Sketchbook Revival 2025-Two Mixed Media Classes

 This is my 34th class in the sketchbook revival classes, and although it didn't turn out anything like it was supposed to, I loved it, both the process and the outcome.

Mixed Media in my small sketchbook with notes and with a folded page added to my book page to make a three part concertina piece. I got a bit carried away with my sepia and India inks over collage, which made it dark, but it has many layers of collage, inks, paints and marks making a background for a city scape. It wasn't supposed to be this busy, so that I could sketch buildings over it, but it looks kind of like a city at night to me, and I can see all sorts of mini scenes within it, so, even though I could go back in with gesso, etc., and lighten it up a lot, I choose to leave it as it is. 

Same piece without the notes. All of the nuances don't show up in the photo like they really are. I still love it! It was so much fun! 

I enjoyed the first try so much that I turned the two added page folds over and did another one on the back with only two parts. It's not quite as busy and dark, but still too busy to draw buildings over, I guess. Again, I can see all these wonderful little scenes within that I love, so I'm also leaving it as is, because I love it. Both inspired by Karen Stamper's class "Start Your Pages With Mixed Media Mark Making". 

This one, also a lot of fun, was inspired by Iris Fritschi-Cussens's class "Mixed Media Play", and involved many layers of acrylic paints, markers, pencils, ink, etc. I used a single page, where the teacher did a double page spread, and I tried to incorporate all the techniques she shared, which is a no-no, but it'll help me remember better when I do one in a larger format. I love how it turned out, too, and look forward to doing the next one.

I think I have about taken all of the classes in the sketchbook revival, for now, that I'm really interested in. Well, there is one more that I know of, then I may take a break and practice what I've learned. Or, who knows, someone else in the group may post their page from another class that will pique my interest. There are over 130 classes to choose from!

I am also working in a little bit larger Canson sketchbook, and I currently have seven sketches done, six of which I'm adding watercolor to. So, I'm still trying to do a sketch a day of random subjects, plus adding color to some. Keeping my mind and hands busy!

Take care and keep creating!

Portrait Play n Experiments x 4

 Some of the portrait experiments I've been playing with the last couple of weeks in my 7" x 10" sketchbooks! So much fun! I loved watching the characters evolve!

I love this one. She is from my imagination, and I sketched her in pencil, then added watercolor over several days, as she told me what she wanted. The red hair is an homage to my paternal grandmother, Laura Lue, and an older cousin, whom I adored as a child. I miss them both very much. The shadow pattern is one I used from a Vogue black and white magazine photo of Lady Gaga that I found striking. As usual, she taught me a lot.

This one, also from my imagination, was sketched with a pencil, and I added Indigo and burnt sienna watercolors for the base layers, but I liked so much this way that I left it as is. Another character!

I used the black/white Vogue magazine photo of Lady Gaga as inspiration for this one in India ink, although I didn't strive for a likeness. I like the shadow pattern, and I added a bit of watercolor on the lips and eyes. The background in the photo was actually gray and her skin was gray tones, but I like the black/white, so I've left it, at least for now.

This one is in acrylics, and finishes up a sketchbook. It is a second attempt at a painting inspired by the Expressive Portraits class I took, but I didn't re-watch the video. Instead, I did it from memory and imagination. I loved the process and wanted to try a second one. I did follow the teacher's suggestion of using my fingers to apply the paint, and I only used two colors, Indigo and green-gold, plus white. My fingers were too big for the really small places, so I used a brush to fine tune those places. She is growing on me every day, and again, I learned much from her.

We went to the clinic for our six month check-up this morning, so hopefully the blood work comes back ok, and we have that over with for six months. We didn't go on to the next town over today, so we got back home by ten-thirty, ate breakfast, and hubby weed-ate the yard. I, on the other hand, since I slept very little last night, took a three-hour nap. 

So far today, I haven't sketched at all or painted on the elephant I started a couple of days ago, but I have written two blog posts, so that's something creative, and there's still time before bed! So we'll see... That is if the series we're just starting binge watching isn't that good. I can't think of the name, but it stars Patrick Dempsey, and it's a murder mystery. It looks promising, so I'm going to stop and pay attention to it before I lose the plot.

