The Great Art Quest Binder!

Hello all of my Creative Friends!!

Welcome to 2016! 

I am looking forward to the coming year as a time of growth and new experiences. 

A year long Art Quest guided by Cinnamon Cooney, The Art Sherpa is going to be my art school this year, I'm so excited! 

I am helping out in a small way by designing and creating this easy to make Binder for the art pages that we will be making this year.

Here's the download for the PDF instruction s on how to make my binder! 

I have also done a Youtube tutorial too!

Below are the Materials needed to make the binder:

Cardboard 2 pieces 1/2" larger than the paper you will be putting in the binder- for example for a binder that will hold 9x12" paper your front and back cover pieces will be 9 1/2" x 12 1/2"

Cardboard the same length as above by 1 1/2" wide for the spine

Heavy paper for covering the binder

Duct Tape for hinging the covers to the spine and to reinforce the corners over the cover paper

3 Pieces of ribbon the width of the binder covers and spine these are what will hold the paper in the binder

White glue for attaching covers (Mod Poge, PVA etc)

Fluid Matte Medium or Gloss Medium and Varnish to seal the paper covering

Tools Needed:

Metal edged ruler

Pencil

Scissors

Craft Knife with sharp blade

Cutting Mat

Awl or Nail for poking holes

Hole Punches 1/8" and 1/4" punching holes in the spine and in the papers to be bound in the binder

Brush to spread the glue/matte medium/varnish

Screwdriver and Large Screw or Hammer and large Nail to make holes in canvas panels

Here are the links again!

Instructable PDF on Instructables.com on how to make my binder! 

The Binder on Youtube tutorial too!

Over the River and Through the Woods...

It's Thanksgiving in just a week and I have a new painting to celebrate the coming of winter.

The painting is 16x20" painted in acrylic. I am so happy to be able to share my art with you.

I'm hoping this winter and the holidays that it brings will find you warm, with enough to eat and people you care about and who care about you. I know I"ll be saying this many more times as the coming weeks pass. :)

I hope you enjoy this painting - Over the River and Through the Woods...

Remember to get out and do something creative! (Yes, cooking a turkey can be something creative!)
Cheers!

Autumn Birch

My Newest painting inspired by Cinnamon Cooney the Art Sherpa on YouTube The Autumn Birch tree.

I love the colors and the angle that she chose to paint and that she shares the step by step on how to accomplish it.

This is my version of her tree. As an artist we can be inspired and we can follow directions when we have to, but gee, it's even more fun when you start finding your oven voice in the artistic choir!

I hope you have a glorious day and get out and do something creative!

Painting on Leaves

After viewing a live class by Cinnamon Cooney on painting Pumpkins on Leaves I wanted to try it out. I decided that I wanted to have leaves that would last longer so I grabbed a few real leaves and traced them on to brown kraft paper, cut them out. Then I coated them with a Fluid Mat Medium to seal the paper to make it ready for painting on with acrylic paints.

I have now finished 3 different ones. 2 were based on art from the online classes:








The 3 Pumpkins Leaf

The Cardinal and the Snowman.

The Third leaf was done from a photograph I found on Paint My Photo. A free photo resource for artists.

To say that I'm having a blast would be an understatement! I am totally enjoying myself and am looking forward to finding new subjects to paint on a leaf!

I hope you are getting out and doing something creative!
Please leave a comment and let me know you were here. I really do appreciate it. :)

Is it too early???

Catbat from a class by Cinnamon Cooney. My Catbat and soot sprites  are already getting out the holiday lights! This was a fun little acrylic painting done on a canvas panel board.

Getting ready for the holiday season seems to start earlier each year! But when you are making gifts for friends and family you have to start early!

I hope you are getting out and doing something creative every day. Please leave a comment and let me know you were here! I appreciate every comment. :)

The North Head Lighthouse

Fresh off the easel is my newest painting! I participated in a Live Class with Cinnamon Cooney and about 95 other folks! It was so much fun and exciting to get it done in just 3 hours! I did change the lighthouse to an actual lighthouse about 1.5 hours away from my home. :)

This was done on a 16x20 with acrylic paint.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you get out and do something creative today! Please leave me a comment, I'd love to know you were here!

Happy Autumn!

Joy and happy thoughts to you all! I just finished my newest painting and I'm pleased as punch about it now that it is done.

It was hard going for a while though. I went a bit wild and crazy with the leaves and covered up way too much of the dog. So I took the canvas to the sink and used a scrubby pad to remove the offending leaves.Then I had to repaint in the dog and the leaves.

