Mask explanation and (unrelated) my new shelf

I confused a friend in my last post when I mentioned that I stamped something using a mask. Sometimes when focused on what you are thinking and talking about, you forget that a word or phrase may have multiple meanings. In this case, "using a mask" was a technique, not something I was wearing like a painter would do when spray painting. I chose this video from Stamp With Brenda to provide a short explanation:

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One of my Christmas gifts this year was a picture ledge shelf.  My son recently hung that for me and I am very happy with it. Over many years of crafting and painting, I have a lot of art that I occasionally like to have out but don't want to dedicate a space for it long term. The ledge on the front of this shelf means framed items can lean there and small things can perch there without falling off.

This red wall is in my office. The opposite wall is all bookcase, corner desk, lower cabinets and all the paraphernalia that goes with a computer and printers, etc. Since the room was painted two years ago, this wall has been blank.

After hanging the shelf, I placed this series of 4 watercolors that were done three years ago as class assignments.  The four frames fit and since I don't plan to typically have four aligned this way, other arrangements will surely sit well. Having a mix of sizes and some frames being in portrait orientation rather than landscape will be more interesting.

This first painting, Amaryllis, should be portrait anyway, in my opinion, because of the bulb on the right. Why I titled and signed it where I did is beyond me.  The other subjects are Dogwood, Trillium, and Tulips.

I am pleased with what I learned from doing these paintings but I've discovered that I prefer making cards and smaller bits of art. If you make a lot of art, what do you do with it? Where do you put it? If I give someone a painting, they probably feel obligated to display it. I don't want that. If I give a card, my only hope is that they enjoy it while reading it. Whether they keep it for a day or a year is up to them. A card doesn't present that possible obligation so we both win.

Socks, art, manicures and accomplishments

First, another pair of socks. Will Michigan ever be warm enough for sandals? Today looks hopeful. Here is my latest pair off the needles, just a basic sock pattern done with some fun, hard working yarn. Why is the yarn hard working? It did all the patterning for me.

While on hiatus from the monthly art classes that I have loved (the previous shop is no longer hosting so the instructor is looking for a new location), I am taking an online class called Doodle Art and Lettering. I'm only a few lessons into this, too soon to say yay or nay, but this lesson was fun. It is about attitude and freeing yourself, thinking like a second grader who knows a few skills but isn't intimidated by criticism yet.

I might learn to love art journaling after all!

Manicures.....oy!  Back when I was dating and first married, my nails were nearly always done. Priorities changed and keeping them trimmed was the best I could hope for during the next segment of my life. Acrylic nails hit the scene and while I didn't jump on that early, I did ride that band wagon for three years. My nails were never bad (weak or broken), I just loved having polish actually stay on! When I gave that up, it took a year to get my nails back to normal.

Two weeks ago I had a gel manicure, my first. I didn't like that the polish began so far from my cuticles but was told that this had to be to prevent lifting. I didn't think my sister-in-law's manicure looked like this (different salon) but she wasn't there to compare and maybe the bold color made this more noticeable. The polish should have lasted 2-3 weeks.  On day 8 the chipping began. How did this happen? Getting dressed!

The technician did offer to repair the chipped nails (top photo) but I was not happy with how any of it looked and paid the soak off fee to have this removed. A few days ago I bought Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel and applied two coats of color and two of top coat as shown in the bottom photo.

What looks like smudges on my fingers in the bottom photo is from markers used in the art lesson, not polish. So far, so good, but it has only been a few days. I don't use my nails as pry bars or screwdrivers, but I don't exactly baby my hands and never wear protective gloves. The Sally Hansen product doesn't require a heat lamp to set and should come off as easily as other common polish. If I get 7-10 days without chipping on this, I will be happy. Polish is under $8 per bottle versus $30 for a manicure before tip and $6 for a soak off.

Last but certainly not least, what is the accomplishment mentioned in the title? I have been going to Weight Watchers for one year and am currently down 69.2 pounds. I don't think it would be wrong to say I'm proud of this, but more than pride, I am just so happy!! Click here to see my Then and Now photos.

The Painting with a Twist just got twisted again

The painting done at Painting With a Twist, shown here , just didn't appeal to me. Since I had to get out my acrylic paints for something else a few days ago, I covered the canvas with white paint. Multiple layers of it. Some of the image still showed through when back let, but I stopped painting white and got out the yellows to begin a sunflower.

I'm much nicer to myself than I used to be. I'm not crazy about this, but I don't hate it. I think I will hang it upstairs.

Propped against a window in the photo on the right, you can still some of the original image (left).

On a wall though, it will be fine. And if not, it will come down and be replaced by something else.

Whether we are improving our craft, our health, a relationship, or anything else, we don't need perfection, we just need improvement. Improvement comes with practice.

I am having much more fun since I learned to be kind to myself.

Zenish Doodling on Note Cards

It is my understanding that "Zentangle" is a copyrighted term and since I don't want to get into trouble, I am not using that term here.

I guess I should not say that I wiped my nose with a Kleenex, used Windex to clean the mirror or added Hershey's to my grandson's milk without verifying those are the brands I've actually used. I'm not being a smart aleck (maybe just a little?) but we all tend to use a brand name for a generic object or process without meaning any harm, don't we?

Is it ironic that after these comments, today I have added watermarks to the photos I am sharing? I normally don't do this because I don't think anyone is going to take a photo I've shared and earn a zillion dollars off of it. I don't think anyone is going to earn a quarter of a zillion off today's photos, but they aren't for me so I am protecting them, somewhat. I think. I hope.

Enough banter, here we go. These are samples for note cards that will be blank inside. Originally I was going to leave all text off of them but that changed with the last few.

I began with this one. The shape of the flowers and leaves is from a template I've had for years. Remember when many people stenciled a border on their walls? I liked this but felt I went too far with the leaves, that their bold design overpowered the flowers. That lead to me adding color between the petals and I just wasn't thrilled.

 I started over with the same image but kept the doodling simpler.

The original thought was that the design should be a blank canvas to the sentiment that would be written inside. Congratulations! Happy Birthday! or Deepest Sympathy don't really conjure the same images in my mind, plus is the recipient male or female? A young adult or old ? (Note: old is always 15 years older than my current age) I really needed to keep things simple. 

After being hunched over paper drawing wavy lines and squiggles, I decided to add a few words.

Still not sure of this next one. What I had in mind didn't come out on paper. Sometimes that is a happy accident. This isn't really an accident, just a weird detour that I've left as is.

I am tempted to color in all of the circles in the next one, but I am presenting these as a coordinated set so everything stayed black and white. 

And finally, the last one which was really fun to draw. 

The circles were done in pencil with templates and were no longer close to perfect after going over them with the a Copic multiliner pen. If the hand made image isn't what someone is interested in, a computer program would do a better job. 

I am going to do more of these doodles and add color, probably lots of color, for my own use. My husband is relieved that I don't work well on vertical surfaces, therefore I won't do this directly on a wall anywhere. Oh, to be younger and have him gone for 8 hours....

For the record, he appreciates my art, he just doesn't like when he has to paint over it. Have I mentioned the tree I painted in the bathroom in work that had 3D birdhouses hanging from it? It takes a lot of white paint to cover a brown trunk and green leaves....who knew?  

Art classes

Once a month I take classes with an instructor at Mary Maxim's  in Port Huron, Michigan. One class always features Copic Markers techniques but the second might be a combination of marker and colored pencils or something entirely different but equally wonderful.

Yesterday was class day. I eagerly anticipated going but woke up at 2:30 quite ill from who knows what. By 9 a.m. when I should have been leaving the house, I knew I wasn't going to be able to attend. I didn't truly feel normal again until this morning, 30 hours after that rude awakening. Sulking doesn't do any good and certainly isn't attractive, but unpacking my supplies this morning was not unlike unpacking for a vacation that didn't happen.

