Thursday, March 28, 2013

Art Renewal

 I 'm linking up to Artsyville's Glue-It Tuesdays
 I had started a painting on a page in my art journal but lost interest fast.
I thought I would use that as a base for this composition. 
 
I keep a plastic sandwich bag for my watercolor scraps.
I get great satisfaction out of the fact that
I can use all these little bits together. 
 
I did add some addtional paint to the purple bits, they looked too plain to me
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another project I am working on involves this book I have WaterPaperPaint and I have tried a number of the projects.
This one is Project 20:

 the edges of the artwork don't appear perfectly straight,
 I'll have to flatten in some books.

Of course, as I do with most instructions and recipes,
I don't read all the way through...[shocker]
I was supposed to use black paper or matte black acrylic to start but I just used black gouache.
So it got a bit tricky and easily muddied up the brighter gouache colors.
So next time I will be sure to use acrylic, then I won't have to go over alot of the elements to brighten them up. 
I am tempted to cut this up and make four ATCs but I think I am going to leave it.
Detail, a look closer
My favorite part are the blues, in the top left quarter and bottom left quarter. Green is my favorite color but blue is such a close second. 
 
 
 I am so glad its getting warmer. Aren't you?
A few spring-y things:
 specimens I selected while on my walk with the dog.
the crocuses are coming!
 
Happy Easter, Happy Spring!
Have a terrific weekend and enjoy!
Take care,
Fran T xo

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Glue it Tuesday on Sunday

I wanted to make my collage on Tuesday but just getting to it in the very early hours of this morning. Here is my contribution to Artysville's Glue-It Challenge. I'm also going to link up with Sunday Sketches to share what I have been working on this week (more below).
 
I love green, can you tell? :
I initially wanted to have the two pages flow together and
 painted both the same color background,
but they are two distinct collages, to me, and that's perfect.

Green , though I love it so much, is a hard color to capture...
 

no matter how much I try to color correct the photos,
each image has it looking a different green:) I tried to tone down the photo
because in reality its not so garish.

Clean up is tough in the early morning hours.
Hell what am I saying?
Its tough no matter what time of day it is.
 
 
 I couldn't find my glue sticks,
where they disappeared to, I have no idea.
So I mixed a little glue with water.

 
 The book I used to collage in is from a journalling class I took a couple of years ago. Here is a look at some old pages, I think these are from Summer 2011:
 

 
We did alot of collaging in that class and I miss it! I'm on vacation starting Wednesday and I plan on getting together with a friend who loves to collage as well.
 
I also took a stab at creating some art using acrylics. I am very dedicated to watercolors and switching off always feels like sort of a big thing for me.
 
I keep buying these little canvases when I go to Blick and the last time I was there I had to literally say STOP.
And I promised not to buy more unless I do a damn painting. (I'm like to think that I am only a spendthrift when it comes to art supplies)... I went in without a plan so I wasn't expecting too much.
i had, had, HAD to cover that green blob LOL!!! haha.
 
I like how this turned out, this little piece (4"x4"), am pleased with how it looks. I'm glad I tried a little sgraffiti on the right side.
 
I started on another, larger (8"x 8") canvas board and primed it with some black  I'll work on that during my vacation too.
 
Thanks for reading through this far!
Have a lovely week!
Take care,
Fran T xo
 
 
 

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Patterns, Games and WhatNot

Daylight Savings Time has kicked me square in the pants.
Wow, the power of one hour and what havoc it can wreck!
Well, its not so bad but every year it surprises me
how impactful it is on my being.
I stayed up late drawing the other night and
I looked up and it was 2:30!
 
I used my microns for these two drawings. A pen at
 size 005, the thin one, and 05, a thicker point. 
Garden, Grow!
 
 These were fun to work on.


Tea Time!
I also wanted to contribute a list to Artsyville's List-it Tuesday.
My FAVORITE games when I was younger were the following:
1.Perfection - that is the game where you have a set amount of time to put the yellow s
haped pieces into their corresponding holes. There was like 30 seconds to do so. What a pressure cooker of a game. Its sooooo telling of what type of person I am today. I work my best under pressure, LOL.
2. Gin Rummy - We looooved to play cards as kids. Other favorites were War (what passion!) and Solitaire. A past time that our parents and grandparents passed on to us. We would go to my grandparents for the weekends and I clearly remember all the adults in the dining room, playing cards, drinking cocktails and chatting ;)

3. Uno - another great card game that would go on and on!

4. MasterMind - this is a terrific game and I found the photo on the box so intriguing. I loved the woman's dress and just thought this guy was so slick, but I did think he was a little too old for her. We'd play this for hours. Haha!
5.Monopoly - this is a game that I would start out loving. There is just too much NOT to love. The fabulous pieces, the wonderful and colorful board and the cards! oh I just loved those cards with their cartoons. I liked Community Chest a little bit more. [Its the yellow color over the orange. ] Then the money! I had to be banker. However,  pretty soon into the game, say 20 minutes I would start hating the game, passionately. Mostly because my brothers were just so much better at it than me. And the dread of turning the corner on to the 'block' with Park and Boardwalk, ugh! What stress. Definate love/hate relationship going on here.
 
6. Scrabble - We played this game a whole heck of alot when we were younger. This is still a staple at my parents house! My mom and dad are really, really good at this game and play it quite a bit. We still break it out every so often when we go visit. 
 
 
7. Guess Who? - This is actually a game from my son's early childhood, but I personally loved it and wanted to add it. I liked this one so much that I would actually be the one asking him to play it with me! I just thought it never ever got dull for us to play and we would make up other little games within the game. We would also take all the cards out and play memory games as well.
 
That was so much fun looking back. I think I'll be looking for a deck of cards tonight and play a few hands with the my guys. Take a hop over to Aimee's blog and check out the other participants lists.

 
Enjoy your day!
Fran T XO
 
 
 

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Posting here and there




 
hello! Happy Saturday to you. I'm busy with posting things to my shop, then twittering about it and eventually will FB as well. It's a process but a fun one at that. I've been painting. I sneaked this flower in right before it died, that ranunculus was hardy, lasted almost as long as the mum flower did in my bouquet. I took photos and worked off of that to get this:

I love the green in this flower, and I wanted to really emphasize that.
It is such a good color contrast against the pink petals on this flower head.



I added in the name as well,
I probably should include the Latin spelling as well, just thought of that!

 
Today I worked on finishing up some lettering I did with my Copic marker. I have just one, a 02, because I wanted to try it out as I usually use the Microns [which I just love]. I read this in a magazine and thought it would be fun to do:
 
 
Lastly I just wanted to share some more felt fun, last weekend I worked on the felt pieces below, AND my crafty neice worked on one too! Em's is the Dream pillow. She designed that and executed it so well! don't you think?
 
Take care and I will try to post again sooner this time!
Enjoy your weekend and remember to SPRING forward an hour tonight.
Be well,