New Uses for Old Christmas Cards

 As we get ready to celebrate the new year some of us are taking down our Christmas cards and deciding what to do with them. Which ones are the keepers and which go to the recycling, trash or can be used for craft projects.

I have one more solution that works well for me. A lot of them have shiny surfaces so they work well to lay my paints out on instead of using a palette or palette paper and best of all they are free.

I'm using small scraps of heavy/stiff watercolor paper and acrylic paints to see which kinds of strokes and effects that I can get with each of my palette knives. First I tried a standard mixing knife and was pleased with the results.

Here you see the results along with the knife I used. I could have stopped here and made a card out of it but...

I was listening to the news this morning as I was working and wondering if I could capture the feeling I was having of what it must be like with the snow hitting some of the lava flows in Hawaii. The results were no where close to anything recognizable and I seem to have spoiled the previous painting. What do you think?

This was my 2nd exercise and I used a diamond head knife for this one. I liked the fact that the areas of color it put down were more delicate and less defined than the basic knife.

You can see quite a bit of difference between the two.

I nearly called the painting finished at this point until a friend and artist suggested that it looked like a bunch of flowers at which I took as a challenge as I went back to work on it.

I used both the pallete knife and a couple of brushes to achieve this result.

 

The 3rd exercise involved a much larger knife and should have been done on a larger surface.

To me it began to suggest a couple of people working in an art class but when I tried to develop that theme, the painting failed so I will be painting over it very soon. Don't worry, every failure just builds a strong surface for your next success.

Thanks for joining me and be sure to comment below. I'll be continuing my experiment with my collection of odd shaped palate knives over the next few days so you may want to pop back in and check the results.

I ordered very few art supplies last year beyond sample sets of both gouache and acrylics in tiny tubes in less than half an ounce yet I had a very satisfying year of work. Read on (or back) to find out how I managed it an whether or not I want to go on that way in the year ahead.

Moving On, Into the Blue

 Now that I've finished my designs for 2021 it's time to get back to some art and assess what types of materials I have on hand to work with so I decided on my favorite color which is blue.

I started with part of a collage in blue and white for inspiration and a blue Marker. I never have been comfortable with markers so I thought this would be a good time to start with a few different strokes and ways of holding/handling it. I was NOT happy with the results so I moved on to using gouache. (I had plenty of that).

I liked the way that some of the marker showed through the gouache.

The problem was that the more types of water based media that I used, the more of the collage lifted and pulled off.

Next, I decided to use a heavy bodied acrylic paint and my new palate knives so the moisture wouldn't be a problem but I discovered in the last year I'd used all of the amazing shades of blues I had and am down to a couple shades of liquid blues. 

Well, by then I figured I'd had enough of it so I grabbed the black and white with my hands, a spork and a palate knife, scraped stroked and beat it to see where it would take me.

I was amazed to see the clear image of a chair appear out of nowhere. at this point I split the image in half and turned it into a rather nice set of notecards just in time to catch up with my mail.

All in all I considered it a day well spent. I learned a few things about the art materials I have on hand and those I need to order in and on top of that I got some interesting new notecards to surprise people with.

I hope you all find ways to make your days useful and fun as well, I used the non object card as a get well card with the caption "I'll bet this looks like you feel right now, get well soon" so you see even your messiest work can come in handy. Never be afraid to dive in and use those art supplies. There's no way they can go to waste. Everything is good for something. Don't give up or sell yourself short.

Paint Yourself Happy,

Julia

My Last Christmas Design for 2021

About 25 years ago I did a painting of a Christmas Wreath for my parents living room at Christmas.

Now that they've passed and the painting has been returned to me I thought that it 

needed to be updated so that I could share it with someone else.

This time I decided to redo the image so that I could use it in my Zazzle store. The first thing that needed changing  was the bow.

I started trying to change the contours to make it look more real and then failing that I created a plaid pattern to cover my shortcomings.

Here are the in progress photos:

This is a close up of the bow.

Then I added a few more berries and leaves to brighten up the look of the grape vine wreath.

 

From this point it will be photographed and the background will be removed with the

Computer so the wreath can be placed on any product or background that I would like it on.

This should be nice when I use it on next year's Christmas merchandise.

There were a few other designs to finish up but I'm really looking forward to my new designs of 2022.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Adventure Strikes Sketchbook Mornings

One of the most important things you need when drawing is light and preferably natural light.

My best source these days is the large windows around our local McDonalds. The apps and coupons make the food affordable as well.

After I eat I pull out my sketchbook, pen and pencils to get some drawing done.

I started tis with drawings in both colored pencil and ink and then took it back to my studio to finish i in gouache and acrylic.

The greens, yellow and browns are gouache and the blue was a pre mixed acrylic.

Today went down another path as I pulled my wheelchair up to the table and a good Samaritan came over to move a chair out of my way so that I could sit up to the table.

As she did that  she explained that there were other tables especially for wheelchairs and I should have used one of those.

I thanked her and explained that I had chosen this one because of the sunlight, that it was important I sit there because I was an artist and had planned to be doing some drawing there.

At that point she asked what sort of things I painted and when she heard what kind of work I do, she said that she used to do watercolors. We discussed the ins and outs of working with those. After that she was surprised to hear that both of the masks my husband and I were wearing were made from paintings that I had done. You can find these masks and much more at Zazzle.com/julia_art* or zazzle.com/dalahorse*.

