Week Two of Summer of Color
Pink and Orange was the color combo that won the vote for week two of Summer of Color at Twinkle Twinkle. I surprised myself by pacing the mental floor waiting for the next color. This is a fun challenge. Part of it is the color and part of the appeal may be the limited time it is up for. Lots of great results to look at too. Their Facebook page and blog linkups are hopping with color and variety. Here’s my pink and orange entry.
I am playing a lot with hand lettering and controlling watercolors. This was great practice for developing a steady hand, particularly the gray shading. I used watercolors, block printing ink, marker and colored pencil.
It is another project incorporating my Pinterest quote collection. This one is a little flawed philosophically, but there is some truth to it. “Cartoon Carnival” made the time pass pretty quickly when I was a child, but I wouldn’t build my life on it LOL.
Still, this pink made me think of one of my favorite art supplies as a child. My dad was a dispatcher for the highway patrol. (For awhile I thought he patched ditches for a living, but that is another story) It was in the days of teletype machines which had rolls of thin paper. The ends of the rolls were pink. Sometimes he brought home the roll ends for me. I curled it with scissors and glued it to face drawings for hair. Cool stuff.
Summer of Color
Summer of Color has begun at Twinkle, Twinkle and I am playing along. It involves six weeks of color challenges for any kind of creative expression. Now is the time for all the talented manicurists, seamstresses, cake decorators–anything–to get involved. Check out the details here. This week the challenge calls for citron green and turquoise. I used those just the other day on my peacock art journal spread. I’ve learned to look at the leftover book pages in a new light from Julie Belzar. I use the removed pages from altered book journals as pallet sheets for globs of paint and block printing ink. The left facing page of this art journal spread is one of those sheets. It has green alcohol ink and turquoise paint from my test applications on it. I like it. So I punched it with a Martha Stewart punch and gave it a border with my massive Sharpie marker. I added a layer of water color textured with kosher salt then doodled a shape similar to the punched flower.
Here you can see the salt texture better. I doodled around some of that texture in the center of the flower. 
Blinged-out Bird
There are so many places I could have gone with the found line in my Steinbeck journal. Here is the shiny happy place I went.
The base is a gorgeous yellow block printing ink rolled onto gesso with a brayer. The pink “brushwork” is a piece of the vintage fabric I got a garage sale this weekend. I had to include it since it had that mixed media feel to it. The colors are quite bright and this is toned down with gesso. The pinks are balanced with a couple of bits of washi tape in the upper right. Washi tape also frames the book line.
The tail of the peacock is painted with glittery acrylic. Alcohol ink dropped on a dot of wet glittery acrylic forms the eyes of the feathers. Gold and white pens were used for the feathers and highlights. I used a Fiskars scalloped border punch and designer paper for the bottom of the tail.
The body is cut from a dictionary page including the peacock entry. The necklace is a mix of two from a magazine and the beak is a bit of designer paper. Glossy Accents coats the eyes and jewel on the necklace. Love that shine! The page had previously been prepped with gesso and the block printing ink and the rest of it took less than two hours including drying time. It was a lot of fun to do.
Quote page
This art journal page spread was inspired by one of my young friends. No need to have all the answers at once. I saw the quote on Pinterest. It’s such a great place to collect inspiration.
Check out my fabulous garage-sale fabric find! A large box of vintage quilt scraps. I don’t know what I will do with them yet, but I am almost certain to find some feed sack fabric in this box. I might try making a string quilt. It’s just my kind of random fun.
Art Journal Every Day–Watercolor
Guess what. Watercolors are quite relaxing. Judging by the output of art journal page in the last three days I am as mellow as can be. Here they are–Tuesday through Thursday.
The butterfly is a stencil.
I loved doing this gradient technique spotted at Grow Creative. It’s so easy and there is a tutorial here.
This textured background is my favorite from Julie Balzer’s Getting Started in Watercolors class. Super easy and only calls for Saran Wrap and water colors.
I am also sold on Moleskine watercolor journals now, too, though they are a bit pricey.
Watercolor FANatic
I’ve been a watercolor FANatic this week. For starters I completed Julie Belzar’s Getting Started in Watercolor online class. Just knowing how to control the stuff is a big help! She also taught several textures. I’ll show you my fave in my next post. The piece I will show you today is actually pre-class, but post Julie’s Getting Started with Lettering online class. I created it last week and framed it for my pastor and his wife’s tenth anniversary at our church. The lettering is filled with white pen. These colors delight me. I see some flaws in it, but the more I interact with the world of artists, I am discovering that the imperfections are very much part of the character of their art. I don’t see any of them getting all angsty about it. All the more reason for me to love playing in paint! Next I am starting a Donna Downey class in pan pastels. The Internet is so great. Whatever you want to know how to do–someone is online and will show you. Cool.
Sketchbook Challenge–Garden Doodles
This month the Sketchbook Challenge is “Garden Doodles.” The main element I wanted to use was this lady’s head I doodled during a meeting (yes, I was paying attention.) I was thinking of friend’s stories about making dolls from hollyhock blooms. The text is from a Shakespeare poem cut from a garage sale find English Lit book. The pages are layered in gesso and acrylics and topped with Mister Huey spray ink with doodles in white pen. Pink Glaze pen frames the bits of poem. The flower girl’s hair is glittery from Stickles.
Hi! I’m Yolanda.
Current crafting fixation: Mixed media art journaling.
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