So inspired...

I really, really am thankful for the world wide web. Seriously. I have been making more time for my art. I am definitely on a creative journey. I've started to see that all the doodles, painting, scribbling, pasting, .... there are other people that do it too!!

So, I found Sarah at Caspiana. I found her through a Yahoo group and now I am hooked. She posted a doodle challenge on her blog that I thought was really cool - so I gave it a try. Just to see. I thought it was a lot of fun. I made my first couple attempts at it in my art journal. I liked how the first one turned out, but I loved the second one. Read her directions here, but basically what you do is:

1. Take a thin black permanent marker and just scribble/doodle a pattern. Then take some time to look at your doodle and see if any patterns or shapes jump out at you. Like looking for shapes in the clouds.
2. Now, you darken the lines to pull your character out of the drawing and then run with it. This is what I got...

Found my shape...water colored it...

Tried out some Stampin' Up Watercolor Wonder Crayons (Earth Elements)

Finish off... I just got done doing the poppy painting, so I still had poppy fields on the brain. =)
I journaled that mommy was not a monster. Just 'cause she wants things a certain way, wants the best for her children, her family, wants the best for her home... She gets cranky or edgy sometimes when things don't work out - but she's not a monster. hahaha
This was my second try and I really like it. This is my SLUG BUSTER. I was getting pretty sluggish in my art room. I got to where I'd rather watch videos of others creating instead of me getting my hands dirty and instead of me feeling challenged to express myself...until the Slug Buster came along. She was not going to have any of that. I thanked Sarah for being an Inspiration to me. My boy has also been hanging out with snails lately...always bringing them in for me to see, so that's probably why both my creatures have slug tendencies. haha. Again, I used watercolor, gesso, acrylic wash and walnut ink.

The other place I've been finding lots of inspiration is at Donna Downey's blog. Oh.wow. I would really love to buy one of her journals, but it's a bit pricey for me right now. She posts an Inspirational Video every Wednesday and they are nothing fancy. Just her creating. I was inspired by one of her videos where she did poppies just like this (I am not hiding that my poppies were totally copying hers, but that's what I wanted to do.) - she used some text from a book (Eclipse, I think) and I used some text from Pride and Prejudice of course. =) That's what I made the flowers with. Then I chose words that represented areas that I felt I was growing in or in which I needed to grow...
The colors are super bright and I love it. Lots of acrylic paint, black beads, gesso...oh, how I love gesso...
You can see her video here.

Anyway, I am loving the journey. I am really, really wanting to change up my blog. I'd like to have one blog with tabs and maybe split up my week to talk about my interests more evenly. If you know of a blog or website or artist that you think I should check out - I'd love if you shared it with me. I am on a roll and I love it. Really growing...