Doodle Challenge...

A few months ago, I joined a couple Yahoo Art groups so that I would be motivated to complete challenges and swaps and to learn and share new techniques. I have really enjoyed these groups and have learned so much. This one focuses on Art Journaling. The moderator is Sarah. She is so talented, but more importantly - she is generous. She is generous in sharing her knowledge, her inspiration, her personal art work and even in sharing things like this:

She recently had a doodle challenge over at the group and the theme was animals. Well, I doodle animals for my children all the time. So I doodled some of our favorites and posted them to the site. To my surprise, I was chosen as the winner for that challenge! Woo Hoo! Well, I had no idea what I had won. I was just so excited. This was the package that came for me.

For someone like me, this is a treasure chest of goodness. You can click on the picture to see up close, but there are so many wonderful things here. Vintage ads and comic book pages, stamps from all over, cool napkins and tissue paper, pages from some really neat books of poetry, music and even Alice!

My favorite item in the package was this original art piece from Sarah. I just love that she included this little piece of her. Of course, my girls were all trying to claim it for themselves. Very cool.

A closer shot....

I kept finding more and more treasures. There was a little paper bag that I thought was empty, but when I went through my stash for the third or fourth time, I felt that it was full. These adorable little cards were in there. Love the witty sentiments that go along with the vintage photos. There are also some Chinese playing cards and one with Frida on it.

Then I found the tiniest little baggy that must've gotten shuffled along with the larger pieces. I opened it up to find these wonderful stamps and curious cigar wrappers.
Lots of fun and inspiration in one package. I'm already using some of the Vintage Christmas sheet music for some ornaments I am working on for a swap.
You can follow Sarah at her blog: CASPIANA I know you will be as inspired as I was!

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...