I made this pink and green tag for Helga's weekly challenge on her blog, My Artistic Life.

She always has interesting new art and ideas and I like when I can make time to join in the fun.

Sweet sketches and Spooky ATCs

These are sketches of my friend's beautiful daughters. I drew them from photos and plan to incorporate them into collages for their room. It's harder to draw children because the facial proportions are so different. I was happy that the models recognized themselves and they are

2 and 3 years old!

The slightly creepy ATCs are for a swap at Paula's Kit Club. I had to make 14 Halloween themed cards.

The rick-rack is copper metallic and very sparkly! I had fun putting these together and hope my fellow ATC swappers like them!

This concludes my show and tell of art from the past week. I have a very busy weekend planned

and won't get to spend much art time. I am almost ready to send off my new We Dream In Color round robin book off to my buddy Peggy. I'll post photos before I pack it up.

Until then remember my creed... BE CREATIVE OR BE CRANKY!!!

Playing with Paper Dolls Again!

This is what I've gotten done this month! I am chipping away at my long "to-do" list. Luckily, I enjoy checking off art-related items! I finished the first two pages for a color themed round robin. Sarah's colors were black, white, and RED! I had drawn the face in my sketchbook and then I cut out her hair from the sparkly diamond dust paper.
I made the two paper dolls to tuck into the pocket on the facing page. The stickers are from an ARTchix sheet and the colors were perfect!
I created the paper dolls below for an ARTchix contest/swap. Each artist creates a set of 6 dolls using something from one of the ARTchix paper doll collage sheets. I had fun mixing and matching and searching through my collection of metal charms.


Each doll had some type of metal charm adorning her body. I think they came out pretty cool and they each have their own sassy style!


Now, I am off to put together a NEW color themed round robin book that will be sent out into the world October 1st. Oh yeah, I have to make 14 Halloween ATCs for my Paula's Kit Club swap. I'll keep you posted...

More Mixed Media Madness!

Here are a few more pieces I worked on this weekend. I am having fun with the backgrounds and layers.

I did the portraits on paper and then glued them to a piece of plywood,

I collaged the background with paint,

various papers, stamps, rub-ons, stamps, metal charms, trims, and glitter. To finish the pieces I used different products. I melted beeswax on one, used a glossy varnish on two of them. I used a matte mod podge

on the pieces that I wanted to have

more texture on the surface. I even dug through my ancient stash of broken costume jewelry for some

larger embellishments.

Portrait Class Progress

I promised I would continue to update my progress in Suzi Blu's on-line class. Here are some of the projects I completed this weekend. I had drawn, colored, and painted the faces in my sketchbook. I finally got some plywood cut into 12 x 12 inch pieces and glued the faces to them. Then, I painted the backgrounds and added rub-ons, stamps, inks, glitter, tissue, etc.

Because my scanner won't scan a 12 x 12 image you can't see the whole piece. I'm not sure I'm done with these yet. I want to coat some of them with beeswax.

The second picture is a journal spread I worked in for my I Dream In Color round robin group.

The part of the class I had the most trouble with is actually spending time writing and adding my own words to my portraits. I am so comfortable expressing myself in visual images. I love adding words I have an emotional response to such as song lyrics or quotes. I am a little hesitant to put my own words on my artwork because it seems more personal. I am working on getting past that point of resistance and being bolder with my words.

I will post any new additions as I finish these up.