Blue Cat

I did this for a tag swap. The theme was the blue dog, you know, george rodrigue, the blue dog? Anyway, my partner didn't have any dogs, but she had a cat. I wanted to personalize it for her, I used an actual blue dog painting as inspiration, but I kept it simple, mostly because I don't know how else ot do it with my posca paint markers yet. I added glasses because.. I like glasses. This is a very small tag so considering that I think I did pretty good :D

More ATCs, Better Off Dead.

I don't know how many other people on this earth love John Cusack (from the 80s, strictly) as much as I do. I would hope more than a handful of people have seen Better Off Dead hundreds of times, like I have.  If I had to pick one movie of all the movies I've ever seen, ever, as my favorite, it would be Better Off Dead, without a second thought.
Anyway, I forgot that I wasn't going to do this swap, but I ended up doing it anyway, and I had more fun than I've ever had, mostly because I felt like the whole thing was just a really funny inside joke with only myself. I laughed and giggled and drew and painted and I even got to use washi tape, which is my favorite. And now I have like.. a legit reason to own washi tape.. see I used it on something, see! See!!! So as time goes on I am going to probably make a larger version of this, the tiny size of ATCs made it really hard for me, but I managed. Here they are!

I did several of Lane with the sunglasses (this is a movie poster or something) the bikes are supposed to be a sort of reflection in his sunglasses, but it was really just relative to the quote "I want my two dollars" which is repeated over and over by the paper boy as he chases him down on the bike, so it brought it all together. Then I ran out of the tape so I did Ricky. Just because it made me laugh (it is supposed to look like the picture Ricki gave to the french girl for christmas, with the weird twin or hemp frame or whatever, I couldn't figure out how to do the frame so I just stuck with the picture.) I am not great at adding quotes so ..I did the best I could. Here is a close up of each type.

What I am working on now.

It's a buuuuuug.

:D

I am doing an art swap with the theme "Bugs" This is what I came up with. Pen and watercolor. I need to make a second one, and then I may make one for my son also because he likes ladybugs.

This is a common color scheme for me, my favorite!

Artist Trading Cards

In my art exchange group, I have learned so much, but one of my favorite things has been making ATCs, artist trading cards. They are wonderful little 2.5 by 3.5 inch pieces of art! I really love receiving them, and I feel a little inadequate because everyone makes them with lots of collaging and embellishments which makes them so fun and special, but I mostly just draw or paint. It is really amazing how many I have made and traded since I started, I have some on my wall on a little twine, they are held by tiny clothes pins, I interchange them all the time to keep it interesting and have different inspirations. I will show you a few of the ones I have made.

I just made these today for a "villain" themed swap! I found the inspiration for them on pinterest. I did these with Uni-posca paint pens and black and white pen.

These were for a swap that's theme was "no theme" ..I liked how they all turned out individually, I liked that they all had the tiniest bit of similarity with the background. I hope the girls I sent them to will enjoy them. I made these with distress stain and pen, the girl also has some colored pencil. 

This was for a theme called "favorite artist" I used Tom Thomson's Northern Lights as my inspiration for this, it was my partner's favorite artist. I did this with watercolor and pen.

I love poppies, this was just me learning how to use my new art supplies, I got some distress paint and stain on clearance, I also used pen

These were made for a theme "watercolor flowers" ..so I made them with watercolor only. It was sooo hard for me to not do any pen on them but I stuck to it! 

Whoever is reading this, if you haven't made an ATC before you should try! It's fun! :D 

Artwork Exchange #3

So, amusingly, my third artwork exchange went to the Mother of my second artwork exchange. I really love PJ and I had a really hard time deciding what to make her, because, honestly, I wanted to make her really, really happy. I ended up fretting about it so long that I went past my deadline to finish, and I sent her a few small pieces, I am actually working on something else for her right now but shhh, don't tell her ;) So the theme for April was "colors" and that is why the bee is all super colorful.

The background was just some watercolor wash, I drew the bee on a different piece of paper and glued it on, the wings are actually made out of deli paper, I thought it would look interesting but you can barely tell, I used only pens on the bee, the little heart peace sign was because I sent her a happy mail package a while back and it had a little heart with a peace sign in it and she said she liked it :D

The quote card was paints and stamps, and the moon was made with my new water soluble oil pastels 

This was all sorts of things, pastels, stamps, pen, watercolor, everything I had :P

The bee was the actual piece I made for her, the moon and the quote were just extra things I thought she'd like and the bottom was my brainstorm page.

Artwork Exchange #2

I made this piece of a girl named Megan who lives in California. The theme was "favorites" and Megan loves color.. I was inspired by her appearance and her favorite things and I made this rainbow girl :D

This was another magazine transfer. I took the transfer and outlined her features, I used colored pencil to alter her hair, color her skin, eyes, and lips. I had these white paper flowers, I painted them all with shimmery watercolors and glued them on, and added a map underneath her because honestly I had messed up on her neck and chest area so much I had to do something :P I loved the end result and she really liked the piece too. 

Artwork Exchanges

So I mentioned in the post before that I have a little art exchange happy mail group, I thought I'd show you all some things I have made to exchange in the group! It's been a great deal of fun doing these exchanges, it keeps me going artistically, always challenging me to try new things, and because of it I have been doing at least a little art daily for a long while now, I am quite excited about it! I am thinking about making a new blog to publish things about group swaps, maybe do an artist highlight and have others posting techniques and challenges and prompts, but until we get that going I want to show you what I've been doing, so, here ya go!.

This was the first "artwork exchange" I did, it was a magazine transfer that I painted and drew on, the prompt was a picture of some umbrellas with indian designs on them, so I decorated her with indian designs, it was one of the first transfers I altered in this way. I sent this to Carole all the way in Australia, I was so anxious making art for someone that I almost let my inner critic take over, but she liked it! 

I can't seem to put the pictures in the format I want so I am going to make another post. 

Octopus!

We went on vacation! It was really fun, I got to spend some time with my step-son and we did some art together, well, at the same time.
I decided to pack WAY too much art stuff, I really couldn't help myself, but I did end up using most of it so thats good I suppose, though lugging that bag everywhere was awful.
Anyway, I have this little facebook art/happy mail swap group, and I received a slew of fun Octopus art from all my buddies there, which inspired me to do this piece.

I am going to get a print of this for myself and give the original to my step-son. 

What do you think?

Ooops I forgot to add what I used

I painted the octopus and the background with watercolors, then I used some gelly roll pens to add details and doodles to the octopus