Life Book 2016 – Week 22 with Kristin Dudish

PIECE BY PIECE

a game for facing your fears….

ONE PIECE AT A TIME.

This week’s lesson was taught by Kristin Dudish.    I added a link to her facebook page because we’ve been having issues with the NING site and cannot download the class or any of the links.

But that’s all right because Tamara gave us another link to download the lessons and the PDFs.

I found this class very interesting and enjoyable.  We had to take a picture and divide it in 2 inch squares.  I loved doing this because when I was younger I loved to take puzzles like these and see if the final picture looked like the picture in the magazine.

I’m obsessed with Frida Kahlo and there are some great black and white pictures of her.  I googled her and came up with this one.

I cut her up in 2×2 inch squares and using another paper with 2×2 blank squares I proceeded to draw and paint what I saw.  Shapes –  triangles, squares, circles, lines; no flowers, eyes, chins, etc. – just shapes. The media I used were, watercolor crayons, regular crayola crayons, prima coloring pencils, charcoal, plain pencil, pastels, oil pastels, water-color pastels, a regular ball point pen, watercolor pencils, black india ink, acrylic paints, and dots done with a pen.

This is a closeup.  You can see some of the media was hard to match up to the different squares, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing this morning.  I can see where I need to pay closer attention to the different shapes so they can match up better.

That’s it for this weeks lesson

I’ll be playing with this technique again, for sure!

Thanks for stopping by.  Please leave me a note, either way, I love to read comments.

See ya’ next time.

Carmen

Unity Stamps Photo Challenge April 7 – 14.

Since I didn’t have to make a project for this week’s Life Book 2016, I spent my time making cards for a couple of challenges.   I hope you read my previous post about the projects I created for Club Scrap.

This week’s photo is open to interpretation as you can see by the image.  I’ve seen a few of the cards people have made for this challenge and many involve rain drops.

I chose to concentrate on the colors instead of the raindrops.

I went to Hobby Lobby and found a Spellbinders Stained Glass die cut on clearance.  I think this was an excellent purchase and will make great use of it.

I used the You do This stamp which has several words you can insert in the banner.  I chose “amaze.”  I then cut out the letters and the banner individually so the “stained glass” wouldn’t be obscured.  I used silver cardstock and ran it through the Big Shot.

I die cut another piece using white cardstock and used it as a mask, then used inks, colored pencils, and markers to add the colors on the photo.

Here’s a close-up

I really enjoyed making this card although had to take my time to color each segment of the “stained glass” and fuzzy-cut each letter.

I hope you enjoyed your visit here, and until next time,

make some art!

Carmen

Life Book Week Six Your Quirky Amazing Life

Hello my artsy peeps!  Here I am again with another exciting post, LOL!

Week Six was taught by the amazing Tamara Laport

We were to think and write down about all the things we are grateful for and how we would depict our family.  Since this week was about quirky bird, I first thought about what the different personalities make up my amazing family, then I sketched them.

Here’s the sketch:

My daughter is a Yoga instructor and is always meditating, my son loves the drums and was in a rock band, now he works at a music store.  My husband  was hard to sketch, but I thought a toucan would be a good representation, and I’m the chick with the umbrella.

 

Here we are!  I also added my grandsons whom I adore!

I created this project on a 11×14 watercolor paper and used watercolor pencils, crayons, markers, acrylic paints, molding paste, stencils and love!

As I mentioned before, my daughter is a Yoga instructor.  I made her a Yoga outfit and the glitter all around her is her aura.  She’s such a loving, giving, and caring person!  She’s meditating and going “Ohmmmmmm” LOL

The Rock Star!

My son has been playing drums since he was grade school and later was part of a group.  Now he’s in his 40’s and he’s feeling the results of again!  His elbows hurt, he can’t hear very well, etc.

I tried to make him as flambouyant as possible, but not over the top.  I gave him a KISS face.  I added an ant so there would be five characters.  He’s holding a tiny heart and a leaf.

Next up is my husband.  Originally he was going to be a Toucan, but after adding his feathers, I don’t know what he is, ha ha.  He does have a heart of gold!  He is very giving, loving, and caring also!

My oldest grandson has been hiding behind people lately; I don’t know why, but he is the one in the family who also loves music and has the sweetest voice you’ve ever heard!

