Hello Friday

I love to take part in challenges but the only issue is lack of time. Anyways this week I managed to do this mixed media page on some whimsical houses.

"Home is a starting place for Love and Dreams."

I'm linking this page to Mix it Monthly and Art Journal Journey where the theme for this month is Home

 Day-3 from my Daily Sketches series. I also did this cone flower painting on book page as part of the Week-24 DLP Challenge.

 Day-4 A quick sketch of my 3 year old's  teddy bear. 

Day-5 I never got the time to add color to this.

 A water color painting of the White Spotted Puffer fish for this month's sketchbook challenge, Water Life

Hooded Oriole with my Koi water colors

That is it for this week. One more day and then the summer holidays start for my first grader. June is almost over and why do I get the feeling that Summer is shorter than winter!  

Linking my page to PPF, Art Journal Everyday and SundaySketches 

Wishing you all a peaceful and happy week

SusaN

Working with the Challenges

Lisa Sonora Beam's Journal Project Root is sure keeping me busy. 

The prompt for Day-13 was Recipe for Happiness. 

This one took a lot of my time. I guess we can attain happiness in two ways (just my thoughts) through our senses and through our actions. The images on these page are things that really make me happy(A lot more images are within the image Home). For attaining it I need to act and be happy with my actions. I've put down some of those actions in words on my page. If I need to have a happy home and a happy environment to live my life I need to act around these words.

 I felt I couldn't come up with my recipe for happiness in just one page. There is much more to it. But she has asked to list down the first few words that came to our mind and this is what I came up with.

Technically this page is made up of at least five layers of stamping, resists and stenciling. Feeling happy in learning and growing more in my artistic journey.  

  Day 14 "Paint as you like and die Happy" Henry Miller

I used watercolor, acrylic, stamps, stencils sketched the flower, collage- whatever I could think of and Love the result-:)

Day:15 The prompt was about being brave not just in life but even in creativity.

 If any of you is still not brave enough to do art or share it, let me tell you, once I too was like that but I have been practicing mixed media and watercolors, taken some awesome online classes and all these have helped me to put away the garb of fear and do more art. I still mess up a lot while creating but I've learned to take them as part of my learning process and just to find Joy in what I do. This learning and sharing never ends too...

I was able to do only these three prompts. More will be here next week.
I'm also doing the weekly challenges at http://journal52.com/blog/ and Documented Life Project\

The second challenge at journal52 was "Somewhere a Simple Place". This is a collage of my dream art space.

The challenge for this week at Documented Life Project was to decorate an envelope. I did two and attached it to my daily journal.

I'm immensely enjoying all these challenges. The best part is there is no pressure in coming up with your art and they are all free-:) If you are interested here are the links of all the three projects:
http://journal52.com/
http://www.lisasonora.com/
http://www.robenmarie.com/blog/2014/1/12/the-documented-life-project-112.html

Linking my post to PPF and Art Journal Everyday
Wishing you all a happy long weekend
SusaN

Roots- Day 3, 4, 5

Hello there  Hope you are all keeping yourself warm and safe in this weather. Here it is so cold and in an hour I will be going out to pick my son from school, Uggghhh!!

Last week we made a trip to Ikea and I clicked the picture of this lovely cup. Love the stag silhouette on it.

As for art, I am loving Lisa Sonora's free creative project Root-30. These are the pages that I did for Day-3, 4 and 5. If you want to take a look at Day 1 and 2 it is over here.

 Day-3 the prompt was about cultivating our roots. I did a collage for it and on the tree roots I wrote the five things that I needed to cultivate: Commitment, Consistency, Confidence, Compassion and Assertiveness. All these link to my 2014 word- Growth. The face was a happy accident on this page. I tried to do her and messed up the sketch and then I got the idea of combining the collage elements with the face. I know this one has already become a favorite page of mine.

 Day-4 was all about practicing art. This year I want to practice more faces and mixed media techniques and of course learn and do more acrylic and water color paintings. This was what I elaborated on at the back of this page. I have written a lot on each prompt on the back side of each page.

