A few days ago I received an invitation from Kiki to join her event “art by candlelight” on facebook. I loved the idea, thought it would be fun, but usually Saturday night would be family time, so I replied a careful maybe. The family decided to watch Harry Potter – again – so I didn’t feel guilty to get artsy instead, woohoo.

Kiki challenged us to create something meaningful about Earth Hour, and I knew I wanted to use blues and greens to represent the earth. I set up all the candles, closed the curtains, got all my supplies out I thought I would need + some more just for good measurement I prepared a journal page by painting it with gesso. Then it was time and I turned off the light -oooh, how cozy! Looky here:

And then I started playing with my greens and blues, colour washed the paper first, then let paint drip down, speckled with paint and toothbrush, splattered paint blobs with a brush. In that early stage I remembered to take some progress shots. But once I got really into it, I totally forgot

I didn’t imagine how hard it would be to paint by candlelight! Well, the painting itself wasn’t too bad, but choosing the colours is! I could not determine if that partiular blob of paint was dark blue or dark green, lol. Once I had my wash and splatters done, I used watersoluble pastel crayons to create some swirls a long the left and bottom edge and drew 3 hearts in the middle section of the paper. The swirls were not to my taste, so I used a damp rag to wash them out a bit. I added some texture using a roller stamp, punchinella and bubble wrap. I stamped the clock with the time for Earth Hour and emphasized the hearts with more colour and then lined it with a lumograph and rubbing the line to soften. Then I finished up with some doodling and adding the journaling (I seriously have to work on my journaling writing style!).

Materials used: journal paper (110gsm), gesso, gouache, water soluble wax pastels, punchinella, bubble wrap, rollograph herb words, kaisercraft empire clear stamps, lumograph 8B, uniball eye fine black, faber castell pitt artist pen black B

Would you like to see my craft room? Let me show you around. No, the desks usually don’t look that clean, tehee. You should have seen it half an hour ago! I had just finished my first art journaling page and both desks were covered in a chaos of paper, pencils, paints, brushes, stamps, stencils and other stuff that didn’t belong there at all. But because I knew you would come and have a tour I thought, I better clean up Well, the room could benefit from a lick of paint, new curtains( these are still the old ones from the previous owner) and lamps, but I don’t have the time for it, I rather get crafty

Yep, that is right: 2 desks! The one on the left is hight adjustable + you can set the desktop on an angle = much better for your back Today I received the new office chair, ahhhh such a relief! I love this room, it is small and cozy but with lots of natural light.

Evidence of the other purpose of this room – this is also our guest room. When we had my husband’s niece staying with us for 10 months, I moved all my supplies into our study. Talking about a stuffed room, lol. The couch is very comfy and ideal if I need to take a break from my tiring crafting.

My pottery experiments are on the top of the shelves. I had to give pottery up when I went back to school. It is so much fun but… some things just have to go. Underneath you see my jewellery supplies and boxes full of flowers, ribbons, cardboard albums, stamps, stencils, some scrapbook papers, canvases, gesso, inks, mod podge, glue, fixative,  gouache paints, pastels, oil paint, copic markers, watercolour pencils and normal pencils and heaps of acrylic paints.

And because I couldn’t fit everything in, there is more in the wardrobe

And here we are back at my desks. You can see my She Art canvases standing on my deskm I still need to hang those up. Well, that is the end of the tour! Hope you enjoyed

Oh, want to see my first art journaling page? Not sure if I like it, it is very bold and vibrant… but this style of art is a great counterpart to what I usually do, so I just let my creativity take me where it wants to go.

Yesterday I used the second canvas I prepared for my 3rd girl. I knew I wanted to create a girl with a head, a big floppy one. And I thought pants would be nice for a change, went for a 70s style and I like how it turned out. This girl seems a very confident chick to me!

I meant to post the pictures of these 3 canvases for a while, then didn’t like the ones I took, so I had to redo them. The background gradients were already there (made those a few years back *cough cough*) and had something different in mind to put on there but I changed my mind. So before Christmas I took those canvases out again and thought to myself, I really have to finish them. And I did For the words I played around in Illustrator with fonts, changed the size of the letters and arranged them until I liked it. I then printed them out, used a soft pencil to cover the letters on the back of the paper, lay them right side up on the canvas and traced the letters with a pen to transfer the lines onto the canvas. Then I simply had to fill the letter with paint and gave the canvases a slight white wash with a large, dry brush. They hang in a little odd nook between two windows and next to the couch. It was bare and needed a little something and I think these fit perfectly.

Materials/Programs used: Square canvases, Jo Sonja’s acrylic paints, a small flat brush, a medium sized brush, a large flat brush (for painting walls), a printer, Illustrator and a pencil

Today I finished my second canvas. I forgot to take photos in the early stages, it is so much fun that you forget things around you!

A close up of the textured sun, made with a little texture medium

And here is my finished canvas. Am really happy how it turned out!

Some close ups of the finished art:

Last night I finished my first She Art canvas from the Christy Tomlinson workshop. Seriously? It is SO MUCH fun! I am loving the whole process, playing with textures, colours, stamps and rubons. It really unleashed a completely different side of my creativity. Usually I keep my designs clean and simple but now I know I can do messy, too lol. Now… I don’t think my first canvas is perfect, I made some mistakes but… this is my first (of many to come for sure!) and I am learning but I had heaps of fun creating it and I now know what I need to do next time. It did turn out differently to what I wanted but I still love it!

I have made a few photos of the process, some of them are a bit blurry; I had to get up on a chair to photograph them and it was a bit wobbly

The tissue paper I used here is by 7gypsies, I simply had to have the key pattern!

I got also creative when it came to creating my own textures and stamps. The rolling pin and skid protectors I bought at a 2$ store. The round protectors I cut in half before I glued them onto the rolling pin. There is another rolling pin where I mod podged on some thin rope to it. I haven’t tried it yet because it needed to dry and I simply couldn’t wait to get back to my canvases, tehee.

Added some paint, stamped some bubble wrap and stenciled with… gutter protection

The other canvas I started. I started with mod podging some old book pages to the canvas.

A few close ups to see the texture and details:

And here she is, finished and in all glory:

Hope you like!

I thought it would be great to show you here on my blog what other crafts and arts I do. Like my sketch pad, I usually never leave the house without my sketch pad! It is a great way to write or draw down ideas you get while you are out and about. And if I have to wait somewhere, you can usually see me doodling (or reading my kindle).

A couple of days ago I finally took the plunch and signed up for the She Art Workshop by Christy Tomlinson. She is one creative lady! I have been on a shopping spree to gather supplies (and of course all the supplies are usually double the US price, so not fair!) and I should be ready to start today. I seriously cannot wait!

Yesterday it was a nice warm day and so the kids wanted to swim in the pool. I didn’t feel well and didn’t want to go swimming, so I sat next to the pool with my sketch pad and my Faber Castell Pitt artist pen doodling away. This is what I accomplished while the kids had a swim: