Congratulations!

I know this is a drawing blog but my daughter was married a few weeks ago and I wanted to share this photo. We are so proud of her and her husband. They both serve in the US Army. We are lucky we have individuals who are willing to give so much to protect our freedom. We love you both, congratulations!

License Plate Book

Hi, sorry I have been gone for so long. I will be posting more regularly.

This book was created by a former high school student of mine. The covers are made from an ordinary license plate cute in half with tin snips. She has asked me to join her booth in November at a local craft show. I decided it was a great opportunity and would be lots of fun to spend the time with her. Now I need to get busy and create!

Its ok laugh with me

Ok I am posting this so everyone can see how truly horrible my watercolor attempts are. I am looking at this and you just have to laugh. I think it may be my materials or at least that is what I am telling myself. I am going to keep trying but this does nothing for my confidence. Where is the light, the beautiful glazes? Oh they must be under the mud!

Spring Easter basket

I completed this sketch in my handmade watercolor journal. I am still very new to watercolor but really enjoy the possibilities it opens up for adding color. My goal is to do larger paintings but for now just the small ink and watercolor creations. I have read everything I can get my hands on about working with watercolor successfully but if anyone has some suggestions as to paint brands, paper or brushes please share what works best for you. I have tried it many times and just cant seem to get the desired results. So I give up!!! Not this time I am going to keep at it until I get something I am happy with.

I am still working on my sign in pages for the international moleskine exchange 68. I am struggling with the concept but keep checking I hope to have a preview posted soon.

Moly_x_68

I visit several artist blogs frequently for inspiration and motivation. A few months ago I stumbled across the moleskine international exchanges after viewing some of Andrea Joseph's contributions. I have wanted to try it ever since. Here is the web site http://moleskinex12.blogspot.com/ I recently received an invitation to moly 68. Now the hard part begins. The theme for the exchange is "vintage pin up girls". I have researched the subject on the net and I just don"t know where I want to go with mine. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

The exchange usually begins with each artist completing a sign up page for all the artists involved and designing the first few pages so everyone gets a feel for the journal. I hope to have pictures in the next few days.

Until then follow my new adventure at http://moleskinex68.blogspot.com/ I am off to get creative!

New journal

This is in my handmade journal. I am always nervous starting a new journal. I know you shouldnt worry about making the pages perfect but really who wants ugly pages. So I decided to just create a color mixing chart, how could I mess that up.

The tractor was created using pitt pens and cotman watercolors. I am still very new to using watercolor I am more a pen and colored pencil girl!

Handmade Journal & Moleskines

Here it is! This is my stack of moleskines and 1 handmade journal. I had mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to bind my own journal with heavy watercolor paper and here it is. I found an instruction video at http://milliande.ning.com/ which was very helpful.

Actually I made two journals. They are slightly different. In the first one I used 4 signatures with 4 pages and in the second one I used just 2 pages in 6 signatures. I used illustration board which I covered with brown kraft paper for the covers and handmade college papers for the end papers. I had to improvise as I didnt have any waxed thread in which to sew the signatures together but I found embroiders thread works quite nicely.

I was wanting to try to add watercolor to my sketches but I didnt want an entire journal of wrapped and buckled pages. So I made my own!