I know, today is all about the eclipse, and here I am, inside blogging for the first time in two months. That’s what happens when you don’t get your NASA approved solar eclipse glasses – forced to finally blog. I’m just going to have to watch some shade from my window.
Ah, now there’s some sun for you. Last week we visited with Joe’s parents in Sea Isle City, New Jersey. Doesn’t get much better than that! Oh, unless you’re doing some arting on that lovely beach as well:
If you’re ever looking for an easy peasy travel project, pick up this book:
Remember those Ed Emberly books when we were kids? Well, when I was a kid – How to Draw Animals, Monsters, etc., that broke the creature down into shapes – draw a rectangle body, draw a rectangle shape, draw a triangle ear, etc., and then at the end you had a dog, a cat, or a whatever. This book is the Ed Emberly book of flowers for the drawing impaired. Every flower is broken down into steps, the steps are basically shapes, until the last step, when you do little hashmarks for shading. If I can do it, you can do it.
Here’s me doing a daisy and a couple of tulips:
And, here’s a paper garden –
It actually makes me look like I know what I’m doing! In any event, the directions are easy to follow, and the materials are extremely portable – just a pencil, a micron pen and a sketchbook. No fuss.
Now, for something that doesn’t look like I know what I’m doing – watercolors. These are supposed to be peonies, garden roses, and anemones.
Remember the Show Me Your Drills challenge from the Happily Ever Crafter? Maybe not, because my blogging is so inconsistent, I may have forgotten to mention it altogether. The drills challenge was a calligraphy practice workshop – every day you either practiced your upstroke, or your downstroke, or connecting letters, or something of the sort. Anyway, Happily Ever Crafter joined forces with water color artist, Stephanie Fehrenbach for a new challenge, Show Me Your Florals. Everyday a watercolor lesson appeared in my inbox, and I kind of went, eh. Every watercolor class starts the same way – how to mix colors, how to control the water on your brush, and paper etc. I’d already done much of the exercises through Skillshare. The week wrapped up with florals, finally. I did end up buying the workbook at the end – which was what it was all leading up to anyway. On the first day, the workbook was $12 – which was a nice deal, since all of the flowers that are illustrated in the book are also demoed on video. I don’t know if I’d pay $24 for it though, since so much of it is on Skillshare and Creativebug. But, for the price of two Starbucks frozen coffees, I was good with it. Although, as you can see, my efforts weren’t so hot – I have to admit, I didn’t try very hard, nor did I practice very much. We were packing up for vacation, and my craftroom was like 100F – so hooooottt! Anyway, even though my flowers are meh, I’m not one to waste good watercolor paper, and I turned them into cards –
A good splash of watercolor is always a good background for a card, and they’re supposed to be abstract.
This one was a big sloppy wreath that I ended up cutting down to fit on a card base. I did cut away some of the good bits, but i think it looks pretty ok The stamps are from Unity. Not part of the monthly kit, but part of one of their sales. There’s always a sale. Luckily I get the monthly kit, or I’d be in big trouble.
By the way, I’ll revisit the kit next post, but I have to say, I have not bought one extra stamp (except for these creativity sentiments from Unity, that I bought because they work so well with anything) since subscribing three months ago. Does that mean that I’m spending a little extra to save more in the long run?
Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.
