Long forgotten art projects

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Acrylic tiger painting (completed when I was 16 yrs old)

I’ve been thinking about getting back into drawing and painting.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve done much of anything.  The most I seem to accomplish anymore, is explaining certain art techniques to my girls.

Today I came across these old art projects of mine.  I painted the tiger 29 years ago, and I drew the sketch of my oldest daughter when she was 2 years old.  Unfortunately, neither one of these projects has ever been completely finished.

The painting of the tiger was for a class project. There were three of us in the class, who were basically given the same assignment.  We were all told to draw the same tiger, and we were given a photo out of a magazine to share as a reference.  The only difference was, I was assigned the job of painting the tiger, while another girl was told to draw hers using ink, and the boy who was chosen, was told to use pencil.

I have to say, their drawings turned out so much better than my painting.  I wish I had a picture of their completed assignments.  They were both amazingly talented, and I felt quite inferior when I saw their finished results. In fact, the girl in my class, actually won an award for her ink drawing.  I am quite sure she must have gone on, and made a career out of her artistic abilities.

I was quite disappointed, because I ran out of time for completing my assignment.  It was the first time I had ever had the opportunity to do a painting, and so it took me awhile to figure out how to work with the acrylic paints.  Plus, I was in a drawing class at the time, and my teacher decided to have me be the only student to do a painting.  So I really had no idea what I was doing.

My teacher must have known that I’d be able to figure it out though, and so he sent me home with a set of paints to play around with.  I really wish I could have spent more time on the project.   The bottom portion of the painting lacks the detail I wanted to add; but because I was forced to hand the painting in for grading, I had to leave it unfinished.  I remember the day the project was due, I got to class 10 minutes early, just so I could add the whiskers. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!  Lol…

So what do all of you you think?  Should I attempt to throw myself back into a little bit of artwork once again?  It might be fun to at least designate one night a week for drawing or painting.  I’m still unsure of where to even begin at this point in my life, but I think it would be a nice change of pace once and awhile.

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My daughter Caitlyn (approx. age 2)

Office Update

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Now that I’m back from vacation, I figured I should give all of you an update on the progress of my office.  All I can say is… I’m glad it’s finally finished!

As some of you probably remember from last month, I decided to paint a tree on my office wall in hopes of having a more cheerful writing space.  The entire project only took about a month to complete and I only worked on it when I had a few hours to spare here and there.  The hardest part was waiting for the paint to dry in-between coats.  Each leaf took an average of four coats of paint.

I have never painted anything on a large scale like this before and found it to be quite tedious and very challenging at times.  My original outline of the tree had to be redrawn; as I wanted the branches to be able to stretch over to another wall, and my first attempt just didn’t bring it close enough.

Overall I’m happy with the outcome.  I think it will be hard to leave behind my tree when we eventually move.  I’m already thinking ahead of what I might paint in my next room.  Anyway, here’s the pictures… sorry about the quality, the camera on my phone takes horrible pictures.  At least it gives you an idea of how my writing room finally turned out.

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My office before the makeover.  So boring…..
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Painting the background after roughing in the basic outline.
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Starting to take form…
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Bare bones…
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Finally some color!
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All finished!
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So glad to finally have a place where I can shut the door and have some peace and quiet while I write.  🙂

 

Handmade Art Journals (Updated)

For those of you who wanted a bit more information about how to make the art journals.  I have taken some pictures of the insides of all three journals.  Each one is unique in that we all wanted our journals for different reasons.  To begin, we started with sets of different scraps of fabric (the fronts and backs of the material didn’t match).  We sewed the sets of material together and left one side open for the stuffing.  It worked best for us to make the pillow for the spine of the book first, because then all of the other pillows could be adjusted to the size we needed for the overall book.  After stuffing each pocket, each one was made into a mini pillow.DMC floss  After all of the pillows were made, (mine had 17 pillows total) we embroidered each pillow the way that we wanted to, using unseperated DMC floss.  This is the longest part of the whole process, but it’s also the part that is the most fun, because you get to be really creative and make whatever patterns or pictures that you want on your pillows.  The next part goes pretty fast and involves sewing all of the pillows together in the order that you want them.  wpid-img_20150419_115721.jpgIt’s kind of like putting a puzzle together.  It took us several different tries before we got the layouts the way that we wanted them.  Once they were all sewn together, we ended up with this.  Then we proceeded to add the fun details, like snaps, buttons, ribbon, etc. to really make the journals our own unique creation.  wpid-img_20150419_192916.jpgAmy added snaps to her journal since she had some overlapping fabric that stuck out too far.  She ended up putting snaps on the front and the back and then added a ribbon to keep her journal securely closed.  Her little mistake actually enhanced the look of her journal and made it even better in the end.  I chose to used a button closure on my journal and Brianna decided to leave hers open and not put any type of closure on hers at all.  To finish, we added the paper to our journals.  Amy wanted to use her journal for writing, so we use lined paper for hers and sewed rings onto the inside spine to hold the paper.  wpid-img_20150419_193013.jpgI used heavy multimedia paper for mine, since I wanted to use mine for painting.  wpid-img_20150419_192705.jpgI decided to sew my pages into the spine by taking approximately five pieces of paper at a time, folding them in half, and then sewed down the middle of each stack to attach them to the inside.  I used an awl for making the holes in the paper before sewing them in and it worked beautifully!  Brianna chose a lighter drawing paper for her journal because she likes to draw.  wpid-img_20150419_192741.jpgI again used the rings for hers so that she could remove the pages and add more later if she wanted to.  As you can see, the insides are a bit messy looking, because you can see the backside of the embroidery.  The concept behind these books, is to use fabric in colors that is completely random and not the normal colors or patterns a person would typically choose.  This was a challenge for me, since I like everything to be perfectly organized when I work on a project.  It was quite freeing to work on these journals, knowing that they were suppose to be a hodgepodge of various fabrics and colors.  It’s the first time I ever made something that didn’t have to be perfect, and I think that is one reason why I love my journal so much.  It didn’t stress me out to make it!  wpid-img_20150419_192523.jpgHere is the final look inside my journal.  I hope this update gave you a more detailed look at what it takes to make one of these.  If you have further questions, please let me know.  I would love to help you design your own journal.  So if you are interested in the help, just let me know.  If you want to view the original post about these journals, go here.

Handmade Art Journals

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Today I wanted to share something a little bit different, than what I normally post.  There are so many beautiful artists on WordPress.  One unique artist in particular (Golnaran),  suggested to me that I share some of my artwork.  Art has always been a passion of mine, yet in recent days, I rarely spend my time doing any kind of art.  I have many things that I am passionate about and unfortunately I only have twenty-four hours in a day like everyone else.  In other words, some of my passions must be put on the back burner for another day.

Autumn painting a Christmas ornament.
Autumn painting a Christmas ornament.

For now, homeschooling my girls takes up most of my time, along with taking care of my two English Mastiffs.

However, since it was brought to my attention that others might be interested in seeing my artwork; I have decided to share a few things with all of you every now and then.  The following pictures are of some handmade journals, that my daughters and I created a couple of years ago for their home economics class.  My sister was visiting quite a few years ago and taught me how to make one of these.  And so of course, I fell in love with my journal and wanted my girls to join in the fun of making one for themselves.  I wish I had taken pictures as we went along so that I could have shared a tutorial with all of you.  If I decide to make another one, I will definitely capture the process the next time around so that if anybody wants to learn how to make one, I will be able to show you how.

Click on the images below for a larger view.

Amy’s writing journal

Brianna’s drawing journal

My painting journal