#218 Ingrid Dijkers - Awesome Art Journal Eye Candy

While making my way slowly through the Artist Blog Hop I came across #218 Ingrid Dijkers awesome blog. I was instantly drawn to her art journals and if you click on her name you will know why. Her style is just my style so colorful and fun.
I love finding other artists with unique and beautiful lettering ideas to put into my art journals.
Let me know what you think of her art journals.
Happy Creating everyone.

#190 Featured Today - Greenpeck

As soon as I clicked on #190 Greenpeck
I fell in love with the first entry. How beautiful this painting is and I love the way she has prepared it beforehand with all the square pieces. I definitely recommend you go check out her blog and see the entire process from beginning to end. I think this is one process I may just check out myself and see what I can come up with. Thank you Greenpeck.blogspot.com for sharing your talent and for inspiring us all!
Please leave comments as to what you think about her work here too so I can read your thoughts as well.
Happy Creating everyone!

Portrait Study

Here are a few portraits I have drawn of some of the members on Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr. I love drawing faces but I rarely can draw them to an exact likeness of the people I draw... I have a lot to learn. I am enjoying the learning process though. I blacked out the backgrounds in these for the effect. There is a lot of talented artists out there, especially those who can draw portraits to such a likeness that it is difficult to tell the portrait from the photo - I admire that.

Well, Happy creating everyone and God bless you.

Another Wonderful Find Through Carol Mead #170

#170 Carol Mead is my special find today while I was blog hopping through all of you talented artists. She has painted a fabulous landscape painting that I really had to look twice at to see if it was an actual painting or a photograph. Wow, to have such talent is an amazing blessing isn't it. Maybe one day we will all be this talented. Thank you Carol for your awesome talent and for sharing it with the blog world, I am certain that the couple who is to receive this for their wedding will be truly blessed by it!

Happy Creating Everyone. I hope that you are all enjoying the blog hop as much as I am! Now I have to find some time to create myself! Hugs to you all and thanks for stopping by my blog and for all of your wonderful comments - I appreciate every one of them.

How To Draw Lifelike Portraits

I have joined a portrait study group on flickr called Julia Kay's Portrait Party and that got me thinking. I pulled out some of my old art books on drawing portraits and one in particular called... "How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs" by Lee Hammond. Inside was something called The Puzzle Piece Theory: A Guide to Seeing Shapes... I have seen this before but have not paid much attention to it before though something made me take a second look and I completed this graph puzzle. I found it very interesting how this puzzle had me drawing the picture upside down without even knowing it! When I finished I was pleasantly surprised and I understood why the author had me doing this ~ it actually did help me to realize that there are different ways to draw portraits by looking at things in a new way.
I really need to discover ways to see things differently as I have always been a black/white thinker when it comes to portrait drawing. I really need my eyes opened and this book is helping me to do just that.
It was a very good find for me as I purchased it at Chapters for $5.00 and it regularily goes for $27.50 Canadian.
I have always loved drawing faces... I guess I can thank my oldest sister for that as I started drawing because she did, so thank you Kathy!
So yet again, another book I can recommend.
Happy Creating everyone.

#108 Janine - Touching Painting

I recommend #108 Janines blog as the above painting, which is not only gorgeous, but has a really touching story attached to it. Obviously Janine has a warm heart to paint such an amazing painting that will hopefully touch many for a very important cause. Go check it out and you will not be disappointed! So many artists are banning together in their art for this cause and it is wonderful to see!
Happy Creating Everyone!

#94 - Rebecca Anthony - WOW THE TALENT!!!

Another MUST feature #94 Rebecca Anthony! As I was blog hopping yesterday I meant to feature this lovely lady and her amazing talent! Her blog is called Daisydolls Studio Art Blog and it is awesome! A definite must see as I can guarantee that you will get inspired! Thank you Rebecca for sharing your talent with the blog world!
I am having a blast working my way through all of the links to other artists - talk about inspiration! I think I have to write down all the wonderful ideas I am seeing as I think my brain is in overload (but creative overload is always fun!)
I hope that everyone else is having as much fun as I am!
Happy Creating everyone!

