Quote: Is Spring Ever Going To Get Here?

I don't know about where you live, but here in Pennsylvania it seems like spring is never coming.  The sun looks right, higher in the sky every day, but it's cold and there doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon.  I am soooo ready for the spring to show itself!

This page I did with the new font stuck in my head and I'm really loving this style of lettering.  (Although my letters are STILL slanting up to the right...ugh!)  I liked the layout and how I applied the colors in my "Sing Your Own Song" piece so I tried that again on this quote but in bright, spring greens (wishful thinking?).  Allen took me to Dick Blick in Philly last weekend and I splurged on a new set of big girl watercolors:  Winsor & Newton Cottman watercolors...YUM!  They're going to take a while to get used to, but I'm enjoying them so far.  I also tried a bit of collage on this piece, it seems like my lettering pages are so "clean and tidy" and my art journals are more messy and loaded with collage.  Some how the two have to merge...

Link Love:

I found this site where artists decorate and 

sell embellished, etc. Moleskine journals...what fun!

Fire Your Inner Critic

Allen heard on the radio the other day an interview with Dr. Dan about inner critics.  It's a short interview, go have a listen.  It was pretty interesting and got me looking around the web for more articles about our "inner critics".  Mine is a nasty little bugger, always showing up when I least expect it and a very unwelcome guest in my head.  Anyway, I read that writing down the evil things your inner critic says will help get those thoughts out of your brain so you can move on.  I made this spread just for the purpose.  On the left I'll be writing down all the nasty little things my inner critic says and hopefully moving on...

This lettering is a new "font" I'm trying to install into my brain.  I really like it...it's playful...easy to letter...but mostly it just feels like me.  It just sort of came to me while on a break at work the other day when I was doodling  You can see my letters are still slanting up to the right a bit (was that my inner critic speaking?) and I'm still working on fixing that.

This page was made with inexpensive watercolors, Micron pens, text pages and scrap paper.

New Art Space

 

About two years ago I gave up art completely for entirely too long...didn't even feel like making birthday cards for people...there was nothing.  Then about a year ago my muse returned full speed and I hit my art room almost every day now.  Life is so much better with art!

My art room was a little cramped though, I had everything in one corner and there just wasn't enough room.  My desk was crowded, my drawers were crowded...I felt wayyy too crowded.  Finally after realizing my muse was here to stay, Allen and I started rearranging my space about a month ago.  To my desk and table, we added another huge desk we weren't using, now I have a "U" shaped space with more than enough room.  We also got a wonderful drawer unit from Ikea, new lights, and the final bit was a chair that was not too tall, not too short.  By moving things around, I'm also now smack dab in front of a window with a view too! I absolutely love my new space!

This page was made with a chair picture from the Ikea directions, inexpensive watercolor, highlighters, and Sharpie water based paint markers.

Quote: Sing Your Own Song

Another bigger quote, this time I added some doodles on the side.  I thought my quotes were starting to look lonely just sitting all by themselves on paper.  My writing still tends to slant up to the right, but now after I pencil the quote, I draw straight pencil lines beneath each line of writing before starting with pen.  Seems like that helps a lot.  I really didn't like the lettering when I finished it, but once I added the doodles and the color, it really started to take on a life of it's own.

I love this quote because I think it speaks to all of us.  There is always someone we think who is going to be a "better" artist than we are, but we all have our songs to sing!

This piece was done on watercolor paper with Micron pens, inexpensive watercolors and Pantone markers.

Link Love:

Check out this amazing artists book "Patience" by Randi Parkhurst.

Trying a Longer Quote

The other day I posted that Allen found a quote he thought I'd like to letter.  He knows me...I always make things out to be bigger than they actually are when I look back at them so this quote is really a good one for me.   I've been a bit hesitant to letter large quotes...so much lining up to do between each line of text and so many letters to get the same size.  But I finally tried this quote and I was pretty happy how it turned out.  I am noticing my letters slant up to the right though...going to have to work on that. I did this piece on card stock...really have to start breaking out the watercolor paper and splurging a bit!

