Doodle Marc

Have any of you seen Rebecca at Daisy Dolls Gypsy Caravan?  I just can't get over her fabulous doodle portraits so I decided to try one. It really took me quite a while to figure it all out and actually this one is just in pencil then I darkened it in Photoshop. I love to doodle so this might be really fun to do. Rebecca is fabulous at doodling on faces and it's certainly worth a look see!!

Miss Eclectic "E"

Let's give a big hello to Miss Eclectic E. As you can see she is quite Ebullient but very Eccentric. She is quite an Extraordinary letter because she is very open minded and accepting of the other letters in the alphabet who are not as Expressive as she is. She and her neighbor, Miss Dottie Doodle D, are best friends. She actually was the one who taught Doodle Dottie to say, "Daaa-ling".

Yes, we are having fun!

We are having fun here in beautiful Greenville, SC, and Papa Chaunce flew in today but we have to drive home tomorrow. Bucky is so sweet to Baby Marc and we had a good laugh with the ride in the wagon today.

More color!

I am still living these punches of color.  It's Dr. Martins concentrated WC again. The top image of the birdhouse is a sketch from my previous drawing class and the bottom one is a photo of a still life at the studio when I took the oil painting class.
I printed them on watercolor paper and they are really fun to paint.
 I am leaving today to go see Baby Marc so I will be traveling 6 hours. I have me a book to listen to so I will be just fine. I will be there until Monday so I will see you all next week! 

One more-one shot at an invitation

Ok, I decided to try it again on the next invitation. This is my first cousin's son and I really wanted to make them something special. I thought it was a precious invitation with only the writing and the birds at the corner. Just perfect for some painting except.....blotter paper and bleeding ink!!!! Now, why was I so dumb as to think the ink wouldn't run!? So, I sprayed it with Blair Mat Fixative which gave me an instant headache even in my well ventilated area. Then it wouldn't take the watercolor so I stressed a bit and pulled out some hair. I watered down some acrylic and that helped but I didn't want to cover up the letters. Finally I think it worked out.  I hope they like it. It was a labor of love and every painting is a learning experience even if you are left with a little less hair and only have blotter paper to work on. This one is a 6x6. Ok, two down, one more to go. But the third invitation can't be painted. Dang!
Here I come Bed Beth and Beyond.

So, here are the two invitations all finished.  I added paper for backgrounds and glued them to a Jack Richeson panel which is about 8x 1/2 inch or so. They can hang them on the wall of put it on a bookshelf.

Ready for UPS! 

YAY! 

One shot at painting on the invitation-

I have to say that I held my breath and fought with this blotter-like paper but I was bound and determined to make it work. The original doesn't look quite as cartoonish as how it shows on the screen. It is a 7x7 card so I had plenty of room but it was still quite small and tedious. Thank goodness for my new, tiny and much to expensive brush I bought after attending the IAMPETH conference. I say now, it was worth it. Anyway, I did it and hopefully they will like it. It also has gold dots all around which unfortunately the scanner doesn't pick up. I think that the dots actually make the piece work so I am sorry you can't see it.
 So,who really wants a 5 piece place setting anyway?
 Well, thinking back, I did!

Trust revisited---again and again...

As you know, I do love this Scripture, and as I said before it's one of the few that I have memorized. Sometimes when the calligraphy bug is biting and I sit down to practice I just start writing this verse. There are others too..."the joy of the LORD is your strength","create in me a clean heart..." And if it works then I scan it, save it, and use it.  This is actually a background that I did many months ago in Julie Prichard's Layer Love class and decided to pull it out and add something to it. It was rather plain before but had some neat textures.
So another...
"Art du jour complet"

Colorful--Trust

Same backgrounds and lettering-used and cropped in different ways.

Just playing around with backgrounds and lettering. I love these bright colors.

Miss Dottie Doodle "D"

This is Miss Dottie Doodle D. As you see she loves dots and doodles and calls everyone "Daa-ling." This is her motto, "If anything is worth doodling, it's worth over-doodling."

In the cheap journal

I am liking COLOR these days..(actually I like color everyday). I sketched this out in the crummy journal and used Dr. Ph Martin Hydrus watercolors. They are bright and easy to use. I slipped in the lettering in Photoshop. Oh, Mr. Photoshop, how I do love you!

Baby Marc in Technicolor

I was just playing around with some filters in Photoshop and decided to use the filter>sketch>stamp filter and see what happened. I used the Dr. Martin Hydrus watercolors to paint him.

