Rooster Time

I've been having a sketching kind of week.  Last week I was spinning, but this week I've been back into my art classes a little more!  I really love to sketch.  I do it nearly every day and my "Studying Under the Master's Class is pushing me out of my comfort zone.  Using the art of Henry Clive as inspiration,  as taught by Christy Tomlinson I'm learning to refine those girls I so love to draw.  More about the girls in another post.

Yesterday was all about a girl I just couldn't quite get, so this morning I sat down with my "Quilting Arts" magazine that arrived last week and was flipping through it for inspiration for my morning sketch and I found an ad for a new DVD by Susan Brubaker Knapp called "It's all in the Finish".  I love Susan's work and her classes.  I have most of her DVD's and although I've never accomplished a stitched art quilt, it is in my list of things to do.  Please be sure and go check out her website - you will be amazed at her talent.

I took a mini class with Susan Brubaker Knapp at the Houston Quilt Festival last October and she showed us this rooster.  Today when I found it in my Quilting Arts magazine I just wanted to try and sketch it. I know from the class that she painted and quilted the one she's holding from a photograph and I sketched and watercolored my copy this morning in my journal.

Love Susan and her stitching and quilting and love this rooster. A fun way to start the day.

Rainy Day Helps Pumpkins Grow!

What a dark rainy day!  Held off on the trip into town for the plywood and worked with what I already had started.  I put a base coat on the pumpkins to block out the woodgrain and began to paint!  I have the front of two medium pumpkins complete and I love them.  I said complete and that's not quite true - they are painted!  I still need to add the wire for hanging and add some of those adorable little curly cues.  The back is now orange and the stem painted and I'm going to add the face decals later tonight or tomorrow.  With the rain I want to let the pieces have some extra drying time.  They're in my craft room, but still, really dry is very important.

I headed out to "manland" to help Bill for a few minutes and here came another downpour, so I cut out a couple of small pumpkins to make pins!  You know for your coat or jacket.  I think they would be super cute on a blue jean jacket!  Bet you get to see one modeled soon!  Right now they're drying - got them painted and now I wait!

I learned something else today!  A life lesson of sorts.  My mom loved to sew and my cousins do too!  Judy, who will be here in just a few weeks for the quilt show loves to sew and she has fabulous machines.  I would like to love to sew, but just don't.  I can do it and I used to do it well, but it just doesn't give me joy.  I bought a felting machine a couple of years ago (quilt show) and thought I would use it constantly, but it's not what I thought it would be, no joy!  But, today when I turned on that saw and began to cut out these little pumpkins, I suddenly knew how Judy feels when she sews!  Guess all that time in my Dad's workshop as a little girl set this in motion, but I just love it.  I love the smell of the wood as it's cut,  the sawdust, even the sound of the saw as it cuts through the wood! And painting well, that's the real joy of my life!  I love the feeling of God moving my hand across the paper or now the wood!  To God be the glory for through Him comes true joy!

I did two small 3.75" x 5" watercolors - one represents abundance - okra (freezing the extra at this point) and a cornucopia of veggies - representing Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday!

I'll be back soon with the back of the pumpkins and hopefully the large pumpkins painted!

Birthday Invitations

I have been having so much fun making invitations for a friend's daughter (Kristen) and grandson (Bentley).  It's Bentley's first birthday and his mom ask if I would be able to help her with the invitations.  She wanted something unique for his special day. She explained they were going to have a pool party and as I was getting ready to leave the next day for a trip to PA, I told her I would be thinking about a design.    I found a rubber stamp that had a little chair and umbrella and that gave me an idea and so I stamped it on a scrap of paper and stuck it in my sketch book.

My friend, Cheri, is having a pool built in her yard and that will be the pool for her grandson's party!  I hope they plan more parties, as I don't have one, pool that is,  and would love to cool my toes in a pool with a glass of wine on hot summer nights! But I regress!  Back to the invitation! As I flew across the country this little sketch appeared on my page. I was especially excited about the little duck . . .

After a quick text for her thoughts and she said she loved it, the redrawing began on watercolor paper.  I think I did a pretty good job drawing it the second time and had a blast painting in all of the little boy colors.  I took the wording off of the picture to place it directly on the invitation.

Once Cheri and Kristen approved the final picture I photographed it and completed the wording and now we have a finished invitation for a very special little boy's birthday party.

At one he may not remember the party, but he'll always have the stories shared by family and friends and an invite in his baby book.

It's a real thrill for me to have made his invite. So many of my sketches just stay in my sketchbook, it's fun to share  And here's the final invitation shown with back and front of the envelopes.  I stamped and colored in a little party hat and a cupcake as a finishing touch. And guess what - we have an invite to the party!  Yes, I will be in that pool soon!!!!!

