Art Journal Calendar...

I'm continuing on with Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year online class. Although I'm behind in a lot of the lesson pages, my May calendar is filled in and June's spread is done. I'm doing my best to keep up with my daily entries...this picture was actually taken on Tuesday, so I'm up-to-date so far!

Art Calendars...April & May...

April is finished...and May has begun...

April's Calendar...

I can't believe it's already well into April! And fortunately, although it's still quite cold, the snow is slowly melting and there are some definite signs of Spring.

I'm a little behind in my art journal calendar, but I finally got the spread done and coloured in, following the awesome idea from Joanne Sharpe in her online course Draw Your Awesome Year.  This is a fun idea for journalling, and luckily I write very small so I can still document a fair bit inside these fun number spaces.

The transition from black and white to colour is always fun.  Once those bright colours are on the page it just seems to pop.
(sorry for the 'black out'...it suggests I might lead a more exciting life than I really do, LOL. I just can't reveal a secret that's not mine to tell!)

 We've had a lot of rain lately...as one would expect in April, and my purple crocuses have peeked out among the dirty snow drifts so I just had to add them to the page.  And with Easter coming there just has to be a cute, fluffy little chick.

I used my Caran d'Ache Neocolor II to colour this page. Since a lot of the areas were small, I found it easier to scribble on my craft mat, and then use my water brush to activate and pick up the pigment for 'painting' on the page.

Now In Colour!

A little while back I showed you what I was up to in my art journal.  I've been back at it, and have now added colour to the pages using Tombow markers.  I love the wonderful watercolour effects you can achieve with these fabulous markers!

I was occasionally having an issue with bleed through to the back of the page (when I used heavier layers of colour), but I've come up with a solution.  I first tried clear gesso, applying it after the black marker work was done (and completely dry!), but it added a bit more 'tooth' than I wanted.  I guess I could have lightly sanded it, but instead I tried using matte medium.  That works beautifully!  It still gives the page a slight texture, but that adds some extra interest to the page (in my humble opinion).

I'm really loving Joanne Sharpe's "Draw Your Awesome Year" online class.  I'm learning a lot of new ideas and trick to improve my drawing and art journalling.  It's not too late to sign up...all of her classes are 'forever access' too which means you can keep going back and reviewing the lessons as you begin each new year!  How awesome is that!

I've never considered myself much of a 'drawer', but I am really enjoying this process!  What a great way to build my skills. 

Drawings and Doodles...

I've been doing a lot of drawings and doodles in my 2014 art journal and I'm loving it.  I feel like I'm starting to find my drawing style and I'm becoming more confident in my hand drawn lettering too!  Thanks to the great inspiration from Joanne Sharpe, I'm learning some great, and manageable ways to record the highlights of my year.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words...well, I think doing these little 'dailies' and vignettes as tiny drawings is more my style than just writing!

I've had a great few days drawing my imagery with pencil and then tracing with a permanent black pen.

I'll show you these again once I get them all coloured.  I'm planning to use my Tombow markers and a water brush to get a pretty watercolour effect.  We'll see if I achieve what I'm picturing in my mind... ;o)

My Awesome Year...2014

I've been working away at pages in my art journal, and I'm really loving the idea of keeping one art journal for the year, as a way of documenting the highlights as well as the sort of art journalling I'm currently doing.  If I have the discipline to keep this up over the years, it will be really interesting to see how my art changes over time and it'll be fun to take those trips down memory lane.


In today's post, I'm sharing a couple more exercises from the Draw Your Awesome Year class I'm doing online with Joanne Sharpe.

The first is my 'mantra' page.  Last year my inspirational word was 'joy', and I decided to continue to focus on joy as an ongoing thing.  I recently read a great quote (which I can't for the life of me find!!!...should have written it down!)...it basically stated that joy has to be worked at...you have to keep choosing joy because it doesn't just happen.  So true!  I'm going to continue trying my best to be positive, celebrate the good and choose to smile, laugh and see the joy in my daily life!




This year, 'my word' is GIVE. As you may know if you've been following my blog, I have recently become a foster mom for a future dog guide puppy.  I love this opportunity to not just write a cheque, but to actually give of myself every day to raise and train this puppy so that he can go on to change someone's life!  I'm working with him 24/7, making a commitment to help and it feels great, exhausting some days...but still great!  