My youngest grandson is a jock!  He loves playing baseball and wants to be able to play professionally one day.  My husband has been encouraging him to do well in school and perhaps he can get a scholaship to go to College.  He’s already been admitted to Humboldt College in California.  We’re so proud!

Last, but not least, the chick representing me!

I put glasses on her because I like to read, and the umbrella is for when I go out in the ministry on a sunny day.   I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and do volunteer work teaching the Bible and helping people get to know it better.  I added Zentangles to the umbrella, which I also draw to relax.  I also added doodles all over the pages and a few quirky stamps.

And that’s the project for this week, friends!

Thanks for coming by and I hope you leave me a comment.  I love comments!!

Carmen

Live With Promise

I had some spare time this weekend (I don’t know how that happened!) so I watched a free video on Youtube “Fawn Whispers” with Tamara Laporte while waiting for Monday to roll around so I could start on another Life Book 2016 lesson.  It is going to be all about quirky birds! I watched the first two videos while snuggling on my couch.  The weather turned ugly today; cold, windy, rain, and probably snow!

As I was saying, I followed along as she created her project because I wanted to go through her process.  The face came out a little different than hers.  The video is in fast speed, so I had to stop it and do my thing, then start again.  All in all I really liked how my piece came out.

I used 11×14 watercolor paper again for this one.  Collaged it with some tissue paper I found on clearance at Michael’s and lightly used my Caran De Arche watercolor crayons. I also used acrylic paint, and watercolor pencils. I’m usually very heavy handed when it comes to paint, but since I used watercolor crayons the paper showed through and I like it!

I’m always looking for the opportunity to use all of my crafty finds that I’ve picked up on sale and I was able to use the Faber Castelle Texture Gems in gold and white for the heart and the crowns.  Some may call it hoarding, but I call it preparing for the future!  LOL

I also used a Tim Holtz stencil to give the crown and her dress and cape some texture.

I first used the gems for the crown on the girl and decided to add some dots to the fawn’s crown as well as the heart.

I found my stencil with this quote and used a black molding paste so it would stand out.

The tiny butterflies are from the same stencil.  You can see the tissue paper that I used for the background.  I finished it off with throwing some white dots all over it.

Here is the stencil I used to add the flowers and leaves with a black ink.

I also added doodles with a white marker and a white gel pen and acrylic paint through another stencils in other places throught this piece and a script stamp.

My husband liked it a lot too, but he said that I need to make darker skinned gilrs too.  Yes, dear, that’s my next project.

Thanks for visiting and have a warm, cozy, day crafting!

Carmen

 

Life Book 2016 – Week Three

Week Three with Melody Ross

Your Sacred Box of Wisdom

Melody Ross and her sister have helped a lot of women all over the world to find a supportive sisterhood by means of symposiums through the Brave Girls University.  Please check out Melody’s blog – The Brave Girls Club.

This week’s lesson with Melody Ross was about getting in touch with all the wisdom we have accumulated in our life just by living, being, and doing.

The exercise was very deep in that we would write down the wisdom in our life and how we came to that wisdom by our experiences, whether good or bad, and what we learned from them.

I chose instead to create a project with a box full of books where I have found wisdom.  Books like The Bible, the Book of Life, and books written by other influential people.  I appreciate all forms of wisdom and I celebrate by sharing some of the words with you that I find have helped me grow and heal my life.

This time I made a girl with a different hairdo than what I usually create.  I started out with an 11×14 watercolor page and after coloring the page and the girl,  I then created the background by collaging with a napkin that had the same colors.

I first drew her with a big smile, but I couldn’t get her teeth right.  She looked like a hillbily, so I opted to give her some smile marks around her mouth.

In order to do this project, I did some research on the word Wisdom.

“Wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight.”

You can see I titled some of the books – Life, Expriences, Holy Bible, and one of Maya Angelou’s biobraphical books – The Heart of a Woman.  I couldn’t include all the books and all the authors who have inspired me so much in my life.  I would have loved to have included some of the inspiring quotes I love, but I would need many, many more pages.

The box is also collaged with a napkin and outlined with a marker.

I did, however, include a couple of quotes from the Bible.  On the top is from the Book of Proverbs, “Widsdom is the most important thing, so acquire wisdom.  And with all you acquire, acquire understanding.”  (Proverbs 4:7)

The title of my page Wisdom is from an image I found on Google.  Here you can see a closeup of some the words that have to do with acquired wisdom.