Creative Juices and Big Messes

It always amazes me how my  creative juices flow or suddenly dry up!  And even more amazing is how they seem to work opposite of what I need!  For instance - I sit down to make a card I need right then and nothing flows!  Why is this?

Huge mess - tiny amount of space!

Then yesterday when I needed to be cleaning and straightening my craft room I couldn't stop creating!  Every time I walked into the room something popped into my head and wanted to be drawn and I mean right that minute.  Not today or even later last night, but right then! So I sat among a huge mess and painted!  Simple little watercolor/marker card fronts but ideas I didn't want to lose.  Once I've drawn something, I can always repeat it, but if I have an idea and don't get it down on paper, it just might never happen.  So while I should have been putting paints away and sorting through paper scraps and making room to scrapbook later this week, I sat and painted little flowers.

I need to head back up today and work some more, but I am almost afraid of the room now!  I saw so many projects that I've got ready to start that I just want to lock myself in the room and create!  Not what I need to do today! The one thing I know for sure, I don't need to order anything or shop in my favorite craft stores for a very, very long time.

I found more things that I couldn't live without (when I bought them) and more things I had just stuffed away for another day than I can shake a stick at and I honestly believe that if I worked every day on a project I couldn't make a dent in all of my supplies in a year, ugh, maybe even longer and yet I can't wait to get to market at the quilt show this year!  I have a problem!

I am confessing right now that I appear to like to shop more than I like to create!  Everything I see looks like fun! As an example, I want to sew (no, I really don't) but show me a cute pattern for a purse/bag and I will buy it!  I won't ever make it, but I will buy the pattern and the fabric and I will envision a completed purse!  Start to get rid of it and oh, no, my brains stops me with you'll do that some day!  Will I?  Will I even live long enough to do all the things that have accumulated in my craft room?!  When we moved to this house a couple of years ago, my new craft room looked huge!  I had storage cabinets, closets, room for two tables so multiple activities could go on at the same time and now?  It's just full!  Small spaces keep you grounded!  Well, me grounded!  And now things are just out of control!!!!!

This week my grand daughter and I will do some scrapbooking while she visits and then I must, do you hear me, I MUST get in to that room and sort out all of my different crafts and choose which to keep and which to admit aren't going to ever be used!  After all, I need room for new things this fall!  And right now, I must just go make room for us to work!

I hope I'm not the only person with this problem and I don't think I am, so I hope some of you who have conquered this problem will share with me your ideas for organizing my room.

Until later!

My First Sheep and Paper Pieced Lady

I must admit that I love this class almost too much and Junelle is easily the best teacher ever.  I've never had an online class where I actually talked to the teacher and she talks back!  I love when she asks us what we think, just like we could answer her and, I do!  Heehee  She makes me laugh and she makes me want to color outside the lines!  I've never had such dirty hands and am learning that glue not only sticks to paper, but to hands!

I love my comfort zone, who doesn't, but I'm also learning to love being way outside of it. These are my first sheep, but they won't be my last!

This was a class from week two, at least I think so, I've bounced back and forth so many times and looked at videos all of the way to the end of the third week, so I'm not for sure, but I know it was one heck of a fun class. So this was the beginning - I started an art journal in an old book. Junelle showed us how to make our own art journal and so I've given it a try. I gessoed the pages and then painted them with several different shades of blue acrylic paint. Cut out circles for the sheep and modified circles for the heads and ears and stuck them on the body using dimensionals to raise them and give more dimension. Then I put modeling paste on the bodies ( a little on the heads and ears) and using the end of a paint brush I drew circles to make them look curly. After all, these are wooly sheep, not time for sharing yet! The girl is made using various papers, layering to make an apron and skirt. I used a piece of fabric that I modgepodged to make it stiff and added a little ruffle of lace and her muddy boots, well, they don't have legs yet, but they will!

And here they are - legs and a close up of the skirt.  I also added some feet as I noticed my sheep were floating! What will I add now, I'm thinking a pocket with a journal and some pencils would be good and Junelle says sheep are never clean and white, so I must add some coloring! And see how I lifted the head and ears - really does add to the look and, of course, some little pink cheeks!  I'm not for sure about that pink - it it a nose and the black it's mouth or have I just changed the look of  sheep?  Oh, my well it's my interpretation and so it will stay!

 To the right you get to see that great little pocket  - I just wish this girl was me and I was really out walking with sheep following a long behind me - Oh, Junelle, you are a very blessed woman!  To work on a sheep ranch!  To help with the lambing, what a blessing.  I'm so glad you have shared your love of sheep with me (us) and it's such a wonderful reminder of the great shepherd.  I am so thankful to be watched over and led by my shepherd.  This is a perfect time to stop and read Psalm 23 and be reminded of His great love.  I added some journaling and the white, well, not here in Texas for sure, but Junelle says they have snow fall during lambing!  Snow in the spring - wow, we just have flowers and heat, but thanks for the thought and it was fun adding it to the picture as I imagined the cool, crisp air. As it says on picture - Art, sheep and new friends, I am so blessed!

