Quality vs. Quantity

To everything there is a season! November was my season to explore drawing more by participating in NaNoJouMo here. It was fun. Some of the art journal pages that I made on my watercolor moleskine, I really liked and was surprised at how they turned out. A few I was disappointed in, but not one of them was a waste. I tried different things with just about every prompt and some of the pages the fault was more in the way I laid out the page. The energy or the eye wasn’t pleased. I had a choice and sometimes it gelled and sometimes it didn’t.

I want to share a story with you that has influenced my thinking in the regard of creating or doing art. I wish I could remember where I heard this little story, when I do I’ll give them credit. Here goes: There was an Art teacher who divided his class into 2 groups. For the first group he told them, “I will grade you on quantity. Yes, quantity, the more pages you give me the higher your grade will be, irregardless of what you do on the pages”. To the second group he told them, “I will grade you on Quality. The better and prettier your work, the higher your grade will be. I want to see the very best you can do”.

Which group do you think turned out the better work? The Quantity group or The Quality group????

I thought it would be the quality group, why wouldn’t it be? They were taking more time, probably using the better materials and measuring everything out and deciding what looked the best. They worked really hard on every single piece. But I was wrong, the group that produced the better work was the Quantity group! The quantity group? How could this be? Well, apparently they didn’t worry about perfection and making everything so pretty and precise. They played, they colored, they painted, they did a ton of trial and error. You see this group learned. They learned as they went along and they got better and better at the task on hand. I also wonder if maybe their ego wasn’t in the way and they were able to silence their inner critique. They enjoyed different media and didn’t get bored with a piece. They were able to experiment.

So, this is my take on “art”……I want to just make stuff. Lots of stuff. All sizes, using many different techniques. Markers, paint, fabric, canvas, photography, decorating, collage, digital art, get your hands dirty art! I better get going, there’s a lot of stuff out there to make :D :D

How about you? What are your thoughts on creating art????

Thanks for stopping by,

Eden

My three Elves

The above quote is: Be a student, learn as long as you still have something to learn. (Free Digital element from Jan Hicks at Scrapgirls last year).

This pretty much sums things up for me lately! I drew these three elves yesterday. I love their hats. There is so much possibility in the hats alone! Just think of the patterns and colors you could draw up there, fun! The blue elf looks to me like he could be related to Porky the Pig. The red elf looks related to the South Park family and by the time I got to the green elf, by leaving his/hers eyes closed she looks the most like an Elf. Ahhh, live and learn… live and learn. I did accomplish one goal. I wanted each set of eyes to have some personality. They do have that don’t they?

I had fun coloring in my elves, but I couldn’t stop there. Next was the background; off I went with my ruler and measured off for my default background of diamonds! But, I may have taken it a little too far! It’s a busy little colorful background. I also wish I had made my Calligra-Fun “Elves” word bigger! It got a little swallowed up! I extracted the 3 elves in photoshop cuz I was curious how they’d look on there own. Ahhh, the wonders of photoshop!

I got my inspiration for the hats from this picture from Pam Carriker.

Thanks for stopping by,

Eden

P.S. What are some of your default backgrounds? Do tell :D

Brush Calligraphy

Moving on…..I drew everyday when I was participating in the NaNoJouMo November challenge at www.dblogala.com. But toward the end I couldn’t keep up with the prompts. Bummer! But it was FUN! I must admit I loved following the prompts and thinking up a way to draw or doodle the word. But alas, now it’s over and I must find some other challenge.

This week I signed up for an online class called Calligra-Fun from a very talented lady, Martha Lever . She does beautiful calligraphy with Zig pens, Faber-Castell pens, and LePlume pens. If the pen has a brush at the end then just sit back and watch her magic. She can do loopy letters, swirly letters with a touch of scrolling. Oh to see her alphabet taper! Wow!

I was immediately fascinated when I came across her work. Above is my first flowerpot page with a word that I wrote and embellished per her technique. I have to practice a lot more, and it's a whole-lotta Fun!

What are you challenging/learning for yourself these days?

