mommy camp day 1

This week my daughter is attending a dance theater camp. So, I decided to have a Mommy camp week. I cleaned my jewelry studio, set out all of my favorite supplies and jumped back into Life Book.

The lesson that I am working on is called "Overcoming the Inner Critic" with Wyanne. Our first job was to sketch a simple tree with pencil, then lightly erase it so that just a hint of the drawing remained.  The next step was to paint with water over the tree and using acrylic paints, paint over the water. The next step was very interesting...after letting the tree dry for a few minutes (you don't want the painting completely dry it should be wet in spots) you spray the painting with a water bottle.  Here is the result:

I love how the water created such cool patterns in the paints. 

For the next step I cut leaf shapes from coffee filters (coffee again, see why I love this class!).  Using clear water I painted the background of the page around the top of the tree.  While the page is still wet, I laid down the leaves.  Using water color paints, I painted the coffee filter shaped leaves.  

 This painting was my second attempt at the lesson.  The first time I tried spraying the painting with water I used a bottle that was filled with alcohol ink! Opps! I did like how my opps turned out, so I am continuing to work on it.

I watched the remaining videos for this lesson last week while I was working on jewelry and did see that we do something really cool with the background and coffee!  So I did want to redo my opps so I can continue the lesson.
 
I am also working on my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2013, so I did a similar page in that journal.

The final step for today was to paint the bottom of the page with water.  While wet, paint with watercolor paints and then cover with coffee filters. 

Now it's time to let everything dry and pick up my daughter from camp. I hope you'll join me for day 2 of Mommy Camp tomorrow!

"Dreaming is a vacation in your home." by Madi

Finished Life Book Calendar

Here's my finished calendar for Life Book. I have to say I learned a lot doing this exercise. Even though I feel like I'm always happy, I feel like there were a lot of days when I was feeling cranky. Made me think to try to change my attitude. I also really enjoyed using my new watercolor paint pens and Copic markers :)

"The most simple things can be magic." by Madi

Wonderful Mother's Day & Life Book

What a wonderful Mother's Day! My day started out with a trip to Starbucks with my hubby for a mocha. Then it was great homemade gifts, chocolates, and some of my favorite music recorded on CDs.  Perfect and thoughtful gifts from my family.

After a great walk with my hubby and dog, it was off to the studio with my daughter Madi to have fun with Life Book.  I can't say enough about how awesome this class is.  Even though it started in January, if you can do it, I would highly recommend joining. It's the kind of class that you can start anytime and do as much or as little as you like.

The lesson we picked to work on is called "play-full layers" by Mystele.  We created layers with paper, writing, paints and gesso. Next, we looked for the design or face in the base of the artwork.  It was so cool how when you really look, you could see something! I first saw the wing on the right side of my woman's dress, then I sort of found the rest of her. Madi found her woman's cheekbones first and the rest just kind of showed up.

The studio was a beautiful mess most of the day and I loved it. It felt so relaxing just playing all day. My wonderful hubby did the grocery shopping, laundry and cooking for the day.  I'm one lucky girl.

This month Tam's lesson included creating a daily calendar to express your thoughts on.  Here is mine so far this month:

I hope all of you Mom's out there had a wonderful day and found some time to just play.

"Art = Joy" by Madi

Little by little

Up to Week 7 in Life Book...only 7 weeks behind the class! Oh well, I'm having a blast so that's all that counts. This lesson was called "Little by Little" and was taught by Connie Hozvicka with Dirty Footprints Studio.

It was a great lesson about creating a home for your dreams. Our instructions were to create a house and fill the back of the house with all of our dreams. Here's the kicker...then we threw the house away! What? Well, Connie's philosophy is that sometimes we hold on to our dreams so tight that they actually get in the way of achieving them.  What she suggests is clearly stating your dreams and then letting them go. Connie feels that this way we have the space to enjoy and appreciate the little achievements along the way.

What do you think of this idea? Any thoughts? Anyone else want to give it a try?

"Grow everyday." by Madi

Finally a day of art!

I finally had a day to spend in my studio playing! I did week 6 of Life Book with Tamara Laporte. This lesson was called "paint over collage". I did a similar lesson with Tam last year in 21 Secrets. I really enjoyed the whole process. Here is my before collage:

And the after...

It was a great project, using paints, paint pens, watercolor pencils and other fun art supplies. I used some of Madi's quotes around the circle. This weeks lesson was all about honoring our achievements however big or small.

I also had the chance to work on my handwritten note for the Note Swap through the Art House Co-op.