I will post my flowers soon.  She really surprised me on that one.  I've been painting flowers forever, so thought it would be a breeze!  No, no, no - a whole new way of making flowers, so once again I was forced to color outside the lines! What an amazing adventure - you rally need to check out this class.  The "live" three weeks are now ended, but it will be up for a year - so, check it out here.

Watercolor Flowers and Lavender Scented Paper

Good Morning!  I love Fridays - I thought I might need to take my car in for service today, but no appointment available until Monday morning, so I get to play! I want to share some of my newest cards and or card fronts. I used to stamp all of my cards and I still do occasionally, but mostly I now draw and watercolor them.

 I've recently become the worst card sender ever and I really must change back to the sender extraordinaire. With this in mind I've begun to watercolor some card fronts so I will have them ready to go when Facebook or my calendar suddenly remind me of a birthday!  For those of you who didn't get a card recently, I'm sorry!  Hopefully, next year you'll be at the top of my list!

Just this week I've completed several and mailed them and I'm going to share them today before I go up and start to play. 

The one on the right is my go to hibiscus.  I've painted a lot of other flowers, but always seem to go back to my comfort zone!  I did two different ones this week and forgot to take a picture of one so only the recipient gets to see it.  I'm really good about snapping pix, but occasionally one gets away from me.  That's ok - after all, I'm painting to share, not to keep.  And that's the problem with my stamped cards.  I have boxes of cards I stamped and never sent.  I must do something with them, any ideas?

This card on the left I made for a new friend in Minnesota.  I met Sue online in one of my stamping groups.  She was looking for a stamp set and I happened to have it and now it's hers.  I included this card in her package along with a couple of my bookmarks.

I have been explaining to her that my direction in cards has changed and that's why I'm selling so many of my stamp sets, so thought I should give her a real example.





And this leads to my last two pictures.  The one on the left is the front made out of my own freshly made paper and die cut with the Top Note die from Stampin' Up! using the Sizzix BigShot.  The picture on the right includes still another handmade paper.  The lavender colored paper backing the picture actually includes lavender buds in it and has such a nice scent.  Sure wish you could scratch and sniff! This card is for a very special cousin who shares my love for creating.  I started my paper making while she was visiting and we talked about making paper with lavender buds, so only right that she should receive the first card using this paper.  I was really pleased with how easy it was to use this paper for drawing.  It's a different texture from my usual watercolor paper, but worked like a dream and making lavender scented paper is so easy!  I hope she enjoys the fruit of my labor.

Those of you who know me personally, know I could sit here and talk for ever, but that doesn't get pictures on paper, so I'm closing and heading up to my studio, pulling out some paint and paper.

Oh, by the way, I've changed my Etsy shop name to BevAnn's Mixed Bag - the link is www.etsy.com/shop/bevannsmixedbag.  I did this for consistency, now my blog, my FB Page, my physical shop in Katy and now my Etsy shop all have the same name! Right now the Etsy shop is mostly stamp sets, but keep it on your list and check back often as I add more vintage items and some of my art cards, bookmarks and maybe even a foot or two!

Now, I'm really gone - later,

Rainy Day

Back side yard - trees are about to float!

I love my life!  And that's even when it doesn't go as expected!  My sweet husband had a cold over the weekend and then last night I felt kind of lousy, so thought I would sleep in this morning and nip this possible cold in the bud.  Sleeping in, to me, means, get up fix our breakfast and send him off to work and then my little dog, Jack, and I go back to bed.  Well, that's just what we did this morning - we were back in bed by about 6:30 and then the emergency weather radio went off!  And then it went off again, and again, and well, you know the rest.  I just finally got up and watched it rain.  I can thankfully say that we got lots of rain and our back field and then our front yard were full of water (most of it's gone or at least receded now) but we didn't have the severe wind and no tornadoes, so a little rain just seems fine to me!  But, sleeping in just didn't happen!

As I walked around the house this morning looking out the windows, I paused by a shelf and looked at some of the small stones I've painted.  I don't know about you, but ever since I was a little girl I have loved rocks!  I still love all rocks, large and small, but now I seem to focus on stones that have been tumbled around in a river and are now smooth so I can paint on them.  Most of these are just the right size for a paper weight and have a single flower on them, but now I seem to have a magnet in my eye that spots rocks shaped like feet!


