Grungy Monday #13...

Gosh where have the weeks gone? We had a nice relaxing time
away last week and I missed doing last week's Grungy Monday.
I was finally able to find a little bit of time to do this week's
challenge. Go over to Linda's blog for all the details.

This week we are taking on Ranger Alcohol inks as demonstrated

by Tim Holtz on the Ranger website here.

It is always fun to play with these inks as you never know exactly

how it will turn out. I love how you can make a really busy
background but whatever you stamp on top still stands out. I

just went really simple this week with my tag as I am limited

on free time, tissue tape is one of my go-to's these days. I love
using it and goodness knows I have plenty of it!! 

Grungy Monday #11...

Well I finally got time to join in the challenge this week. For the
details on this go and visit Linda's blog. The technique we are
using this week can be found on Tim Holtz's blog, it is from
January 2008.

I had no problems with the first part of this technique but then it
got tricky, anything that involves an iron is always bad news for
me! I followed the instructions but had an issue with the newsprint
paper sticking to my stamped image. I managed to scrape off
most of the paper and actually don't think you can see it, well I hope not anyway!

I do not have a lot of quote stamps so have to keep taking turns
with the few I have, I also used some of the newer tissue
tape at the top. I love the tissue tape except for the fact that this
new batch has no sticky stuff on it and I had to glue it down with
a tape runner. Anyway my tag is done and I can get ready now

for our family vacation next week.

Road trip...

Just a quick post as I have had no time for art this last week or so.
My son left yesterday on his first ever road trip with a friend, he
drove them to California to go surfing. Needless to say I am a little
nervous as he has never driven such a long distance before. 

He has so far had a busy summer, only been home about 6 days
since he graduated high school, still I guess it is getting me used
to the idea he will not be here that much :(

We went down to the University of Arizona at the end of last week
for his orientation, he is showing off his new school logo on his
tank top. It was definitely a whirlwind and an overload of
information, but we feel better now we have been down there. 

This is really my excuse for not having done any art lately, I am
hoping to do some work in my art journals and would love to
paint some more canvas, here's hoping...

Sharing some art...

It seems like so long ago now that I was at the CREATE event when
really it was just a few weeks ago. Above is the other canvas piece
that I did in Alisa Burke's class. This was the one that was more
finished but I really wasn't sure about. I have now had it sitting on
a table in my house staring at me for the last few weeks. I still am
not sure about it but my good friend Lisa thought it was so nice
that she wanted to buy it from me!
I know there is that saying about being our own worst critic so for
the moment this piece is being left as is.

I enjoyed the process so much with the canvas that I decided to
start a new one this weekend. You can see it above, this is the
stage I got it to and am now wondering how to finish this one off.

You may notice I went for completely different colours than
usual. I am a green/blue/purple person when it comes to making art.
These are my go to colours that I love to use. In fact I took a
class last fall where one of the exercises was to make a sample
chart of all the paints we had so we would not get duplicates and
could see where we were lacking. I had no orange paint,1 yellow
paint and 2 reds. I had 2 sheets full of blue paint and almost
the same of green. I found this to be a very interesting exercise,
I now own 1 tube of orange paint:)

Finally I want to share my first page in the 3 Hearts workshop I am
taking with the very talented Christy Tomlinson. So sad that this is
the last week of class, although we will have a couple of months to
view the videos there will be no more new content added. I have
had a lot of  fun watching all of the technique videos, there were
53 of them!!!
Anyway this is my first finished art journal page but I have

a few in progress. I have seen so many new techniques with this
class it is hard to choose which one to try next.

Grungy Monday #9...

It seems I have not blogged for a while, too much going on with
the end of school and my son's high school graduation last week.
It was a long week and now I am looking forward to not having
to get up early and having time to do more art!

So here is my attempt at this weeks challenge posted on
Linda's blog. The technique is another one of Tim Holtz's 12 tag
techniques, go here to find out how you can do this technique.

I have to say that I have been working on this tag all week, had
some issues and this was my 3rd attempt at it, I know it is sad, lol!
I always have issues when it comes to using the paint dabbers,
love the idea of them but the ones I have just never work the way
they are supposed to. So I struggled through with it and finally finished it.

In the meantime I am taking the next of Christy Tomlinson's online
classes and she has put so much into this class it is amazing. She
just did Ranger U and is using lots of techniques she learned there.
Our first week's lesson had 28 videos of techniques to watch, yes
28 videos!! I believe the class is now closed but she may run it
again just like her "She Art" class that I took and loved, I know

a couple of people taking it the 2nd time due to my recommendation.
I am still working my way through this week's videos and hope to
have some pages ready to post soon. Wishing everyone an art filled week!

Back from CREATE event...

Well it seemed like I was gone for a long time, it was 5 days so I
guess it was:) I took a fabulous class with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer,
pictured with me above. It was all about carving your own stamps,
but to make them so they were layered. Basically we made 3 stamp
blocks for the image we chose. You could then ink each one a
different colour and stamp them so they layered on top of each other.
I did do a very simple image to start with and am pleased with my
first attempt. I do have some of the carving material left over so
when things calm down around here, (soon  hopefully!), I will
definitely make more stamps. Julie was a great instructor, very
helpful and fun and I am so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone
to try something new.

The next day I took a class with Alisa Burke, I was really looking
forward to trying out the kind of graffiti style that she does. It was
called "Larger Than Life" as we were to paint on large canvases. It
was really down to personal choice as to what was large for each
person. I would say my canvas was in the average of what most
people did, there were some who made their's a lot bigger. I was
just worried about how I would transport it back home on the plane.
Alisa was also a great instructor, willing to come and help you
if you were unsure of what to do next, believe me I did take
advantage of that:) The piece above is one of 2 that I did. My
other piece is more finished but I like this one better. We were
supposed to add some sort of focal point and I did on my other
piece but am not 100% happy with it, I may change it up a little
and if I do I will post a photo.

This was from my final class on Sunday morning, it was again with
Alisa, this was her Doodled Surface Design class. I did this piece
in class and you would not believe that the vibrant red
background is from one of Alisa's favourite supplies, a set of
Crayola watercolours!!

Finally I got out my sketchbook to while away the 2 1/2 hours I
had to wait at the airport and tried to practice some of the things
that Alisa had talked about in class that day. I am actually quite
proud of this. I also started a Zentangle after this and one lady
came over to me twice to tell me how much she loved what I
was doing and had I drawn it myself!!

Grungy Monday #7...

This week's Grungy Monday challenge is based on a technique
from Tim Holtz that is on the Ranger Ink website go here to
check it out. This is a technique I have not done before but is so
easy and can give lots of different results. To see what I mean
go and visit Linda's blog for lots more examples.

This is definitely a technique that lets you find out which of your
ink pads need to be re-inked, lol! I found that all of the colours
I chose to begin with definitely needed to be re-inked.
Unfortunately I do not own all of the reinkers for all of the Distress
ink pads I have:(  Anyway I still made a background in similar
colours to my original choices. I did go over the dress form stamp
with my stardust gelly roll pen but I could not get it to show up in
the pictures, it looks very sparkly in real life.

Tomorrow I am heading out to California to attend the "Create"
event which is put on by Cloth,Paper,Scissors magazine. I am
so excited to be trying some new art classes with teachers I have
not had before. I will try and post from there but cannot
guarantee it. If I do it will be on my new site I just set up through
tumblr.com. If you would like to check it out then visit me here
and you can see one of the birthday gifts I received :)