Christmas Banners

This last week I have been working on these banners for my church. This is my second attempt at banner making.

Quick Drawing from a class I took

Just a quick drawing I did while sitting in a class the other day.

Christmas Present for my husband

I have been home for 3 months recovering from back surgery. One of the projects I have been working on is this quilt wall hanging of my husbands parents and grandparents. I used fabric that is designed to run through your printer and scanned family photos onto the fabric. I will be hand washing it when needed. Shhhhhh Don't tell Jim, don't want to spoil the surprise. Ha!

Absent for a while

I have been absent for a while. I worked lots this summer to make up for the lack of income this fall. I had back surgery a month ago and will be off work for another two months. Consequently not much art or anything else has been done.
I am finally able to get into my studio and do some work. I can only work for about 30 minutes at a time and then I have to let my back relax. Last week I made an altered purse. My old purse was too big and I seemed to feel the need to fill it up; so I made a smaller one to fit in with the 5 pound limit on what I can carry. I made it using an old pair of jeans, a favorite shirt I can't wear anymore and some left over fabric I just couldn't throw away.

Watercolors painting

This is one of my first attempts at watercolors painting. I first drew out my design using watercolors pencils. I then painted them with water. I wasn't totally happy with that so it set for a month or two. I then went in and "repainted" it using watercolors. I am happier with this outcome, but still need lots of practice and learning.

CSI Tip In

I am part of a swap centered around the tv show CSI. I choose to make mine a little more personal and it involves me as the victim. This is one page and I am showing the front and the back here.

Jazz Multi Media Project

In our Red 2 art class the kids have been working on their last project, a multi media project. They had to create images of music and people. They created their people using one of the following medias and then their music with the other. They could choose from charcoal or chalk and watercolors. I choose to draw my jazz musician using charcoal and then my sign, sax and notes from watercolors. They then had to combine the two images. While it is not possible to see it from this picture the music lifts off the page in several places before joining with the music that I drew in charcoal. I also used foam board to raise the sax and jazz sign up off the page. It is more of a 3D project than it looks.

Line drawings

Today in Black 2 art class we are learning about line by drawing the zebras. The kids had to have composition and only use black and white lines. I have added 4 words to the zebra's stripes. Can you find them? There are parts of 6 zebras in this drawing. Happy hunting!

Art Journal

I decided to start an Art journal. I covered the front cover of a sketch book I had with a paper bag. I am in the process of drawing different items on the front.
I am trying to journal and draw every day. So far I have two days done.

Keisha

This is a drawing I finished today. I have titled it Keisha. I drew it from a picture in a magazine. It didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it to, but I finally had to quit. I know that the left eye is to low, but was afraid to erase it and try over with as much work as I have done on the page.

Easter Egg Mosaic

My Creative Challenge site had this challenge today. We were to save the shells from our Easter eggs. I then painted a playing card a dark color; I chose black. We then added modge podge or acrylic varnish and added the colored shells. I made my design that of a butterfly. Once you have placed your egg shells you push on them to crack them more. I then covered the whole thing with Modge podge once more to seal everything.
Thanks Judith for this challenge.

ABC Book

I choose the word Dance for my D page. I created a poem with words from the page of the book on the left hand side. I then added pictures of Japanese Dancers and placed Yuki and Kana's pictures over the faces. On the right hand side is a Japanese Proverb about dance. When Kana was here for Easter she wrote the word Dance in two forms for me. I have tried to copy them on each page. The scarf enclosed in the pocket was a gift from Yuki for Christmas. The pocket is a photo I took of one of my cherry tree's blossoms. I also cut out a couple of pictures from Japanese paintings to create the fans that Kana and Yuki are holding.

Communion

With Easter upon us I felt the need to express myself about how I feel about Jesus' gift to me.

Creative Challenge part 2

Rita from my creative challenge group posted about 15-20 questions the other day that we gave one word answers to. The second part of this is to create a poem using some or all of those answers. Here is the poem that I wrote using about 5 of my answers.

Zeke's Art

My nephew Zeke drew this picture for me. Zeke is 6 years old and likes to play basketball and to play with cars.

Sam's Art

My nephew Sam is visiting and he drew this picture for me. Sam is 10 years old and into dragons and basketball. He loves to draw.

Portrait of a Woman

In our Black 2 class we are working on drawing the face. We practiced drawing all different types of eyes, noses, and mouths. Today we each choice a photocopy from a magazine to do our drawing. We used the grid method. The kids drew on a 1" by 1" scale, I wanted my drawing to be larger than the 5x5 they are doing, so my grids were different than theirs. I finished my drawing during my plan time, so will be interesting to see how the kids do over the weekend with theirs.

Digital Art

My pie shape and my finished project.















One of the ladies from an online group does these wonderful kaleidoscopes using digital art. Her names is Julia and this is her website: http://community.webshots.com/album/70243294PnWBox
She starts with a pie shape, doodles on it and then creates the circle using the pie shape she has scanned in and by copying and manipulating. I love her work and can't come close to it, but I did attempt to. I will probably try this again.

Altering Headphones

I was looking at a website the other day where all the kids were knitting "sweaters" for their i-pod earbuds. Although I don't knit, I decided to try and macrame' one for mine. Not sure how long I will leave it on there, but it was a good way to kill and hour one afternoon.

Drawing Animals

In our Black 2 art classes we found pictures of an animal that we liked in 3 different views. We then spent the next 3 class periods working on proportions and drawing our animals. I chose to draw the Mountain Lion. Once when I was a kid I was walking through the sumac field near our house and came to a clearing and there was a mountain lion that had made it's way down from Colorado. Scared the crap out of both of us. Ever since I have been fascinated by them.