My foot rocks never
come as "feet" rocks, I mean like a somewhat matching pair,  but I see feet (singular) every where!  And I paint toes, and toenails in pretty colors and sometimes add a flip flop and I must admit, some of them look like they just might hurt and I'm glad I don't have to walk on them.  Heehee!  But I love to paint them.  So as I paused and looked at the ones I have done right now and I suddenly was engulfed by just how much I love to paint!  Once again, I'm reminded that I need to concentrate on what I love!   I love to paint!  I love watercolors, and acrylics.  I love painting on stones, on wood, on paper and fabric!  You notice I didn't mention canvas, well, I've done it, but it's just not me!

 For those of you who have followed my Obedience Stones blog you know that I began with a very simple flower on a round stepping stone fresh from my garden.  My flowers are still simple, but they give me such joy.  In my case, it's the journey, not the destination that makes me happy!  I love how many stones tell me what they should be!  For one, it just screamed that it had to be a pear and a pear it became.  Most of them just say paint me!  I actually have a stone somewhere, I'll have to find it, that looked to me exactly like a sheep!  I've never painted it, it looks good just like it is, but maybe someday I'll embellish it too.


One little stone said I'm Mary and baby Jesus and soon it was my interpretation of just that. I love that God has given us so many canvases to fill.  I went down to the rock (stone) yard down the highway from us and ask if I could pick out some to paint.  They looked at me like I was crazy but sent me back into a heavenly area to find my treasures.  I'm so blessed to find joy in such simple things!

And so, I'm going to do just that - I'm going to go do a few watercolors for some card fronts.  Later, I will post some I've made recently and hopefully some I do today.  I also need nome more bookmarks, so that's got to be added to my agenda too.  Oh, my goodness, so much to paint and so little thyme!

Now, you tell me - what do you love to do?

Fuchsia - A One Color Painting

Late last year I got a really cool sketch book. Now I didn't understand how soft or textured the paper was, I just knew I loved the texture of the cover and that the paper wasn't typical. It was handmade with ragged edges and I loved it.

Love this cover - textured paper!

The first sketch I used markers and the paper was just too soft and allowed very intense colors (no picture). I used a few more pages with watercolors and they were better. I added a couple of drawings I'd done on other medium with brads and then today as I wondered what to do I picked up the book, flipped to a new page and with my Pitt artist pen I sketched a flower. I then picked out my Derwent Inktense Fuchsia (0700) pencil and decided to see if I could do the entire painting with just one pencil. Here is my finished page!




love how the heavy texture of the paper helped give dimension to the flower and shading with the one color and some white space worked.

Hope you enjoy my experiment in color.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Paper Kind of Day

I just love this paper making thing I'm into right now. I love using scraps and almost never knowing for sure what the finished paper will look like.

Would be kind of hard to make a set of matching papers, but who wants matching papers?  Not me! However, I made a solid yellow (see right) and I know how I made it, so I guess if if I ever wanted more than one sheet of yellow, that one I can do!  :) but mostly I just love throwing some scraps in the blender and being surprised.

So today I started with a white base, but, being the "imperfectionst" (my word) that I am, I didn't bother to rinse out the blender and there was some red pulp residue in it, so I quickly had pink. I poured it into the mold and then swirled some blue and green pulp around in the pink pulp and water and pulled it out to drain.











This is one side and this is the other and both of these pictures are when the paper is wet!







So another surprise when it dried. Can you believe how they change?  The color becomes so much lighter and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

With this one I prefer the lighter color and I love how different the sides are, but yesterday trying to make a dark red, lighter wasn't the look I wanted. Oh, well a pretty pink was born.

Quickly changing gears I did a quick watercolor for the front of a card for a friend.  I have so many friends going through major trials right now, that I really need to do about four more, but that will have  to come later tonight.

So with this I will close my post, make the card and get it ready to mail and get back to paper making and flower  painting after dinner.  My sweet husband is having dinner out and so that means a quick something for me and back to fun!

See you soon with more surprises.




Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Things They are a Changin'

Today I changed the look of my blog and gave it a new name. These changes were necessary as my focus has moved in a different direction.

I still use my stamps and am still a Stampin' Up demo, at least this quarter, but that's no longer my focus. I'm now what they call a hobby demo. I've begun to do a lot of watercoloring and am making bookmarks and note cards and enjoying it ever so much.

In 2006 I began painting for the first time. I began with round garden stepping stones, painting a variety of flowers on them and they were quite a success. You can see my stones on my Obedience Stones blog. I still paint the garden stones, but my focus is on watercolors and so many other things such as making silk paper and needle felting, that I changed the blog.

I will be posting again, but now rather than the focus on cards, one day you'll see some bookmarks, another some note cards or just the watercolors waiting to be used on a card. Other days mixed media projects, or silk paper will fill the blog.

I hope you will enjoy the new look and the new focus (or lack there of) as much as I am! It's fun to wake up and try something new each day. So as the title says, "things they are a changin' "- hope you'll stick with me and enjoy the ride.

See you again soon.