Look who helped---Grampa! He did a great job putting on some dots.
These are in my Moleskine---(I heard this was pronounced Mol-ska-na) Sounds better than Molskin---anyway, the girl on the left is colored with Graphitint pencils and the girl on the right is Shiva. Everything gives a different look-it just depends on the look you are going for. I find that drawing faces is relaxing to me. I draw them when I am engaged in my my other addictions---Americal Idol and Dancing with the Stars. I am still liking the Shiva the best for the faces. If you add Gamsol then you can blend them. Then sometimes in my journal I add acrylic over the Shiva for more texture for the hair. Actually the Shiva police would probably come and get me for this but it's not for sale so---anything goes in the Mol-ska-na!
I love the way Sharon Tomlinson paints her portraits. They are fast and free and ----great! She
I was playing around with this great transfer paper called Sheer Heaven. This is an inkjet print of a cropped girl that I transferred with the Sheer Heaven Transfer paper. I really like the "grainy" results from the transfer although these sheets are virtually "suppose" to produce an almost photographic image. I like it grainy though and hopefully these are the results I will continue to get. It depends how much you bone fold it I guess. Pretty cool effect. The lines around it is just a Pitt marker.
I painted her with acrylic and she doesn't look as smooth as when I use Shiva oil sticks. I did smooth her cheeks a bit with the Shiva. I bought a hair stying magazine to get some new styles for my girls. This one is not having a very good hair day. Every time I draw a new girl I try and make her look different but as I look at all of them they all look like they are related---some look like sisters and some like cousins. One even looks like my mother did as a young girl. The girls are the most relaxing art that I do. I guess it's because they all become my little friends. I think her name is Crystal--bet you can tell why---her eyes.
Well, ok, I am now officially, head over heels, desperately in love with.... Rub Ons!! Oh my goodness, where have I been all these years?! They will rub onto anything. I read where you could make your own rub ons from transparencies. Works ok--but not nearly as good as this. Think I will buy more. I made these cubes a while back but I just put on the rub ons. That officially makes it art du jour!
Well, maybe they are not so bad but boy! were they hard to paint. Yellows are not easy---but actually they look a little better here than in person. I might just go on to Tulips now. Those might be easier. But---we'll shall see. I love the blue and the yellow---that is always pleasing to me. 
I wish I could write out a Scripture every Sunday but as soon as I plan to do it I might not be able to follow through. But for today---here is a Scripture in calligraphy and maybe I can try and write one out again some other Sunday. Have a blessed day!
This transfer paper is pretty amazing. I think I will enjoy using it in my journals and any place that is porous. Next I will try fabric---they said it should do great. Here is the web site and a YouTube video It is actually Sheer Heaven not sheer magic as I said in the video. Also, on the bird above--I drew the bird and colored it in with Pitt brush marker pens first, then transfered.
I was getting ready to paint the Daffodils and Poppies bloomed. Actually, I was just trying to loosen up and my comfort zone is Poppies. I guess I am putting off the Daffodils because they are difficult to draw so I can imagine how difficult they will be to paint. But I will never know unless I try now will I? I will post them if succesful.
Here is another piece that I plan to put into the show at the JCA here in Jacksonville in May. It is a tribute to Bobbi Yoffee, the most talented calligraphic artist I have even known, and had the privilege of knowing and studying with. She passed away with cancer several years ago. She loved doing Song of Solomon Scriptures. We all miss her terribly. She used to do Ketubahs(among other stunning works of art) that you couldn't even believe a human could do with beautiful illustrations and calligraphic Hebrew letters. Absolutely amazing. 
Maybe some of you might remember this piece from a ways back but I have finally adhered it to a canvas so it can go into the JCA North Florida Calligraphers show coming up in May. I am not sure how many pieces I will put in but I do know that I am planning to not spend a penny on framing. Everything will go on canvas or in a Target black frame (my favorite frame anyway). I have spent so much money on framing in the past so no more----I'd rather buy art supplies!!
Ok, well, this one feels somewhat better to me---maybe because I did a little calligraphy with my nib and it has more of a layout and design. This is an original Shiva portrait painting that I collaged on then painted shoulders etc. I love a Moleskine. Such nice paper. This one is the watercolor paper but the sketch ones are really nice too.
This is from my art journal. I am trying not to think too much. Oh how I struggle with this! I guess I have been trained to plan my layout and design and by trial and error, paste up and re-lettering until the piece comes together. And by blood sweat and tears sometimes it did---sometimes it didn't. But this area of mixed media collage and the freedom in the art journal is so different that I am always trying so hard to jump back in that lettering arts box. I still love that box though---it is an art form that I will always strive for but thankfully---I have discovered---there is freedom outside that box!
Just a few sketches in my journal getting ready start my Michelle Brown class and paint. I'll have to see how I do before I blog any. Yellows are more difficult to paint with for me so-- I am not sure how this will turn out. I also think the daffodil is a hard flower to draw with all the wavy ruffles. Oh, but what a wonderful flower!! My mama had them growing the the back yard when I was a little girl and I loved to go and run through them and pick them. What wonderful memories I have of little Mattie Lou happy girl (that's me) growing up in that sleepy little Georgia town of West Point. I am smiling now with the stinging of a little tear.
