MORE Color and Marker LOVE!

I’ve been taking Joanne Sharpe’s most recent course - Magical Marker Mystery Tour, and, sadly, it is ending this week. (it’s not too late to sign up, though….once you get access to Joanne’s courses, you have bought the book!  It never expires). I have been having so much fun playing with my *huge* marker collection.  Simultaneously, I have also been taking her previous course, Color Love.  OMG….my art journals are just bursting with color!  So, I thought I’d share a few of my journal pages and projects, totally hand drawn, colored, painted, by moi, and inspired by Joanne Sharpe.

Color and Marker LOVE!

I’ve been taking Joanne Sharpe’s most recent course - Magical Marker Mystery Tour, and, sadly, it is ending this week. (it’s not too late to sign up, though….once you get access to Joanne’s courses, you have bought the book!  It never expires). I have been having so much fun playing with my *huge* marker collection.  Simultaneously, I have also been taking her previous course, Color Love.  OMG….my art journals are just bursting with color!  So, I thought I’d share a few of my cards, totally hand drawn, colored, painted, by moi, and inspired by Joanne Sharpe.

Monkey See

I have wanted to make a sock monkey for years! Lol! My sister has a childhood story around a sock monkey, so I decided I would make her a sock monkey for her 50th birthday. He he…better late than never!

So, here is my purple sock monkey….purple being my sister’s favorite color.

Isn’t he cuuuuuuute? I think so.  I hope my sister likes it, and that she doesn’t read my blog! 

Letter Lab Love!

I am totally addicted to online classes!  lol  My most recent fix came in the form of a hand lettering class taught by Lori Vliegen, and hosted over at Creative Workshops’ Ning site.  I’ve been following Lori’s blog for a while now, and admiring her hand lettering, so when I saw that she was offering a course, I just had to take it!    If you have ever wanted to improve your handwriting for your art journals, cards, or whatever, I highly recommend this course.  I signed up last week, and it started on November 7.  But, all the videos and pdf’s were ready for viewing on the 7th…talk about instant gratification!  The biggest thing I have learned about hand lettering, is practice, practice, practice! I’m not the most patient person, so the practice part is hard for me.  But, after only a couple of hours, I was able to take my handwriting from bad to…well, better lol.

My first “project” made me giggle.  Take a peek, and see if you can figure out why:

Did you catch it?  Talk about irony!  I misspelled a word, and didn’t even realize it until I saw it on my computer screen!  lol  Too funny.

So,  after a little more practice, I pulled out my 9 x 12 Canson XL mixed media art journal, and here’s what I came up with:

I borrowed the quote from Pinterest.  The original source is The Ink Society’s Etsy Store.

That’s all for today.  Thank you so much for stopping by!

A Bird in the Hand…

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”

What does that mean?  Well, according to WiseGeek,

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” also sometimes given as, “A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush,” is a proverb saying that it is better to stick with something you already have, rather than pursuing something you may never get. This proverb is a very popular warning, widely used in many English-speaking countries.

The phrase seems to have originated at some point in the 13th century, in a related Latin form: Plus valet in manibus avis unica quam dupla silvis. This can be loosely translated as, “A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the woods.”

The basic warning of “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” is that you must take care not to get too greedy in life. If you are holding a bird in the hand, you have your meal for the evening. You can take that one bird, and be well fed. If instead you let it go to pursue two birds you’ve spied in a bush, you may catch neither, and wind up hungry for the night. This proverb points out that by passing up a sure thing for a more promising possibility, you also run the risk of losing both the sure thing and the promising possibility.”

Hhmm….I’m not sure I believe in that philosophy.  This would imply that you shouldn’t take risks, and I believe that a successful artist takes risks all the time!  Anyway, that saying came to mind yesterday when my husband called to me to come see something…quick!  lol  So, I stopped what I was doing, and went to the kitchen, and there he sat, with a little baby gold finch in his hand!

He explained that it flew into the patio door/window, and dropped to the ground.  He went to see if it was okay, and was able to pick him up!  I had read somewhere that birds can go into shock, and all you need to do is keep them warm until they come out of it.  So, that’s exactly what we did, and after a few minutes, he flew away!  How cool is that?  Well, it was one of the highlights of our weekend, anyway! 

