Trying to keep a hand - or at least a finger - in art

Seems like there is never enough time to make art, especially if it requires getting out paints, gesso, drop cloths and making a mess. Same for bead-stringing, collage, paper mache' and the like. But I always like to doodle and try to make time to at least do that. Here are some practice pages from my sketch journal, using techniques from some recently acquired books, including a Japanese manga-girl art book, and Japanese pen-and-ink doodle book and the simplified drawing books of Ed Emberley.

I actually drew something again!

Don't worry. This isn't supposed to be a human. It's my Blythe Phoebe on the beach in her vintage Skipper swimsuit. You can hop on over to my Blythe blog to see the real Phoebe and decide if this sketch is any good.

And now a word about my nephew......

I often blog about my talented niece Abby, 13. But, now it's time to spread some love to her brother, my equally-talented and uber-cool nephew Josh, 17. Besides being an apparent ladies' man, if Facebook must be believed (and it must), he is charmer to young and old, and a fun-loving, normal high school senior. He's also a 'guitar-bud' to my son Alex, 20, his cousin.

Besides being musically-oriented and a former football player and cross country runner, Josh is incredibly artistic. He has taken ceramics, photography, digital art and more, but every time I go to their house, I am struck by his charcoal drawings.

Here are three, including a self-portrait. He has multiple ribbons from art shows and much other work, which I hope to feature here in the future. He definitely has a variety of career options, and right now is considering Geology as a major at Indiana University, where his dad works.

His artist-wannabe auntie admires him for many reasons; his drawing skill is only one.

An Art Retreat- Staycation Style

Finally, something resembling art to talk about for this blog! With many glorious days of vacation ahead of me, I made a list of all the art projects I want to do, gathered my supplies, and gathered my niece Abby, 12 (13 in a couple weeks), and we started creating.

I had not had time to enjoy Carla Sonheim's new Drawing Lab book, and since the class I took from her a few years ago at Art & Soul is still one of all-time favorites, I decided to do some of the exercises with Abby. We tried single-line drawing, vine charcoal, faces, and we used a ceramic poodle and ceramic cat for our animal drawings. We did the Picasso pets and Modigliani faces.

We forgot to try drawing each other with the wrong hand! I still have my portrait someone did of me in class. The person whose face I drew with my wrong hand and without looking, left class early, shortly after receiving her sketch from me! LOL. But seriously, if you want to have a lot of fun with easy-to-follow exercises while learning to draw or improving and expanding your drawing skills, get Carla's book!

We painted watercolor backgrounds, talked about Artist Trading Cards and Zentangles, and like hunter-gatherers, cut out magazine stuff and collected trinkets for collage. We then wore ourselves out and had to watch five straight episodes of I-Carly while lounging. I have always loved Miranda Cosgrove since School of Rock is one of my favorite movies. As I had driven 13 straight hours Friday, and about seven Sunday to an out-of-state Blythe meet, with another seven hours coming two days after 'Art Day,' you could say I was worn out.

But, not too worn out for a huge antique mall, of course! I took Abby to North Webster, IN, scene of so many summers during my childhood and her father's. Abby is really my great-niece, but that makes me sound old. Her dad is my nephew. When we were kids in the 1960s and early 1970s, we always went "up north" to the lakes in Kosciusko County, riding from our homes in central Indiana. But I digress.

The North Webster Antique Mall is HUGE and is in a former favorite dimestore of mine called Rinker's. Rinker's hadthe best selection of water toys around, plus clothing, candy, gifts, etc. The Rinker name is still well-known via Rinker Boats, and the Rinkers were from my hometown of Anderson, so they, too, were just "lakers" once upon a time.

