Updating Linky Parties

I haven't been doing much art to link to the linky parties (see CURRENT LINKY PARTIES above) and when I decided to get back to that this weekend, I realized I needed to overhaul that page. Some of the links were no longer working and some had changed their URLs. And then there were a few new ones I have found recently and never added.

If any of my dear readers happen to know of any other sites that do arty linky parties (ok I know it is a lame name but that is what they are called!), please let me know, either below in the comments or email me.

In the meantime, time to do more fun stuff and get my inner artist (or some would say, child) on and go to town! Since one of my CDFs is VIBRANT, seems like it is time to use some COLOR! Now where is that gelli plate...?

WOYWW #205

I have been working on some painting and art journaling the last few days so my work table is scattered with those things. Well, it is rather neat now because I put a ton of stuff away this last weekend so I could actually GET to the table!

And of course my favorite part of the newsprint pad is the random color that is left behind...

I have been into circles again lately... (various WIP)

The art journal pages were both basically the same at first then I changed the left one to see what would come through when I painted over all the doodling and stuff underneath... I like where it is taking me.

Linked to WOYWW.

Playing with more gelli prints...

Started doing up a bunch of lighter colored gelli prints for additions to art journal pages and scanned one to test out how it scanned. I didn't like the plain scan all that much so I started playing with the colors in PaintShopPro (my cheapo version of Photoshop) and made a mosaic in BigLabs to see some of the various colors I adjusted it to. The darkest one I made a negative of the colors. I have not played around with PSP for a long time and I had forgotten a lot of the cool things it can do, so I think I will be playing with it a bit in the coming weeks.

This was the original scan:

Linked to:
Pink Saturday
Colorful Journey Gelli Party
Ruby Tuesday2
Mandarin Orange Monday
Mosaic Monday
Blue Monday

Another painting with those lines...

I had so much fun using that silicone pastry brush to make lines on the last painting that I did another one, similar but larger (9" x 12" on canvas board) and with more little lines!

I am realizing I have no idea how to NAME an abstract painting! So for now this one is Window Reflections. That might change quickly if someone gives me a better idea for what to call it! Feel free to leave suggestions!

Linked to:
Orange You Glad It's Friday -- Take a look HERE-- she featured one of my other paintings! Wow!
Creative Every Day
Paint Party Friday

WOYWW #204

The last couple of nights I have been reading a lot of art blogs (in a never-ending attempt to catch up!), watching videos from various online classes I am in, and pulling out the watercolors to try a couple of techniques and play a bit.

So this is what is on my desk today until I have more time to do more watercolors. This is from a VIDEO I saw from Whitney Ferre (one of the 21 Secrets teachers but this was a separate video on You Tube), where you just doodle or scribble with watercolors. It is so out of my box that I am trying it just to see if I can do it. My first instinct is to grab the markers and go that route, so these last couple of nights I have been playing with the flow of watercolor, looking for a more zen-like approach.

Anyway, my desk as I last saw it while I pondered my results...

Linked to: WOYWW

Sunday painting...

Spent a lot of today so far playing around with paints, catching up on art blog reading, and generally avoiding cleaning up my messy art room.

So... remember this? A bunch of orange, black and white on a 6" x 6" canvas board...

Well this is what it morphed into...

I am calling it "Wormhole".

Question to my painting friends: How do you display these small 6" x 6" canvas boards?

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday
Inspire Me Monday
Monday Mellow Yellows
Create Daily
Blue Monday

Looking for pink...

I wasn't sure I had any more pink journal pages for today's Linky party but I found this, a journal page I had done for the Journal Fodder 365 group I am doing over on Ning. Not sure that I ever posted it anywhere even, maybe I meant to do more on it but now I have forgotten...

It's on a gelli printed background, traced around my hand and colored in with pan pastels. Then I sprayed fixative so the pastels wouldn't brush off and wrote the caption with black and white markers.

Linked to: Pink Saturday

I think this one is finished...

I am not actually sure when someone is sure that a painting is done, but this one seems to be done to me, so I guess it is. I showed it last Friday HERE when it was almost done but since then I added a bit more of the blues/greens... It needed more dots! I guess technically it is mixed media since it is all painted over a layer or two of collaged book pages and music paper. The size is 10" x 10" (25 cm x 25 cm).

Also not really sure what to call it so for now it is Sun and Rain. That could easily change...

Linked to:
Paint Party Friday
Orange You Glad It's Friday

WOYWW #203

When I looked this morning it was more like what was on my workdesk left over from last night's Gelli plate playing...

Here are a couple of the stencils I used for the red and black gelli printing session last night:

Linked to: WOYWW

Seek...

I was looking in an old art journal from many years ago (this page was dated October 2006) and I found this entry that I have always liked. I thought I would post it here, guess I am still seeking...

Linked to:
Glue it Tuesday

Some red and black in progress...

Not sure what I want to do with these yet but I got home and felt like making something in reds and black so I got out the trusty Gelli plate and whipped up some layers of red and black stencil play.