Take care, and keep creating!

Sketchbook Revival 2025-Portrait Sketches and Blob Characters

 I am learning so much in these classes! Every time I think I'll take a break, another student posts something that inspires me to take another class, but I am beginning to want to do my own art instead of following along with the teachers, as wonderful as they are. I am so grateful for their generosity in sharing their techniques with the rest of us!

This one came out of the class "Expressive Portrait Play" with Melanie Rivers, involved two colors plus white applied with my fingers. Quite challenging, but fun!

This page was inspired by Carla Sonheim's class Box Journaling and Blob Painting. I do want to do a box journal, and I should have used watercolor for the blobs instead of left over acrylics. I found characters in them, but my pen didn't want to go over the slick finish. I'll do some more in watercolor! A fun little exercise!

These two were inspired by Ida Anderson Lang's class "Graphite and Gold". I had paint drying in my class sketchbook, so I sketched the one above in my bigger better sketchbook. I wasn't quite satisfied with her, so I sketched her again in my class sketchbook and made her bigger. Still not satisfied with her, but I like her better, although I wish the darks and gold paint showed up better in the bottom one.

I'm thinking I might not ought to be sharing my notes at the bottom of the pages now. I really didn't think most people would take the time to read them, or they wouldn't be able to make sense out of them, and even if they do they'd still need to see the video demo to put it together. My notes are wonky, and are usually nowhere near this neat. I know what they mean, but most other people wouldn't. I didn't want to crop them off the picture for my own purposes, but maybe I should from now on?

Anyway, that's my classwork for this week, all of them challenging in their own way, which I love!

Stay safe and well and keep creating pretty things! The world needs pretty things!

Sketch Revival 2025-A Hoot Owl, Some Vases, and a Pair of Pears

"You're a Hoot", a whimsical painting with Tamara Laporte, mix media-different colors from hers-All are in my small sketchbook with hot pressed thick paper.

This was a fun challenge for me! I went with my favorite color scheme of blue and orange, and I didn't add as many whimsical things as Tamara did, but I love her! My husband says she looks like a gypsy fortune teller. That's ok with me!

 Concertina Fun: Make and Fill a Mini Concertina-Karen Stamper

Another fun class! This is a concertina mini book using a sheet of printer paper folded in half lengthways, then folded twice, like an accordion, to make a folded book, which stands up on its edge to see the art, then folds up to make a book. I learned some useful tips for making the vases using paper cutting. This book is just for an example, but I want to make a bigger better one soon. It can be painted on both sides with a cover added. I scanned it into the computer, which makes it look flat here, but it does fold back up. Fun stuff!

"A Pair of Pears: Loose Watercolor Sketching" with Susan Chiang

My first attempt was following along with Susan in the video painting wet in wet watercolors, which is hard for me, and I wound up with some hard edges. I wasn't happy with it, so I gave them another try!

My second attempt from my notes and memory. I like these much better, although I might have gotten carried away a bit with the spatter...

I finished these a couple of days ago and have moved on to Blob Painting and Expressive Portraits, which I'm still working on, along with four faces in a bigger sketch book, all in various states of completion, so I've been busy, despite the heat. Thankful for air conditioning!

Now on to finishing the last class and watching another!  I'm thinking I'm going to collage the street, but that could change when I start going through the classes again! I'm learning so much!

Quirky Doodle Abstract Painting

 When I get overwhelmed or stuck I tend to fall back on my quirky doodles. I didn't take a photo of the beginning pencil marks on the page, but these are the images that appeared to me amongst the marks, which I colored in with acrylic paints and a black Zig marker. I couldn't decide where to go next, so I left it for a few days and came back to it with my box of markers and pens and doodled on it until I was doodled out (second photo). 

Some of the lines are a little messy, but I was holding my sketchbook up in one hand while trying to add lines with the other. Not easy!

I accidentally cut about half an inch off the bottom by getting the book too close to the scanner plate edge, so there is actually a strip of the background across the bottom that isn't showing. I was too lazy to re-scan it...