Thanks for stopping by,

Eden

Sharing

*click on image to see it whole

Ironic that the One Word prompt at NaNoJouMo is Share that I’m working on today because when I went to my blog reading list I saw that I’ve been tagged by Tammy at Daisy Yellow. Her challenge to me was to answer each of these questions in one word (or my version of one word). So I’ll share the answers with you all here. It’ll only take a minute and it’s a wee bit o’ fun!!

Here goes …………………………………………

1. Where is your cell phone? ….purse

2. Your hair?… bedhead

3. Your mother?… young

4. Your father?… hero

5. Your favorite food?… shrimp

6. Your dream last night?… forgot

7. Your favorite drink?… Bailey’s

8. Your dream/goal?… toDrawMore

9. What room are you in?… study

10. Your hobby?… Many

11. Your fear?… snakes

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?… Australia

13. Where were you last night?…SwimMeet

14. Something that you aren’t?… superficial

15. Muffins?… banana

16. Wish list item?… Organization

17. Where did you grow up?… StLouis

18. Last thing you did?… drinkCoffee

19. What are you wearing?… YogaPants

20. Your TV?…HD

21. Your Pets?… HairyDogs

22. Friends?… Precious

23. Your life?… Evolving

24. Your mood?… Quiet

25. Missing Someone?… yes

26. Vehicle?… Crossover

27. Something you're not wearing?… wool

28. Your favorite store?… Quilt

29. Your favorite colour?… Red

30. When was the last time you laughed?… AnHourAgo

31. Last time you cried?… Movie

32. Your best friend?… husband

33. One place that I go to over and over?… Grocery

34. Facebook?… timid

35. Favorite place to eat?… CarryOut

Now, I’d like to tag Sue Doodles.

Purity Prompt at NaNoJouMo

Well, I went back and did Purity! When I think of purity I think of “all white”, and since I’m not an “all white” type of person, I then moved on to the type of image I should draw.

An angel represents purity…..so, off I clicked in Flickr to find an angel that I could actually draw. I found this image and I thought I’d give it a try.

So, then I added COLOR……ahhh beloved COLOR (*grin*)

*click on image to see all of it

Thanks for looking,

Eden

NaNoJouMo

I’m participating in National NonStop Journaling Month this month at D'blogala . I’ve done just about every prompt.

1. Freedom
2. Purity- haven’t done yet
3. Inspire
4. Beauty
5. Solitude
6. Felicity
7. Compassion

This is really fun! It’s making me DRAW SOMETHING. We then (if ya want) upload our drawings/Art Journal pages to Flickr to the group created for this.

Here’s a little collage of what I’ve done lately.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s prompt will be.

Well….I guess I can go back and do PURITY since I missed that for some reason.

Overwhelmed….

I knew I was overwhelmed today because as I walked around Hobby Lobby armed with my 40% off coupon I didn’t know what to spend it on. First stop was the Art Supply section. I checked out all their markers and some calligraphy inks. Then I went to the stencil section to see if they have any new stencils I liked. Next was the scrapbook section where I checked out the Sakura gelly roll pens I’ve heard so much about. All of a sudden I remembered that I’d really like to get a date stamp where I could roll today’s date in and stamp it on my work. I even asked a nice lady stocking the shelves if they had one. I’m thinking that an Office Supply store may have one. I then got so frustrated, I didn’t know what I wanted! I became so overwhelmed. When I get like this I’ve learned that it’s best to just leave, to not buy anything (you know be stuck with Buyer’s remorse) and so I picked up an encouraging card for an old friend that’s going thru some rough times right now, and left. I saved a whopping 40 cents with my coupon!

I’m participating in D’blogala’s NaNoJouMo this month and the prompt for today is Solitude. The prompt for yesterday was Beauty. I started this Cardinal drawing yesterday and thought I’d journal in the white area of the post. But I got stuck!!! So stuck! Not because of lack of ideas, but because I had too many. I thought a nice quote would work, but would it have to be about the word or the bird? I didn’t know if I should use the 2 prompt words and tie them together in a cute little poem like…. “Cardinals, awww beautiful Cardinals- they seem to like their solitude, like me”. But that’s so cutezy and I’m really not that cutezy!

Then after I got home from shopping I thought how easy it would be to just plug in a digital image from my ScrapGirls stash. It would look so neat and this one would work (see below). It’s positive and expressive. But again, it’s not me!

