Holiday Break Arting

Hello everyone and Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas! I hope you are able to take some down time during this time of year and refresh and regroup for the upcoming new year. I've had time to create something almost every day so far. Some were for Christmas presents, some were for our home. Have a look:

 I've been looking for a reasonably priced vintage journal to use as an art journal -- once again, Etsy to the rescue! 

 Really cool tabs in the front of the journal. 

Lots of pages that have the original entries. How cool is that?

This is the first journal page I did in it. I love poppies and the poppy pods. Any my favorite Golden's Fluid Cobalt Teal seemed like the way to go for my first page! I adhered some of the Tim Holtz tissue roll, then some Golden's Airbrush Paint in white over that. Some oil pastels to finish off the shading, and my water brushes with Dylusions Ink for the stems and the spikey parts. 

 Another spread I did with a map of Maryland glued down first. My hometown of Dundalk and my current home in Severn are highlighted with the hearts. Other favorite spots highlighted in the other circles. I used my new Shiva PaintStiks to highlight the circles. 

 So I have this new little 'signature' thing I've been doing, the gesso'd circle with the black rectangle off to one side. So simple, but for some reason this really appeals to my eye. You will start seeing this in a lot of my work! 

 I almost always lean towards turquoise and the cool colors, so I decided to challenge myself with an all warm page. The first layers was using all my red NeoColor II's. Then I adhered a floral napkin with a poppy pattern to parts of both pages, added my Donna Downey large poppy stamp, and used my water pens filled with Dylusions inks to add some highlights. Some gesso and some dabs with my Montana Acrylic Marker. 

 These next shots are of another page I did using my favorite new product -- Viva Decor 3D Crystal Gel in Hologram. Really fun, awesome stuff. 

 This page was in my Dylusions journal experimenting with Dyan's bleach out technique. 

 Then I moved into some canvases. This one was made for a friend who asked me to do one in black, gray, and fuchsia. I really like the way this one turned out! Its going to be hard for me to part with this one. 

 Then I decided to do a canvas for my nephew Zach and my niece Chelsea. This is Zach's. He's really into music and recently painted his bedroom in blues and yellows, hence the color choices. I was so thrilled last night when I popped over to the Dyan Revealey FB private page and this canvas was being used at their banner on the website! WOW! That was such an honor for me! 

 This is the one I made for Chelsea. It holds a lot of significance for us. We lost Chelsea's Mom and my beloved Sister-in-Law two years ago. We think of her as a yellow butterfly, and Chels always says Mom was my anchor. The hearts are self explanatory. Chelsea was very touched by this one which made me feel really good about making this for her. 

 My husband keeps telling me I should do a set of canvases that could be hung together. I wanted a set of two longer canvases, but when I ran out to Michael's on Christmas Eve, this is the only split one they had. Its 4 panels each 6 x 6. I made it for our bedroom which is also decorated in turquoise and chocolate. I really like how it turned out. The drippage as a combination of Dr. Ph. Martin's Teal India Ink, and another brand of teal iridescent ink I blended together. I splattered the canvases with this as well. 

 So guess what I'm getting ready to do??? Head back downstairs to play some more! I have another canvas I want to do in dark reds, and some shades of brown and gold for our living room. I also want to modify the Perpetual Journal Calendar for myself. I got a really cool sewing machine drawer from Etsy to use instead of my basket, and an aqua Ball jar to use with it. I saw a really cool idea on Pinterest. I'll share that one when its finished. 

Saturday I'll be playing with some of my art besties - Ellen Smith Vargo, Donna Walsh, and Terry Quinn at The Queen's Ink! Man, I could so get used to being off work and doing art every day, but I'll need to acquire a taste for cat food if I think I'm going to retired any time soon! LOL! Luckily, I love my job. 

I wish everyone a very healthy, happy, and creative new year! Happy 2013!!!