ABC 3rd. Anniversary 4x4

One of the altered web sites that I belong to is celebrating it's 3rd anniversary in June. I, along with members of the site are participating in a 4x4 swap. We each decorate a 4"x4" page and then we will all swap them. We will then bind them ourselves. I chose the word Transform because we take old books and other items and transform them into works of art, just as the catapiller transforms into a butterfly.

More Doodle Art

We have been doing more doodle art in our Red 2 art class. I started out by drawing the guitar. I then glued on a picture of the Christian band Superchick that I had downloaded off their web site. The river of blue contains the words to their song "Pure". From their I continued to fill in the space until the page had been filled. Takes me back to my high school days and the doodle art we did in the 70's.

March Challenge

On one of the yahoo altered book sites that I belong to has a monthly challenge. This month the challenge was to use weaving in your work. A couple of weeks ago I had "painted" the pear that is at the bottom of the page using oil pastel chalks. I inlarged it and then weaved it with a picture I had taken of some trees after an ice storm last year. The advertisment for Golden Pears was given to me by one of my fellow altered book artists. I was pleased today when I found out that my work had been chosen to be displayed on the home page for abc_alteredbooks. Another yahoo site that I belong to.

Doodle Art

In my Red 2 class we have started doodle art this week. We found an image in a magazine that would have a good silhouette. I choose a flower in a bottle. We laid it down on our paper and then using a highlighter we traced around the image. We then covered the rest of the page with the highlighter. I used a yellow highlighter. The kids had the choice of leaving their picture they had traced around as a pencil drawing, a colored pencil drawing, or using colored pens to draw it. I used a combination of the three. We then started "doodling" on our paper until we had filled the page. We made sure that we left a fine line of the highlighted area to show through from the background. My paper started reminding me of the art work I did in the 60's and 70's so I titled mine "Flower Power 70's". This is a fun project that the kids are really getting into. So far I have seen them using pictures of guitars, cars, shoes, a camera, etc.

ABC Book letter C

In my ABC altered book I chose the word Child for the letter C. I used a variety of tissue papers as my background. I then used pictures and words or phrases that represented children to me. I especially like the "cowboy" as he reminds me of my nephew Sam.

Portraits in Art Class

We continued our portrait study by drawing a portrait and then the kids had the option of 3 different medias to work with. They could have chosen to use pastel chalks, oil chalks, or watercolors. I chose to do mine in oil chalks. I had not used them before this year and have enjoyed getting to know them. I am trying a landscape in my spare time and am hopeful with how it will turn out. I really like that I can blend, and change things a littler easier if I want to.

Modern Art Introduction

In our Black Art class we were introduced to M. C. Esher's work. We each were to take one of his pictures and draw it, changing it to apply to us. I chose to draw his picture of himself looking into a globe. I didn't draw myself, but one of the girls who sits next to me. I have titled this picture "Amanda".

ABC page: B for Balance

I have completed my second page in my ABC altered book. I used the word Balance for my B page. Besides a dictionary definition of the word I included several different images for the various meanings. I have a gymnast on a Balance beam that I made from a popsicle stick and painted. I have added round beads to my picture of the game of equilibria. And I have added colored buttons to represent the algebraic equation on the balance scale.

Portrait Series

Today in Red 2 we started learning about portrait drawing. We started out by drawing an oval shape on the paper. We then measured 1/2 way down the shape and made a mark. From there we measured 1/2 way between those two marks. This would help us with the placement of the eyes and bottom of the lips. We drew a line from one side of the oval to the other where we were going to place our eyes. We then learned that the space between one side of our face to the other is equal to 5 lengths of our eye. This helped us to get our eyes centered on the page. After the eyes we learned about the nose placement. From there we worked on our lips and that they were the same length as the distance from the center of one pupil to the center of the other pupil. We added our eyebrows next. We learned that our ears are the same length as the distance from the bottom of our eye to the bottom of our nose. We then learned the difference between drawing in hair on a male or female. By the end of the class each student had completed a portrait drawing.

ABC Altered Book, letter A

Our high school library was getting ready to throw away some books that are no longer used. I brought 3 home as I think they will make great altered books. I have decided to do an ABC book with the first one. I prepared my book by ripping out the extra pages I wouldn't be needing, and then gluing the rest of the pages together. I now have a book that has one two page spread for each letter of the alphabet. I chose to do angels for my A spread. I added the dictionary's definition of the word and then added pictures, my own drawing and a few added items to finish out the page. I am looking forward to starting on the letter B. I have chosen the word balance to use for that spread.

The Scream

The kids in my Black 2 art class have been learning about "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. We created our own versions of the scream. I choose to use oil pastels for my media on this project.

Lavender Roses For Erin M.

One of the girls that works for me wanted me to try my hand at painting lavender roses for her. She is into music, movies and the roses. I did this as a watercolors painting. It is my third attempt at watercolors painting. I'm calling it "Lavender Roses For Erin".

Continue the Line

In my Red 2 class we were working on a Continue the Line project. We found a picture in a magazine and cut out a section. We then glued it to our page and continued the line on out onto the page. I found a really cool picture of an old log and shrubs in a snow bank. We also added a small amount of color to the picture to add interest. I choose to add the color to my snow.

February challenge

One of the altered book clubs I belong to has a monthly challenge. February's is to add more layers to your work. I made this attempt, but still feel I could have done a better job on the layering aspect. I have a journal book that I have dedicated to the monthly challenge for the 2006 year. This month being Valentine's day I went with a love theme.