. It's good to see that we all struggle. Not just shiny, happy, successful posts.

Just for reference, here's what I'm supposed to be making:

These are all by artist and art instructor Mindy Lacefield. You can see her work HERE

Next goal: to paint some people on top of a funky background. Wish me luck :-)