The whole painting was so much better after washing it off and repainting, crazy I know! It is funny to realize that when things are not going the right direction that you can back up and start over! But the key is to never give up. It usually ends up as a learning experience even if the final painting isn't quite what you anticipated.

Remember to do something creative every day!
Cheers!
Stephanie

Pocket Squirrel?

Hi there! I thought I'd share my newest painting with a couple photos of the process.

Start with the basic blocking in and then work my way through the layers of the Ugly stage to the Finished painting.

I have been learning that every painting has an ugly stage at least with acrylic paintings.

After the initial blocking in and working in the dark and light tones you really start to see the form of the subject. Then you start working in more and more detail until it is finished to your liking.




One of the coolest things about Acrylic painting is that acrylic paint dries so fast! You can really have a completed painting in just a few hours of work.




If you paint in something that you don't like, you can dry the painting and paint right over that part of the painting over and over again. There was a lot of drying and doing over on this painting :) Getting little Chippy in with a bit of personality was a challenge but I think I got it pretty well in the end.

Getting more and more refined...

Finished!

I even put in the top stitching on all the seams. I'm pretty darned pleased with this painting too!

If you found this interesting please leave a comment and let me know!

The photo I worked from was taken by the Awesome Photographer Betsy Seeton--Painted with her permission!

Remember to get out and do something creative today!
Cheers-Stephanie

1945 Ford F1 Rusty Farm Truck...

I had the opportunity to do a Live class with Cinnamon Cooney on Youtube.

I actually finished the painting in less than 2.5 hours along with the live class!! 

This was a great class with loads of new to me techniques! I have been so excited by these classes the opportunities to learn about acrylic painting in a fun and supportive environment. If you have a chance check her out!

A rose by any other name...

I just realized that I hadn't posted this rose to my blog! What an oversight.

I  did something just for my self! 

I painted this 16"x20" Rose! It is based on a rose from Paint My Photo and an online class by Cinnamon Cooney. It took me about 3 hours to do  

I think there may be a bit more work to be done on it. But I can live with it this way so I'm calling it finished...for now. 

smile emoticon

On the Wild side!

Hello! It is time for another painting. This time it is one that I designed myself. I worked for several evenings on it and I think it is pretty much done. The School that I work at has the Wildcat as a mascot and we are celebrating our 20th school year. There are about 5 people still working at the building that have been there since the first day. and I'm proud to say that I'm one of them!

So here's the sketch based on a photo that I found on the internet - I painted the background (Phalo Blue and Yellow Oxide and Diazonine Purple making a neat greeny, blue purple) let it dry and then drew the sketch with a white watercolor pencil.

 The painting was then done over several days. Blocking in then working the details in  with just a few colors(Cadmium Yellow Medium, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Yellow Oxide, Burnt Umber and Mars Black) and lots of mixing to get the shades and tones. I really am happy with how the eyes turned out. I'm still working on making fur look furry but as with everything it's a learning curve!


Thanks for looking and remember to get out and do something creative everyday!

I'd love to hear what you think and if you are interested in starting to paint in acrylics I really recommend Cinnamon Cooney - The Art Sherpa. Her art is accessible to all ages and she is such a positive person who really helps you see what  you are capable of.

Don't Blink!

Okay I did it! I painted a Weeping Angel too. :)

Being inspired by my hubby and watching the online free class by Cinnamon Cooney.

Now, Cinnamon the #Artsherpa is an awesome instructor who shares her art and her heart freely on Youtube! Check out this class on the Weeping Angel .

The angel that Cinnamon did was a different pose than the one I did but I was so inspired by her that I had to do an angel!

The thing that I'm trying to figure out is if I want to do the glow in the dark paint on this so when the black light is turned on you will just see the face similar to the one in the online class. You won't see the hands in the dark just the glowing face. I need to see if I should varnish first then put the Glow paint on. It is a translucent paint that won't really show in daylight but will when the black light is turned on.

If I do add the glow paint I'll make a different post showing the finished painting in the glowing state.
:)
Remember to get out and do something creative!

Koi pond on a tiny canvas

Here we go! My husband sort of challenged me with asking about painting on a tiny canvas. I told him painting tiny is just as hard as painting big and will take almost the same amount of time if you are doing detail.

So I picked up a couple 4x4 inch canvases and I was inspired by Cinnamon Cooney a fantastic artist who has been so generous posting acrylic painting tutorials on Youtube for free!

One of the things I love about acrylic is that it drys really fast. But I also hate that it dries so fast! Especially when it is a tiny canvas and there isn't as much paint on it to stay wet any time at all. Didn't help that it was 93 degrees today.

Hope you have a great day and remember to do something creative!
SB