This quote was lettered with Micron Pens, painted with inexpensive watercolor and the outline was created with masking fluid.

Run, don't walk to Michael's for these fun finds

I went to Michael's yesterday just to wander around and see what was new.  There are a ton of things on clearance... looks like they're revamping the store.  At any rate in the loose scrapbook paper section, I found these two papers.  They were marked down to $0.50 but when I went to check out they were actually only $0.14 each!  Wow!  I bought every sheet they had.  These are both cut out designs, the red one on the left is cardstock, the blue one on the right is thin plastic.  I've been having a blast with these, using them as stencils.

For this page I used the red paper stencil.  The background is Caran d'Ache crayons mixed with gesso.  I stenciled over the paper stencil with white paint. The outlines here and there are made with Caran d'Ache drawn around some of the spots and blended with water and a brush.  I've been in kind of a negative mood lately so I wrote cheerful words in some of the sections.

On these two pages I used the letter stencil with acrylic paint.  This was done in an altered book and I let the text show through.

Here is the finished page of my altered book.  I colored the pages with pale yellow watercolor and then stamped swirls in black.  I then added ink circles with a bottle cap top.  To the center piece I added 4 tags again with positive words to get me thinking in a more positive manner. 

This is just what I did with these stencil papers today, I know I'm going to continue to have fun with these  and how can you go wrong for only $0.14 each!  Eventually when the papers are all gunked up with different colors of ink and paint I think the actual papers will end up in my journals.  So run, don't walk to Michael's to get these papers.  Maybe your store will even have more choices than just these two!

Domino's Aspirin Therapy

Our rabbit Domino has just been in a funk lately.  We weren't really sure what was going on so we took him to the vet.  She found nothing wrong, but we've been watching him.  We finally think we realize the problem... the little guy has arthritis.  We started him on a regimen of aspirin twice a day and so far it seems to be working...he's a LOT more frisky...Allen nicknamed him the "terrorist" because he's terrorizing our house again, running around, stretching to full length and just having a lot of fun.  We are so happy to see him feeling back to his old self!

Even though I have a degree in art, I'm not hugely comfortable drawing and drawing Domino was a challenge, but I think this sketch turned out pretty good.  It looks just like him with his one ear up and one ear down...he's a unicorn rabbit!

This page was made with watercolor on Fabriano Artistico paper with handmade stamps created with craft foam and wine corks.  I used StazOn white ink on black paper, black gel pens and a lot of love.  This sketch of Domino was done for The Sketchbook Challenge February challenge, but I never entered it for their highly prized theme.

Quotes on Animals

The other day I stumbled upon Lisa Holtzman's blog and not only is her calligraphy simply amazing, she letters a lot of really beautiful and fun quotes.   Lisa made an accordion book with these two quotes and I just fell in love with them.  Being the Mom of a very spoiled rabbit, both of these quotes really spoke to me.  Domino, our rabbit, has been in a funk lately and only by "listening to him" do we think we've figured out the problem...we think it's arthritis and have started him on aspirin therapy, hopefully it works!

These quotes were lettered with Micron pens on Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper.  The borders were made with a dip pen and masking fluid.  I tried two different lettering styles: on the left I used serifs on the letters, on the right I tried to use all lower case letters but with a consistent height.  These two pages will eventually find themselves a home in one of my art journals.

Quote for a new blogger

Allen heard of a quote from Mark Twain he thought I might want to letter the other day.  While I was looking it up I found this one which was shorter and quick to letter.  I put it in my lettering doodle book where I store my ideas but I thought it turned out pretty good for a quickie.  I also thought it was a great quote for a new blogger like me with not a lot of visitors yet.  Soon I'll tackle the larger quote Allen found.  This quote was lettered with Micron pens, watercolor and watercolor pencil on inexpensive card stock.