Swim Time

As you can see, I’m still on my birdie kick! And being that I am really desiring Spring or better yet Summer weather, I just had to create some of my sunshine.

I have not had good results doing hair with markers, so off I went to grab my watercolor pencils to do her hair in the only way that I know how. By lightly sketching the strands of hair, then using a small brush that I dip in water and apply to the watercolor pencil marks. Quite fun really! I do enjoy this technique so I’ve got to make a note to self to do more of it! LOL!!

And since my little birds can’t live their lives fully without a name. I named her too!

I thought this name appropriate because all my DH and I have been talking about when we mention travel, is Australia! Don’t know when that’ll happen but just laying the groundwork….laying the groundwork.

Hope you all are getting some nicer weather and can move yourselves and projects outdoors to get some much needed vitamin D.

If anyone is interested in a 4x6 print of a name or word. Contact me at elg921(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Feeling much better……thank you

Olga- the sick bird….Even though she feels awful, she still wants to color-coordinate. She tries to keep up with her responsibilities until she can fall into bed a little earlier than usual.

I have almost gone 18 months without a cold. Then whoa!! I got hit! So, to celebrate my 18 month victory against the rhinovirus monster, I drew another little birdie. She’s holding a kleenex (even though it looks like a piece of paper. Note To Self: must work on droopy paper drawings).

So, I laid real low yesterday! Tried not to talk much. Why is it every cold I get goes directly into my voice-box? Granted I get a lot of sympathy because I sound “just awful”. Really, I sound much worse than I feel.

And Spring is here! Finally! So I’m going to send a little shout out to you all to keep yourselves Healthy & Happy!!

Art inspires

I’m having one of those days. A day that I really don’t want to try too hard! I want to watch, I want to feed my visual monster! I just want to gaze upon the works of others and make sense of it. I wonder how they did that? What makes this piece more interesting than the other piece? Is it the colors used? The white space inherent in the picture? The idiosyncrasy, the breaking of the rules that I follow?

Art!!! It really can’t be boxed in, can it? It is before us, with us and beyond us. It inspires and moves us! It works with the senses, mainly the visual and the hearing as in music. But also the mind and emotions as in good writing. It needs to have it’s place in our life or we wouldn’t feel complete. Imagine not seeing anything of beauty, hearing anything that moves you to Tears or to Dance. Or even tickles your funny bone. I think without Art we’d be robots, just merely a walking p.c.! How Utterly Horrid! I think Art inspires us to be better people! It resonates with our human-ness. I also think there is ART in love. We remember it most clearly in new love. Be it a love relationship or new baby. But isn’t there a certain ART to showing you care, to your spouse? Your family? Your friends? People you just plain like for no known reason.

How does Art manifest in your life that you didn't expect?

Charity Cardinal……..done!

I talked about this back in January in this post. My son has an auction for his university/fraternity in April. He’s one of the organizers, so when he gets excited about something, well….. then I get excited about it, too. He’s a contagious sort of kid young man.

I was unsure of what I wanted to do with my embroidered cardinal. I was thinking I’d make a little quilt, for a small bed or even a wall-hanging. Well, before I knew it…. January turned into February, and I hadn’t done anything with the quilt. Stuck, i was. And then project avoidance set in due to my indecision. I finally just settled on stapling the Cardinal quilt to a 24 x 24 artist’s Canvas Board. The nice thing about this option is I don’t have to actually quilt anything…..I can just do quilt tops, which is what I like to make anyway!! Only wish I knew then what I would end of doing cuz I would’ve sized up my squares for that dimension….. Ahhhh, c’est la vie!

If I can pull it off, I’ll embroider another cardinal and do another one similar to this by April 18th. Heck, I’ve got material left, even some squared rows! We’ll see……

As you can see from this picture, the way I stapled this piece to the board has made a little sway in my fabric! Ugh, must try and remedy. If any of you have any suggestions as to unswaying the left side, please post! I’m thinking I should dampen it and adjust it wet, but I don’t want to induce any wrinkles either!!

My Bird Friends

Billie Jean- The Tomboy Bird…..todays woman, no one is going to tell this bird she’s not included and she can’t do something because she’s a girl. No one! Cuz she’s smart and has lots of talent! You girls, know what I mean don’t ya?

I started drawing these little birds about 6 months ago. I love that I have complete control over the drawings. Only limited by my abilities. I find they really like to be drawn and then tell me something. Some words of wisdom, if you will! They each tend to have their own personality. I can just see people I’ve known in my life coming out through them.

