Jury duty sketches

A few weeks ago I received a summons for jury duty. My to my dismay, having three children in diapers will not earn you an excused absence. Rats! I keep telling my husband that as long as I have to go to the courthouse, I hope it is a "big" case. Famous last words.

After a few hours of the general hurry up and wait that goes along with jury duty, we are told the name of the case and the charges. Sure enough, it is one of the biggest cases of the year for our city. It took a day and a half for the prosecutors and the defense attorneys to whittle our group from 28 to 12, and in the end, I did not make the cut.

I did try to take advantage off all the down time we had and ended up with these sketches!

Weekly update

 I would love to post some sort of "in my studio" weekly update, but this has been one of those weeks where I'm not sure if I really have much to post. My 11m son decided that his afternoon nap should be optional for a few days so that meant no painting for Mama!

Today he figured that a nap was a good idea so I was able to catch up on laundry and write this post.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram would have seen this post. I drew some flowers with Tulip paint on a transparency sheet with the hopes of making an acrylic skin by covering it with gel medium and then peeling it off. 

Unfortunately, I used the matte medium instead of the gloss so it was a little more opaque than I would have preferred. I've made some more with gloss, and they look much better. Hope to finish this piece up sometime this week and get back to my other starts. 

Sunday was nice because I was able to churn out this sketch while all three of my kiddos enjoyed their post-church naps (Sunday school wipes out my very social yet introverted children.).

And once they woke up, we all headed to a local single track park for little picnic.

We found this nice little spot to enjoy our PB & J's and carrots before the mosquitos started to drive us crazy. The little ones enjoyed saying, "hi" to all the cyclists that passed us by (none of whom probably every saw people picnicking there). :-)

In my studio: getting unstuck

It has been a long time since I've been able to paint on a regular basis. Last week the withdrawal symptoms I felt from going off my arthritis medicine finally stopped so I have been able to find a little time each day to get out my paints and brushes and have at it!

But something odd kept happening. I would be going along just all fine and dandy and then get stuck. This is nothing new for me, in fact, this is something that plagues most artists. The odd part was that I couldn't get "un-stuck", I couldn't move forward no matter how long I looked at a piece.

Then last night, I took my latest pieces outside to work on. Since my lap was my work surface, I brought along my little collection of pens, markers and pencils that I've been using for the last year or so in my sketchbook (you can see those pieces on Instagram). 

All of a sudden, I was no longer stuck! Once I had that white gel pen in my hand my brain immediately told me what to do next. There was just something about having those familiar tools at hand that moved me past my artists block!

These pieces still have a ways to go before they are finished, but I hope to have prints available soon!

What I'm Painting: beginnings and middles

I'm in the middle of several pieces right now and thought I would share them with you!

We will call this one slightly past middle...

middle-ish...

almost to the middle...

and just begun (threw down leftover paint from previous one)!

Think I need to come up with some better terminology to explain how far along I am in a piece. :-)

What I'm Making: Stamp Carving

One of the items on my creative bucket list was to learn how to design and carve quarter repeat stamps (stamps that you can turn around to create repeating patterns).

Julie Balzer is the absolute queen of carving patterned stamps in my book so I figured that I would turn to her book to learn.

I skipped over most of the exercises and went right for the projects I wanted to do! The major downside of this was that I did not posses the confidence to draw my designs right onto the block but had to sketch them out on graph paper first. 

  

AJ was the first one to test out my stamp and gave it a multi-colored thumbs up!

I got my turn soon enough and made a card and some wrapping paper.

I love both the designing and carving aspects of this craft. The only downside is that I can't do the carving while any of my kiddos are awake because they always want to "help" Mamma. :-)

Art in Progress: Jane Davies

It has been ages since I have made and "Artist at Work" post and thought I better fix that right quick! Jane Davies is one of my favorite artists to follow.
She is just as generous as she is talented and is always posting videos of the techniques she is currently using. My daughter loves
this one and this one because they have chickens in them!

Happy Friday!!!

What I'm Drawing: Flowers, bugs and more

In case you don't follow me on Instagram, here is what I've been sketching lately:

What I'm Drawing: Wednesday night sketch

What I'm Watching: Brene Brown videos

Like many people I found Brene Brown's TED talk really struck a chord with me. Today I found an interview she did where she was specifically speaking to creative people.

Hope you all love it as much as I did!

In my sketchbook: mixed media doodling

In my sketchbook: more mixed media work

In my sketchbook: indigo inspiration

Oh, how I love the color indigo!

What I'm Making: more magazine collages

I went through my stash of magazine papers to create this collage. There is something so satisfying about repurposing paper! Also, I like the challenge of using colors, designs and patterns that I did not come up with myself. 

What I'm Making: the latest collage

Thanks for stopping by!

Coming soon!

I've uploaded several of my recent paintings to Spoonflower and now am anxiously awaiting my proofs to arrive! Hope to have them available to sell within the next month!

What I'm Painting: more brayer fun

Here's some more mark making I did with a brayer.

What I'm Painting

Having fun with my new paints!

#taxrefundshoppingtrip

(prints available here)

In my sketchbook: sick day with the kiddos

Just hanging out on the couch today!

Sunday sketch

To stay current on my Sunday sketches, follow me on Instagram!

What I'm Making: collage beginnings

Warm colors for a snowy day!

In my studio: Achy hands, happy heart

Seeing how my designs look carved in wood!

In my sketchbook: new shapes

I've been playing with different types of shapes since my last post!

Hope you enjoy!