Giveaway at Little Coffee Fox blog

Shelby from Little Coffee Fox is having a giveaway on her blog. She giving a watercolor planner starter kit that includes a Moleskine watercolor album, a Finetec gold palette, a set of three Pentel Aquash water pens, and a Pentel pocket brush pen. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is to go to her blog and fill out a short form. There are also 13 other ways to enter that adds to the main entry form which means it helps in your chances to win. Giveaway end November 27th so hurry and enter for this fabulous gift.

Little Coffee Fox is a blog about productivity with planning. The blog also has other categories such as how to bullet journal, hand lettering guide, and about how to start a blog. She posts on most social media like Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter. I follow her on YouTube and Instagram. I don't bullet journal but I find her post most interesting that maybe in the future I might start.

Beginner Art Journalist: May Mission Inspiration Challenge

In my last post, I told you that the Mike Deakin mission inspiration challenge was a little daunting for me well I decided to try it this month. I always struggle when facing an empty page so this is a way to start. It is difficult having to take every step and wonder what the composition well look like in the end.

Finished piece.

1. added composition paper.

,

3, 4, 5.  I added a teal color to the background
glued ribbon from a lanyard as a border,
and added 3 focal points, shoes, map,
 and the mountains.

6. bubble wrap and a toaster oven utensil
to make marks with titanium white paint.

2. I stamped book pages with butterflies
and flowers using archival ink.

7, 8. I add words for the month
and add cardboard strips. I added
gray paint to the cardboard
to balance the color.

I used the butterfly and flower stamps from these sets. And rummaged around to find these household utensils.

Beginner Art Journalist: Mini Mission Inspiration art challenge prompt cards

The mission inspiration is a monthly challenge with 10 prompts or steps which is the brain child of Mike Deakin. I find those monthly challenge to be very daunting but recently he came out with a mini challenge that gives a word prompt on an index card.  It is A to Z so in the end there will be 26 indexed cards. What I understand is these are to be indexed after each month so you'll have 26 cards to have when an idea for an art journal isn't forthcoming.

I decided to do each month's mini challenge on an 3" x 5" index card. For the letter A, the theme was Aquatic.

 Here's the prompt index card.

 I painted the background with Dylusion's paint London Blue with a blending tool.

 I added Dylusion's paint Cut Grass with a blending tool.

The background was a little to bright so I toned it down with Titanium White.

I drew half of a shark to give the illusion of it swimming through a reef, of sorts. I painted in sea grass, sea anemones, and a clam but I didn't take photos of the process, sorry. I also stamped some circles and flower shapes to the background to give some depth.

2017 a new year to experiment in art journaling

It's been a few months since my last post. I have been journaling just hadn't sat down to write and photograph my work. Today is Valentine's Day and it got me thinking about who or what I love. I love my family immensely but art is an acquaintance.  Art isn't a genre that I am comfortable in a manner of paint on canvas or paint in an art journal. It has been a struggle getting outside the box of Darlene. So here are a couple of pages I did. I didn't document them on what medium or colors I used.

I cut out the images from a local magazine. Use acrylic paints for the background and then stamped a few butterflies randomly on the background. Stenciled with modeling paste for texture. Used my brown pitt pen to shade in the images and highlighted with a white gel pen. Added a phrase I acquired from the Internet. Shaded the white blocks with a black pitt pen. Then I did a goofy thing and added a border that I colored in the blocks with a white and black pen.

The next art journal page I glued down Tim Holtz tissue wrap and then painted in acrylics of blues, greens, and toned down the colors with white gesso. I stamped with Dylusions stamps of leaves on the journal page and on some white paper which then I colored with Derwents Inktense color pencils. I used a water brush to activate the colors. One night I had an idea for what to do with this page. I thought of a beer garden in a nonsensical way with beer hanging from the vines. I then looked through my stash of magazines and found one about beer. I cut out the images of beer cans and glasses filled with beer. I glued them as if they were ready to pick from the vines. The stamped leaves that I colored were cut and glued around the beer images to give a more natural scene. I later added the bottom border which I didn't like to put white gesso over it to tone it down. I wrote some journaling around the page.

Last tag of 12 days of Christmas Tags!

Wow, it's been 12 days! I can't believe I did it! So here's my last tag of the 12 days of Christmas tags. A puppy for Christmas, Surprise!

Drew the box and the puppy's head sticking out. Then painted the puppy with black and brown woodless color pencils. Colored the box red then colored the background in light blue, blue, and a little yellow. I didn't like how it looked so painted with a white wash of white acrylic paint. Went over the box with red acrylic paint. Painted the puppy with black, brown, and white paint. With Sakura red gel pen went around the box, and with brown gel pen drew around the puppy's head. Wrote with the brown gel pen, Surprise! With clear glitter pen drew around the box and the word. I added the box top on the side and drew a box around Surprise.

11th Day of Christmas Tags

In the home stretch with 11th day of 12 days of Christmas tags. I did a winter scene with buttons hung on the tree like ornaments.

Gesso the tag then painted with light blue and white acrylic to make a sky. Drew a tree limb with branches and painted it with brown and black acrylic paint. Dabbed on texture paste then when it was dry, added white acrylic paint to look like snow. With a needle and thread, sewn on buttons hanging from the limbs of the tree. Highlighted the snow with Sakura glitter pen and wrote Love Peace and Joy with colored glitter pens.

It's 10th day of 12 Days of Christmas Tags

I have to admit it getting pretty difficult thinking of ideas for these tags. Today's tag is a Christmas present with gold foil glued to the tag with Tim Holtz distress collage medium.

Cut silver ribbon and glued that to the tag. Made a really small tag and painted it gold with Golden iridescent. Made a bow with the silver ribbon and glued it in the middle of the tag and then glued the smaller tag with foam tape. Then wrote Love on the small tag with Faber-Castell black pitt pen.