Day-5 She had given one of my favorite quotes by Buddha regarding the goals that we have in our lives.. Again I did a collage piece, love the element of book and the key in it. I also added a watercolor of the cardinal that I had done a while ago and some washi tape.

I am yet to do a page based on yesterday's prompt. But I'm so happy with all that I have done so far. I have been able to maintain balance with my art, family and chores till now and hope I will continue to do so.
I'm linking my page to Elizabeth and Bluebeard' s first T stands for Tuesday of this year
Thank you for being here
Please stay warm
SusaN 

Gelli Prints...

Hello, Christmas is over!!!!! It went soo fast. But I hope you all had a wonderful time. Here we had a good one with friends and family.
I am now busy with thoughts about making my 2014 journal and art.

 Today I have been busy with my Gelli plate. I created tons of gelli prints and will be using these on my art journal from next week.

Wanted to share 2 more of my favorite mixed media pages from this year. I had a wonderful creative year and hope to learn and do more in the coming year. What about you? What plans have you made in learning more art?
This year I have decided to organize and to maintain an order in my creative life; to buy less, to use the art supplies that are already in my stash, to learn new techniques and to continue blogging.
See you next year. Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous 2014.
Thank you always for your kind words and encouragement.
Linking my page to PPF
SusaN

Christmas goodies

The other day when I was at the shop, I saw these beautiful holiday mugs and remembered that I had to share them at Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesday  I liked the snowflake one. but I did not buy it, still waiting to find a favorite one.

Currently, I am so busy creating Christmas gifts and decorations, doing some class projects and so on.

I found this paper rolled Christmas tree idea from Pinterest. I don't remember the exact source. I  made this as part of our Christmas decor.

 Gifts...  I  am planning to gift these mixed media stocking decorations to friends. Do you like them? I have other Christmas themed ideas to make but need more wood panels.    

This is a felt project that I learned from one of the online classes that I signed up for last month. Last week I got this pretty frame and now it is resting on the corner of my TV stand. 

Wishing you all a happy, safe and peaceful Thanksgiving with your loved ones.

Thank you for being here

Susan

Thankful pages and more...

Wow! time sure flies fast. I wanted to do a post on Friday but got super busy with family, household work and art.
Anyways I will share with you some of the artsy things that I was busy with.

  "Friends should be like books, few, but hand-selected."-C.J Langenhoven

"Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle." -Christian D Larson

The above pages from my art journal are part of the Thankful project that I'm doing this month.

The first one is about being Thankful for having good friends. I don't have so many friends and I no longer look forward to increase the number of Facebook friends. I'm done with it. Maybe it is the past experiences or because of me getting old,  now I'm happy with having just a  handful of good friends. Friendship for me is a very delightful and colorful relationship. Last week the weather here was so horrible that I think is the reason why I did my page in gray shade-:)

The next page is heavy on stencil work and acrylic paints. I'm so Thankful that both my sons have got settled in their respective schools. 

    " Your treasure house is within; it contains all you'll ever need." Hui-Hai

 I'm part of an art group who circulates their journals among each other. This is a page that I did last week and now it is on its way to the next member. I'm sorry the photo didn't come out well and now I don't have the journal with me anymore.
The background has been done with my new Donna Downey stencil. The birds and the flowers are all handmade. I hope the owner of this journal will like this page.

And finally I want to share  some winter sketches. I'm not ready for the snow yet but love love the dear little snow man. .
Hope you enjoyed seeing all these little art pages of mine.
Thank you for checking
Susan
Linking my post to PPF and Julie Balzer's Art Journal Everyday

Gratitude Day7 and 8

Fall is almost coming to an end.I took this picture last weekend. Love the different shades that this season gifts us with. 

  I did one more pumpkin painting with Twinkling H2o's. It is difficult to see the shimmer in the picture but in real this page looks so pretty especially the background. I painted the pumpkin with neo-colors and then used the twinkling h2o over it.

These are my Gratitude pages of Day 6 and 7.
Day-6 is all about shelter. I've reiterated on how Thankful I'm for this little nest that He has provided us with.
I also added a verse: "By wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches." Proverb 24: 3-4
Thursday I'd a quiet day and was Thankful for it and did a page on that. I used my new Jenni Bowlin stencil on that page. My Thankful leaves were also cut using the same stencil.

