Lovely lady of the page

I just wanted to take a quick minute to tell anyone who reads this, that you can be brave!! You can draw what ever you want. You can like it or not. You can put it out there for others to see. Will some people have a bad attitude and criticize it?? Yes, in truth there will be some. Will others be inspired to be brave and post their own?? Yup!!  I created this whimsical art journal page painting of a woman. Are the proportions of her face correct? Nope! I am happy and proud of her? Heck yeah I am. I used techniques that I usually shy away from. I hope that if you have a desire to create please create. Please don't worry about what others think. Most importantly please, please, don't compare your work to others. Compare you work to your older work. You can feel free to learn from others. Learn techniques that are willing to teach. If you learn a technique or the inspire you, tell them and please make sure to let others know. Chances are if they like what you created due to their influence, they will too. If we as a community build each other up we will show others to afraid to enter the courage to do so.  Ok, enough blather here she is.

I added a frame. How cool are are phones now a days?? Man, I remember using a payphone.

it reads:" the only time you truly can't do something is when you stop trying. Keep going till you succeed."

I normally am not pleased with faces and hair. I decided it was time to stop worrying and enjoy my creations.

I don't know about you, but eyes are hard. I am getting better at them. I used past pictures that I created to figure out how much better I have gotten. :)

shadowing on her neck made me happy. The part in her hair made me VERY happy!!

Here it is again, this time no frame. Which do you think looks better?

Thank you for take a few mins to read what I had to say and look at my pics.
Please feel free to leave critiques that I can learn from.
Have a great day!!
Haley

Paris in the spring

Feeling a little crafty this week and here are the results. :)

This was the off the page object from the March Flying Unicorn kit.

I have never worked with just a limited color pallet. I really wanted to challenge myself.

Here it is in the daylight.

I recently got some Lindy's stamp gang embossing powers AND well, I just could not resist using them here.

Have a wonderful day!!

More fun "Catching" up.

For Christmas this year I got several stencils. I must say that I am really loving playing with them.  I has seen video after video where fellow artists were creating the most wonderful master pieces by incorporating them into the pieces. Itchy to give it a try myself. I came up with this:
                                                       

Here is the final project.

 I wanted to make an underwater scene, nice and inky and wavy.  I started by thinking about how in heck I was gonna find and print off the Koi fish that would be just perfect. I went to google images, then headed over to youtube. I watched and looked about a bazillion (4 to be exact, but bazillion is fun to type) videos. I finally came across one that gave me a basic sketch and encouraged me to personalize it from the basic sketch. I am really proud of my drawn Koi fish. I really wanted it to be much more fluid than the one showed in the video. I wanted it to look like the fins were moving with the flow of the water. Once I had the fish drawn I totally freaked out about adding color to it. So, I set it to the side and began working on my backround.
I used  some music paper from an old music book someone gave us ages ago. I gessoed the paper so, that it would be able to take all the product I planned on using. Now that the Gesso was dry I sprayed Lindy's Stamp gang flat fabio sprays in the colors Ocean breeze blue and Caribbean blue with just a few splatters here and there of Tim Holtz distress stains Broken China. This step is where I went just crazy and buck wild (well, for me anyway). I dropped Black India ink unto the paper in large globs and using a straw I blew the ink around. I am really am happy with the way it came out.  Next, I took one of my Crafter's Workshop stencils (Art is) and used some Gloss medium thru the stencil just like you would modeling paste, paint or ink. I really love that it smudged the words just enough for them to not be completely legible. Once that dried I used my Crafter's workshop stencil that has cup rings and spatters to add some modeling paste and back India ink.
Gulp, it was back to the best picture I had drawn from scratch in ages. Well, I pulled up my big girl panties and broke out the water colors and just started moving them around on the image as I held my breath and hoped beyond hope that I would like it in the end. :)  I walked away for night. The next morning I broke out my markers and began outlining and adding in small details like the spots on the fish and his mustache. I cut the image out from the paper that I drew it on, leaving just a small border. I was so happy with it. I used gel medium to decoupage it to my background.  When I added it to my art journal I decided to add a black border. I am glad I did it really makes it pop for me. The last step was to add the "bubbles" and go around them with black ink to help them stand out more.

I hope you enjoyed looking at and reading about the process.
Have a great day,
Haley