Art Breaks for Art

I have been busy the last few weeks with art outside of MY art. What I mean is I am a yes girl when it comes to art. "Can you help with salt watercolor backgrounds in three classes?" YES! "Can you chair the school Reflections Program?" YES! "Can I get all of the supplies and art going for Destination Imagination?" YES! "Can I help out with the Art docent stained glass window project?" YES!  While all of these enthusiastic YES-es, or YESI for plural? I have a birthday party to plan, a dog to walk, a house to maintain, lunches to make, groceries to buy and laundry to put away. Oh there's more, but you get the picture and I won't bore you. All I want to do at the end of the day is walk into my art room and throw some paint around. It makes me happy and all of the world is in balance again.

Here are some things that I have been creating the last couple of weeks.

But before that I have an odd pondering that I think in my head often but never say out loud.  I like to draw faces and mostly I draw girls, well I guess all girls really. What I notice is when I look at the pictures of faces others draw, they have resemblances to the artist. When I look at pics I draw I often have big lips, big eyes, long hair with a part on the side..mostly my characteristics.  So my questions then is this. When we draw people, are we naturally inclined to draw the face we've seen the most in our lives? Our own? The more I seek it out to compare this the more I think it's true. Intentional or not..I just notice these odd little pieces.

Moving on.. Art the fun part. Tags. I always have had to use pre cut store bought tags..Why? I don't know, I'm just quirky like that. I was inspired by someone online who had simply made a textured background paper and cut them up into tags. Instant backgrounds to embellish. This was a great technique to fine because I LOVE these tags! I used a cardstock that has a canvas texture to start. Paint and smudges and colors, OH MY! I love having a use for stamps still and have embossed some of them here. Darkened edges and whiteout pen scallops. A few stars, words, and doodles. I think these are my favorite tags yet!

I guess I have been using a lot of inspiration in my work. I saw a DLP page that was orange with blue circles as a repeated element and played off that. Complimentary colors are one of my favorite color combos. After the gelatoed orange variegated background I drew on some white gesso circles for clean bright pops of blue.  There are a bunch of blue colors in those layers with gelatoes and paint. I wanted to shade them but sometimes the Stabilo is just to aggressive for that. I opted for a slight stabilo line with a dark orange, one of the background colors, to make the shading appear light based and not just sketched on by my pencil. I love this page. I like it how it is, I don't think it's done but I'm not sure where I'm going and I'm not asking for directions, so i'll wait :) Some of the best art is just created in the adventure. 

Collage, and my first Mixed Media Whimsical House!!! Seriously. I struggled to make something with a square and triangle forever that didn't look like I drew it in 1st grade.  Again, I think I'm veering away from my purple blue teal phase into the orange blue phase, just look at the last picture.  This was fun. I just created random shapes as I went. I have a thing for wings and I have been so excited to add the sewing element to my projects...thank you $35 Craigslist machine, you were a deal and well worth it. Keep up the good work! I like to use magazine pages to cut out pieces because they have a gloss matte texture instead of flat paper and paint. This page just really got me when I made it. I might almost print and frame it for a wall. 

Sometimes I just need to throw paint. Smear it, glop it on paper, move it around I don't care what it makes, but sometimes I'm just lucky and it turns out like the picture below. I am enjoying dripping my Dylusions spray inks lately as well. My tablet lays sideways as you see here, but I actually like the picture more when I turn it so the circles appear to be large whimsical trees or flowers. Just a different color set but I'm always trying new things. Whatever paint I have left is what I will use. I've been good about NOT buying art supplies. Clearly I have enough to make all of this and then some. I will run out of paints and gesso for sure very soon. Those are a must buy staple of art so I will be excited for that. 

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share my week with you!