Enough with the negative, how about I show you why I enjoy these classes?

Most of the Copic classes begin with stamped images. This first one uses Mo Manning's "Ragged Angel". It isn't clear in the photo but we used two different papers so that we could see how paper influences our results.

These stamps are Penny Black's "Love at X-mas". I enjoyed working with silver and gold gel pens and love how shading the furry areas before adding the fuzzy fibers with white pen make the fur look three dimensional.

The next two are Penny Black and Mo Manning's "Little Elf Finn" and "Little Elf Mim". The lessons on matte metal finishes is something I've used many times since that class.

I am a huge fan of Art Impressions stamps. This one is called "Stayin' Afloat". Objectives included variations in skin color and how to make the water look like pool water.

Sorry about the poor photography in the next two. The first is under glass and the second is washed out a bit due to flash. The tree trunks were cut from Memory Box's "Grand Willow Tree" die. The tree on the left has various Copic marker color applied after Birch like stripes were applied with Frisket, a product known as resist which blocks color. The 3-D blossoms in that tree were paper punched and shaped a bit before attached with adhesive dots. The tree on the right is the same free form foliage shape, but this time the Frisket was painted on to resemble leaves before bands of Copic colors were added and blended. The tree trunk has minor shading added. 

 

Here is a close up of the shaded foliage that I used in another tree.

Again, I apologize for the photo. I framed it before I thought to take a picture. The trees were cut from Memory Box's "Tall Birch" die and this time we used Tombow Markers instead of Copics. Tombows are water based. We applied some marker color, then added water to paint our squiggles or shade or geometric designs. 

Last month we did more doodling and coloring with Tombows on this three dimensional star. Such fun!

Sometimes the subject of our classes isn't one I would choose, this being an example. The girl is Prima Doll's "Lorena" and the butterfly wings are Memory Box "Butterflies". The photo on the left is a suggested finished project from class. On the right is what I did and photographed against black paper. I later attached it to black canvas and added some of the small butterflies seen on the ribbon on the right, swirling (swarming?) from lower left to upper right. What I did enjoy from this class was learning to use glitter (using Modge Podge) as an accent without over powering a project, and that you can add dimension to a stamped object on a dark print paper with gray markers and white pencil. 

Another example of unexpected paper was this class done on brown Kraft paper. Copics were used before Primacolor pencils added highlights. Stamped images are from Penny Black's "Garden Friends" collection. 

Here is another example of a subject I wouldn't have chosen in this mixed media piece. The birds are Genine Zlatkis for Magenta's "Tweeter". The bird that we colored in class was the blue one. Blue dye was used to stamp the image and also to age the post card a bit. Once home, I decided to color a second bird in shades of red and yellow, not thinking of the image being in blue. Oops! That wing got a bit muddy and I used many more colors than planned to come up with something I could live with. Mistakes make for good lessons though. I like the shading on the pods which I think are Chinese lanterns.  I don't recall the maker of the stamps used on the post card, they were borrowed. 

Last in this description of some of the classes is this one featuring a retired stamp from Stampin Up called "Manhattan Rose".  We used a variety of Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils on this 8.5x11 inch page. I think I spent ten hours working on this. That probably sounds ridiculous if you don't enjoy coloring, but it was both relaxing and fun for me. 

I thought for a while about what I should title this post. Some wouldn't consider coloring stamped images with markers and pencils art, and sometimes I would agree with them. I have attended some classes that were very disappointing. There are teachers in all walks of the craft world who are talented in their chosen field but can't teach worth a darn. Occasionally you encounter one who doesn't seem to have much talent in either their craft or the art of instructing.

I would happily give the name of the instructor that has taught me so much, but I haven't asked her permission to do so. If you live near Mary Maxim's in Port Huron and are interested, call the retail store (not the online store number) and ask about their monthly Saturday Copic class.