This painting kind of makes me think of hubby and my road trip out west in 2019, especially the southwest, which I loved. 

Anyway, it was fun to do and helped wake up my muse some! Good therapy! No plan. No rules. Just intuitive fun!

Abstract Monoprint Painting Experiments

I hope you all had a good and blessed Thanksgiving weekend! Hubby and I spent part of the day with our niece and nephew and their families at our great-niece's home. We were blessed with a great meal, great company, who we love very much, and we were able to drive ourselves the twenty-five miles there and back and got home safely, plus we had each other for one more Thanksgiving! We all missed the loved ones who have gone on before us, but we are still very blessed indeed! Sorry, no pictures. :(

Anyway, here's what I've been playing with creatively the last few days!

If I'm going to be painting much in acrylics I use a sponge sheet and acrylic paper palette. The sponge sheet is dampened and the paper laid on top with the paint squeezed out on it, and it helps keep the acrylics from drying out so fast while I'm using them. I'm a slow  painter!

I've been painting small paper clay figures in short sessions, so I cut the sponge sheet and paper down to fit into a small plastic box with a lid, and most of the paint will stay moist for several days. When I finish with a project, I often have moist paint left on the paper. I hate to waste it, so I play with it in my Arteza mixed media sketchbook. The palette I cut to fit the box also happens to fit the sketchbook pages.

Sometimes, I apply it with a brush and/or a palette knife, and sometimes I take the palette paper, with the paint, and turn it upside down on a sheet of my sketchbook, rub the back some, kind of smushing it around, lift the paper, and viola! surprise! Such fun to see what images emerge! And when the page is rotated, there are different images to explore! I love it!

Below are some abstract monoprints (I call them) that I created this way from my last painting sessions...

This first one is the actual palette paper, from a few weeks ago, where I scraped the paint off with a palette knife and put it on mixed media paper. This is how it was left, and I saw a bird a little off center, so I hung on to it, thinking it could go in a collage/journal. I may, or may not, add some more to it later.

This one is the first monoprint from the palette paper (below) into my sketchbook. The Arteza mixed media sketchbook pages are textured like watercolor paper on one side and smooth on the other. These prints are on the textured pages. The paint was kind of thick and juicy to start with, and when I lifted paper, after rubbing the back of it pretty firmly, the first thing I saw was a black horse running toward me, with a red horse close behind and possible one between them. Also, a Pekingese resembling the one we once had appeared beside a blue bird hovering over a nest. That could also be a black calf/foal laying in the bottom corner. Except for a couple of little marks with a white gel pen, this is just the way the print came out. I love it so much!

This is the second print from the palette paper (below), a mountain landscape also with lots of texture. I only added a couple of lines with a gel pen to this one too. The rest is as it came out on the paper after the palette paper was lifted.

Ok, this is the original palette paper AFTER the two prints above, a much softer mountain landscape. I haven't added anything at all to it. I could probably have gotten a couple more "ghost prints" off it, as there was still some paint and texture on it, but I decided to keep it as is. It may wind up in a collage/journal!

I did scan it into my laptop, rotated it different directions, and cropped it into the following little pieces, which I can print off for different projects. I may add some more marks/paint to enhance parts of them, but I kind of like them as they are, so maybe not. :)

This one came off of one end of the original palette paper. It reminds me of a Chinese painting.

This one is cropped off the other end of the palette paper and also reminds me of a Chinese landscape painting. Nothing added to this one either!

I turned the scanned image upside down, cropped it some, and viola! a large bird appeared! I haven't added anything to this image either. I love it as it is! 

Another cropped portion of a vertical landscape, sort of. No touch ups here either.

The version of the upside down palette paper with the bird (above) before it was cropped. I know I should have placed this one above the cropped one, but this is the way they landed. :D I'm still loving all the texture and imagery! 

This can also be done with a gelli plate or anything with a hard smooth surface like glass, a piece of formica, etc. Only you squeeze the paint onto the surface, then lay your paper on top and rub, then pull up, to get an image. Fun stuff!

