I hate to waste paint

I had extra paint left over from my "Fairy" picture so I mixed it all together and used it for the background for this journal page. The rest of the page has Sharpie paint pens, my two favorite pens (Signo uni-ball gel pen -white and Uni-ball Vision Elite-black), a photo (me) that I copied in B&W and then glued on with Modpodge. After it dried I "tinted" it with some colored I powders I have had forever.

When I copied the picture I enlarged it in two different sizes. I ended up using the smaller one but cut the roses out of the bigger one and glued it on also. For the background, I also used stamps with embossing powder in shimmery colors then heat set them.

get over yourself!

Ok, I am posting yesterday's picture even though I don't like my drawing skills (geesh) but I'm following MM's advice and hopefully in a little while I can look back at this and see improvement. This is another one on the Canson paper. Acrylics mixed with glazing liquid, a Sepia Faber-Castel pen. I may get a sponge and some distress ink and go over the whole thing.

Also, posting a quick picture I did the other day in chalk pastels on an old photo album (black paper) that I got at the thrift store. I really like the vibrant colors.

painting on cardboard

Here is my picture for the day. It is on a 10 1/2"x12" piece of cardboard that I had covered in two layers of Golden's gesso. I got my inspiration from some these butterfly stickers I got at Michaels.
I drew out the butterfly with a Faber-Castel Pitt Artist pen with a brush tip in cold grey. Then I went over some of the lines with a black Sharpie making some thicker and added some doodling. Next I painted some sections with metallic acrylic paints, neocolor II water color crayons, and black paint mixed with Golden's glazing liquid. I added more detail with gold, silver and white Sharpie paint pens. Then finished the background with acrylic/glaze mixture.

Fearless

Yesterday, I mentioned to MM (my man) that I wanted to start doing art in a bigger formant. My journal is 3 1/2" x 5 1/2". I confessed to him that it really scared me to think about doing something bigger. He got me to go to the Michael's with him and took me over to the canvases. It was funny. I was looking at something like a 8x10 thinking well maybe I could do this and he grabs one that nearly comes to up to my chin and says "what about this?" Well my heart started racing.... I settled on a 16"x20"and we left the store with me practically hyperventilating.
Then today, I was moping around while he was at work thinking "but now I need bigger brushes, different paint, what will I paint?", etc., etc., all the time that BIG canvas was sitting there mocking me.

I started watching a few Youtube videos for some inspiration (and yes.. procrastination) when something caught my eye. A video about fearless painting and going BIG. Perfect! So inspiring. And there is a class/support "tribe". I really want to attend!! Connie Hosvika at Dirty Footprints Studio teaches the class. Check out her Blog here and sign up for the next class in October. September is already sold out!!

Back to my story, When MM got home he asked me what was wrong and I told him about how I really wanted to start on something more disposable and less threatening than a $20 canvas. So he said "Well then. let's go to the art store and get some huge paper." Gulp, I actually cried on the way there.. (I will deny that) He suggested that I just do several pictures quickly trying different things. Not worrying about the outcome. (I'm thinking how did he get to be so wise? Did he watch Connie's video too???) She said something like"set aside expectations and just get started... its about the process not the outcome." She also said some very encouraging things about holding our hand and getting through the hurdles. I felt very lucky to have my husband there to hold my hand as we drove to buy scary paper.

He was so generous, when we got there he starting finding the biggest paper they had and putting it in the cart. I ended up with two pads of paper. A Canson Mixed Media 14"x17" 98lb, 60 sheets, and Strathmore Sketch 18"x24" 50 lb, 30 sheets. Now that's scary. I also got some Sharpie paint pens, a huge(bold) in white and medium sized in Silver & Gold, a 16oz bottle of Golden's acrylic glazing liquid-Satin, gold and bronze metallic acrylic paint and a pack of paint brushes in all sizes.

With all of these fun things it was easy to start. I really wanted to try the pens. Be careful when you press down on them the first time the paint really comes out fast. This happened on my paper with the gold one and I just held up the paper and let it run around some until it dried.

I just posted the picture of my first "Big" picture on Facebook. It feels great that I took the plunge. It is on the 14" x 17" Canson mixed media paper. I really liked this paper because it didn't ripple or curl even though I had a lot of wet paint on it. And I love, love, love the glazing liquid. It helps the acrylics not dry out as fast and the paint goes on really sheer.