I decided to make a watercolor journal to practice techniques from Michelle Brown's watercolor class on Spring Flowers. I just love her and enjoy her British accent and her beautiful watercolors. Hopefully my spring flowers will bring me as much enjoyment as the Poppies.
Here is a little doodle---watercolor pencils and brush lettering in my Molskine. This is my first scan with my new scanner. It is wonderful now that I got it working. Have you ever called and waited for the tech person to answer and when finally they come on and you attempt to explain your problem the machine just starts magically working and you feel like a total idiot? He actually laughed at me. Well, he doesn't know me so no harm done. It's working, that's the important thing.
I am so excited. I just got my new scanner from B&H Photo today. I don't have a good scanner at all and found myself futzing so much in Photoshop to make it better ---- so for my husband's birthday I got a scanner! Did you get that? My sweet hubby gave it to me for his birthday.
I really enjoyed creating this and I think it is because it is something new that I tried. The girl's face is an original painting but I pasted her on and added some stamps to the background of the tattered black book cover. Her dress is collaged and I painted the collar. I went on a tattered book hunt and decided that I would not pay more than $5 for any tattered book. Surprisingly, sometimes the more tattered the more expensive the book is because it is old. But I did find some interesting tattered covers that I hope to incorporate some paintings on them. I actually won't use the ribbon when my antique brass chain comes in. Then I will swap it out. I found the text out of one of the old books. She is 5 x 71/2.
This background started off black and the colors were built up using a dry brush technique with a crummy bristle brush. Then stamps were added. It is 7 x 7 . It looks rather spooky with the black leaves. Just a spooky day I guess. 
Rynda, Lori and Denice and I had a great time yesterday making backgrounds. We are all old calligraphy buddies and have such fun being together. Their backgrounds turned out great and I put the link to Lori's blog entry from yesterday. There is nothing better than an art community. it is so very important!
This started out as a nice little background that had some yellows and greens that I had painted several weeks ago. I had painted a little head and a face and was proceeding to paint her hair when the wind suddenly blew her hair across her face and ruined her completely. The wind was actually me trying to blow her hair across her face in a natural manner which turned out like she had a mustache in the most unattractive manner. I just couldn't fix her so I got frustrated and painted black gesso all across her and covered the whole thing up. I was mad---but not to be defeated. So I just started putting down colors and as you see--not much black left-- although I intended for a little more to show through. So I think this little $2 canvas panel was saved for now. I will post the finished painting tomorrow---if it works.
Here is the background. It is on an 8 x 8 canvas panel. See the textures? Neat, huh?I think it is because the rubber backing of these stamps is sticky and tacky and that helps pull the paint off of the canvas. Anyway, I thought it was a cool texture. I love geometric shapes.
I am also very excited to be starting another online watercolor class with Michelle Brown. This time we will be painting Spring Flowers. Should be fun! We are studying and drawing the flowers now. If we don't understand the flower then it will be more difficult to paint it.
I will post a better picture of it soon--when I get over to my studio. Come back and see it.
Donna Downey has a great little journal download for $5 and it was fun to do. It wasn't hard but it sure took me a long time to fill these pages ---and--- I think I had fun. The problem with me and these types of visual art journal pages is this: for 25 years I have been striving for a beautifully layed-out and designed, hand- lettered calligraphic art piece. Calligraphy is an ancient art form and although some calligraphers are artists---some are not. There are some very talented calligraphy and lettering artists in this world that I greatly admire. Some use mixed media but they don't call themselves a mixed-media artist--they call themselves a lettering artist. Charles Pearce and John Stevens are two of my most admired lettering artists. I took a class with Charles Pearce. 
Macaulay, our daughter, is coming today from Greenville, SC, for a baby shower that her good friend and her mother are giving her. I volunteered that I would be glad to do the place cards- so here they are. Pretty good---I can always over scrutinize my calligraphy but I actually enjoyed doing them, It was a "labor of love" for sure. For the blue, I used Peacock Blue and white Windsor and Newton Gouache which is what most calligraphers use to get opaque color. I used a oblique pen holder and pointed nib.
She is painted on a 12 x 12 Ampersand wood panel. I decided that I would try a faux beeswax finish so I followed a recipe that I saw in a book and I have to say that I wouldn't try it again. I will just go ahead and use beeswax. In fact, I could beeswax over the faux beeswax but I probably won't. The birds are collaged on. I actually painted them first and didn't like mine so I collaged---but I think I will try and phase in my own painted birds. The collaged ones just look so much better!
She is small---5x7. I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Paints by Ranger for this background. I really do love these paints and all the colors are great. They mix really well to make other great colors. As you see, I am in a portrait phase---from Poppies to portraits. I was thinking that I need to call these girls something other than portraits because "portraits" give the ideas that I have literally drawn someone real. Hummmm....I will have to think about that.
