Once upon a time ...

there was a painting that had 20 layers of ugly on it.

It started out as a hopeful "Flora Bowley" wannabe.

But after a few layers, it was just a hot mess!

So each time I wanted to experiment with something,

I took this canvas out ...

it was sort of my scrap-canvas.

Then one day I wanted to play with some mist.

Since the nozzle was plugged,

I unscrewed the top and 

used the plastic tube to paint.

It was instant love.

I then painted more with acrylics to define the flowers.

I'm not sure I should have done that ..

but I'm calling it done.

All in all, I love it :o)

Have you been to...

French General?

Ever since I stumbled upon its online shop,

I have wanted to visit the real shop.

With its restricted hours in previous years,

it's been hard to make it happen.

But now it is open most days,

and on our recent trip to Disneyland,

I told my hubby that I must stop by on our way home.

The shop is gorgeous, of course!

I wish I made time for photos.

However, I promised my family

I'd be out in 10 minutes!

So no dilly-dallying!

Of course, my Mom and I took longer than 10 minutes ...

We amassed quite a treasure ....

I bought two of the bracelet kits, too.

I'm giddy with excitement!

Learning to make patterns

I love photoshop.

Mainly for editing photographs,

but I have always wanted to learn more of the graphic design of things.

I admire the works of Jessica Rose and Rhonna Farrer.

And I constantly fill up my shopping cart with digital goodies at Two Peas

(even though I most often don't end up buying because truly, I have other expenses ;o)

I admit there are things that I'll never be able to make for myself,

like those beautiful hot air balloons by Rhonna.

However, I have decided that surely I must be able to

create a few basic things for myself!

Last night I started playing a bit.

I started simply.

First I created a chevron pattern.

and continued with variations of colors.

Truly fun.

Then I played with triangles,

and started coloring here and there.

It's addictive.

The last shapes I played with were arrows.

These are standard arrows that come with photoshop.

I played with colors here, too.

I really liked the last variation.

So I decided to play with texture,

and a photo.

I wanted to add embellishments and words,

and I wanted to make a pattern that contains hand drawn images,

but I ran out of time.

Until next time :o)

On wood ...

I promised my son's class to finish painting the toy trunk

that they will donating to their school's auction.

Instead, with every bit of paint left over,

I have been spending more time painting on little wood pieces.

Oops, it's almost time for pick-up,

and there goes the day.

Well, tomorrow is another day, right? :)

On canvas

I really shouldn't be painting.

I have to do taxes,

and dishes,

and laundry,

and getting the guest room ready for my parents.

But while I was cleaning the guest room,

I found my alcohol inks

and various other painting stuff 

that I hadn't played with for a long time.

So I played.

This is a canvas that's been around for at least a year.

It has about 20 layers on it.

I never liked it ...

until today.

I think there's something promising in there.

For now though, back to cleaning. 

*sigh*

chevron

When I first learned about the chevron craze,

I thought ... whatever?!

But then last year, at a painting class in Solvang,

Pam Garrison let us use her chevron stencil.

And now ... I understand.

I'm hooked.

I didn't realize it until I was looking at

my recent art journal entries. 

It looks like, if I don't like the way my journal page is going,

or if I have an empty awkward spot,

chevron (tape/stencil/stamp) can fill it up beautifully.

(this one is still in progress ...

it has been for a while *sigh*)

And I think, I'm starting to love hexagons, too :)

A bit of collage

I thought once Christmas was over,

I could journal more,

paint more,

collage more,

sew more,

and you know,

take a new e-course.

I'll have to do a bit more wishing.

But not all is lost.

I'm about to make birthday decorations for my daughter this weekend.

And I will be painting with 17 Kindergarten boys

for their school's auction.

(I am not sure if this is a *woohoo*

or an *eeeeek!* ... haha)

My daughter will also have her first communion in April,

and she'll have a little party with her best friend.

I am thinking hard about designing

a little activity table for the party.

So for now, quick, little collages will have to do

in my art journal.

I hope you get to do all the creative things you want to do :)

My photo journal

With all the christmas preparations,

school performances, and travel planning late last year,

I lost my flow with my daily photo journal.

What a pity.

I had great hopes for that one.

But I'm not giving up!

Trying to backtrack and start where I left off

felt too overwhelming though.

So I just gave it a reboot in the middle of January.

I must admit,
I'm taking a more casual approach now.
If I skip a day or two, I'm not stressed about it :)

 

In all I probably skipped about 8 weeks,

but all is not lost,

because I'm also working on my travel journal,

which covers about 3 weeks of that time :)

I love journalling!

My wax pastel girl

In the spirit of my word of the year:

finish

I thought, I should show more of my finished projects.

Looking through my blog I realize

I show a lot of work in progress,

and then never show the end results.

So here is my girl

painted with water soluble wax pastels;

then decorated with gel pens and rub ons.

While I wait.

I think I have mentioned this before:

I wait a lot.

5 minutes here. 15 minutes there.

Sometimes half an hour here and there.

I have to say it never bothered me much.

I seem to be able to fill time easily.

Crocheting, knitting, stitching, writing, doodling ...

As with anything, I go through phases.

Sometimes I'll doodle 5 pages per day.

And sometimes there'll be a month of nothing.

I'm on an up turn now.

I can't stop.

This time it is unintended really.

I purchased my pretty notebook

to keep my (and my family's) schedule straight

and to make lists.

I'm a procrastinator.

And I'm aiming to be a better project manager!

However, instead of making lists and checking them twice,

I have been doodling.

It's often my usual style ...

Circles, flowers, scallops ...

(On the right you can see my daughter's list of favorite flowers.

She loves to make entries in my journal, instead of hers :)

Very often as I dare to be different

my doodles end up uninspired.

Sometimes they end up being practice pages.

I often have this urge to draw girls.

I could draw hundreds of them ...

even though they are all starting to look similar.

Then there are times I force myself to learn something new.

On this page the idea was to draw the sky.

Usual things came to me:

birds, clouds, rainbows ...

To challenge myself I learned to draw a flying ship.

On rare occasions I have doodled so much

that new doodles come out all on their own.

I love them so much that they will become 

the things that I will doodle a hundred times more in the future.

Last week I learned I love skinny towers.

Why?

I have no idea.

But I took great pleasure in drawing them.

Maybe it's true.

If you keep mining (or practicing),

eventually you'll find a diamond in the rough :)

Happy practicing!