 It's a note swap with other artists around the world. Here's the info:

The Note Swap

Trade handwritten notes across the globe
The Note Swap is a worldwide exchange of handwritten letters, contributed by a thousand creative people just like you. Join our community to swap surprises in the mail and take part in an experiment designed to make a stranger's day. Scribble down a love note, a short story, a recipe, a memory, a joke or a secret — your letter could take any form. Simply mail your note to us along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. We'll make the swap and send you another participant's letter in return. Waiting for the mail can be the best part of your day...

The Note Sway is open until April 30th so you still have time to join. Hope you had a creative day!

"Art is the best medicine." by Madi

More Life Book!

The last assignment that Madi and I finished for Life Book was a really fun and creative drawing experience. We had to pick two different Goddesses that represented two different sides to our personality. I selected the Egyptian Goddess Maat who represents truth, balance and order. Maat represents the side of me who always wants things to be in order and the to do list checked off.

The second Goddess that I selected was the Hindu Goddess Saraswati who represents knowledge and the arts. Saraswati represents the free flow of wisdom and consciousness. This is my creative side that needs to have the space and room to let ideas flow and just be artistic and inventive.

Madi selected two different Goddesses to represent her personality.

She chose the Hindu Goddess Kumari to represent her ability to keep secrets. To represent her love of beauty and the arts, she selected Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of love and beauty.

In this lesson we also experimented with figure drawing. I really enjoyed it. It felt magical having a person come to life!

I have always had a dream of becoming a fashion illustrator and designer. I decided that turning 50 this year, I'm going to at least enjoy and learn more about fashion illustration. I'm going to incorporate this into my Limited Edition Sketchbook project. I'll post more about that later.

We also learned about more simplistic figure drawing. Here is Madi's drawing from that lesson:

Instead of doing the realistic figure drawing exercise, Madi decided to draw realistic hands and some other items that you may find in an art studio.

We are hoping to have more time this weekend to catch up with some of the other wonderful assignments in this great class.  Hope you are having a wonderfully artful day!

"Do the impossible." by Madi

Life Book 2012

My First Page of my Life Book 2012

Madi's First page of Life Book 2012

What a great class! We started Life Book 2012 with Tamara Laporte and I'm already having so much fun. Tamara is a great teacher. Our first lesson was creating a Goddess page and listing our good qualities. We drew and painted a 3/4 face portrait and played with paints, inks and watercolor crayons. I am really happy with my page and so proud of Madi and her beautiful Goddess.

This weekend we are going to work on a dream board and a storage box for the book. I'll post what we create after the weekend. On the jewelry front, I'm having a great time creating Heart pieces for Valentines Day. I love to make Heart jewelry. I'll post photos when I have some completed pieces.

Wishing you a creative and wonderful day.

"Joy is a present you get when you do art." by Madi

2012 Quotes by Madi & more Sketchbook pages

Christmas break was great. Madi and I spent lots of time in the studio creating and making a wonderful mess. Here are a few pages from my Sketchbook and the new 2012 Quotes by Madi. Enjoy!

We also spent time finishing up some of the lessons from 21 Secrets. One of my favorites was Child Play by Alma Stoller. The idea was to turn old magazine pages into awesome collage pages. Here are a few I made:

I enjoyed the class so much I signed up for the new 21 Secrets that starts this April! Here's the link if you'd like to join us. 21 Secrets: An Art Journal Playground

I also started the spectacular Life Book class this week that I was lucky enough to win over at Dirty Footprints Studio. We started working on a 3/4 portrait "Goddess" page. Madi is working on it with me too. I'll post the photos when we finish our pages.

Wishing you a creative day!

I Won! I Won! I Won!

I am so excited! I won a free Registration to the online Art Class Life Book! Connie from Dirty Footprints Studio blog had a contest last week for the freebie & my comment was picked!!! The class looks like so much fun, pop over to Willowing Arts and take a look at all the details.  Registration for this fun class just started this month. 

Here's a little information that I found on the website:

"What's Life Book All About?

Life Book is a year long course organized by Tamara Laporte (Willowing Arts) starting on 1st January 2012.

The idea of the course is that participants will be creating one or more mixed media pages each month which by the end of the year they will bind together in one big book (likely to be Japanese stab-bound). The theme of the course, as the title suggests, is a celebration and honouring of self. Each month will have a different self- celebration/ honouring theme which will be worked through in the page(s) with all sorts of mixed media techniques and self-healing/ self-development exercises.

By the end of the year you will have a gorgeous mixed media art journal (or Life Book) which captures your journey, growth and development in 2012!"

I am currently enrolled in another wonderful mixed media class called 21 Secrets.  I just spent a few hours on Friday night reviewing a drawing lesson from the fantastic teacher, Jane Davenport. To find out more about Jane read my Artist of the Month post for March.

Here are a few of my sketches from my drawing session with Jane.

I love drawing faces. There is something so magical about them. I am really looking forward to next years new art class Life Book!

"Exciting things are also exciting for others." by Madi