And I just want to say hello to Susan, a sweet blog follower, who just happened to ask Diane if she knew me just out of the blue while Diane was at the art fair. It is so nice to hear that someone has be inspired by our blogs. I think that is the purpose, actually, to inspire others as we ourselves are inspired!

Bright just makes me happy

I don't know if any of you follow Kelly Nina Perkins but everytime I see a new post on my blog roll her colors always catch my eye. I love her video Stitch Imagery and I decided to pull out one of my sketches from a previous drawing class and paint it. I used Dr. Ph. Martin's transparent concentrated watercolors which I have has for about 25 years--really, I have!  I love them so much I would like to get a few other colors. I love painting these paintings because all you really have to think about is what colors to use because watercolor techniques are not necessary. But what colors to use--that can be daunting sometimes actually. Know what I mean!!??
Oh, and I sewed around the images.

Miss Compliment "C"

This is "Miss Compliment C".  She is always very sheik and fashion forward and receives many compliments because of her savvy colors that she wears. Below she has on her orange and blue to cheer for the Gators and she can't wait to wear her red and green for Christmas. And her fashion tip of the day...always add a touch of black!

GO GATORS!!!

Just a few more stars

  I love stars. They are happy and hopeful and fun.

Speaking of stars, this is dedicated to all of the STARS of the attack on the World Trade Towers nine years ago today... the heroes who survived and the heroes who didn't.

A little ditty for the Red Door

Joshua 24:15

This is a blank banner that I bought months ago and, again, didn't know what to put on it but I know something would come up. I have several of them and they are pretty nice. They come with the wooden dowel and knobs. Og course now that I have Bernie I could make them but I didn't have the sewing machine when I ordered them.  I wrote the lettering with a calligraphy marker and the towers are paper. 

It was fun.
Sorry if this posted in your blog roll and didn't show up. I posted it by mistake yesterday when I scheduling it for today---but here it is. 

I made a Tower and Turret!

This 24 x 4 inch white melamine  board I got at Hobby Lobby 50% off and really didn't know what I would use it for but I knew something would come up. Perfect for a Tower and Turret. It was really fun to do. The found letters say.."beneath the winking skies"....."and by sparkling eyes"..."And at home they are making merry."

More fall yummy colors

 I love spraying these papers. It's therapeutic, for sure!

Miss Gypsy A

I thought I would paint the A again. And She has a story.
This is "Miss A" and she lives in a gypsy van all decorated out with colorful lanterns and beautiful oriental carpets on her floor. Her walls are painted violet and chartreuse and hot pink. She has a black cat named Tarot and she loves halloween. But Miss A is not a bad letter A, she is just very bohemian and care free. I think all my letters might have a story depending on how they turn out, Miss A definitely had a story.

"B" elieve

This "B" was very fun to do yesterday. Ok, I have an A and a B. We'll see how far I get. I hope everyone has a great Labor Day!

Afternoon Serendipity

This was a 9 x 11 Strathmore Watercolor sheet where I was practicing some letterforms for some of the previous star pieces and the collage from a couple of days ago. Sometimes these sheets just get thrown into a bin hoping that they can be collage fodder. I decided to spray it with my Adirondack inks in my favorite fall colors with my stencils and I liked the result. I think I will do more tomorrow because these colors are just yummy to me right now.  I will post them tomorrow. And I will be starting making some towers and turrets soon!

Plan "A"

Just needed a bit of color.

Ok so here is my plan...(you know what they say about the best laid plans)...wait... what DO they say about those plans? I need to Google that. Anyway, what I would like to do is draw and paint a different letter every day. But I know that is ambitious at least for me because I am sure I will get distracted and go off into who knows what. Actually I do know what...Towers and Turrets!  I couldn't resist!
This is just a pencil drawing but actually I have been drawing letters for several days. All my calligraphy blog friends will notice that this is very "Sherri Kiesel-like" and actually I have never taken a class from her but it's on my bucket list. I have seen some examples here and there of different Versal letters so I will try to do several of the same letter in different styles. That is---"if those best laid plans of mice and men don't go awry" ( I googled it.)

