Art Every Day Month – Day 23

Whew, finally!  I finished up with the Jenniebelli challenge (7 art journal pages in 7 days) one day early.  It turns out there was almost nothing left to do after I selected my sixth and final technique, which was Doodling with Pens/Markers.  So doodle I did and shading I did and fix-up I did and journal I did (with those self-same pens and markers.)

And here are my finished seven art journal pages.  Over-done, under-done, but done!

If I had gone any further on this one it would have definitely been overdone.  But I like it as it is.  I like the colors, the shapes, the doodles, and the decorative napkins framing the figure.

This one makes me smile. 🙂   I did a lot of circle doodles in the ‘tunnels’ around the open stenciled areas and I doodled the words “Dinner and a movie with you tonight” in the open white areas of the stencil.  I also journaled a bit on the dog next to the menu.  Mission accomplished.

This one is way over-done in my opinion.  I just didn’t know what to do with it.  I stamped the quote in step 2, I think, and now it seems dwarfed by everything around it. The message gets lost because the eye really doesn’t have a place to land.  I did have fun doodling and playing with all of those circles, though.

Well, this might just be my favorite, after all is said and done.  I did very little doodling on it since it was so busy to begin with. I shaded everything and then I merely journaled in very tiny hand-lettering along the tops of the low building.  Everything is crooked but I love the art-deco colors and shapes and feel to this.

This one had been my favorite during Steps 3 and 4 (collage and paint) but  it lost some of its allure for me when I added the ephemera to it.  I do like the flower doodles on the background, the white journaling in her hair, and the words “Life is a Journey” but I do not care for the Destination ephemera at the top or the hand-written words at the bottom.  I am very proud of this one though since drawing (and especially painting) faces has been my nemesis for years.

What can I say about this?  I like it best during Steps 1 and 2 (focal image and stencils).  Everything I added after that made it look silly or too busy or something.  This is now my least favorite.  There was no room left on this after doodling to do any journaling but that’s okay since I wouldn’t know what the message for this page would be.  The word right below her face reads “INNOCENT” but is sloppy and unreadable.  I give this one to the Universe to reflect back the challenges faced in this challenge.

At one point in this page, I thought I had ruined it.  But I rather like it now.  The big orange/mauve snowflakes and that shabby ‘fence’ and the words ‘Deer Santa,” now make me smile.

Whoa, was this challenge challenging!  It opened my eyes a little.  I can (DID) successfully do things in an order I would not normally do.  It was difficult for me not knowing where the page would have to go in order to fulfill the current required product/technique.  I had to just let go and let the page speak for itself.  Art is all about intuition and letting go, I think, so in that I was successful.

Would I do this again?  I don’t know, but probably not any time soon.  I got rather sick of those pages after 6 days so I lopped a whole day off the challenge.  But it’s nice to know that it’s okay to break larger projects down into baby steps.  I can do that. 🙂

I hope you found some creativity in your day too.  Things will get crazy from here on out so I (and you?) will keep my art down to easy things from here on out during this month.  Thanks for stopping by!

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Art Every Day Month – Day 21

Wow!  This month is flying by!  It will be New Years before we know it.  Yikes!!

Today I got back to the Jennibellie challenge (7 art journal pages in 7 days, each day a different technique or product).  I am on day 4 and this is the technique I blindly drew from the box on my desk:

Finally!  I’m glad I got paint/ink sprays this time because the remaining two techniques (ephemera and pens/doodling) don’t make sense before the pages are painted.  That’s the good news.  That bad news is that at least one page really didn’t lend it self to either painting or ink sprays but I did my best.  Here are my seven pages after I applied paint or ink:

Oops!  I guess I forgot to crop this one.  I water-colored this using Ranger Distress stains instead of watercolor paint.  I really loved this after Day 2 when it was all black and white but now I’m not so sure.   We’ll see where this ends up after Day 7.

This page really didn’t call for paint and I think I screwed it up trying to add gesso and some blue paint around the face/braids.  I may have to fix this in the final step.  I did change her lip color to be consistent with the colors on the page and painted the whites of her eyes to stand out more.  I liked this page the best after Day 2 and now I like it the least.

I’m really liking this one right now.  I water-colored the dog and some of the stencil pieces with autumn-toned Ranger Distress stains.  I have no idea where I will go from here on this but I love it as it is.

I used water color paint on this for the towel, her hair and a yellow wash around the body.  I wanted the body to remain untouched because I might doodle on it or add words later.  I love the soothing but bright colors on this page.

On this page I started with the sky and decided to use a complementary color to the art-deco blue washi tape that was on the page.  Watered down orange/yellow acrylics seemed to make it stand out and is consistent with a fiery sunset skyline.  I do wish, however, that I had not highlighted the swirls in orange. The buildings I did using cheap watercolors in pastel colors, much like what you would see on the art-deco buildings in Miami along South Beach.  I still have to meld that bright sky and those pastel buildings.

I love how this turned out with her bright hair and pale eyes & skin.  I used soft body acrylics and gesso for her face/hair/lips/eyes.  I gessoed the rest of the page, over the collage/stamps, then sprayed Prima Color Bloom spray in Summer Sky over that.  It was a coincidence that it matched her eyes.

I couldn’t figure out what to paint on this page so I used a guache watercolor the same color as the ball to outline the feathers, the stamped words and all of the circles.  I also touched up the areas on the girl’s body that had torn when I glued them with a glue stick and tried to make the tears less noticeable.  I painted the sky blue with an acrylic wash and then went over it with gesso to tone it down some.  I think I will end up liking this page after I finish it up on Day 7.  Right now I’m a little ho-hum about it.

I spent a lot more time on these pages today than for any other step and I’m rather ambivalent about them right now.  Most are in that in-between ugly stage.  I’m hoping the next three days will fix them up and I’ll like them all in the end.

I am glad I created and I hope you got to be creative today too!