January Painting A Day Challenge - Day 1

I decided to join Leslie Saeta in her 30 Paintings In 30 Days January Challenge.

Artisan Water Mixable Oil on 6"x6" canvas board.

My first painting is done in water mixable oil. This was my first try at oil painting since 2007. And I only did it once back then. The paints I used are called Windsor Newton Artisan Oils. You don't need those scary solvents for these. I took the photo with my cell phone and didn't edit except to crop a little bit. I'm happy with how it turned out, but I would like to work on making my paintings looser.

Thanks for stopping by,
Ri <3 p="">

Mixed Media Portrait WIP

Mixed Media Portrait Work In Progress - Golden & Liquitex acrylic paint, graphite, gel pen (so far)

Joel and I visited a great new art supply store in Eustis called Drawn To Art. It's in a beautiful new building downtown.



Across the brick paved street is a new park where the old hospital used to be. I snapped a photo of a sign that leads me to believe this could be a fun place to play!



Once we went into the store we met the owner, who was extremely friendly and down to earth. He didn't have an item I was looking for, so he offered me a few things to try instead. I left there with 6 4x4 canvas boards, a white gel pen, and some titanium white gouache paint, free of charge! I did offer to pay for everything, but he insisted. I plan to go back and offer to pay again. I'm one of those odd people that doesn't feel right about taking free stuff. I love bargaining, but free feels like stealing. I do love local service like that, though. He knows how to make a lifelong customer. Anyway, so as you can see I gave the wood blocks a bit of a break today in favor of one of those mini canvases, courtesy of Drawn To Art. Right now she looks like she's sucking in her cheeks. She'll get an anti-duckface surgery tomorrow.

PS. I'm still on my September creative streak!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Test Video and Quicky Journal Page

Joel bought me a new HD video camera for our anniversary (June 19th = 12 yrs) and gave it to me early. It has a Time Lapse function on it for when I want to make art and video the process. I decided to test it out with a quicky Art Journal page to see what settings I should use. For this video I set the frame rate to every 2 seconds. I think next time I'll try every second to slow things down a bit. I know the journal page isn't anything to write home about, but it served its purpose and made a little statement for me at the same time.

Art Supplies used: Liquitex White Gesso, Resist Crayon, Cheapo Watercolors, and Kimberly 9xxB Pencil on Strathmore Mixed Media Journal.

Journal Page 5-29-2011: Improvise!

Supplies: Strathmore Mixed Media Journal, Golden and Liquitex acrylic paints, Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, Faber Castell Pen in black, Sequin Waste, torn book pages, & Adirondack Color Wash spray ink.

It says: "Life doesn't always turn out how you plan. Your happiness depends on how you IMPROVISE!"

I have to remind myself of that sometimes.

This Love

I don't know why I didn't blog about this before, but a while back I colored a frame of a video for "Drawing This Love". You go to the site, put in your information, and they give you a frame to color. You can use whatever style or medium you'd like as long as the background color is blue. It doesn't have to be plain blue, as you'll see from the video. Here's their video with some colored frames added. My frame is number 698. You can pause it when it gets to that number to see mine.

Really cool idea for a video, right?

For my frame I used Caran d'ache Neocolor II Water Soluble Crayons. Those are my favorite art supplies. They're so fun to play with.

Caribbean Ladies & Blog Decision

First let's talk about the blog decision. I have decided to close my personal blog and just consolidate the Art and Personal blogs into one. This one. So get ready to start seeing both on this blog. It's a way to simplify and a way to save money. My Typepad blog was costing me around $70-80 a year. Why pay for that when Blogger is free and easier to use? I haven't decided whether I'll keep it the same name or come up with something new. I'll probably stick with the same as I like it and have graphics already made and in use for it. I'm sad to see the other one go. It was my first one and I kept it for 6 years or so. I like the look of it and have more posts there than any of my other blogs. Other blogs being this one, my Tumblr one (which I never update) and The Doxie Blog. I update the Doxie one the most as I tend to take millions of photos of my fur children and it's easy to just upload a pic and be done with it.

