Firestorm

Around the time of the horrific Fort McMurray fire, I was working on Artist Trading Cards for our local Vancouver swap.  It is clear from these pictures that the fire influenced my art at that time. 

The Best Source of Wisdom

Thirty Days of Bible Lettering

He is definitely the best source of wisdom that I can think of.  I was dealing with a difficult problem a few days ago and He gave me the golden rule - Do unto others as you would have done unto you.  

So, instead of asking myself, "What should I do?", the question became, "What would I like her to do if our positions were reversed?"  Then the answer was easy and the result was good.   

Painterly Days (cont'd)

Here's another page from my Painterly Days Watercoloring Book, painted with watercolor and Twinkling H20's:

In "Alisa Burke" fashion, I painted the page first ignoring the lines altogether.  I used lots of water.

I added the second layer after the first layer was dry.

I signed up for Alisa's Watercolor Blooms class.  Her classes are on sale until August 2nd; it is very good value at $10US.  I'm enjoying the short videos and as usual she is inspiring me to paint.  That's the main thing -  as she says, it is practice that makes you better!

Painterly Days

I'm definitely still having fun with the Painterly Days watercoloring book.  I used lots of water on the background above, and dropped color into it, wet on wet style.

On this next page, I splashed wet color all over the page not paying attention to where the pattern was.  After it was dry I painted some of the areas again.  This time I used Twinkling H20's (metallic watercolor).

Next time I'll try and remember to take a picture between the layers.

Silly Scraps Saturday - Crazy Paper Quilt Tutorial

Crazy Paper Quilt ATC

Bird Stamp by Inkadinkado

I promised a bit of a tutorial on the crazy paper quilting I'm currently addicted to.  It's a great way to use up your scraps of paper.

First, I cut a piece of rice paper slightly larger than ATC size.  I use rice paper because I want a sturdy but lightweight backing for my quilt.  Once it is finished, I'll adhere this to an ATC sized card, but I don't want too many bulky card stock layers.  You could do this quilt directly onto the finished card, but I'm never sure whether I'll want to hide stitching, so I'm using rice paper.

Next, I glued a small scrap onto the rice paper.  Notice the scale; ATC's are small, so this scrap is small.  This scrap is a piece left over from a magazine page colored with acrylic paint, but anything will do.

Now I start to attach my scraps around each side.  The scraps can be any size or shape, but the edges should be straight.  Just go around the centre scrap one edge at a time. 

Looks awful, doesn't it?  Have faith.  Keep going.

Now I've gone around the centre scrap once, I keep going around until the rice paper is all covered:

Lastly, I trim all four sides to the finished ATC size.

I didn't plan the colors at all, I just randomly attached scraps from my scrap box.  I love the look of these and they are very fun!

Brush Lettering for Thirty Days of Bible Lettering

Drawing My Own Wacky Pages

Strathmore Watercolor 6" x 9"

Looking around on Alisa Burke's blog I found a video of her drawing her free coloring pages.  That made me want to draw my own.  I drew with Stabilo and used Inktense for the color.