Bad Student

 I just found out I'm a lousy student.  No one told me, I just figured it out myself. Now of course this now means I'm also a lousy teacher.  No...I'm not really a teacher.  Nor an instructor.  But when my friends and I get together we usually have some sort of project for all of us to do.  Alot of times they are pretty easy but I am known to get a bit complicated with paper.  Fancy folds, albums, flower making etc so some instruction is involved.  So today I realized that all this time that I have been doing so, I have probably been lousy at it So why do I think so?  Well for the first time in years I attend a class myself at a local Scrapbook store.  I don't usually do this.  My way of thinking is look at the project, decide what I need, gather it up, rush home and make an example.  I'm usually pleased with that route and then I take all that I need with me when I meet up with my group of friends and teach them how to make it.  My thinking...why pay for something I can figure out?  Well this time, 3 days before the last class, I saw the project.  3 super cute tags.  I am a sucker for tags.  They are my favorite thing to make.   I sat down at the table with all my stuff ready in my bag.  The instructor was helpful to a fault.  In fact too helpful.  Being someone who knows how to use tools, I found myself constantly saying "It's ok I got this" only to be told I was holding the heat tool wrong or not aging my edges enough.  She would then take my tag and do it for me to show me the correct way.  Where I wanted more brown she'd put more turquoise.  Where I wanted to use my tape she would insist on wet glue (I used my tape though, I'm a rebel lol).  Little changes I wanted to do she said I can't because the instructions said to do it this way.  All this was slowly making me boil and at the same time realize that I might be doing the same thing when I am trying to show my friends how to do a certain thing on their project.  Oh no!!!!  Thats horrible!!!  Am I this bad all the time?? I need to change that.  I need to allow everyone to let their individual artistic vision shine instead of insisting they use mine.  Mine is good for me but they have a different view for theirs and I have got to let them have their views. I still agree that I need to listen to all instructions before I proceed but how I proceed is my decision and from now on it will be the way I look at things as I show how I completed a project but have the completion up to the individual.

Now would you like to see those tags?  They are cute for sure.

Well I don't think I'll be taking a class anytime soon.  I really don't like people telling me how to do things a different way.  I will listen but do not push me.  Pushing me makes me rebel and today made me not want to take another class for awhile or at least not without a friend to keep me inline LOL.  I learned some valuable lessons today though none pertained to the tags but hopefully my friends will notice a difference the next time I have a project to show them.

Until next time.............................................

Watercolor Do Overs

HAPPY  SPRING

Blue bells are starting to pop out of the ground the Robins are singing the rains are making everything a muddy mess and little ones are soon to be enjoying the spring activity of jumping in muddy puddles!  My favorite thing to do with my granddaughter!  Speaking of water.............I returned to my watercoloring and this time with friends over the weekend.  I tried to teach that which I do not know LOL.  We had alot of fun trying for sure.  We all had the Dylusions multi media journaling book so we all did some practicing in there before advancing to actual watercolor paper.  Although we used good quality watercolor paper (I grabbed it from my husbands stash) we all used very inexpensive paints.  All of us used solid pan paints.  One had a set from Crayola and mine was from Walmart and a generic brand.  Though I do not have permission to show you their creations I can show you mine.  I had re-created the 2 I had done in my previous post except that this time they are on watercolor paper instead of in my book.  I will have to admit I prefer my previous birds to the new ones but the flower one I did Saturday I like alot better than the one I did in my book.  This is such a learning thing.  But I am enjoying it.  I even sparked my husband into wanting to get back into the groove.  He sat done and went through all his paints, through out some really dried out stuff and is making a list of new stuff to buy.  I can't wait to go with him so I can get a few supplies myself!  I definitely want to do more.  I might even frame one of these and hang it somewhere in my house.  I'm a big believer in hanging original art.  I have alot of originals (not famous just family but precious) hanging in my home.  We all have some sort of talent and it should be displayed for all to admire.  Oh before I forget.....here are Saturdays paintings.  Ignore the tape as they have not been removed from the boards yet.

I'm sure going to love getting into this new hobby.  At least I think I am hahahaha. 

I hope Spring is popping up where ever you are at and that you can stop and take a little time to take in the colorful beauty that is about to begin.

Til next time...........................................................

Watercolor Oh My

 My Spring juices are flowing and I'm definitely in the mood for trying new things.  New Season....New Craft.  So I'm jumping out of my comfort zone and running right into watercolor.  Oh my what am I thinking?  Have you ever been cruising through Pinterest and seen something and said to yourself..."I can do that"?  Yep!!!  That's me!  ALL THE TIME!!!  I have this "take the idea and run with it" mentality.  I go all in!  I buy everything I think I need as well as things I probably don't need but might need someday if I get really good at the new endeavor.  So this time it's watercolor.  Paint a picture.  I don't spend days or weeks learning techniques or whether I should buy/use cake colors or tube colors.  Or whether to buy mid priced or high priced brush's and never mind figuring out what paper to buy.  Hot press/cold press.  I just run into Michaels and buy everything so I'm prepared.  I drive my husband nuts.  I have to admit I drive my self nuts too when I find out I don't like the new craft that I just spent mega bucks on lol.