The second quote is also from the Book of Proverbs:  “Happy is the man (or woman) who finds wisdom.  And the man who acquires discernment.”  (Proverbs 3:13)

Before I close, I want to share some quotes about Wisdom I found while doing my research.

Enjoy!

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
― Maya Angelou

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
― Mother Teresa

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
― Aristotle

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

― Isaac Asimov

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
― Confucius

“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens”
― Jimi Hendrix

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.”
― Anne Bradstreet

“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.”
― Bob Dylan

“Lost Time is never found again.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

Until next time, my friends, think and act wisely.

Carmen

Life Book Lesson 45

Well, here I am again bringing you some exciting projects – ha!

As I said in my last post, one of my favorite lessons with Tam was the gorgeous swan girl.

Second time I’ve worked on two pages so it did take a while and I spent way too much time playing with my background.  But I am very pleased to bring you my rendition.

This is the right side of the page before I changed the doodling.

This is the finished piece.  I attached the two pages so I could take pictures of the whole project by using painters tape on the back and on the sides.

I played around with the left side and the deer appeared looking surprised.  I also used a stencil for the various images and a Unity Stamp for the arrows.

I made the bottom of this page with a stencil using green molding paste as well as the body of the swan.  The bottom doodle is a combination of my imagination and a Pinterest idea.

After googling for some Native American symbols I found out the Thunderbird I had stenciled represented the “Bearer of Happiness.”  How appropriate!

I also added more stencils on the borders.

The heart is colored with watercolors paints and I also added more symbols and stenciled with molding paste.

I’m very pleased with the way this girl’s face came out.  I also added some feathers on her head-dress and a necklace on her neck.

And, finally the swan’s head.

My daughter really like this and asked me not to give it away, but since is part of Life Book 2015, I’ll have to make her a canvas.  Hopefully it will look like this page as well.

Thanks you dear friends for stopping by.  I’m almost caught up posting all my projects for this year.

Happy creating everyone,

Carmen

Online Watercolor Class for Card Makers – Day 3

Hello friends, I’m back with the last day of Watercolor Classes for Card Makers.

Day 3

Pencils and Crayons

Jennifer Rzasa gave us some great tips on using Watercolors and Inktense pencils

She reminded us that watercolor pencil marks can be erased before they are wet; that way you can erase any marks you don’t want.

Inktense pencils are permanent once dry which gives you the ability to layer.

The first piece of paper is the pencil wash after I added water.  This would be great for shading.

The fruit was sketched completely with pencils adding water in between the layers and the flower was sketched the same way, but spritzed with water to finish it off.

Here’s a better view of the flower fuzzy cut.

Jennifer sketched a flamingo, but I chose to sketch a peacock stamp I saw at Unity Stamps.  I used inktense pencils and gold shimmer spray to add the shine of the feathers.  I also took my brush with different colors and splattered it around the peacock.

Water Soluble Oil Pastels and Inktense Pencils with Kristina Werner was the next segment.

I used my Caran De’Ache water soluble pastels because that’s what I’ve been using for the Life Book 2015 class.  First, Kristina had us use the different colors of pastes on the stamp then apply water with a brush. The second trial was to use the pastels on a piece of watercolor paper and spray water on it.

I really like the vibrancy of the Caran De’Ache pastels, but no applying them on on a stamp first.  I sprayed mine with water and they ran all over.

For this next card I stamped the image with Versafine ink, dried it with my heatgun and colored it using inktense pencils.  I like that you can use the brush dipped in water then applied to the lead of the pencil.  Since I don’t have Wink of Stella shimmer, I used some perfect pearls and water applied with a brush also.

The penguin is a Unity Stamp from last year.

Every time I look at the sentiment it makes me laugh.

Tomorrow I’ll post the last part of day 3, for now, have a great Sunday!!

Hugs,

Carmen

Online Card Watercolor Classes Day Two – Continued

Distress Inks, Tube Watercolors, & Stamping

Jenifer Rzasa made this class look so easy.

We first practiced three different techniques – Using distress inks on the stamp then stamping it on paper and then using water to spread the color – like on the cat.

The second one was using the distress inks on the stamp, applying water, drying it and adding water on top of the image to give it some texture, and then using a pen for the details.

My favorite was inking the stamp, spraying it with water, then applying it to the paper.  I used different colors of inks on this flower stamp.

 I did the sample of the two  stamps with distress inks – easy!

