Randomly speaking

More of the Process and coping skills.

Yesterday I posted a bit of my art journal process....Lucky for me the process also includes playing withsome of the new products coming out at CHA Winter. LuminArte has some new goodies that I am falling in love with! Head over heels in love....I will be able to start spilling the beans next week. 

meanwhile i am working away at samples for the booth at CHA, designing ATC's for my ATC class at CHA, and feeding my muse with drawings and paintings and journal entries....all of which i am bringing to the show to share with everyone. 

this sweet lil fishy is painted completely with Twinkling H2O's all the way down to its itty bitty scales (that i had to wear glasses to see what i was painting)

ever since i was about 5 i have been enamored by Ganesh...the Lord of success. Actually i am enamored by all of the Hindu deities, I used to carry around and read the Bagavad Gita read it and look at the pictures over and over. (I was an odd and very early reader) "The Hobbit" was my other favorite book early on. My mom would tell you that I was fascinated with words as soon as I could talk and would use randomly large vocabulary in sentences that made no sense...just so i could say the words.

I had a very tumultuous and chaotic.....not so happy childhood. Books were my escape from the pain both physical and emotional. Boooks were a way to change my reality if even just for a moment or two.

I am sure that is why words find their way into most of my art....Books were my first coping skill....followed by art.

what are your coping skills....they would probably make great art journal entries.

 

Art Journal a Day keeps the blues away!

I mentioned the other day i found my passion again...and its true, i did! I found my art again...and found my insatiable desire to create, paint, draw. I am working on an ART JOURNAL to bring to CHA to share. I have never made a journal just for arts sake...i have altereds a book or two in my day...but never in the mannner i did this one.

My favorite part of art journals is the lack of RULES...which is a good thing for me since i am a bit of a rebel anyway. I love that art journals are a bit organic, intuitive and just flow with what you are feeling....no certain direction in mind other than to play, expirement and above all enjoy the process! 

one of my first pages still in "the process"....i often step away....work on something else and come back when i feel inspired to add something.

I cant wait to teach some doodliscious drawing classes....i cant wait to see what everyone creates once they learn to be comfy with drawing faces and eyes. Can I tell you how excited I am to finally use the flesh tone colors of my TWINKLING H2O's

 

my focus this year in my classes will be to "EMBRACE" ....embrace the process, embrace imperfection, embrace your inner artist, embrace challenge, embrace expirementing...and embracing yourself. (or in my case....my self) I am much too hard on my self as I am sure most of you are too. 

I am hoping many of you will join me on my journey this year...whether on line or in person. I am hoping we can encourage each other to embrace life, art and one another.

Happy New Year

Marah 

Change....is good... right?

To say this has been a crazy chaotic year would be an understatement....but i am happy to say i see calm seas ahead. I cannot tell you how grateful that makes me. I made my final move to a new home 2 days before Christmas....and boy does that make for a stressful holiday! Moving twice in one year is not something Id recommend...just saying.

That said, I have been doing a lot of thinking and planning for the year ahead. I usually take the week between Christmas and New Years to think about my classes for the first part of the year....and I decided I want to change things up a bit. I am going to teach with a new focus....more about you, my students embracing your inner artist. More about using all kinds of art supplies, paints, pencils, mediums etc.  I am going to teach more altered books, art journals, atc's and canvases...More full day workshops, it seems just when the playing gets good we have to clean up....I want to change that up a bit....I might even teach a doodle-drawing class or two. Depending on the response iget to the drawings I post.

My poor photo is not the best quality...at the time i was drawing, i wasnt planning on blogging her. She is drawn on a vintage chemistry text book from the 1940's...

more of the process....the best part about doodle-drawing is that it is soooo darn forgiving. imperfections are the beauty of the finished pieces.

Hard to resist the call of my Twinkling H2o's....the sheer tint of color, my happy place for sure!

She is all finished and ready to find a home in my Art Journal.

 

Save a life at the Click of a button--

My dear  friend and fellow artist Bernie who runs A Place to Bark is in the running for the Chase Giving contest. The winning prize is for 100 charities and they will split $3M. Wow! That could go a long way to saving so many animals from death row and that's why we want her to win this amazing opportunity! Bernie is soooo incredibly passionate about her work....But we only have FOUR DAYS to get the word out. She needs votes!

Please CLICK THIS LINK and then go and vote! Then tell all your friends! Post on Facebook, Twitter and email your friends too!

