30 Days of Get Your Art On – 09.01.11

I was feeling a little tense, frustrated, and cabin-feverish. A little earlier, I spent several hours trying to get ONE mailing label to print for an order. Having issues caused me to not get the other orders out, and I missed getting to the post offce. And it got to 106 today, so I couldn’t get very much exercise walking my dog. Yada yada yada. Long story short, I needed to jog to burn off some energy, but it was too freaking hot (it’s 9:30 right now, and still 91 outside). So I thought I would burn off some energy painting on a big canvas. But I didn’t have any (that I wanted to use for this). There are always solutions.

I grabbed 4 canvases that I got from Artsyville Amy, and put them together. I didn’t really care what I was going to paint, I just wanted to slap some paint down. I applied the first color by squirting the paint on the canvases, then rolling the brayer around.

The second layer was applied by squirting the paint on the canvases, then spreading it out with a credit card. (0% interest!)

For the next layer, yellow, I wadded a plastic bag up, squirted the paint on the bag, and dabbed it around.

For the final layer for the night, I used some large punchinella to stencil on some magenta circles. I have no idea what I’m going to do with these, but I’ve got a series started.

While I was waiting for each layer to dry on the canvases, I wanted to work in my journal. I decided not to use any collage, photos or stamps like I usually do, and just draw, paint & write. So that’s what I did. I didn’t have any mirrors, so I opened up the Photo booth application on my MacBook Pro and looked at myself on the screen. It was a great solution. I first sketched myself with a black Sakura IDenti-Penmarker, then added acrylic paint. I also used a black Pitt Artist Big Brush Pen(which I LOVE LOVE LOVE), and a blue Permapaque Paint Marker. Once I was done with my self-portrait, I added the writing with markers.

It was interesting to work in my journal differently than I usually do. I think since I’ve been doing more sketching and watercolors, it wasn’t as intimidating. But I have to admit, it’s one thing to draw, sketch, and add watercolors in my sketch book. It’s another to do it in my journal. I’m not exactly sure why since I usually work in my journal without worrying about it looks like. I guess I’m just not as secure with my drawing skill. I definitely want to work more this way, and maybe find a happy medium, combining both methods.

Working this way seemed freeing. No time was spent digging through my stash or trying to find my stamps or stamp pads. I think I’m on to to something. When I was visiting Juliana Coles on my vacation. I was really inspired by her work. She had been doing large paintings, and working in her journal this way, creating the artwork instead of using collage, photos, etc. So I feel this new direction was definitely inspired by her. Thanks Juliana!

Okay, for those of you joining in on the challenge, how did you do? One thing that I really like about doing this type of challenge, and making the commitment to blog about it, is it gets me thinking in advance about what I’m going to do. I find that exciting. It’s like foreplay!

You can see the other posts here.