I saved my favorite booth for last, which is full of Shabby Chic goodies. I always save it for last. Before we got to it, I was carrying plenty of strange stuff, and Abby had a great, old, small Samsonite hard suitcase in mint condition. If I had know how much she would have liked the SC booth, we would have gone there first! Abby found a second case, a large, square, Tiffany-blue satin train case, also in excellent condition. And with two suitcases, as Abby told me, now she has a collection! Poor girl doesn't stand a chance coming from a collecting family--dolls, model cars, Fiestaware, Coca-Cola items, granite ware, kitchen advertising/tins, stamps, coins, jewelry--her great-grandmother, grandfather, aunt, great-uncles, great-aunt (me) have been collectors most of our lives.

We trotted off with our goodies to a re-sale shop, another antique shop, and then, being practical, off to the spa for some pampering. I got a long-awaited hi-lite with 'my girl,' and Abby got her toes and fingers painted an nice Twilight-like shade, called Lincoln Park After Dark.

After that we joined my daughter, Adrienne, 27 in a week, for some more retail therapy. I knew I could bribe Ade to drive with the offer to fill up her gas hog. We hit Fazoli's first, a favorite of all three of us, and inhaled our food as Adrienne had taken over the "whistle and clipboard" from me, and was hurrying us along so we could get to Glenbrook Mall.

Abby and I made a bee-line for the bookstore. The darling smarty-pants was volunatrily reading Hamlet in the car, and then bought Romeo & Juliet. Ade, of course, went to Abercrombie & Fitch. Then we all hit Trade Secret's 50% off going-out-of-business sale, where Abby was able to get a bottle of her new polish color, and Ade and I stocked up on hair products. Sad they are going out of business, but great sale! Maybe it is just this mall location? Or an uninformed clerk?

We then hit a few stores trying to stock Abby up a little for back-to-school, including Forever 21 (I was the only one who bought anything. How appropriate!), American Eagle, and we pretty much closed down the mall. Too tired to hit Border's after.

And we knew we'd be getting up early for Day Four: a trip to The Indianapolis Children's Museum to see the Barbie retrospective. And added surprise: Rock Stars, Guitars & Cars, which I also enjoyed. At the museum we met my Blythe friend from Cincinnati, Libby Sherman, and her daughter Phoebe, same age/same grade. Libby and Phoebe looked like Living Barbie Dolls, and were just as sweet. A good time was had by all (I think). Abby and I were a little worn out, and I was grumpy about not looking like a Living Barbie. Hey, what if YOU had once been Miss Beaver Dam? We got some clever Blythe pictures, and shopped until we dropped in the gift shop.

Then it was time to drive Abby to her home, south of Indianapolis, where I got to see my very talented great-nephew, her brother Josh, for a few minutes. Josh and one of his bands were contacted after a You Tube video and offered some free studio time! Very exciting.

Before I left, Abby and I dug out her massive 1990s Barbie collection, and I helped her find shoes and clothes that would fit her new Blythe doll I gave her. We also found a few little Kelly trinkets to fit my Wonder Frog, and a Barbie sheepdog that looked just like my late mother's dog named Bonkers.

All in all, the four days whizzed by, and while I felt a little Bonkers with all the driving, we had a great time, and I was excited to hear about Abby's plans for her suitcases, art and Blythe. You go, girl. And she will, be going, that is, to one of my fave places, Portland and Seattle, missing the first three days of school to go to a conference with her dad. But well worth it and quite manageable for this excellent student. So proud of you, Miss Abby!

New ATCs by the dozens

I just made some new artist trading cards, 29 to be exact. I like to make them in batches, and I needed some for a swao with ATheeC from Flickr, a.k.a. Martine from Belgium, with whom I swap periodically.

I also knew I'd be needing some trades for Artiscape in April and Art & Soul in May, and ATCs or ACEOs are a handy, small size for trading. I usually take ATCs and charms. Some of the designs above started as prints from some of my old favorite ATCs but all are re-colored by hand, embellished and finished as one of a kinds (OOAKs).

The picture above with the cat cards are all ATCs hand-drawn or hand-painted by me, including a Zentangle I made and a charcoal sketch of a bird. Martine also likes APCs--altered playing cards--so I turned Donald Trump into the King of Hearts and Woody Allen into a Joker. Makes sense to me.

