A Fun Art Journal Page, Part One

I want to share with you a step-by-step page prep for your creative art journal.  This is one of the many techniques that I will be teaching at the Portland Art and Soul Retreat 2017!  This techniques uses watercolor and mixed media.

Here is a list of supplies you need to create this page.

• Your art journal (it doesn't have to be watercolor paper - I used a Moleskin notebook)
• Watercolors, watercolor brush, palette and water
• Mixed media embellishments such as oil sharpie pens, 
• Twinkling H2O such as Solar Gold 
• Tim Holtz Distress Stain
• A water mister
• Permanent pen

Start by painting 2 pages in your journal with analogous watercolors (colors next to each other on the color wheel).  I used Indian yellow and French Vermilion.  Mist the paints lightly to help them blend together.  Sprinkle and splatter a third color such as Cobalt blue teal.  Let this dry.

Paint the Twinkling H2O Solar Gold along the edges of the pages.  Add the distress stain along the edges too, blending and letting them mix. Use colors that will enhance the edges.

Come Paint with me in Italy!

Join me for a fun filled watercolor painting adventure in Orvieto, Italy, May 2016!  I will be teaching The Colors of Umbria: Keeping a Watercolor Journal.  You will create a visual diary of watercolor painting, journaling and mixed media as you slow down and savor your time in Italy.
I am offer more online classes this year with Artful Gathering Online Retreat.  Registration is now open!  You can paint along beside me from the comfort of your own home.  Creating texture, colorful whites, and how to get a range of values are just a few of the techniques I will cover in this workshop.  Here is an example of one of the paintings we painted in 2015.  The DVD is now available for purchase:

Catching up in my Journal with Stencils

I have been finishing a few pages in my Provence journal that I started during my recent trip to France.  My friend, Pam Carriker's has a brand new line of art stencils and I took one with me to France to see how I could use it to enhance some of my journal pages.  Her stencils are quite fabulous and some of them deal with drawing faces.  We met for dinner not too long ago and had a wonderful time talking about art and sharing ideas.  She generously gave me one of her stencils that she knew I would love - the  Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Stencil.  I wanted to share some of my journal pages where I used her stencil.

Here you can see I used it behind the pitcher.

I used several stencils as the background for this page about Vaison-la-Romaine.  You can see where I used Pam's stencil on the lower left. 

I used Pam's stencil to make this color wheel painting.

We are both teaching with Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat.  The second session starts on July 16, 2013.  If you have ever been interested in drawing faces, you will love Pam's workshop, Still Pursuing Portraits.  My workshop, The Good, the Bad and the Beauty of Color is - well- you guessed it - all about color!  Be sure to check out all the creative and fun workshops available at Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat!

Finally here is the other side of the journal page - my painting from the day we spent at Vaison-la-Romaine....

Getting Ready for the Red Chair Gallery Show

Heart Series, Love, Love - Mixed Media

Friday, February 1, 2013 is Bend, Oregon's First Friday.  It is like a giant party all over town.  The shops and galleries stay open till 9 pm serving food, wine and beer.  I will be one of the featured artist at the Red Chair Gallery.  In honor of the month of love, I have been having a great time playing around with making some watercolor/acrylic/collage paintings with a heart theme.  

Playing with Color for the CREATE Retreat

Rainbow Studies

Flip, Flaps and Fold-Outs

CREATE Mixed Media Retreat is two weeks away and I have been excitedly getting ready for my classes that I am teaching.  Even though the Flip, Flaps and Fold-Outs class is full, there are still a couple of spots left in the Rainbow Studies Class.  This class will focus on using the color wheel to create harmonious little watercolor painting studies.  If you struggle with color, this class will be of great value.  I look forward to meeting all the artists that will be at CREATE!

A Day in Uzes, A Peek inside my Watercolor Journal

If you are ever in the south of France, be sure to spend an afternoon in the quiet little town of Uzes.  Park your car and walk to the old town center.  There you will find a peaceful cobbled stone square with a fountain, cafes and filtered sunlight sparkling through the Plane trees.  I was lucky enough to be able to sit for awhile and capture this scene in my watercolor journal. 
I am excited to tell you that I will be teaching at the CREATE Chicago Mixed Media Retreat in August.  Registration opened today!  I will be teaching a watercolor class on how to successfully mix colors, called Rainbow Studies, as well as a mixed media class on creating interactive components in your watercolor journals - Flips, Flaps and Fold-outs.  I would love to meet some of you in person!

Cloth, Paper, Scissors Magazine Giveaway!

Win this magazine - read below

I am honored and thrilled that the editors of my favorite magazine, Cloth, Paper, Scissors, picked my blog for their New Magazine Blog Tour.   I will be reviewing their magazines and offering free magazines to a few lucky Art in my Heart Blog readers starting with GIFTS, their first annual holiday issue.  This magazine is super-sized at 148 pages and can be found at Barnes & Noble for $14.99.  Or you can participate in my blog giveaway and perhaps win a free copy!

Here is what I need from you….
I have never done a blog giveaway before so I am looking for great ideas on how to do this.  Have you ever done a giveaway or participated in one?  What works and what is fun?  Anyone that comments will be entered into my CPS magazine giveaway. 
I have my cup of coffee and a fire lit in the fireplace.  It just started snowing outside.  I am off to read through GIFTS and will get back to you soon!

More Watercolor Journeys Classes

I just finished teaching my Watercolor Journeys Class in Bend, Oregon.  We had a lot of fun and pushed the limits with mixed media: gesso, mat medium, mica powers.  (left to right) Karol showing the cover of her journal, Janviere has her colorful daisy painting, Michal is showing us the inside cover and vignettes on the go of her trip to the orient, Liz is showing us her image transfer cover and Chris worked on her journal about traveling to the Southwest.  Missing are Phylis and Ingrid, who had to leave a bit early.  Great Work!

"Colorful Whites", a Peek inside my Watercolor Journal

Here are some pages from my current Watercolor Journal.  I am playing around with creating colorful whites by adding local color(color from the surrounding areas) in the shadows.

"Why Shouldn't Art be Pretty" a Peek inside my Watercolor Journal

 "Why shouldn't art be pretty?  There are enough unpleasant things in the world."  This is one of my favorite quotes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.  My goal is to make my art pretty and to bring happiness to those that see it.

The Art Box Group

THE ART BOX GROUP, FIRST MEETING
My curiosity was piqued after receiving an email invitation to join an Art Box Group last September from someone I had met in an art class. All we were told was to show up at the first meeting with a box. I brought a wooden cigar box. Our coordinator, Candace, explained that we would be meeting once a month and we would rotate boxes at each meeting so that everyone would get a chance to work on everyone else's box. The only box we would not work on would be our own. Candace was well organized and had a spreadsheet prepared with the box rotations. There were seven women involved in this adventure. Some of us were known artists and art teachers in Bend, Oregon and some were lovers of paint, glue and scissors and the mixed media world. Others did not feel very artistic. One lady owned a beauty salon and her form of art was what she practiced everyday. We all felt challenged! I knew 4 of the women in the Art Box Group. But we soon got to know each other better because we started telling about our lives and favorite things giving clues to how to proceed to decorate, change and embellish the boxes. That night we left with the instructions from our fearless leader, Candace, that we were entering the construction phase of the Art Box Adventure. We were to open up, change and morph the box into a new design and meet back in a month to rotate boxes. The box I took home was your standard got-something-from-UPS box, not too big, cardboard-ugly and a little dented. I am including a photo of what I did to this box. I will be posting more photos and stories about the how the Art Boxes evolved on this blog shortly.