I think these would make pretty greeting cards and small prints, so I may print some off on much better paper at some point. At any rate, it's been fun and exciting playing with this and seeing the surprise results. It won't be the last time I do this!

Stay safe, well, and creative, and don't be afraid to experiment! You never know where it will take you! Thanks for visiting! 💓

A Scanner Fixed and Working! Yay!

 When I got this laptop a couple of years ago, I connected my Canon all-in-one printer from online, because I couldn't find the disk that came with it. Well, the scanner part didn't download, so I haven't had a scanner for a while. I went online and tried to download the software and connect it a couple of times and failed.

Well, yesterday, because I'm wanting to scan in some old photos for family members, I tried again and succeeded. First, I downloaded a Microsoft free scanner app, which was crap. Then I went to the Canon website thru my printer info and downloaded the Canon free scanner software, and, viola!, it works great.

Only thing is, right now, it won't use the buttons on the printer/scanner to scan. I have to use the computer scanner software to set everything and scan, which is a little inconvenient, but at least, it scans really good. So maybe I can start scanning my artwork now and keep the white backgrounds instead of the gray backgrounds I've been getting with my camera, even after editing and saving. Either lighting or camera glitches, I'm thinking. The camera is very old, and my phone doesn't make great pictures either. May be time for a new camera!

Anyway, here is the difference between art photographed with my camera and uploaded into my laptop and art scanned into my laptop. Mainly the background. 

Using camera photo and Microsoft editing, which saved it as white, but it came out as gray when I shared it to my blog, FB, and Instagram :(

Scanned-Much closer to the original colors

I so wish I had fixed and used the scanner a long time ago, but I don't think the backgrounds have been being gray all of that time. Not going to go back and scan what I've already done though. I'll just go forth from here with the scanner. Besides that the scanner holds still. My hands are often shaky holding the camera, resulting in slightly fuzzy photos, even with the shake option on on the camera!

Anyway, the scanner is working again, and, hopefully I will be sharing much better photos of my feeble art attempts with you! :)

Stay well and safe, and have a happy and creative turkey day!

Ink and Acrylic Bird Nest Study

Trying out walnut ink  applied to the page with a stick to create a bird's nest. I added some acrylic paint and a few spatters. Kind of happy with the outcome! 

Still haven't figured out why the white paper is gray when I share it. I'm starting to wonder if it's in my camera? It's very irritating! Grrrrr!

Thanks for visiting! 

Palette Clean Off Abstract Poppies

 So, this is kind of another abstract made from cleaning off my palette of extra acrylic paint. I use half of a sheet of disposable palette paper for acrylics on a damp sponge to lay out my paint on. When I'm finished and ready for new paint, I turn the palette paper upside down and stamp onto a sketchbook page, sometimes two or three times, sometimes once.

Here, poppies showed up. Three of them, two already with black centers. I added watercolor stems, darkened the center of the middle poppy, made a few black gel pen lines, added some spatters, and let them be. Maybe not a masterpiece, but I love poppies, so I kind of like it!

Mixed Media Abstracts From Palette Clean Off X 3

 Some more abstracts in my sketchbook made from the acrylic paint left over on my palette after painting on my clay characters. Acrylics dry fast, and I hate to waste even what little is left  over, so sometimes I brush the paint onto the page. Other times, because I'm using a palette about the same size as my journal page, I turn the palette upside down and stamp the page, rubbing the back to get every little bit of whatever color is there. I let it dry, then add more paint, markers, pencils, pens, etc.

These look much more vibrant and better in person. I can't get them to look like the true colors on here for some reason. Sorry! 

A Couple of Mini Acrylic Landscapes

 I had more leftover paint, so I did a couple of quick mini landscapes from imagination in my sketchbook, using only the colors left on the palette. The photo didn't pick up all of the little nuances of color in either one of them, but you get the idea. The paint didn't go to waste and I got some practice!

This one is possibly a work in progress, also using leftover paint, but it is from an old photo, and mostly memory, of the year we moved to Alabama for a year for my dad's job when I was in second grade. My parents and I lived in a little three room house in the woods, which had a living room, one bedroom, and a kitchen, all small, and it had red shingle siding on the outside. Many happy memories from that year before we moved back to Tennessee!