The first image was stamped with water proof ink, and the second one with Versamark and white embossing color.  I like both ways, but coloring on the black image was my favorite.

Then, using watercolor tubes I did these two cards.  I didn’t have any skyline stamps so I used a stencil and pencil to draw the buildings.

These two cards  made me crazy, but I grew to like this one, especially after I added the splashes on top.

The second try is another stencil of a neighborhood and a heart, so I used Thinking of you card.

Hope you like – they are very different than I usually make.

Thanks for stopping by!

Carmen

Life Book 2015 Weeks 16 and 17

Wow, it is almost the end of April!  Where did the time go.  I was so busy with family matters last week that before I knew it another week passed by.

For this week’s post, I combined two Life Book lessons because I didn’t have enough information to fill up two pages.

Week 16 was with Alena Hennesy.  She is such a sweet girl – I just loved the way she led us through her “Quick Be Here Now” lesson on intuitive painting.  This was a bonus lesson so it wasn’t very detailed, but I got to spend 15 minutes just using color and making marks.

I used all kinds of paints on this – fluid acrylics, watercolor crayons, and black and white markers.  She said:  “just pretend you are a little girl coloring in a state of abandon.”

This is what I created in 15 minutes.

For Week 17 Jenny Wentworth showed us step-by step how to create a portrait in an intuitive way.

I was really surprised how fast I was able to create this girl.  I’m thinking that because I have taken so many different classes on drawing and coloring whimsical girls, that I intuitively and automatically put down color and shading.

I didn’t think too much about it, just went with the flow.  My husband and my crafty friend, Maria, were very impressed!

I started out with a painting I didn’t finish on watercolor paper and applied gesso to cover it up.  She only used a handful of  supplies and I tried to do the same.  I didn’t have the sepia color she used on the background and for the shading; so I made my own.  Sepia is a mixture of dark brown and black.  I don’t like using black too much, so instead of using black I added ultramarine blue to burnt sienna.  It was a bit too dark, but I watered it down.  I also used watercolor pencils, soft pastels, fluid acrylics and regular acrylics.

Here she is!!

And the closeup:

Don’t you just love her eyes?  I hope I remember how I created this piece because I wasn’t thinking about what I applied first or anything, I just made a circle here, a line there and added color here and there.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my creations today and I thank you so much for stopping by.

Happy crafting!

Carmen

Life Book 2015 Week Seven

Two more outstanding lessons for us this week in Life Book 2015 provided by  Jill K. Berry and Violette Clark

Jill’s video was about creating a Heart Community Book with characters representing the people in our lives who encourage us of inspire us in our artistic journey.  For my theme I chose Alice in Wonderland.  Most of my family knows me as Alicia (Alice) so I thought it would be appropriate to make each of these figures to represent members of my family

The Queen of Hearts represents my mom.  She was so creative and had a big heart!  She would make us paper dolls and the clothes and furniture to go with them.

Alice represents my daughter.  She has inspired me since she was a little girl playing with her dolls and writing in her journal.  She is also an artist and my biggest fan.

The Knave of Hearts represents my BFF who started me crafting right after I went through Cancer treatments and surgery.  She knew I had problems with my fingers and couldn’t cut with scissors so she introduced me to the Cricut and the rest is history!!  She is also very funny, creative, caring, and playful!

And last but not least, The Mad Hatter represents my husband.  Although he is always complaining about my craft room, supplies, and shopping, he is also very supportive of the things I’m involved in.

For the faces I used Peachy Keen stamps Wide Eyed Kids Assortment, watercolor pencils, markers, acrylic paint and cardstock to paper piece the clothes.

I still have one more project to do and I will post that as soon as I finish.

Have an awesome weekend, my friends, and happy crafting!!

UPDATE

As promised, here is the project I made for Violette Clark‘s bonus lesson.

This one represents what we love about our community or our home and it includes the Kingdom Hall where I worship.

Close up view of my “Magical House” and the words that make it perfect for me and my life.

Love, Respect, Honor, Jehovah God, Peace, Caring, Brotherhood.

This is a close up of the girl.  I drew just half of the girl’s face and used markers, watercolor crayons, acrylic and a bit of glitter. I tried to make her look like Frida Kalo, but didn’t quite achieve it.  I did draw her prominent eyebrows and added flowers in her hair.

Thanks for stopping by and see you here for the next Life Book lesson.

Happy Crafting!

Carmen