 Ok now for the truth.............above is what I always do.  But this time....well I lucked out because my husband does watercolors.  So I have a ton of stuff at my disposal and I do not need to buy a thing.  He also has not done any watercolors in years, so all this stuff has been just sitting around in a large plastic storage bin.  Guess what?  The paints are still pliable.  Amazing!  He already had a bunch of paper and alot of brushes and paints.  I had a few of those little plastic well dishes to put the colors in (see a painter I am not, I don't even know what those things are called lol) and some old frosting tubs to use as water cups to clean the brushes.  So I did decide this time I would actually look at some super simple ideas and try some on scraps of watercolor paper he had before I go "All In".   I've played around with acrylics and oils and know a little about blending and was quite surprised when I tried to add more color to an area and found that the color was actually lifting off.  Oh boy....I didn't know you could just take a wet brush and go over what color you just put down and take it away.  YIKES!  I need to concentrate.  Is this really going to be relaxing like the videos say? EY YI YI.

So I decided to use my Dylusions Journaling book as my sample pages.  I know they are not watercolor pages, but they are suppose to be multi-medium pages so I figure they should work for practicing.  The easiest thing I found was to try eucalyptus leaves.  Well I thought they'd be easy lol.  Mine just look like greenish circles.  

Ok move on.  How about drops of water, then drop on a color and let it bleed.  Well.....these pages don't allow much in the way of bleeding but I guess it kind of worked.

Well as you can see one of the blobs didn't look like a flower to me so I made it a bird.  Yeah, no clue what kind of bird that is. LOL

So then they also had an exercise where you add some drop like blobs here and there..... then try and make something out of that.  Well.............

Yeah, not lovin' this one at all.  But you know it's practice practice practice.  This journal is probably going to have alot of what I will deem fails in it but that's what discovering art is all about. learning from your fails or even sometimes finding happy accidents.  So every once in a while, I'm going to share my plus's and my fail's as I go on my watercolor adventure.  Don't worry they won't be posted often.  I know I need real time to sit and paint and real time is not always available LOL. 

Now for my final trial attempt.  This time a more deliberate subject.  Birds.

Yes, I deliberately tried to paint a trio of undefined birds.  To me undefined means I did not draw them out on the paper first.  I saw these in a video and the lady made a circle of water on her paper.  She then added one color to the top and another to the bottom and they magically pulled together in the middle and then you add detail.  Like the tail, the beak, feet and eye.  So I played and well.....I don't hate it.  So that's a Plus right?

The other thing that surprised me was that I used the same brush to do the entire thing.  Who knew? Secret here........I think it's a kids watercolor brush from Michaels.  The handle is a clear bright green acrylic, it has green bristles, the handle says Royal.  LOL!  Oh boy Pro watercolor people are cringing I'm sure heeheehee.

Ok well this is a very long post so I'll end now with if I can mess around with a kids brush, kids cake watercolor paints and a multi-media journal book and attempt to watercolor I think anyone can.  So keep checking back on my journey.  I'll bet I'll have alot of ummmmm......(happy accidents?) to share.

Egg Painting Trial

 Spring is near!  Though not quite in the air yet.  At least not here in the Northern States.  We are still having chilly weather way below freezing and still getting the snow.  We have also just survived a terrible ice storm that left many in my Village without power for a few days.  This included my son and his family.  The grandkids stayed here with us as well as my son and daughter in law until their power returned.  Unfortunately they lost all their refrigerator/freezer food.  Wouldn't you know it the very next week we had 2 days in the 50's.  So Spring is coming...just in a weird way. 

Anyway it got me wanting to take down Valentines Day decor and put up something Springy.  I sort of combined St Pattys day and Easter together throughout the house but have focused more on Easter lately.  I love decorating eggs.  I have quite a few I have done with various techniques and this time decided to give a try to acrylic paints.  At first I thought of watercoloring the eggs but quickly changed my mind after the first egg.  This is out of my comfort zone as I am not a painter.  Heck I don't even stamp and color cards very often.  It's not my favorite activity.  If I do stamp and color cards I use watercolor pencils as I have not been able to manipulate Copic markers.  I'm a major fail in that category.   So I started with these white craft eggs you can get at Walmart.

 Way to Celebrate Dyeable Easter Egg!Color liquids with white plastic egg! - Walmart.com 

  I also used some plastic eggs I got from the Dollar Tree but they came only 6 in a pack and when I got there they only had gold ones so I do not even know if they ever had white ones.  I bought some gold ones anyway since it was before I had gone to Walmart and I thought the gold ones were my only choice.  These were available on their web site.

Speckled and Solid Gold Easter Eggs in Assorted Colors, 6-ct. Carton | Dollar Tree

 I slightly watered down some inexpensive paints and freehanded on the eggs.  Super simple designs but for my first time I think they turned out ok.  Of course I had to do one egg with a few velum flowers on it too just because it's more my style lol. I haven't finished that one yet. 

The above group of 3 are works in progress.  I needed to have something ready for when I get together with my friends for a day of egg painting.  If I don't show them how they start out they may get discouraged lol just as I did.

Now for the best of the best!  I had my granddaughter over the weekend.  She is 6 and enjoys crafts of any kind as long as it has glue or paint involved.  She noticed my eggs on the table and a few loose eggs laying around there too and asked if we were painting eggs.  Sure!!! Why not!  So "Little Miss Excited" gathered her stuff and began her egg adventure.  I tried showing her how to do a flower, which she did do but her love is for animals and she proceeded to do the rest of her eggs as animals.  She only wanted help with the elephant because she said she's no good with trunks. (neither is her grandma hahaha) The rest of the animals, a Cheeta, a tiger, a giraffe and a dalmatian were all done by her.  I think they turned out great.

Well that's all for now.  I think I'll go paint a few more eggs!