Because of the recession this year has been very difficult for a lot of charities and A Place to Bark is not excluded. Time and time again Bernie has come so near to having to close and stop taking in dogs. But she forges on, with her own money and funds and the kindness of vets allowing her to carry a VERY LARGE medical bill balance.

With this money A Place to Bark would be able to pay off all the debt, and save SO MANY MORE lives!! This needs to happen. So please help us spread the word!! ONLY FOUR DAYS LEFT!

p.s.-----thank you Claudine Helmuth for letting my borrow your blog post to help Bernie out.....she is an angel on earth!

My fingers are full of paint....as it should be.

 

I spent my morning working with Luminarte Silks and Twinkling H2O's again....these products work so well together....like PB&J, cookies and milk, ham and chees....you get the picture. I made a couple of new videos the first was a step 2 of sorts to yesterdays video about using the Silks as a way to create resist. 

and the second video is about painting with Silks on Fabric, its just a quickie...super basic just to get a couple of points across.

hope these get you a bit inspired...ready to try some new things and as always....be creative in all you do

i am sure i will post again soon

 

Enabler Alert---AKA a new you tube video

 Philippa....you asked and you shall recieve along with every one else.

A first of many "Silks" Video for you. I am so enamored by this product! its like puppy love, love at first sight....twitterpation at its finest.

of course no post would be complete without a few samples.... and ATC using the technique from the video.

a couple more samples from the video....

You can order silks here.... (my inner enabler is coming out!)

 

I am off to play a bit more...perhaps another artist trading card or two.

ITS BRAND SPANKIN new!!!! SILKS by LUMINARTE!

Introducing SILKS....by LuminArte

This is a truly innovative new paint product....a semi gloss, glaze infused with mica, and the most incredible pigments ever. They are so amazing in person i want to LICK them....

I had to break them out and play....Silks are a waterbased acrylic so they make for a great resist. Using my handy dandy stencil brush, a couple really pretty CI stencils i was set to play. To start i put a bit of the silks on my teflon matt....that way i am able to remove the excess and spread the silks out to a smooth even layer....

holding my stencil brush at a perfect 90 degree angle and with a light pouncing motion i applied the paint over the stencils

you can see that the Silks are a bit transparent if you do a light coat and can be a bit more opaque with heavier layers or several layers.

love how easily silks blend together for a million different colors.

 

now that the stenciled background is dry...i can paint over it with my trusty Twinking H2O's....the Silks create a resist so that the twinks only color the white space...not the Silks.

can you say....DELISH!

i love the bits of writing behind the butterflies....

layer up the twinkling H2O's for a wonderful depth of color.

Silks are available NOW on the Check Out the Dreaming In Color Website....run, dont walk....get some to add into your holiday craft projects....you will love them more than chocolate. 

 

Jumpstart your Art!!!!

I've been having way to much fun lately....creating jumpstarts for your art. Yes....i did say your art (insert huge happy grin here) I travel and teach quite a bit and i am always talking about art journals, mixed media, collage etc.  The most common response i have heard was...."I dont know where to start" or "I would love to have a background i can run with" so here is the first in a series of (goodness knows how many) 

everything in the backgrounds are truly vintage...no reproductions, no digital prints

white space on pages are gesso layers waiting for your journaling or painting

this one has a Sherlock Holmes page---i love mysteries!

this one has a bit of my new french finds from an estate sale i went to yesterday

check them out on ETSY here....  let me know what you think or what you'd like to see

" Caged Grace" is finished!!!!

I like found words...."elementary truths"....so many ways to think about this statement

more found words

I added a bit of sewn ruffle made from vintage dress pattern tissue (going to be selling ruffle by the yard)

and added beads for feet and a bit of  Luminarte Radiant Rain  to finish it off... super happy with it (honestly i am going to hae a hard time selling her, but i think she needs to fly off and inspire some one, her ETSY listing is here)....I think i am going to make a series of them!

I made a birdcage for etsy

its still in process....but dang I think its so cool i had to share now!

started with some gesso a book cover and some wire

then i cut words from books....and covered them in a layer of modge podge

put the butterfly in the middle....she is made of feathers and landed in my collection years ago....

used the strips of words as part of the cage "wire"....those blobs of white are blobs of matte Modge Podge drying....making the strips more secure and thicker so that they are less delicate.

I will take more pictures as I finish the cage up tonight....

I also need to name it....any suggestions?