I recently treated myself to a set of Conte pencils (and a pad of kraft paper), and now I've been using them on everything. Love, love, love them! They're hard to sharpen, you need to sharpen them with a knife or you blow through the whole pencil b/c the lead is so fragile (like a pastel pencil).
Have you tried anything new lately?
I feel excited, nervous, and honored to be part of the Ranger family as a Signature Designer. Super excited about upcoming possibilities, and about teaching more mixed-media techniques.
I have to give a shout out to The Crafter's Workshop…it has been a great pleasure to design stencils under their name. Thanks, Jaime!
Jenni's lovely December kits arrived on my doorstep, and it is full of Christmas goodness and cheer. I opened the kits and pulled out the stencil…and then my mind went cuckoo and the stencil was all I could think about. I made about 8 backgrounds with it, I love it SO very much. So my pages this month focus on that awesome star stencil. Be sure to check out the galleries for wonderful inspiration!
Recently I had a few free hours and I made gelli prints…dozens and dozens of them. That's the great thing about gelli printing–it's fast! It really fits my impatient & impulsive nature well.
Love doing gelli prints and then drawing on them…
In Your Image is a fun class where you use images of YOU in your artwork.
Whew. Well, I've been teaching so much that a lot of what I have to share right now are samples I made in class. I really need some art time of my own. Hoping to fit that in this week. I did do some life-drawing on Monday, which was fun. It was uncomfortable, not because of the live model, but because of my own lack of skill. I saw improvement in just the few hours I was there, though…proof that practice helps!
Here's a class sample journal page in my Dylusions journal…
Don't you think so?
Stabilo All, acrylic paint, Neocolor II crayons, pen, Dylusions Ink Sprays.
I did this one with a paintbrush–simple, rustic lines but still emotive. In my Dylusions journal. Working on filling up my fourth one.
Whew.
Things have been so busy here. I feel like I can't think straight. I've been teaching so much, working on big mega deadlines. I'm almost at a breaking point, honestly. I need to take some time and make art for me, art that has no purpose other than expression. I haven't done that in ages.
The gelli print below started as a "cast off" print–one that I used just to clean off my plate. It ended up kinda cool, though, don't you think? Feather stencil is by Jenni Bowlin Studios.