So, finally I took out my personal journal ( a composition book like these ) and wrote out my frustrations. After a little bit of editing I was finally okay with a piece of me that made it to the page.

It reads: I seemed to have lost my focus today. I have been taking in & taking in- getting excited about new art- new pens- new people- new attitude. I am so overwhelmed.

Oh, before I forget, does anyone know where to buy a date stamp like the NOV 5 09 in the bottom right corner? The one used here is digital.

All the best, [Eden[

Happy Halloween

  How to be a scarecrow for $10 or less…….

• Buy the straw bands (pack of 5)  from Factory Card Outlet~ $6.99
• Buy a black Hat from Halloween Express~ $2.99
• Grab some rope from your Halloween costume bin, detach the fake-bloody orange arm that the kids tied at one end of the rope that was used to scare people as they came to the door to Trick-Or-Treat~  FREE
• Grab old fake Sunflowers put away years ago in the basement box for a future project~  FREE
• Baste scrap fabric onto the jeans and Son’s old shirt in a random pattern~  FREE
• Find Fake Bird kept in Christmas decoration bin and attach to top of hat~  FREE
• Steal yellow bandana from daughter that she was given for a School parade last week~  FREE
• Obtain Red lipstick (that you never wore from Clinique free stash) and do cheeks~  FREE
• Obtain eyebrow pencil from make-up drawer and put a triangle on your nose~ FREE
• SMILE !!!~  PRICELESS

While working don’t forget to have a little fun!!!  Otherwise you’ll go CRAZY!!!  But that may redundant, see below!

Lyrics….”clowns to the left of me….jokers to the right….Stuck in the middle with YOU!!”

Faber-Castell Pitt Pens……chart

I love that FB puts numbers on all of their pens!  Helps me to keep track of what pen goes where, and what it does when it gets there! Ha !

I like the Bic Mark-Its too, but of course, absolutely no identifier on them!  Ugh!  And I love the Sharpie fine point markers, but has anyone seen a special note about the color/ a number to identify/ even a name (like they do with crayola crayons)?  Not I !!

I bought this last week.  8 new pens! Yum, I had two from the collection already, but you can never have too many pens even the duplicates, right?  Next, I’m going to check out the  BRIGHT COLORS  and the CLASSIC COLORS!  I get so overwhelmed when i go into my favorite Art shop and they have the whole display!  I just don’t know which is the best color choice for me, that day!  These 8-packs are perfect for the little beginner-me to try out all different colors.  And of course, over time a few favorites will appear.  Then i won’t be so stunned when I go back to the Art store!

How do you keep track of your art supplies that aren’t numbered or named?  Do you create your own system?  I guess I could use my Brother labeler and make my own identifiers……hmmmmm

Sun Series…..ColorSplash

First it started with this drawing…..Wait, No! It started with this picture I saved into my FAVORITES in Flickr. Then I found a background I like from Aimeslee. So, I taped up a moleskine page and watercolored the triangles. Then drew the birds and colored them in. I love how the bird in the middle seems to be talking to the one on the left….i digress……………………………….Then I WAS STUCK!! I couldn’t do anything with this drawing! I was SO missing something!

So, I moved on and forgot about the Bird Drawing and started a new page with my new favorite stencil, The Sun. I wanted to add a lot of color so I made a bunch of squares and colored them in. I know it doesn’t look like it but there is a method to my madness in coloring the squares. Each diagonal of squares follows a red series or blue, or green or yellow…….

But the squares were needing something! But what????? Then I remembered my birds. So, I brought my drawing into Photoshop and cropped the trio out. I then enlarged them and triplicated them (in case i had sloppy scissor-hands).

After I cut them out, I traced them onto my colored squares. Then I pulled out my new Dr.Ph Martin’s Pen-white ink.

Then I outlined the trio in .03 black prismacolor. And spruced up the Mr Sun-side! I didn’t know if I should put a face on the sun guy but he needed something. I think he looks a little proud…….as a sun should!!!

I seem to be hooked on the following in my journals;

• checkerboard
• diagonals
• journaling in this loopy way
• COLORS; red, green, blue, yellow
• And that White Pen Ink from Dr.Ph Martin’s

Well, that’s all folks!!!

[Eden[