• Art - Blog - Creativity

    Treasure in the sunshine

    March 3, 2019 - By 

    The sun was shining brightly today just daring you to step outside. It looked beautiful. Snow glistening a pristine white. It was all an illusion. Our daytime temperature stayed in the negative°F all day. Did I mention I’m DONE with Winter? I decided to throw some creative energy towards Spring.

    I thought of a wild riot of color. Pretty pastels. Flowers in the peak of color sharing their joy of Springtime.

    I put together a phrase from my found text stash that reflected my feeling about my wish for spring.

    Linking up with Art Journal Journey for Hello Springtime.

    Art Journal Journey
  • Blog - Creativity

    T Tuesday: story time edition

    February 11, 2019 - By 

    Well boys and girls…not sure if we have any boys visiting but I’m all inclusive…it’s story time.

    This week was eventful. We had more snow once again. This week we had a 2 hour early release on Thursday afternoon and a 2 hour late start on Friday morning. We never should have had school on Friday. The roads were glare ice. So slippery that I managed to spin out our Jeep across on coming traffic and end up with the back end in the ditch. Thankfully we didn’t hit another car and I was able to put the 4 wheel drive to good use by driving back out of the ditch. With frazzled nerves I continued on to drop the girls off at school and get myself to my school. UGH! So lucky. Could have been a much worse end to that story.

    J also came home for the weekend to celebrate his birthday. We had cake…of course it might have been good if i’d remembered to take a before photo.

    Whoa…not sure what happened with that image but I’m too far along and too tired to go fix it. One of my custom brushes must have gotten away from me. 🙂

    I have been doing some work in Photoshop over this past week. I’ve been wanting to create some texture backgrounds. I hope to use them as overlays on photos, backgrounds, starting points for digi-art etc. 

    I even thought about making some printables with ephemera, photos or even vintage linens for texture.  Do you ever use printables in your art? If so, are they purchased or freebies? I see tons of digital downloads on etsy but I wonder if people actually buy them or use them.

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today?
  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Texture rich journal page

    February 7, 2019 - By 

    Recently the cold weather had me reaching out for warmth anywhere I could think of…it really showed through in the warm colors of this journal page.

    Can’t you feel the warmth radiating off the page?? Come on now…use your imagination..ah isn’t that better. Toasty warm.

    The image I chose made me think not of a masquerade ball as intended but to something sneaky…not dark and sinister but sly and cunning. I had to find the right words to match my thoughts.

    Don’t you just love it when things work out like that!

    Did you check out the texture!?! My first layer on this page was tissue paper. Over top I blended several shades of yellow and orange with my fingers until the overall look pleased the senses. Seeking more texture I attempted to stamp with some nearly ancient pigment ink pads…alas they left very little mark. Then I had the idea to smudge them here and there then sprinkle clear embossing powder over top. I had hoped I’d get more color from the ink…it was not to be.  Then I decided to get even more aggressive with the ink pads and use some UTEE in copper. I really love the end result.

    I also added some bits of leftover rub-on quotes I had laying around. I think it adds to the mystery of the page and what the masked woman is planning to deny.


    My last step was to add a bit of India ink loosely around the edges to act as a frame.

    Linking up today with Art Journal Journey for Yellow.

    Art Journal Journey