I know I haven't been showing off any art recently. I think the last thing

I showed was my Sketchbook Project back in mid January. I haven't been making art daily, but I do still create. I play in my art journal, do exercises in books, doodle while I'm in bed, and constantly keep it on my mind. I just haven't felt especially chatty about it. I've also been using my big girl camera a lot more, so check out my Flickr link on the sidebar if you're interested.

I came across a local artist at an Art Stroll in downtown Mt Dora

recently. Her name is Jane Slivka. I googled her and found a web site where she sells an instructional DVD. So this past week I've been working on that. I've made a few Caribbean Ladies in her style so far. Next I plan to try her way of painting flowers. So here are the ladies.

These ladies were painted in my new Mixed Media Strathmore Visual Journal. I think it's my new favorite journal. This one's around 5x8". I'd like to get the larger sized one next time.

I've been doing a little shopping recently, too. I bought lots of new paints and painting stuff. Here's one of the things I picked up. It's called a Masterson Sta-Wet Pallet.

I found it in the clearance bin at Michaels for $4. It's pretty nice not to have to worry about paint drying out. I also learned recently if you put pennies in the bottom of it that will keep it from getting moldy. Neat trick, right?

x's & o's,

Rischa

Artful Spaces; DIY wall art for the home

Look what finally came in the mail today!

Artful Spaces!!

Remember me talking about wanting this book in THIS & THIS post? The author of the book contacted me via my blog comments and let me know it was available on Amazon.com for the United States as a pre-order, I posted about it, and Mom sent me a message saying for me to not order it so she could get it for me. Sooooo.....here it is!!

I thumbed through it and I'm loving it so far. It has some great ideas to get you inspired!! I won't give any of them away...I'm thinking that would be a copyright issue. (notice the blurred words in the photo above?) I can say that anyone would be able to produce cool artwork with the help of this book's prompts. I'm super excited to get started on it! Thanks, Mom!!

Digital Art & New Art Space

Joel and I have been busy this weekend working to get the garage cleared out. We're making a space for me in the garage to work on my art projects. I also built my light box, but I haven't got it set up to take photos quite yet. Tomorrow I will find a spot for it and take some photos. In two weeks I'll have a new work bench, too! Yay! Joel found a man that builds them to your specs for a very decent price. Here's what they look like:

Mine will be 8' wide, 2' deep, and 3' tall. I can't wait to get it!! The man that builds them is 88 years young. He said, "It keeps him off the streets". lol He had a really cute ad. Apparently he sold 4 of them yesterday. He must be pretty popular. Once I get this I will use this for most everything, but still use my old desk for sewing. It is a sewing desk, after all, so I might as well use it. I love that little desk anyway. I've always thought it was pretty since I first saw it at a yard sale. It's even better with paint splatters on it. More personality!

I've been quite busy, as I mentioned, so I haven't painted or made any dolls over the weekend. I did have a little Photoshop playtime last night, though. I thought I'd see what my latest painting would look like with a few filters applied. So here are some of the standard Photoshop filters used on my painting photo:

Dark Strokes Crackelure

Sumi-E...and my favorite, Stained Glass...

There you have it; Digital Art Play

Oh, I also picked up a few supplies at Wally World today. Just a few things like craft paint, a miter saw, an exacto knife, and another watercolor paper pad. Oh, and the white muslin for the light box. It was on sale for about a buck a yard!! Beat that!

Creative Textures

I have tons of stuff to post about, but never enough time or motivation. I'm making this a short one because I really should be in bed already.

I joined a new class called Creative Textures by Jane DesRosier and Maureen White. I really enjoyed Jane's last class and always enjoy all of her YouTube Videos. Not to mention she has become a friend of mine. So I thought I would invite you all to join this new class with me. You WON'T regret it! Click the image below...

Michaels Loot

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I would post a photo of a Michaels purchase from a few weeks ago. They were having a sale. They're having a sale now, too. I went a few days ago with Mom, but I've already put up that purchase. I love Michaels!!

Here are some Michaels Coupons for you. Also, if you're signed up for their newsletter you'd get a 50% off coupon valid for this week on one regularly priced item. I got it and I may just have to take it with me shopping tomorrow. Woohoo!