Facebook? D.I.Y.

I've been on a crazy doodling kick lately. I think it might be a stress reliever! The last photo- a zentangle- is definitely that. This one is 3" x 3" and doodled on watercolor paper with an extra fine point Sharpie. You can read more about Zentangles on the Web, and see many varieties on Flickr. It's fun to turn them every which way to see what you can see.

The face doodles started when I met Kellie Rae Roberts at Art & Soul, Portland, and had her autograph my copy of her book Taking Flight. I just love her solemn-faced girls, and have been practicing the techniques in her book. So, some of the these faces are her design, just tried by me.

The painted girl 'Fly' is in my regular art journal and done on a Twinkling H2O background with watercolor crayons.

The other faces are mostly charcoal pencil or graphite pencil. See anyone you know? I think I accidentally made Chloe from '24' and Alexandra Steele from The Weather Channel! I started doodling these after getting Journal Bliss by Violette.

I decided I will dedicate one of my journals to being a 'Facebook.' Grown-ups certainly can be and are on the 'real' Facebook, but I've got enough sites to maintain as it is. So, I'll just keep all my face doodles in one place. I can't wait to make a cover for it. So, Facebook? I say: (Do)odle it Yourself.

Time for the Big Reveal; My Relationship with Art and Other Dramas

The Marie canvas of which I posted a sneak peek here, left Indiana for sunny California and recipient Kathy Jacobson a few days ago, so hopefully it is safe to post the finished piece now. This was my canvas in Maria Rodarte's "Marie Bits & Baubles Swap." The idea was to use an 8.5" x 11" canvas and create 12 different sections, although it was completely open to interpretation. I used a bit larger canvas and there are 12 sections, although irregular in size.

There's a pocket wherein I stuck a Marie-inspired tag, an artist trading card and some Marie ephemera. I also love the old glass bottle in the lower right corner. I wired it on to make it a vase. The turquoise pin is a brooch I bought a few years ago and seldom wore. There's vintage millinery from an old hat I took apart (the turquoise velvet leaves and buds), a ceramic bird, lace, ribbons and lots of great stuff. It was fun to make!

But that was last weekend's work. This weekend started on Friday when I got some great beads half price at my LBS: Bead Source in Fort Wayne, IN., which has been in business well over 10 years. I went for pink and that's what I got. In fact I had this bracelet in my head, and spent several hours last night making the various dangles, then cutting and wire wrapping them, and then attaching them with jump rings to the bracelet. There are more than 25 different stacked dangles with glass and resin beads, vintage buttons, sterling and other metal bits, crochet beads amd ceramic beads from Earthenwood Studio. I can't decide if I will sell it or keep it, but if I sell, you can always find it in my Etsy shop!

I also stopped by my LSS: Stamping Day and Night in Fort Wayne, to pick up the latest Catch Up magazine from Stamper's Sampler and while I was there sweet Sarah showed me a new old technique which uses alcohol inks and blending solution on glossy paper to make some cool backgrounds. I couldn't wait to try that either, so sometime after midnight I let my tired jewelry-making eyes play around with that. I'll cut these examples up for backgrounds for greeting cards or artist trading cards (ATCs).

At the bookstore I got two exciting books, Journal Bliss by Violette and Painting with Watercolor, Pen and Ink by Claudia Nice. The journaling book is just a RIOT of color, and I couldn't wait to start doodling, so in the wee hours, when I had finally settled into bed- sort of- I started doodling faces in my sketchbook. Can't wait to play with that later today!

Meanwhile, after getting to sleep at 4 a.m., I somehow sprung up at 8:30 (yes, a.m.) to go buy flowers and plants. Although we had sleet, snow and hail in northern Indiana just Tuesday, we have now had two (count 'em, two) days in a row of sunshine and 80F degrees. There's definitely an Indiana (and maybe even a redneck) joke in there somewhere about planting too soon, but I just couldn't stand it another minute. Everything was looking so bare, plain, ugly, drab, blah, you get the picture.

