I've Moved!

Change can be a good thing - In this case, a very good thing. I have moved on from blogger:

You can now find my blog @ http://jennifertough.com - All new content and a fresh start.

Hope to see you there,

Jennifer

Found the Soup! ...and more classes

...the missing bead soup! It's been found - finally. As some of you know, we had some emergency renovations take place just after I signed up for the bead soup blog party. When Michelle's soup package arrived, it was stashed in a nice safe place. (or so I thought) It turned up months later in my daughters closet, under a pile of clothes.  I'm currently working on my designs, and I'll be able to post the reveal shortly.  Whew!

In other news, I signed up for yet another online course - I have to say, these online classes are kinda addictive. Video based - I can work at my own pace, at all hours, and in my PJ's. Bliss.

The latest is the Digital Dreams course from Willowing.org (Tamara Laporte)

In March, I was gifted a Bamboo Create tablet for my birthday - but I never really got a chance to use it much (or learn to use it). This morning I finished up the week 3 homework assignment to create a simple digital drawing.

This cute little guy was done completely in Photoshop with my tablet. Not bad at all for a first attempt - if I do say so myself. :-)

The adventure continues....

I'm now a few weeks in to my online courses - the first two weeks worth of lessons were focused on learning about your supplies - easy for me, as I really don't have too much in the way of traditional art supplies. Any that I did have were for the most part decimated by my artistic daughters. (which i really don't mind at all). I'm making do for now, along with a few basic purchases. Mixed media is very forgiving - you can use anything - which is kinda the point ;-)  I've been hunting through my clay, paper and fabric supplies - all of which are now finding new life.


Both of the following pictures are a part of the two different class projects. Neither are finished, as elements still need to be added. The first is part of the Jane class - and this image is the very first entry in my new art journal that I'll be keeping for the class.  (scuse the fuzziness - too much coffee this morning. I couldn't keep my hands still) lol

This one is on a 10x10 canvas board, and will eventually have more elements added. The next two weeks are all about backgrounds.

In other exciting (and frightening news) - my oldest will be 10 on Sunday .....I'm still kinda in shock. I guess she's now officially a tween. Happy Birthday Maya!

gardens, frolicking, and drawings

Dandelions are everywhere.....They're especially magical at sunset.

The garden is a little slow to bloom - geraniums, bleeding hearts, clematis, and a few blue bells are just starting to peek out. 

As promised, here are my very first drawings from the draw happy course. I am still stoked with these online classes - the intended effect was to spark up my creative mojo, and I'm happy to see it seems to be working. I'm constantly working on 'something'. Yay :-)

Backgrounds - gazillions of them

I've spent a good part of the entire morning making background papers. These will be used in the coming weeks as part of the Behind the Art Class, and the Jane Davenport classes.

                                                             (this one is my favourite)

These two are created with thick gesso either just slapped on willy nilly, or slapped on and pressed into with stamps on mixed media paper. Once the gesso was dry, I rubbed on some watercolour crayons, and then brushed over them with a very wet brush.

These are again, mixed media paper with a few drops of soft body watercolour paint, then all smudged and spread with a very wet brush. I then used a paper towel to quickly dab and smudge to remove the brush marks, and create the marbled look.

These were made the exact same way as the watercolour ones above, but I used a soft body acrylic paint instead. It's impossible to see the difference in the photos above, but on 4 of the backgrounds I used golden paints, and the purple and orange were made with Liquitex basic paint. The golden paint is a far better quality paint (but expensive), and you can really tell the difference in the finish. The cheaper paints are flatter and more matte looking. The golden paints seem to have a lot more depth. I'm going to have to add more colours of golden to my wish lists - which is expanding exponentially by the minute. ;-)

Classes, recovery, and missing things

Along with the missing box from Michelle, I also can't find a bunch of various studio supplies. Alcohol inks - gone, credit card - gone (cancelled and replaced), vintaj patinas - gone, assorted craft books - gone. I'm sure a bunch of other items that I have completely forgotten ever existed are also gone. Not worrying too much about those at the moment though ;-)

So where on earth have they gone? My house is not all that big - pretty small actually. I've cleared the basement, the garage, and all of the bedrooms. I can only hope that one day while looking for something else, the wayward box will reappear - and I will finally create something with Michelle's gorgeous components.

I can either spend the next year completely tearing apart the house while getting angrier, and angrier with myself - or just move on. I'm moving on.

So in good news finally, I signed up for 6 fantabulous classes with Christy Tomlinson, and Jane Davenport.

I am so incredibly stoked. As some of you may know - I've been battling a pretty severe depression over the last few years. It's been a struggle with changing meds numerous times, meds that cause uncontrollable shaking, insomnia, etc, etc. Two steps forward, one step back. Slowly but surely i'm healing. A big step forward was not only getting my G1 (again), but actually finally completing the in class lessons! I'll be starting my in car lessons sometime this week.  The next step in healing is to start actually creating things with regularity. I've made it my personal mission to make something (anything) every day for the next year. A drawing, a pair of earrings, torch something - anything as long as I'm doing something creative. With that, I hope that my creative inspiration will return - forcing it along if I have to. Sitting around waiting for it to return isn't working out so well. ;-)

I've started two of the courses. The Draw Happy mini course, and the Behind the Art class. Both are perfect to start out with. The idea is to 1 - just start drawing, in this case faces. Lots and lots of faces. And 2 - to play around with your art supplies. How they work with each other, how they feel on different backgrounds. watercolour, paper collage, acrylic paint, markers, molding compounds. Anything and everything.  Here are my very first class assignments - nothing too close up, as they are not fabulous. I'm having so much fun though - i don't care. lol. I must have a secret love affair with pink. weird.

Slowly but surely ...

Reno recovery .... I am finally getting my new upstairs studio up and running. Things got a little delayed, as I've been hunting (fruitlessly) for the missing box of bead soup from Michelle. I realized a little too late that just hunting through a gazillion boxes was just not working. I'm now bringing everything that was packed up into my studio, and assigning a permanent home for each item. This may take a bit longer, but with luck by the end of the week, I'll have both a fully functioning studio upstairs and downstairs, and I'll have found the box of bead soup! Wish me luck, think I'm gonna need it ;-)