2014 Art Journal Adventures...

On Friday I showed you the cover art on my new journal for 2014, and today the inside title page is done...

I've signed up for Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year online class, and I've decided to make it a part of my overall 2014 art journal. You see, Joanne suggested a journal with 64 pages to accommodate all that we'll be doing in her class.  However, I chose a journal that has about twice as many pages so that I could include some other pages, as my muse calls to me.

Needless to say, for those of you doing Joanne's class, I can't go ahead and do my table of contents yet because I need to wait and see what I end up with before I commit to that.  As with my experience from academic work, I think I'll do my table of contents at the end of the whole process.

Doodling with a Friend...

One of the things I love about doodling and sketching on the deck at the cottage is that I've always got company!

We call this little guy "Out Back Jack"...'cause he lives out back.  He loves to visit for black sunflower seeds or peanuts, but even if I don't have any he comes up and sits on my knee or sketchbook and just visits.  He's so tame I can pat him!

 I'm working on lesson #4 for Doodle Arts and Letters, another Joanne Sharpe online class.

I used my Marvy II markers to colour this because I forgot to pack my twinks!

Finally A Little Art Journalling...

If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know that I enjoy doing some art journalling and I find Joanne Sharpe's online classes to be fun.  Well, in spite of my arm being in a cast, I went ahead and signed up for her latest Doodle Arts and Lettering class.  While I had the cast on I was watching the lessons, interacting with the other participants on Facebook and waiting for June 20th to arrive so I could get my cast off.  Well, that day came but the x-rays and pain indicated that I was not yet healed.  I'm now wearing a splint, but I've figured out that if I've very careful about not bending the wrist at all, I can take off the splint for short periods (about 15 minutes a few times a day) so that I can do a little bit of doodling.  And so, I have finally finished "My Grade 2 Art Girl"!  This was a lot of fun.  I can't wait to be able to get back to more of this once this crazy scaphoid finally heals!

A Triptych of Canvases

I've been working up the nerve to do some painting on canvas, but this is not something that is in my comfort zone.  In the last few weeks I've been watching Karen Ellis of The Art House Studio during her live Ustream broadcasts on Friday evenings, and I've learned a lot about how to get the wonderful layered look that she does so well for so many of her backgrounds.  Combine that with lesson 17 of Joanne Sharpe's Letter Love 201, in which we were to get out a little 6 inch canvas and some acrylic paint to create a 'Character Mastepiece" and I thought what the heck.  If I was going to jump in, why not jump in with both feet.  If one is good, three must be better...

I figured I had little to lose since I got the three little canvases at Dollarama, and with it being acrylic paint, if it was a total disaster I could always paint over it...

I started by painting all three of the canvases with a base coat of a bright lime green.  I then used a combination of my brush, and an old gift card and started adding some blues and a bit of purple along with more of the lime green.  A couple of the blues and the green are metallic paints, so they have a bit of a shimmer to them.

Using a stencil and a baby wipe, I added a bit of white.  The final step in creating the backgrounds was to use a bit of corrugated cardboard to stamp on each of the canvases.

Below you can see the three canvases side by side, as well as my messy work area.  Now that I've got a good craft mat, I tend to put the paint right on the mat.  It wipes up beautifully with baby wipes and I find it's easier than using a palette, especially when I want to stamp with corrugated cardboard or my ammo case insert (a great find at Waste Wise)



I must say, so far I was thrilled.  I actually achieved the layered look that I so admire in Karen's work!  The next step was to add a letter to each of the canvases.  I decided that since I had three canvases I'd use a three letter word.  I was going to do ART, but then I thought why not use the word I have chosen as my inspirational guiding word for 2013 and so, I painted JOY on my little canvases.

I found this fun font online when I did a Google search for fonts (looking at the images tab) so I sketched out the letters, transferred them onto my canvases and started painting.  I used a gold metallic paint, along with a bright yellow for the highlights and black for shading (as you can see, this time I did use a palette since I was painting with a brush and my finger).  I must say, I'm very happy with how these little pieces turned out.

And here you can see it hanging in my studio.  I'm not sure I like that arrangement, but I'll leave it like that for now.

Pearl Pen Doodling

Here are the two Pearl Pen doodles I started at Saturday's Decorative Doodling class.  This was a lot of fun, but it will take some practise to write with the Pearl paint pens.  You've got to keep moving at a steady pace, without touching the page or you get globs and ridges in the paint.   I added the doodles using a Pitt pen before painting with 'Twinks'.  I do love the shimmer in those watercolours with the mica!

Playing with Gelatos

Another piece from the Decorative Doodling class, this background was doodled using Gelatos.  A water brush was then used to activate the colour and allow it to spread.  For some reason the green didn't cooperate, but the rest of the colours were like painting with butta' to quote Karen Ellis (Art House Studio) and Joanne Sharpe.  I've added some doodles with a Pitt pen, but I have to say I'm not sold on the Gelatos yet...although the metalic ones were pretty cool!

Finishing Up Some Decorative Doodles

On Sunday I posted about the Decorative Doodling class I took with Joanne Sharpe and I showed you the doodles I had started.  You'll never guess what I've been working on this week. LOL

Here are the first two I have finished. I really love the upper right part of the top page.  I think the left side of that one got a bit too busy and 'heavy' compared to the right side.

Looking at the bottom image, I've decided that if I plan to add colour I need to keep the petals on the flowers simpler.  It looking fine as a black and white doodle, but when I started painting them it just got crazy.  Maybe it's also my colour choice. I do like the little coloured 'pebbles' (bottom rt corner and left side), and I like the contrast of the black and white stripes and checks with all the colour on the page.

Decorative Doodling...

Well, I finally met the Art Queen herself, Joanne Sharpe.  It was great to meet her in person after a year long friendship on line through Facebook and Joanne's online classes.  As you can imagine, she's even more fun in person!

Kim, another online friend surprise me.  She had told me she would be there during the day and since I was going to be there in the evening, we would not be able to meet.  As it turned out, Kim also signed up for the evening class and we ended up sitting at the same table!

Then, as a total surprise, my friend Jan, a member of GOE (our fibre art group) was there too.  She was a my place on Wednesday and had meant to ask me if I was going but she got side tracked and never did...

Here's a shot of Joanne teaching us some new doodling ideas and a fun collective puzzle doodle that we created.

I started a lot of little pieces, playing with the ideas and media that Joanne shared with us. None of these are finished, but I thought I'd show you what I've got and then repost some time when I can show you the finished pieces.

And, I was able to pick up a copy of the new Somerset Studio magazine and Joanne was sweet enough to sign it for me! ...'sigh'

If you ever get a chance to take a class with Joanne, online, or especially in person, I can highly recommend it.  She's an incredible teacher!

Feelin' Groovy...

What a riot!  There's another hour gone...  Sipping my morning coffee, Simon and Garfunkel's 59th Street Band's Feelin' Groovy blaring in the background and armed with my Sharpies, I had a flash back to the late 60's as I played around with lesson 9 in Joanne's online class.  When I finished my name, I decided to cut it out, glue it onto a page prepared with black gesso and then using a white pen I wrote the lyrics to Feelin' Groovy around the outside.  There was still some space left at the sides, so some 'groovy' doodles, made with metalic markers, filled those up nicely.

I Really Need Some Discipline...

My plan for yesterday was to do some sewing.  I've got several art quilts in process that I really want to finish (honest!).

Enter Joanne Sharpe and her Letter Love 201 online class...  I know I can do these 'lessons' whenever I want.  I don't have to keep at them because as Joanne always reminds us, "You bought the book! You have these lessons forever!" But they're just so much fun.  I can just sit at my desk with my pens and watercolours and play all day.

After dinner I finally 'forced' myself to spend an hour sewing... and then you won't believe what happened... Yup, I was back at that damned desk with a pen in my hand...

Anyway, here are a couple of pages I did.  I love both of these quotes. In fact, if you look closely at the page with the white writing you'll see that I used these same quotes under the large focal word on the respective pieces.


Can you tell that Valentine's Day is coming soon?