Well, by this time my husband had come back to the table and the wait staff brought the food but on went our new friend about grandkids, knitting and bunion surgery which wasn't too bad because we'd long ago finished our meals. Some where in the course of the conversation a diner at a nearby table chimed in to say that she loved my dress so I stopped to tell her where to buy them and went back to the conversation with the first gal as my poor husband sat by politely, joined in were he could and went back to just rolling his eyes from time to time.

 

I told our friend that I design dala horses that get put on a lot of things and our friend said she'd been given a keychain with a dala horse on it as a gift from a friend returning from a trip to Sweden. Just then the second gal chimed in to say that she collected keychains and had thousands of them which spiked quite the conversation between the two of them.

 When we left those two were happily chatting about their collections (and their feet) and we smiled to think we'd done our bit to stamp out loneliness at Christmas.  (both hers and our own)

Yes, I did also come out of this with a new drawing and so much more. I had kind of a Christmas sort of feeling and I'd like to Wish You a Merry Christmas to you too. 

One Dollar Nutcrackers

Thanks again to my local Dollar Tree store I got these plastic and paper nutcrackers. They are not as attractive as traditional wooden ones but good enough to use as models for some drawing and paintings.

This was my first attempt at a drawing. I decided to opt for a more festive look in traditional Christmas Colors.

It's obvious that wasn't paying attention to the actual shapes and sizes of all of the elements involved so I'll go back to the drawing board and give it another try.

Keep watching, it's bound to get better.

Merry Christmas!

Juila

More Pinecone Designs

 

Here's a notecard set that I made for a  friend from a new design that I've been working on.

This is the same image before and after I painted it in.

Which version do you prefer? Be sure to leave a comment and let me know.                       

Up a tree at Christmas

Hello again and thank you for following my blog. Earlier I said that I was going to go to Zazzle and work with my old Christmas tree designs.

Well, it was a good idea but what I discovered when I got there is that NONE of them are your normal, all purpose trees.

The types I have so far are one made of seashells, one of iris flowers, and believe it or not my most popular one is made of sunflowers.

One collection but I definitely need to come up with something more mainstream. One is made from a button collection and others are made of things like Dala houses and other images.

 

I collected a few inspiration images but they weren't what I wanted either so I went back to my pens and markers.

Somehow I just haven't gotten around to drawing a pine tree. It's about time for me to start. Don't you think so?

I think these look promising and plan to start working with them right away.

There are lots of ornament and garland designs in my image file that could decorate these trees in lots of ways. I can't wait to get to it.

Keep watching this space and see where it goes!

Seasonal, Holiday, Christmas Cards

 I'm giving up buying and sending out Christmas cards this year because like a lot of people, I simply can't afford it.

Instead I'm devoting my time to designing new ones for my zazzle stores so that I will be well prepared for next year.

The bright side of this is that once I submit the new designs to zazzle I can send the prototypes and mockups to some of the special people at the top of my Christmas List.

I'm just getting started with a warm holiday beverage.

I'm going to use the middle of this cup for holiday designs that I already have on zazzle. Which should save time and energy on drawing.

This image was cut out by hand and mounted on red construction paper to make my first card.

This second design never saw print. I wasn't quite satisfied with it so I just painted it up and mailed it.

Sorry friend, it doesn't mean that I love you any less, I'm just too thrifty to throw it away and I have to get back to work.

Christmas tree practice didn't go well so I'm off to zazzle to use the Christmas trees that I had drawn and painted in better days.

Wish Me Luck,

Julia

Wrapping Things up for the Year

I felt that this is one of the best new dala horse ornaments that I carved, designed and painted  this year so it will be a Merry Christmas present for the person who has bought the most Dala Horse Ornaments from me and collected them for nearly a decade now. Without her encouragement I may have given up on them a long time ago. Thanks!

Being an Artist/crafter/designer etc. all of these years means that I almost never have money to do Christmas present shopping with so it gets a bit like Santa's workshop here in the rush to make sure that I can make something for everyone and avoiding the temptation to just give everyone the stuff that didn't sell.

I can't believe that the season sneaks up on me every year some recent years have been so awful that I almost gave the whole thing up and decided to hibernate until spring.

Getting older I also find myself wondering what I'm really doing with my life besides just taking up space.

I hear in the media that rather than trying to explain all of the things that we are and do that we're just supposed to call ourselves "creatives'' and hire out as consultants or just appear on TV shows or other media. 

This whole thing really made me laugh because I took a bunch of aptitude tests once and the best conclusion they could come up with is that I could either flip burgers or host a television show and I've got to say that I didn't feel particularly inclined to do either so that brings me back to what sorts of things I've been doing lately.

Going back to projects in my sketchbooks that I had given up on.

Babysitting a caterpillar as it gets ready to hibernate for the winter. Meet my room mate 'lil K. I know, It's a looong story and a bit of an education.

As long as I was doing all of this evaluating I thought I'd start at the beginning and see where things go from there. So far all that brings to mind is that I sure miss that space themed Toybox, LOL

Those of you that have followed this blog know that I design greeting cards. What you don't know is that it doesn't pay much and often I can't afford to buy them myself.

This handmade card is the result of that and the fact that I've been sorting through things trying to get my house organized.

This allowed me to use up some old photo bits and make a Christmas card for someone special.

There is a lot to sort through and there are lots of piles of piles yet to go. Who knows what it will lead to. If you don't hear from me by spring, send out a search party.

Happy Holidays,

Julia