Fun stuff! Thanks for visiting!

Palette Clean Off Abstract

 Another abstract in my sketchbook, made with leftover acrylic paint from a few sessions of painting the paper clay characters. I stamped the palette paper onto the page to start, then added other marks and gel pen fake writing in following additions. I like it. I hate wasting even the tiniest bit of paint. Besides, I love seeing all the hidden images that appear at the end of the process if I just look!

Thank you for visiting! I truly appreciate it!

Excess Paint Abstract Paintings

I can't stand to waste paint, so when I finish, or rest, on a project, I either brush the leftover paint onto a mixed media sketchbook page or take my palette paper and stamp it on the page, sometimes both. Here are the last two I called finished. I kind of like them! I love seeing all the images within the paint come forth! Sometimes I enhance the images with pencils, markers, pens, etc. for added interest. In any case, I saved the paint! Acrylic paints left over from painting the class clay characters I've been working on.

Come Clay with Me-Section 1 Finished!!!

 Section one classes are finished and section two ready to be sanded and painted! It's been really fun to see their personalities emerge from the sculpting to the painting. I used the teacher's designs for this group, or I tried. They did turn out similar, to my surprise. I got more comfortable and better at handling the paper clay and tools with the second group! See sidebar for link to classes and website!

Also click on the label Jeanne Marie Webb classes to see the previous posts leading up to the finished group!

I shared this one previously. It was a practice run, sort of. I got it too flat, so I learned from it and made the second first character below!

This one turned out more like the video and much better, but the first one has a soft spot in my heart too!

The second little quirky character "Mama Bear". Love her! She is the tallest in my group at four and a half inches tall.

Not a very good photo, but this is the third little person. I learned how to make roses on her!

This is a bonus lesson! Sort of a tribal mask. I didn't intentionally make her smirk. I think she twisted her mouth during the drying process! 😲

The group while they are drying. I forgot to tilt some of their heads, but that's ok. Not a requirement!

And here they are in a family portrait! I just love them as a group! They look so mischievous, don't they?!!! The first two look like they are whispering secrets, mama bear looks like she feels out of place and thinks they are talking about her, and the other two look  kind of antagonistic toward one another. I'll have to find a better way to display them than the drying rack! They can be used for all sorts of creative things, including ornaments, gift tags, framed, handmade book/journal decorations, etc...

These have been so interesting and fun to create, plus they have each one taught me so much! I may take a bit of a break before painting the next group though. I have concentrated so much on this group that I'm behind on some chores! Besides, I have videos for group two to watch first, and this group is all about making and wearing masks, which I have done already, but I need to watch the classes on painting them before doing it.

Try something new! You never know if it will become your new passion! Thank you so much for your visit! 💓

Abstract Landscape?

This was supposed to be a mixed media abstract landscape using oil paints and cold wax, with palette knife/credit card. in a class by Maria Teding van Berkhout in the Twelve Days of Creativity on Ivy Newport's website. during Christmas, but it didn't turn out that way. Instead, yesterday after I finished the painting inspired by Jeanne Marie Webb's class, I squeezed out three colors of acrylic paint (cad red lt, thalo blue, yellow ochre) plus white onto the page I had already painted gray, then red, and barely sketched on, picked up my palette knife and just let the paint fly where it would. No wax this time. It was sheer freedom and took less than an hour!

The first photo is of the top of the finished piece, which I cropped off, just playing around.

• Cropped off top

Page background painted with gray gesso with a light pencil barely there sketch

I decided to paint over the gray with cad red lt and sketch again.

Didn't think about it. Just intuitively went for it! I like it!

The bottom two are where I played around with cropping some more. The one at the top is the best crop, I think.

I don't know if you would call this landscape abstract, or not, but it sure was fun and relaxing, especially with my music turned up loud! Very little like the class was meant to be, but I enjoyed the video class, and, at some point, I may actually do a landscape painting using oils and wax. I never know when the urge will strike to do something!

Stay cool and creative!