So I loaded my little car at Wal-Mart, Lowe's and the local greenhouse and came home with a huge fern, a couple of hanging plants, filler plants, geraniums, pansies, and dirt as well as a dozen solar lights for the landscaping after running into an acquaintance who said the $2.99 lights work like they cost a million bucks. At dark, we'll see. If they do work, I have a feeling I'll be making a return trip. With a graduation open house looming, 'sprucing up' takes on a meaning of astronomical proportions. And since it is only April 25, this won't be the first year I'll probably be dragging plants in and out of the garage each day, to protect them at night.

One of my purchases was a real pineapple plant, with the cutest pineapple ever growing on it! Photos next post-if it doesn't snow. Ack. I feel the gardening muscles coming back to life after half a year and starting to ache already.

So about Art. No, not Art the college algebra instructor who was barely two years older than my flirty 18 and who at 6'5" was extremely more interesting than 'x' and 'y' unless you were talking chromosomes 'back in the day' at Ball State U.

No, not local car collector Art Gakstatter and his wife Cookie, to whom I sold Longaberger baskets for a time. I just got a kick out of saying their names. Of course, my children use 'gak' as a verb to alert me to partially-digested cat deposits about the house.

And no, not Art M., one of my all-time favorite customers from work: the kind of person who makes doing business a pleasure, who enjoys a good chat about families or business, and who shows you he gets that having a life and having a job are two different things.

So about my art: I was thinking while I was doodling random heads that my faces weren't half bad. No, not Picasso good. Not even like-my-famous-art-friends good. Just good 'for me.' See, I never thought I could draw. In fact, I don't think I could when I was a kid. My drawings from imagination were nothing special, no perceptive perspective, no amazing use of colors. But, by junior high school, I must have shown either some kind of talent or perhaps just amazing organizational skills (OCD, anyone? Yes, just a little), or maybe just enthusiasm, because a couple different art teachers took me under their wing, not necessarily for drawing, but for creating stuff.

Suddenly, I could do 'it.' And the more I believed I could do it, the better my 'stuff' seemed to look, at least to me. I remember being asked by the librarian to make bulletin boards when I was in seventh grade, and it got me out of some other class. I remember making an album cover in eighth grade that was a highlight because I learned to score paper. Big deal, right? By ninth grade, drawing all those biology cross sections was a breeze, and I still remember with pride my frog done in pencil that the teacher gushed on about.

So, my question is: could I do it just because I believed I could do it? Or did I/do I have some artistic talent that comes from a gene pool that just needed to be let loose? Could I draw those faces last night because I believed I could, fully intended to, before I even got out my pencils and sketch pad? Or was my right or left brain (whichever side isn't still thinking about algebra class) just properly engaged with all the drawing neurons from eye to finger firing?

I don't know. But either way, I like it.

And now a word from Art & Soul

Soooo happily exhausted am I from my 1,600 mile/4-day art retreat at Art & Soul, Hampton, VA., that I thought I'd let my pictures do the talking. I figure they're worth about 15,000 words.

And the Winners Are: Karyn, Dale, Laurie!

It wasn't exactly Deloitte & Touche or Price Waterhouse, but as you can see my 100th Post Blog Drawing was ever so official. DH wasn't thrilled to be participating, can you tell? However, all 17 commenters from AROUND THE WORLD (whee!) went into the Longaberger pie plate at lunch, and out came Karyn Gartel http://altereddiva.blogspot.com/; Laurie Blau Marshall http://loudlife-laurieblaumarshall.blogspot.com/ and Dale McLain http://dalemclain.blogspot.com/.

Email me your addy and off will go tiny bottles (not bubbles), vintage bingo ephemera, cool paper scraps, fibers and other lovely misc. Misc is always good.

Thanks again everyone for your comments. Only 96 more comments until #200! I don't think 200 is celebrated. Someone I was reading last night, who has only been blogging since February, was celebrating her 50,000 visitor-not sure how that is possible?!