The Journey is the Destination

 Sometimes I just keep running into these half done collages that I tried to make work in the distant past and just couldn't make it work. This was one of those collages. It seemed to just keep turning up and turning up so today I decided to either make it work or toss it.  I wish I had scanned the original collage but basically is was just the square in the middle (colored with walnut inks) with the small square underneath with the imagination quote and the vertical green piece. There were some other hap hazard useless pieces that came off easily because I really hadn't glued it down very well. Anyway, this is the result. I used (overused??) stamps, copic spray, walnut ink for doodling and calligraphy and pan pastels. Oh, and that white lacy looking thing is my new paper edge punch I got at Michaels for 50% off. Well, at least I used some of my copious supplies!! This on is 9 x 11. I think I will need to make me a 9 x 11 chunky book for all of these recent 9x11 pieces.

More stars...

This image below is the original with the calligraphy written on the piece. I used black gouache and I added a bit of Pearl-X pigments in gold and you can see it but the letters have some bling. The Stickles are on this one too---but the scanner won't pick it up. I suppose I could have mixed up some gouache and written it in purple but I like the graphic look of the black lettering. They are both on Strathmore 400 Series 9 x 11 watercolor paper from the pad.

This image below is a scan of just the stars without the lettering but I added the lettering in Photoshop from my calligraphy lettering file. Anytime I write something in calligraphy if I like it I will can it for future use. As you might see, if you follow my blog, I use this one quite often. I have one more star piece that I might add some lettering to it with a different quote. I guess my calligraphy comfort zone is image on the left, writing on the right. One of these days maybe I will change that up a bit.

Writing make me extremely happy...extremely...that is when it works. Not always does it work.  Then I am sad--but only for a moment!

Earth has no sorrow...

I like this quote so I decided to play around with my star stencils and see what happened. I kinda like the way it turned out. I have two more similar ones ready for lettering. This is why calligraphy is a nail bitter sometimes because you have the background all ready then you have to take a deep breath, steady the hands and go for it. We'll see how the other two turn out. I'll let you know and post it if it passes the juried stage (me!)  There is also Frosted Lace Stickles swirled around on the stars that you can't see in this photo. It just gives it just a little bit of bling and sparkle. 

Scripture added...

I do love this Scripture. Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed Sunday!

It's not finished...

What to do ...what to do...? This is a border and watercolor background that I did several nights ago when I couldn't sleep. It is in my larger watercolor journal and I don't know what else to do with the page. The leaf is one I carved of an Acanthus leaf. I could do some lettering...or maybe just leave it as it is. I'll look at it in a few days and maybe I can figure out something then. Maybe a quote in that watercolor blue that is light and airy like to border.

Sweet 16----

Slow art day so this is what you get today!

Well, ok...age is just a number, right? It's been 40 years since this 11th grade picture, actually 41 years but whose counting?   I don't know why I posted this. I came across this picture and since I didn't have an art du jour I thought I would post it.  I think this picture just makes me laugh and I remember the photographer made me laugh.  Thank God that I am still here in one piece!!!

Also, here she is from yesterday's post without the half border--she looks better I think. Thanks Caatje--I agree!
One more battle under my belt.
Hope everyone has a good art day! Here is my quote I made up for today,
"In art as in life, fight the good fight!"

Fall colors are in the air

 I think this piece was just one of those paintings that I just keep fiddling with and fiddling with determined that I would win the battle this time. With this one I kept hearing Tim Gunn's voice saying, "make it work...!" Do you ever feel that sometimes you are battling with your art? I know we are suppose to enjoy the process and whistle while we work (and I surely do that lots of the time!) but that is not always the case with my art. Have you ever heard of or even read the War of Art?  I didn't have a copy myself since my son lent it to me but I just ordered a copy for myself and it arrived yesterday. I am going to read it again.  I felt like the author hit the nail on the head--a least for me. He talks of the resistance that we frequently experience in our art journeys. With all the art I create you would think that I have no resistance... but I do.

This is a collaged napkin around the girl. I purposely did not put the border all the way around. I didn't want to box her in too much. I had drawn her in my little journal and I scanned and printed her on Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper. I like this paper--it takes acrylic nicely as well as watercolor and collage. 

Side tracked artist

Would anyone like to join the "Side-Tracked Artist Guild"? I think I should start one up and be the president. As I was blog "strolling" I strolled over to Alma Stroller's blog and found these to- die- for beads. I have seen them before and drooled then also but today I decided to give it a go. I am suppose to be going back to my roots and lettering! Ok, I'll get back to that but really, my blog should actually be: "Art du jour: The Journeys of a Side-Tracked Artist." But it's all ok 'cause there are lots of goodies along the side of the track!!!

