Creative Heart Monday - Caribbean Queen Mixed Media Painting

Happy Creative Heart Monday!!

Today's painting turned out a little different than I had planned.  My girl was going to have teal hair. I added a little black around the face to add some drama....it looked like black hair and I liked it, so I went with it.  It just goes to show that you never know what might happen when your painting.  You have to keep an open mind!!

Supplies

11" X 14" Canson Watercolor Paper

Matte Mod Podge or Gel Medium

Stabilo Pencil

Acrylic Paint

White Paint Pen by Painters

Napkins

Washi Tape

Ranger Chequered Dots Stencil

I'm not sure who makes the other stencil

                                          

Have a great Monday and a wonderful week.

PEACE!

Cyndi

Those Damn Chickens!

Everyone knows that I love my chickens.  We have 3 beautiful hens, Zebra, Molly, and Rhodey.  They have a large coop and we let them out every afternoon to walk around the yard eating bugs and taking their "dirt baths".

Today, I cooked some grits for them to have, along with their regular chicken feed.  They love grits so I thought it would be a nice treat for them.  I headed out to the coop, opened the door and things just went downhill from there.

All three of them were siting at the top of the coop on these rafter-like boards.   When I opened the door, all three of them flew right at my face.  I hit the ground fast and they just missed me.  They actually had the nerve to look at me like I had scared THEM.  But, they commenced their bug-hunting and I sat down to watch them and draw a little.  Here are some rough sketches.  I've never drawn a chicken before.  It's obvious that I need to work on it.

After about an hour, it was time to get them back in the coop.  Usually, I just get behind them, waving my arms, saying "BACK IN THE COOP" in a very low, firm voice.  But no........today, they were not going back into the coop.  Those chickens ran around like little maniacs.  They would get near the door, acting like they were going in, only to take a sharp left and start running.  Now usually anytime I see my chickens running from behind I crack up.  There is nothing funnier than to see a chicken run.  But today - not so funny.  I tried everything.  I was chasing them while waving long sticks in both hands.  I started building barricades in an attempt to block them.

While I was frantically trying to round them up, it reminded me of something my husband told me a long time ago.  He said that Mike Tyson used to train by chasing chickens and trying to catch them.  I thought that was just horrible.  How mean, chasing poor little chickens.  Well let me tell you.  Chickens can hold  their own.  It's not that they are really that fast.  It's that they can cut left, right, and spin around better than any NFL running back.

The sun was starting to go down and I was almost in tears.  I can't just leave them out because I am way to fearful and neurotic for that.  I would have visions all night of them being grabbed by hawks, mauled by foxes, or raped by a roving band of roosters from the wrong side of the tracks.  I had to keep going.  I couldn't give up.  FINALLY, I got them in.  After closing the coop door and walking toward my house, I swear that their cackling sounded a lot like laughter.

Here's a couple things that I have worked on:

This is the corner of my bedroom.  The black thing on the wall above the TV is a stand that the old TV used to sit on.  My husband really should remove it!

I'm trying to get used to the Prismacolor pencils. (I also can't seem to get my eyes at the same height)

I was in a little crafty mood and covered my clipboard with paper and washi tapes.

I was practicing shading faces with the colored pencils (from Suzi Blu's Mixed Media Girls)

Whats there to say - a girl in a turtleneck.

Another girl face.  I like the shading in this one.

Visual Journal Pages

Here are my two latest visual journal pages.

On the first one, I did a little gel transfer action.  First, I painted my background with some acrylic paints.  I used some stencils that I picked up at Michaels.  I made the stencil for the "rays" myself, by drawing it on some cardstock and cutting it out with a craft knife.  The palm tree started out as a picture in a book.  I made a copy, enlarging it a little bit.

Then I, liberally, brushed matte gel medium on the front of the copy and on the journal page in the area where I was going to place the transfer.  I laid the palm tree copy, face down, on the journal page, using a credit card to flatten out the palm tree and remove any air bubbles.  You want to make sure that the picture is touching the paper everywhere.  If there is an air bubble, the ink won't transfer in that area.  I waited a few hours for everything to completely dry.  I suppose that I could have hit it with a hair dryer or heat tool, but I wasn't in a hurry.  After it was dry, I spritzed water on it from a spray bottle and started rubbing the paper off.  You have to keep spritzing and rubbing until it's completely removed.  Voila!!  I added some rubber stamping and washi tape and here it is.

On the next one, I did some Zentangling. If you are not familiar with Zentangle, here's a link.

I started out by writing the words to the Rolling Stones song  "She's like a Rainbow".  Then I started zentangling.  I painted some of the areas with paintbrush markers.  I used a Pigma Micron 05 Archival Ink pen to do the zentangles.

                                                                      





Thanks for reading!

I love my Art Supplies!

I've already admitted to being a procrastinator.  Well, I'm also an art supply hoarder.

Today is my anniversary.  Yes, we got married on Valentine's day 23 years ago so that it would be easy to remember our anniversary.  So much for that idea.

I walked downstairs this morning to find 2 cards on the kitchen counter from my husband - one anniversary, one Valentine's Day.  After the first couple years of marriage we just stopped making a big deal out of holidays.  We don't buy each other Christmas presents or birthday presents.  It's not because we are cheap or don't care about each other.  Presents just are not important to us.  This is one of the things that makes our marriage work - we are pretty laid back people.  But this morning I walk down and see those CARDS.  On one hand, I was very happy and touched.  On the other hand, "CRAP! I didn't get him a card!"  I better run into town and pick up a card.

Wait a minute!!!!!  I'm a crafter (I'm an artist in my own mind).  Why would I ever buy a card.  So here is my 5 minute card.  The great thing is that my husband doesn't know that there's such a thing as washi tape or little plastic letters that come with glitter already on them.  He will think that I spent at least 20 minutes on it!  I would have pulled out the ink sprays, embossing powder, and stencils but I was afraid he would show up before I finished.

And, I can tell this story because he never reads my blog.

I wonder if he will notice that I didn't put the first "r" in "anniversary"

Old Love Letters

Here's my latest journal page artwork.

Years ago, my grandfather bought an old trunk at an antique car show.  When he brought it home, he discovered that there were bags of love letters inside, dating back to 1918.  He wasn't interested in the letters (he actually tossed lots of them), but my mother saved them because she wanted to read them someday.

About a year ago, my mother gave the letters to me and they have been sitting in my closet waiting to be read (remember... I'm a procrastinator!!)

I finally started reading them.  I've only gotten about 1/10 of the way through the bag.  I thought it would be fun to  tell the story of these two lovers on this blog as I dig through their words to each other.

I haven't even tried to google these letter-writers yet.  So this will be the beginning of a project to find out more about these young lovers.  Stay tuned for the first installment of Everett and Peggy: Love Letters.

2/7/2013 Visual Journal Page Close-up

Letter to Everett Evans written on stationary from the Hotel Adelphia

Postmark February 4, 1918