Linked to:
Ruby Tuesday2

Mosaic Memories...

I was looking through some old travel photos from Spain in 2003 (hard to imagine it was 10 years ago!) and found these lovely reminders of Parc Guell mosaics in Barcelona. I adore Gaudi's work and this park is such a wonderful display of some of his whimsey.

Linked to Mosaic Monday

Colors Challenge...

This is what I made from my colors challenge with Leslie -- we picked 5 colors from Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party painting and made art journal pages with them. These were the colors:

And this is what I made with them in my 9" x 12" art journal:

It started out as a gelli printed background, then I painted over the edges and made the face, made the flowers with Posca Pens and collages on a printed quote. Rubber stamps are along the outer rim. The challenge was keeping to just those 5 colors (and white/black)... and it turned out to be a lot of fun working on it today!

Leslie posted her entry on her blog so you can see how different they were!


Linked to:
Monday Mellow Yellows
Colorful Gelli Print Party
Art Journal Every Day
Blue Monday
Creative Every Day
Simon Says (Color challenge)

Finished Doodles Page

From the online workshop: 21 Secrets. I think I have finished the Doodle Your Way class page!
Remember here it was last look:

And as of this morning, here is what I think will be the finished page. I am finding with these doodles however, that I often go back and add a little something... so who knows. But for me, it is done and I will go to another one of the 21 Secrets next!

Linked to Mandarin Orange Monday

Finally Friday...

Yay it's the weekend!

So when I got home today I played around with some paints and thought about the weekend and what I wanted to do artwise. Not decided yet, so I will just stay open to a visit from any muse that happens to pop into my neighborhood and go from there!

I want to work more on this. So far it is layers of collage (book pages and music paper) and inks and paint on 10" x 10" canvas. The blue is one of my stencils. Not sure yet what I want to make with this background.

Amazingly it has both orange AND blue! And no doubt will have a lot more as it gets done!

Linked to: Paint Party Friday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

More doodling and WOYWW...

I wish I had remembered to take the very first steps of this doodle page but I didn't so here is the first photo I took for the Doodling class of 21 Secrets:

and then I showed you what I had gotten to last Sunday:

and here is what I have since then... it is a slow process for me.

And it is also what is on my workdesk today!

Linked to: WOYWW

Gluebook and Glue-it Tuesday...

The other day I glued in a bunch of various things from a bunch of discarded magazines at work and some printouts I didn't need... and not sure what I am going to do with the gluebook idea yet but here are a couple of pages so far. One idea is now to do some painting over parts of the pages and then work it as an art journal page. Other ideas I have seen include collaging over it text or found poetry texts. I will be thinking on these for a while on the back burner.

But in the meantime, I found a new linky and finally one for Tuesday! Yay, it's Glue-It Tuesday!

Linked to: Glue-it Tuesday and Creative Every Day

Photo Mosaic...

This looks so cool and it is really easy to make!

I made it using the Photo Mosaic maker @ Big Labs using photos from my Flickr files.

I found the tutorial @ Little Red House, who I discovered does a Monday Mosaic linky! My favorite new thing to do, so I made a mosaic to join in!

Linked to Mosaic Monday, Inspiration Avenue, Weekend Flowers and Pink Saturday.

It's Not Orange!

Yesterday I was looking through some of my old photos for examples of tiles and mosaics and found a couple of photos that caught my eye. Then later I found another cool linky party and guess what? It wasn't about orange! It was for blue!

Did I mention I love the idea of these linky parties? It gives me a chance to find new art friends and see some amazing blogs that I would never have found otherwise. And they are fun to participate in... so here is some blue!

From Spain:

Back to London's Green Street:

I think this one was mostly painted but I don't remember, just like the design!

Linked to: Blue Monday

Catching up with JF365 and finding orange...

It is April so that means the Journal Fodder 365 group @ Ning is now on Chapter 4. One of the prompts for this month is Solitude and here is the page I made for it:

The other page I made for this group was using one of the month's techniques: overwriting. It is something I have done on other art journal pages too. I like it because it is possible to write out something that maybe I need to say but don't want anyone else to read. The technique is to write one line then write over it as you go down the next lines. I tend to go over it all a few times, and this time I tried it with various colors of paint marker pens over and over a few lines. The rest of the page isn't very pretty as it was mostly a test of the paint marker colors and some previous stenciling.

I was looking back through some of my travel photos from recent years (looking for art inspiration) and found a few that I wanted to post for all the orange challenges I have been doing lately. Seems I am very much called to the color orange lately so these excited me to see again.

The inside of a church in Prague:

A post box in Prague:

A mosaic bench on Green Street in one of London's East Indian neighborhoods:

Breakfast salmon in Estonia:

Beautiful flowers at the Midsummer Fair in Riga, Latvia:

The beautiful terra cotta orange tiles of Trakai in Lithuania:

Ok, I think I like the color orange! (And many more travel photos another time)

I love a Linky Party!

Linked to: Mandarin Orange Monday, Color Connection, Art Journal Every Day