Cleopatra- the Jeweled Bird….This one reminds me of a lot of teens today. Wearing all the glitter and never having earned a penny of their own. Possibly a little bored with their life as well!

Andre- the Sporting Bird….Kind of a cocky know-it-all bird. Can’t you just see he’s monitoring the game and setting the guidelines and the rules. But keeping things fair….things must be kept fair!

Suzie- the Baby Bird…..Ahhh, the happy go lucky baby bird. Just wants to be included and do what everyone else does. Listens so well too! Can’t you just hear her asking all those “why” questions?

Martha- the Dutiful Bird…….This bird cracks me up, can’t you just see that she’s doing everything she’s told to do and she can hardly smile because she’s too busy attending to everyone else’s needs.

Renee- the Eclectic Bird….this bird has opinions and isn’t afraid to express them. She’s not afraid to strut her stuff or go against the main stream. God love her!!

One of my favorite features on these birds is their little bony knees! You see, I’ve never had skinny legs, so it’s extra fun infusing them with characteristics I long for.

I think each one of these birds is really an aspect of me….who I was at certain periods in my life. Now….I’m just trying to be Renee!! LOL!!

How about you? Can you relate to any of these birds?

Mail Sketch part 2

It takes Courage to

grow-up and Become

who YOU really are.

-e.e. cummings

I am growing to love these little birdies. They each have a personality of their own. I needed to do 2 more pages in the Sketch Mail Journal, and I didn’t feel inspired to do anything, NOTHING!

Yesterday I came across this quote which I’ve always loved. I thought, maybe just maybe I could dress up a little birdie and have her speaking the quote. So, I got to drawing…..luckily aprons aren’t too difficult to draw. Boots seemed to be pretty easy as well. I was unsure what kind of hat to put on her. Initially I would’ve loved to draw a floppy little cotton floral hat, but thought it may look more like a hat if I just stick to a standard version. Added a watch on the wing and a flower off the hat…..and TA-DA! Done!

I am gonna miss this little greeny-girl bird with attitude! Cuz I think she’s what I want to be! You can see I even un-knowly dressed myself in the same color this morning! My new favorite color is this green, would that be “chartruese”? Anyone know?

Here’s the up-close version of my new Bird with the quote. Why are we so afraid to wear a little color? Is it cuz it will draw attention to ourselves? And then what? Do we have to have something clever/funny/or cute to say then? Ahhh, whatever…..I say just do what you like, wear that shirt with the colors you adore in it!! And when people look……just Smile and Wave!!!

And here is one of the reasons I adore Photoshop!! The quote bubble here makes much more of a statement than the white version, don’t ya think?

And Janet, if you’re out there….I should get this in the mail to you by tomorrow, hopefully :D

Mail Sketch 2010

A couple of weeks ago I received this adorable package in the mail. This is the first hand-made envelope I have ever seen in my whole life. Much less received!!! Isn’t it the cutest thing ever!!! I have never known that we could send stuff in the mail this way……Well, actually I’ve heard of people decorating envelopes but this is so over the top! Tammy at Daisy Yellow made it! I love it, don’t you??

Inside the envelope was this tiny little red book.

Since I’ve never participated in something like this, a Mail Art Swap, I had no idea what to do for my pages!!!

So, it sat……. and sat…..and sat…..

Then last night, I had an idea! I ran up to my studio (where not much happens) and came down with colored paper and letter stencils. I grabbed my handy-dandy pen bag and doodled away. Then, since this is a journal I really wanted to do some line journaling, you know “real writing”. But, I didn’t want to mess it up and do the journaling on the original. So, I cut a piece of cute scrapbook paper to the size of the page and journaled on that. Then I glued everything inside the book.

Since it’s too small to read from here, I’ll tell you what the journaling says:

“This is how I see me and art. If I live to be 90, I will be the little old lady taking the shuttle to the art store….Why? Because it makes me happy & young at heart. Plus between you & me- I hate to cook.”

Now, I just need to do 2 more pages and then send it on. I have an idea of what to do, lets see if I can pull it off!

What I need to be creative…..3 of 3

Only as High as I Reach can I Grow,

Only as Deep as I Look can I See,

Only as Far as I Seek can I Go,

Only as Much as I Dream can I Be.

-anonymous

What I need to be creative. Or just Create!!!

I’ve already mentioned that I needed:

1. Food
2. Visual Stimuli
3. Equipment
4. Place
5. Travel

Today, there’s three more things I need.

