Watercolor race prep

There is just something about springtime that always makes me pull out my watercolors. I think it has something to do with how light the paint feels. Does that sound weird?

Watercolor is also a very portable medium which is nice because this weekend is the first road race (cycling) of the season in Nebraska and if the weather predictions hold, I will be rooting for my husband from the car. I've got quite few of these pieces started and filled up a pencil bag with markers, pens, and pencils to take along. 

I also have like six books from the library that had been on hold for awhile that all became available this week! Anyone else have this happen? 

For those of you who do watercolor more often, I'm in need of a making fluid recommendation! I usually use rubber cement, but it kinda turns my paper yellow and I don't like that!! Thanks in advance!!

Hope you all have a blessed weekend!

Trying something new!

When I collage, I have a tendency of using small pieces of paper. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this method, but I wanted to try to maintain some larger areas in these pieces.

In an attempt to be more organized, I've already uploaded these to my print store for sale! 

Happy making!

More naptime making and interruptions!

Well, it looks like all these "Naptime Collages" might become a series since I keep making them! I've even toyed with recording myself making one until I realized how many times I have to stop and check in on one of my sleeping kiddos. (going to pause writing now to do just that!)

The one from the previous post and the three pictured above are all made on these pressed wood boards that I purchased last year at a school closing sale. They are a nice size and make an excellent substrate! You can see in the one below where I used a thick paper as a substrate how it curls up on the left side a bit. That won't be noticeable if I scan it in for prints or frame it for my own wall so I'm not worried! 

If anyone knows of any amazing tutorials for how to record yourself making art, please put a link in the comment section in case I decide to try it anyway!

Happy making!!

What I'm Making: a naptime collage

I really needed to make something. I mean, REALLY needed to make something. As much as I love having my living room painted, the loss of making time over the past two weeks was really taking a toll on me. 

Past experience has taught me that one of the easiest ways to get back in the creative mood is to piece some collages. There is something rather meditative about cutting up paper and you can always glue over the parts you don't like. For example, I thought for a little bit that the piece was complete as it was below. 

But then I thought that the proportions were a bit off so with a little bit of tweaking I ended up with this! 

I wish I would have used a gel medium  instead of a fluid medium so the wrinkles wouldn't have been so bad. Live and learn!

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. :-)

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!

What I'm Making: collage beginnings

Warm colors for a snowy day!