Progress On All Fronts!

Here's what has happened to my "bleeding canvas" since my last visit here.

You may ask yourself, "Why, oh why, is that thing covered in little circles and then big circles, just circles?"  The answer to that question is, as usual, "I have no idea!"  It is always such a big surprise to me to find out what will happen when I start painting.  That is why I do it.  My painting method leaves me with one of two choices...I will either like it and it will stay, or I won't and I will just keep adding layers upon layers.  This isn't finished so I can't tell you which way it will end up yet.  The next time you see it, it might just be covered in gesso!  Who knows? 
I also got the first page in my new journal finished.  Wanna see?

My son wanted to work in his art journal, so I helped him tear out some pages from his book and glue some together.  As I was cleaning up my desk, I saw this picture from his book.  It's a mom putting away dishes, a boy drying the dishes, and another one rooting around in the fridge.  Now that it's Thanksgiving break, it looked just like my day.  It was a picture I could relate to!  I love having my kids home on school breaks (I know, I'm weird) but the thing about having them here is that they are always hungry and neither of them seem to be hungry at the same time.  All day long it's, "I'm hungry." "What is there to eat?" "Do we have anything 'good' to eat?"  "Is the dishwasher clean or dirty?"  AND my absolute favorite question..."What's for dinner?" 
Just as I was taking a minute from my feed child/clean up after routine to glue this image onto my page, my son came in and informed me that he was hungry.  True story.  I cannot make this stuff up!  At least I never find myself sitting around waiting for gel medium to dry. 
By the way, for all you English buffs out there.  I totally know that the hyphen should go after the "S" in "Thanksgiving" but I just ran out of room.  I tend to ignore such rules in my art journal.  The visual is more important to me than the proper use of hyphens here.
This last little project was something that I haven't done in FOREVER.

I did this for the November Sketchbook Challenge.  The theme was the "Spice of Life".  I've pretty much given up on pencils and erasers.  If I use them I can make a drawing take approximately FOREVER.  I just don't have the time (see above feeding routine) to sketch unless I make it fast.  I've just decided to be brave and go for it with a Pitt pen and let the cards fall where they may!  I sketched this in a Moleskine sketchbook and used watercolors to add the color. 
As you can see, I've been a busy little bee.  I sure hope my busy streak continues!

Housework Schmousework!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before (maybe only approximately 1,000 times) that winter is my LEAST favorite time of year and around here winters are longgggggggggg.  So the other day I woke up to a day that could probably be best described by the word (if it even is a word)...BLAH.  It was gray, cold and of course, windy.  I had a "fabulous" day of housework planned but when I saw the "BLAH" I found myself highly unmotivated!  Then someone posted this on Facebook or Pinterest or something and BAM!!!  We have a day changer!

That was all it took for me to forgo housework and get some coloring done!  What can I say?  I obviously don't require a whole lot of convincing if some e-card on the Internet can cause me to make a big mess instead of cleaning one up.  I traded my bed sheet fort for my trusty green vinyl tablecloth (that thing has been with me longer than my children have), my coloring book for a big canvas, and my crayons for my Golden Acrylics.

Here is my "couch cushion fort" on my kitchen table!  This day is looking brighter already, well other than my 6 year old told me that my painting was bleeding.  I'm not sure that's good, but hey, at least it is "bleeding" bright colors.  AND right beside me ready to catch any extra palette paint, was this:

It's my brand new art journal.  Hand bound with a fabulous stitch I learned from  Mary Ann Moss' class Full Tilt Boogie that you can find HERE.  It is my first hand bound journal with 140 lb. Fabriano hot press and let me just say, that painting on it is an absolute joy!  I now know what all the hullabaloo over 140 lb. Fabriano hot press was all about.  I'm sure the cover of this will evolve over time but for now I just LOVE my "Second Easy Drawing Book" journal.  It turned a BLAH day into Happy. Happy. Happy.  (I suppose I should mention here, my love and slight obsession, of all things Duck Dynasty, including, but not limited to, the use of Happy. Happy. Happy.  I'll have to elaborate on that another day.)

Silly Me

So, when you send off a journal to Art Journaling, you can include a self-addressed, stamped postcard for them to mail back to you when they receive your submission.  I took this little opportunity to send myself some happy mail and a reminder to be glad that I was brave and sent something in.  I made myself this little postcard and yesterday, it came back.

It got a little banged up in the mail (which I kinda like) but it made me happy when I opened my mailbox and that was the point.  I also may have taken the liberty of writing myself a little note from Art Journaling (I hope they can forgive me).  I'm a little silly that way.  It's just that I am usually a bit hard on myself (like, ridiculously) so I thought I'd try giving myself a little pat on the back for a change.

 

That was nice of me, don't you think?