6. TIME

I like to have a set time that I show up for my “art”. It hasn’t always been this way, but now that I have more control over my time, it’s something I really look forward to and encourage others to follow. On the days that I work, I always schedule some art-time into my breaks. I go off , where I can be undisturbed by people or TV. Cafe style settings work well for me.

Almost daily now, you can find me doing something after dinner! Lately, I’ll get my hot chocolate made with way too many marshmallows, and I’ll sit down to c.r.e.a.t.e. something! Anything!

Before the kids could drive and I was the taxi- mom, I had to break my projects down into 20-30 minute segments. Multi-tasking was the focus of the day then. Doing projects and getting my sewing projectss done was important to me, so I found a way.

7. ENCOURAGEMENT

If you know me or live with me, you will often find me running into the other room to show my DH (dear Husband) or DC (dear child) what I’m working on. Sometimes I actually get a response from them. A useful comment or question. Other times, it’s just the “yeah, that’s great” or the “excuse me, you’re blocking my view”. Ahh well, what can I say?

Then there’s you all! You guys understand! You write such enthusiastic comments. I just love them! Even the comments that only have a word or two: “Neat” and “Looks good”. I try to comment too, when I’m out and about blog surfing or on Flickr. I must confess though, if a post or flickr upload already has 20+ comments, I usually don’t add anymore to it. I think it’s important to be one of the first to comment on something that moves me or I agree with. I want to encourage the person that did the work or wrote the article. I like the dialogue of a new post, before all the readers and blog authors have moved on from the topic.

8. DOWNTIME

Then there’s downtime. Sometimes it screams to be taken. I’ve got alot to say about this. Stay tuned!

Blog GIVEAWAY!!

This is my 150th post!! Wow! I can’t believe it! And to think, I even have a few followers! (Thank You guys, you know who you are).

I thought it would be fun to host a doodle art giveaway. You won’t win a million dollars or a cute art journal kit, sorry! But what I can do is take my doodle alphabet and make a 4x6 print of something similar to the “name” above. The winner can choose any word they want. Your Name, your word for the year, a date, a number…. I’ve found that it’s best to limit the number of characters in your “word” to under 8. That way you can see more of the doodles in the print. I’ve been making these name photos for friends at work since July. It’s been fun!!

All you have to do is answer the following question in a word or two.

What is the first word that comes into your mind when you think of ART?

To be included in the random drawing you have to comment on this post by midnight Sunday 2/28. I’ll randomly pick a name and announce it on my blog Monday 3/1. So, please stop back on the 1st so I can get your address and your word. I will need to snail mail you the print.

See some examples below:

What I need to be creative….2 of 3

What I need to be creative.  Or just Create!!!

Yesterday, I mentioned that I needed:

1. Food
2. Visual Stimuli

Today, there’s more…..

3.  EQUIPMENT

My favorite items are watercolor paper, good pens (like Faber-castell, Microns, Sharpies fine, Bic Mark its, Gelly rolls) and small brushes.  I’m  a stocker-upper!!

When I get those Hobby Lobby, JoAnne’s or Michael’s coupons, I immediately get a good pen if my back up  black XS pen has been put into use.  I can get pretty overwhelmed when I go into these stores, so I usually shop best when I know why I’m there.  Just by walking in the door of some art stores is enough to get my head swirling with things I want to try or buy.  Think Artist’s Date and you don’t even have to spend a penny.   A good benny about frequenting these stores is, I may come across a new product or a big clearance sale.  It’s also a good way to keep track of the trends that are coming out.

 4.  PLACE

First of all I’ve got to be comfortable, have decent light and I tend to spread out a bit.  I have this really cool "studio"  at home (where Phyllis the Phlamingo lives), but that’s not where you’ll find me doodling.  You may find me sewing  there, but not doodling. 

My favorite place to doodle at home is right on my computer desk.  I just move the wireless keyboard to the floor, clear my spot and off I go.  I’ll usually have on my wireless headphones and listen to music or Dennis Prager.

Another great place for inspiration is Quilt stores.  All that luscious fabric in those amazing colors.  Batik’s, diamonds, florals, stripes, Oh My!!    Museums are a special treat, especially children’s museums.   I like the fun, funky and colorful stuff you can find at Children’s museums.  Art Boutiques are always good fodder for inspiration too.

What about you?  Where do you physically go to get inspired?

5. TRAVEL

Nothing’s quite like a change of scenery or a twist in my routine to get me thinking differently.  I haven’t traveled much for sight-seeing reasons these days.  Mostly it’s to visit family (spread out in 5 states) or attend swim meets.

Our Annual Beach Vacation to Florida always gets me excited to create something new.  Or try something new.  Combination of the beach colors and sails, suits and outerwear.  Being in the water and on the water.  And not having to be anywhere at anytime, I get to be quite lazy actually !

Hey, I’m going to Nashville next week, does anybody have any suggestions for a casual Artist’s date there?  Any good artsy-shops?

What I need to be creative….1 of 3

I’m breaking this piece up into three segments. Because if you’re anything like me, when you stop in you probably don’t want to read an Essay. Just a few paragraphs is usually the best for my attention span.

What I need to be creative. Or just to create!!

1. FOOD

If you could view my blogger following list you’d see all the places blogs I’d like to visit. Every morning I always stop in and see what Tammy’s up to at Daisy Yellow. Sometime during the day, Janet will update her blog at Just Me and My Art and show us some of her beautiful Art journal pages or talk about an on-line class she’s taking. Throughout the day as the updates occur, I can’t bypass Aimee at Artsyville, or Sue at Sue Doodles. If I’m in need of a more charitable or grateful article, I’ll check out Christine’s blog at christinekane.com.

There are so many more blogs that I stop into on a weekly basis. Such as:

• Artsy-crafty babe
• Attic24
• Cathartic Creativity
• Elvie Studio
• ihanna
• Serena Lewis
• Shutter Sisters
• and recently Artist's Who Blog

These blogs are my food! My main meal! My get the creative juices going from the posts insights, articles, eye candy and quotes. I feel like I know these people, really!!

2. Visual Stimuli

Other than the blogs mentioned above. I need visual stimuli!! And lots of it! Books and Magazines and more Books are my friends. Nothing compares to the Somerset Studios magazines out there. They publish an Art Journaling magazine, Artful Blogging magazine, Somerset Workshop magazine and many, many more. Check out your local bookstore like Barnes and Noble or Borders if you want to see more. When I’m traveling or don’t want to be on-line I always reach for my books or magazines.

And another huge visual stimuli for me is ……

Flickr. I love to go into my Favorites, then click on a member that left a comment, from there I’ll check out their photostream, I can’t leave until I’ve looked at their Favorites, too! It is an amazing people connection. I find things that have been uploaded to flickr years ago. Some pics were not even posted into any groups, which means I never would have come across them. I will go weeks without checking out my “groups” pages for their recent uploads because I’m getting my artsy fix by “Favorites” hopping!

Thanks for stopping by! Please stay tuned for part Two tomorrow.

Eden

Three down…….one to go

I just finished my 3rd moleskine! Three! I love these books! I love this size for the most part. As a novice they work perfectly for me. Someday, I’ll get the bigger one, someday…..

As you can see I’ve been working on my doodle alphabet. These lowercase letters have been fun! I may go thru and rework my uppercase when when finished. I really must get a life! I must get out a little more and take a DRAWING class! Really, I must! I don’t know what’s stopping me. Probably I don’t want to be told what to do, work on a piece that I don’t find interesting? Or having to be somewhere at a certain time (other than work). But I would love to meet some like-minded people! I know there are many of you out there.

It’s like a trip down memory lane, when I open these up and look at what I’ve done. Trust me there are some pages I’ve totally given up on. But those pages come in real handy when I’m testing out my markers, for color contrast and ink supply.

I only buy the watercolour moleskines. They can take the abuse.

Just opened this one tonight! Now, I’ve got to find one locally to have on hand. I never know how fast I’ll go thru these. Could be a week or a month!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Eden

P.S. I’ll let you know when I find a class

Evolution of a Blog Banner……

I think I have a “thing” for blog banners! I started posting to this blog back in 2007. And my motto for the blog was “Just Do It”, to get me over the hump of writing on here. Exposing myself and my stuff to the outer world. It was fun. I liked the fact that if I was talking to a friend I could immediately show them something I was talking about by just going to my blog and finding the post.

Then in 2009, I wanted to pick a word. As you can see my word was “Start”. As in start to do the things I wanted to do, and I started to update my blog as well.

When I first named my blog I had it as “My Perspective”, so I thought it would be fun to bring that into the blog header in the one I used in February ‘09. Being that I don’t use the blog to voice my political views, my personal victories and struggles (other than with arts & crafts), I thought that name was pretty lame. So, that’s when “This looks like fun” came onto the scene.