Featuring #91 Jacqueline

Todays finds I am featuring #91 Jacqueline. I fell in love with her painting of this lady posing behind the tree. The face is captivating and romantic. I also love the way she has distressed the overall painting. This is the type of painting I love staring at and imagining her life in my mind... what is she thinking? who is she posing for? Is she in love? what is her life like? etc. Jacqueline you have done a wonderful job in this painting! Thanks for sharing it with the world. I can't wait to see more of your work. For those of you working through the blogs go take a look at her blog - it's wonderful!
Hugs to everyone, Happy Creating!

Another Fabulous Find through Phoenix Peacock #83

See... through this blog hopping I have found some wonderful giveaways through #83 Phoenix Peacock, she is sponsoring a giveaway for CSN Shops. I have personally never heard of them before but they have some great home decor items and well, all sorts of items from outdoor patio furniture to shoes! She also lists a giveaway for a vintage apron through Kat's Kitchen who is sponsoring the giveaway for Annie through Annie's Apron's and Bags. I love finding sites like these and these aprons are super cute! I have never seen aprons as cute as these before!

Keep working your way through and share what you find on your blog so others can see your fabulous finds and inspiration!

Happy Creating Everyone!

As I was Art Blog Hopping....

It is so much fun blog hopping around the list of Artists! For example:

I came across Peggy's blog and I am loving it! The above painting is one of her latest. Isn't it beautiful! (I hope you don't mind that I put it up on my blog ~ I love it and I wanted to show the world what I found on your blog).

So let's go blog hopping and see what else we can find. I may post more lovely things I find if I get a chance.

Happy Creating, Happy Blog Hopping!

Very Cool MAIL ART From My Friend Shelley

So last week I received some amazing mail art from my girlfriend Shelley in Winnipeg. Two single records cut and joined to make a cover to her letter! What a cool idea! My kids and hubbub laughed when they saw it! How cool is that???? I am not that creative but this girl - wow - ya she's got it! She is an awesome penpal. She started writing me when I posted earlier this year or last year that I had pneumonia for two months. We have been sending wacky mail art back and forth ever since, and she is hilarious! What a joy it has been to receive her letters! Some people are just gifted for things such as this and she is one of them.
I decided that I would send her a bunch of different things in her letter back, so far I have sent her 5 different journal spreads, postcards stickers, sudoku games and fun little doo-dads I find. I did this last journal spread for her lastnight of a woman's face. I love writing over top of the faces, some people call me brave for writing over my drawings I just think I am completing them! LOL.
Thanks Shelley for the fun mail art! You are so wonderful to me!
Hugs
Happy Creating Everyone!
Don't forget to add your link to the Blog Hop before June 30th and copy and paste it onto your blog to continue adding more links. By the end we should end up with a couple hundred links to other artists throughout the world - I am so looking forward to it!

Artist Blog Hop

It's working! Finally! Just copy and paste link into your "html as a widget" and the artist links should appear as a post on your blog. Let me know if you have trouble seeing it.

Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencils

So last Friday I left you with a cliffhanger... I was on my way to an art store to find some Pan Pastels... well...
I didn't buy what I thought I was going to... I managed to buy some more Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencils and a watercolor brush that has water right in the end of the brush. I remembered that I already had a set of 12 of these pencils, though this new set was a set of 23 and it was onsale for 50% off (probably because it was missing 1 pencil and it wasn't in a box). I do not mind these things because I don't keep them in the box anyway.

So that night and on the weekend I played and played with these new little goodies. I forgot how much I love them.

I prepped a journal page with first Distress Ink Pads in three shades, then using the Derwent Inktense Markers I colored in different shapes, highlighted the edges, then went over everything with a black pen. I like the way this page turned out. It will be part of a letter I am writing to my pen pal in Winnipeg. I hope she doesn't see this entry! lol.

So... this in it's entirety was the outcome of my exploits to the art store this week. I will post again tomorrow. Until then... Have a fabulous day and Happy Creating Everyone!