I don’t have anything artsy to share today, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been art journaling!  I’ve been playing with my beloved Copic markers lately!  I’m a certified Copic Instructor, but haven’t used my learned talents in quite some time!  I have to say, it was quite enjoyable.  I’ll share my Copic work of art tomorrow.

 

Sunshine, Gratitude and Blue Poo

Hello my blog friends!  TGIF!  I’ve have been doing some serious inner reflection for the last few days.  My Mom is quite ill, with her third bout with cancer.  She had surgery 2 days ago, and is still in ICU, on a ventilator, and completely sedated.  She is 71 years old.  She is a very strong person, with a strong heart (and a kind one, too!), so we are all hoping and praying that she makes it through this.  In the meantime, I signed up for a couple of online art journaling courses.  I thought this would be a good way to find the strength, and courage, to get myself through this.  I need to be strong.  It’s so difficult watching someone you love suffer.  What makes it even worse, is the recent loss of my youngest sister, who was a nurse, and was so very helpful to my Mom the last few times she has needed home health care.  She is so deeply missed at this time.

So, given all this, I have been taking an art journaling course over at Journal Girl’s website.  Samie (Samantha Kira Harding) has been such an inspiration to me for a few years now.  She was the person that introduced me to art journaling, through her Youtube videos, and her published articles in Art Journaling magazine (and others).  She is young (in her 20′s), but so wise for her age.  She has been vlogging daily for the past couple of weeks, and it has been so interesting to get to know her through her daily vlogs.  She suffers from fibromyalgia, and has her good and bad days, but, through it all, she has continued to spread her words and inspiration to the internet world.  Thank you so much, Samie, for everything you do!  Back to the art journaling course – she calls it “True to you”, and for only $25.00, I have already learned so much, and been totally inspired to see my life in a way that has helped me to stay positive, and to be so very grateful for it all.  Her first exercise is to take a walk, and to ask yourself some questions, and then search for the answers while enjoying the fresh spring air, and sunshine.  Well, I don’t generally take walks, so I made mine a walk/run, and really enjoyed it.  She suggests that you collect items along the way to add to your art journal, or to take photos.  I took photos all day (not just on my walk).  I tried to find stuff to add to my journal, but really couldn’t find a thing.  Well, I did spot a pretty blue item in the grass, which looked like a piece of tissue paper or the like (from a distance), so I happily ran to pick up my treasure…..but, wait….what is it???  A closer look revealed this:

It’s DOG POO in a bag (I think, anyway….I didn’t open it to find out) – ….*YUCK*.  Why would someone go to the trouble of bringing a little bag along for their dog’s poo, and then leave it behind?  Gross.  So, suffice it to say, I didn’t put it in my art journal.  lol

So, today’s post is about gratitude.  I am so grateful for so many things.  But, rather than list them, I’ll illustrate my gratitude with photographs:

1.  Sunshine and my kitty.

2.  My health.

3.  Beautiful walking paths.

4.  Flowers.

5.  Happy Mail!

Of course, this list is not all-inclusive.  There are so many things that I am so incredibly thankful for!  But, that’s all for today.  I am now working on an art journal spread, inspired by the above piece of  junk mail.  The topic?  Gratitude, of course.

What are you grateful for today?  Leave me a comment, with your gratitude list, and you could win an art journaling kit from moi!  Yeppers….I am giving away some blog candy!  I have not done this in ages, and I thought this would be a good time to give back to all of you who read my blog regularly.  Check back for details…but, you can’t win if you don’t play!

What I’ve Been Doing…

More to come….

Where oh Where have I been?

Hello  my friends!  I have been such a bad blogger lately.  I’ve just had some personal issues that have been taking a lot of my time lately.  The good news is – things are improving, and I hope to get back to making cards real soon!

In the meantime, if you’d like to see what creative endeavour I am persuing at the moment, check out my other blog.

Thanks so much for sticking by me, and for your kind comments and emails.  You have no idea how much they mean to me right now. 

The Humble Pie Bakers have been busy in the kitchen this week, too, AND, we are offering a surprise giveaway this week for ALL participants of this week’s challenge!  Check it out here!

Another Creative Outlet

Hello my friends!  I just wanted to share something non-scrappy today (only because I don’t have anything scrappy to share lol!).  I like to dabble in jewellery and polymer clay, and actually started another blog quite some time ago.  I haven’t posted anything there in AGES!  But, if you want to check it out, here it is!