The “Lighten Up and Start to express yourself in different ways” banner was pretty short lived. I wanted to jump start myself to really post on this blog, but I thought the “lighten up” wording came off as a little negative. Time to change again, then.

The Inspire, Love, Start header was super fun to make. I used many digital images that I bought at Scrapgirls and I got to express myself thru Photoshop more on here. I really have a thing for those birdies too! Go figure!

This summer as I foung myself with more “me” time due to the fact that my youngest child was driving herself to her activities and practices. I was able to sew things and to doodle a bit and to really express myself in color. I brought in my own pictures for the top banner… “A little place on the web where Creativity happens”. This banner really inspired me. I could see some of my favorite fabrics, my favorite self-made quilt, some fun doodles and embroidery. This one I could’ve kept up forever.

Now it’s December and I seem to be on a roll…..so, I had to wish my blog readers a Merry Christmas and what better way to do that than thru my banner. With pictures from my own tree and infusing it with the real reason for Christmas (not the politically correct version of Happy Holidays), I was able to show you a little slice of my values.

Then came the Happy New Year banner! I had hand drawn those birds (just 3) in October and scanned them into my computer for future work. For this banner all I had to do was color, crop and duplicate in Photoshop. Another fun, FUN, blog header!

On February1st, I had to try my hand at a Valentines header. As you can see, I have trouble with PINK! I love pink, actually adore it….but this banner seems too busy for me. Maybe it’s too pink!! Probably should’ve toned it down some.

Then today, I made a blog header with my own little doodle alphabet. The first three letters are from my earlier doodling. The last 3 letters are more recent. To me the latter letters (Lowercase) are a bit richer, not as boring as the Uppercase series.

Don’t know how long I’ll keep this header up. Until I get bored with it I guess. I think it would be neat if blogger was able to keep the blog header with the posts that we did at that time. For those not familiar I’ll explain what I mean. When I upload a new blog header it will be what is seen when you go back and read older posts. It’s too bad the header doesn’t appear that I used from the time I posted a certain post (i.e. Christmas banner blog header as you go back and read what I talked about in Dec 09)….. Ah well, such is life.

What have you seen evolve on your blog that surprised you? Inspired you? Kept you wanting to update and improve?

Thanks for stopping by,

Eden

hi……

“h” is for; hello, honey, helicopter, hors d'oeuvres , hills, and heeps-o-fun!!!

I’ve finally decided to take on the “lower-case” alphabet doodle challenge…. which I gave myself months ago. My uppercase letters were in real need of a lowercase counterpart. I’ve found with the little break from doodling in this form that my doodles have changed a bit. It’s just interesting to see that I’m not as afraid of using a lot of color to fill in the white space. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge white space advocate. But in the case of these letters, since they are drawn on white moleskine paper, they need contrast and color. And lots of it!!

One of these days I’m gonna do a series of these in watercolor pencils. I love the way the watercolor pencils give depth and fluidity to the piece. The problem with the watercolor pencils for me now is, I haven’t decided if i could do this during my break at my DAY JOB. I think though, if it’s important to me….I’ll find a way.

Thanks for stopping by….and keep on doing your thing!!

Eden

Doodle Directory

I really can’t decide what to call this???? Doodle Dictionary or Doodle Directory. I got the idea of creating this directory from Sue at Sue Doodles. She’s an amazing doodler, go check her out, I’ll wait!

While doing my mindless doodles, I’d be wracking my brain with what doodle to do next. So, off I went in my handy-dandy watercolor moleskine to document some of my favorite doodles. These are really quite simple and I really must take some time to learn more forms. This Zentangle newsletter is a good place for instruction. All in good time, all in good time.

Here’s just a sneak peak of my little directory so far….. I even named some of the forms.

The Flowers are what I learned at Calligra-Fun with Martha Lever.

The “Open Boxes” are very much an inspiration from Tammy at Daisy Yellow.

I’m really drawn to the “Striped Triangles” on this one, but would love to do more along the “Swirls upon Swirls” line.

Almost all my doodles have some sort of “Diamond” pattern in the background.

Lots of fun stuff in this one, I am enjoying this “Leaves” type of doodle lately.

Lots of fun doodles here too! I love to draw the Line Flower, Seuss Hats, Puzzle and Camouflage.

Where do you get your inspiration? Has anybody found a good book along these lines (a doodle book)?

Thanks for stopping by :D

-Eden