Carved flower stamps

These are a few of the flower stamps I carved the other night. I think I will enjoy using them in my journal.  I decided to arrange some of these together and add my favorite verse. This is a font of my handwriting so it really was very easily to set it up. I made the font in Fontifier and it costs about $9. I made several of them a while back and I do occasionally use them. I don't know even if that program is still available.

11:00 pm ditty

These are the left over pieces from the rubber stamps I carved the other day. I couldn't let them go unused so they made pretty neat shapes. I quickly cut the heart and then wrote one of my favorite Scriptures. These left over pieces are almost better then the ones I cut---well not better,just different. I will post the carved ones tomorrow.

..how sweet the sound...

I have been playing around with drawing some Sickels Alphabet that I did at conference. They are fun to draw but very meticulous because everything needs to be straight. You have to draw it on a grid.  On the top image I used the warp tool to  stretch the sides. And of course the last image ("ama-zen") was fun too! 

Slow start up--

I really am having a slow start gearing back up to do art. Yesterday I was putting up all the 100 lbs of supplies I didn't use and the more I bought at the conference and then the organizing bug hit. I went through all my brushes (Lord, help me!) and pulled out my "expensive" brushes that had melded in with the cheap ones and then came the paper (Lord help me again!!) and I organized that and the other "tuff" (ditto ditto, Lord!!!!) Well, now everything looks so nice I don't want to pull anything out. I'll get over that real soon. So since it's such a slow art day, here is just a little art du jour sent out to the sweet gal that doggy sits Bucky. I have all these things swirling around in my head that I want to try. Oh I forgot I do have the carved stamps. I will have to post that. They turned out pretty cool.

I forgot to post my blue and orange girl

I have been taking Alisa Burke's online class, "Color Your World", and I must say the whole class with her photos and examples are a work of art and eye candy galore. I have been a bit behind on the homework because of going to IAMPETH but I did paint her right before I left. She is a study in complimentary colors. I put her on Flickr so it might be that you have see her. But anyway, I meant to post her last week. She was fun to paint and I actually think that if I had not taken Sharon' class in Technicolor Faces I might not have had the boldness to paint her in these colors. It was fun. I love painting faces.

Ornamental doodling at 1AM

Well, it's 1:oo am now and I can't find sleep yet so I decided to just mess around with some new stamps I carved tonight of some historical ornamental flowers and acanthus leaves. I will show you the stamps individually tomorrow maybe but I made this hodge podge ornamental doodle. Nothing was planned, I just stamped around a d tried to fill in the spaces with some filigree. It was fun actually. but now I am yawning and typing things wrong. So good night for now. Hopefully Mr Sandman is coming my way.

Back to drawing a face

Even though I have a new passion for letterforms I still love to draw the face. I drew her on notebook paper and colored pencils. It's a relaxing thing for me to draw a face--even more relaxing than zentangles. Actually zentangles give me a headache for some reason although I love the look of them. I think it's the decisions I have to make about what shape to draw next. For the face the choices are very few--two eyes a nose and a mouth. It's so interesting to me that every face turns out different. I am going to practice my letterforms and all that I learned at IAMPETH but I have been so tired. I am still recouping. Whew!

The Mighty Michael Sull

Michael Sull,

Master Penman

and teacher extraordinaire.

Well now, seriously folks.... is he not just the cutest little guy in the whole wide world?? His bow tie is the Palmer Alphabet that we learned as a child and we all fondly recognize and earlier today he had on a matching vest. He is soft spoken and shy and truly a gentle-man. I was expecting furrowed brows on growling men with rulers to whack our hands as we wrecked havoc upon our paper with our pointed pens. I really feel like I have traveled to Calligraphy Utopia where the letterforms are perfect and powerful and magical and the teachers' temperaments are mild and generous. We had a demo by Jake Weidmann, a young, muscular and very handsome guy who did off- hand flourishes so beautifully that I couldn't even believe my eyes. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I am completely awed by these wonderful masters.

Ok, I can't do it quite like Victoria did when she wrote my name but I'll get there hopefully. I have two more classes. One is actually Italic and the other is Gwen Weaver's funky looking pointed pen lettering. Then I am leaving at 3:00 so I can be back home to my wonderful hubby to celebrate our 34th anniversary. What a wonderful end to a wonderful week!

Oh, and that wooden pen holder...Michael Sull makes those by hand and they are so so beautiful, all made with different woods and designs. This one is Koa Wood from Hawaii. I am sure I will be able to write just like him using this pen holder---I'm sure of it...:))