Day-8 Thankful for His Grace.
"My Grace is sufficient for you..." 2 Corinthians 12 : 9
One week has been completed and I wanted to wind up with this verse.

Linking this page to PPF and AEDM
Thank you
SusaN

T for Tuesday and Gratitude Day 4 and 5

A late submission to Elizabeth's T for Tuesday. I tried to post yesterday but there was so much to do here at home that I just lost track of time.
The above flowers on a tea cup page was done in acrylics.

 

These are my Thankful pages for Day-4 and 5. I'm grateful for being able to enjoy this beautiful season. For Day- 5 I've thanked for the love of art that I have in me.
I'm linking this to AEDM. Hope I'll be able to visit at least some of the artists work today-:)
Thank you for checking
SusaN.  

Happy November

This year I too wanted to do 30 days of  Gratitude. This is what I did for Day -1. The layout is from an online class that I'm currently taking. Along with it I added our Thankful lines to the page. The two leaf shaped ones are by my eldest son and my hubby, Yes!!! he too joined us yesterday. Due to space limitation I cut my line and glued it on the left side of my picture.

 

 

More Fall paintings as part of the class that I'm taking. If you are interested in knowing more about this fall class, check here

I also wanted to share this mixed media piece that I did. It is the last of the beach canvases that I did last month.
I'm linking this post to PPF
Thank you for checking
SusaN

Happy Fall

Fall is all in its glory now. Among the yellows and the browns if you look carefully you can see so many other beautiful shades of leaves too. I think I'll never get tired of this season.It reminds me of the abundant beauty that God has blessed us with. Nature is magical, stunning and truly His gift to us.

 This is a watercolor sketch of fall leaves that I did as part of an online class.

 Yes, I know you will be thinking what is this, the beach in Fall!!  This is a mixed media piece that I did on canvas panel for someone who loves the sea and I was very happy to know that now it is being treasured by her.

Sometimes I try to do art in my daily writing journal and the above painting of trees was created thus in my journal.

I have started creating handmade Christmas gifts for friends and family. This is a book that I made for a special little girl. I have lots more to make and I hope to share them here with you.
I'm linking my post to PPF
Wishing you all a great weekend
SusaN

29 Faces: Day-7 to Day-13

This week I've seven faces to show(I can't believe that I've done 13 faces so far).  They are a mix, some I love and some turned out to be just okay. But I am being brave here to post all of them.

  This is my red haired girl. I painted her on patterned paper.

Long time ago I used to do Egyptian paintings on glass. Here I tried them on mixed media paper with lot of texture. I'm planning to do more of them.

 This is a collage. My six year old's favorite-:). I cut her out and did a face makeover. Added the flowers and the butterfly and the quote.  "If you stumble... make it part of your dance.", a reminder to myself that it's okay if things don't get right always. Perfectionism kills the fun in creating, a very valuable lesson that I learned in the last couple of months.

This week  I got Kelly-Rae-Roberts' awesome book, Taking Flight. This girl and the background were done from the techniques presented in it.I also added the wordings :" The joy of Learning" It's always wonderful to learn new techniques and get inspired by other artists' works.

 She is my favorite, my 2 year old's too. He said, "she looks pretty" my two sons are my critics-:) This is my Art Journal which got completed last month and I never thought of doing the cover.I adopted some techniques from Kelly Rae's  book and did this beautiful background and the girl.

I made a quick practice sketch with charcoal pencil. I think I might use her for a Halloween theme-:) Maybe next week, I'll try to spend more time with charcoal pencils.
Hope you are all having a great weekend. My week was so busy, getting adjusted to school schedules, some emotional struggles on parting with my little one for a couple of hours in a day care, lunch plans, a watercolor class, and of course faces. But I simply love this chaos that is a part and parcel of my life, and I am embracing all that is being gifted to me.
There, as usual I'm linking my work to PPF, Julie Balzer's Art Journal Everday
Hugs and Take Care
SusaN