My newest artwork and some exciting news!

Here is my latest painting. I used a wood panel and acrylic paint for this little lady. I think she turned out ADORABLE! I hope to make a series of these with different flowers. I really enjoyed creating this one. It's everything I love, cute, cute, cute and vibrant colors!!

This  was the original sketch where the idea was born :) 

Now on to my exciting news! I am the new artist at ByLoriDesigns

I am so blessed to have been asked to join such a fabulous site! Lori Boyd is the owner, designer, and such a great person. Thank you Lori for this opportunity. Her design team created such beautiful and cards using my images. It's so awesome to see these files brought to life in full color. I hope you will go on over and check things out. Maybe tell a friend ;) 

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a great weekend!

Hugs, Dawn

Art Spark Wednesday!

Hello there dear blog readers!

Another Wednesday, another Art Spark Video! I hope you like this week's episode. I had fun with paint and paper.

Here is the video:

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Page Monday!

Here is today's Magazine page:

I started out gessoing my pages and then adding red, orange and yellow with my hands. The bottom needed to be lightened up a little so I threw a little white in there while the other paint was still wet. 

I am trying to learn to write with a script paintbrush. It's harder than I thought. Practice, practice, practice. Oh, I also used some washi tape that I have had hanging around forever. Thanks for taking a look.

Hugs, Dawn

Art Spark Wednesday!

Welcome Friends. 

I hope your day is going well. We had such nice temperatures here in Ohio the last few days. It was great to feel the sun warm on my skin and not have to wear a heavy coat for a change. Enough about the weather though. Here is my latest Art Spark Wednesday video. You won't believe where this page started from it's finished product. WHEW! I hope you enjoying watching! 

 

Here is this week's video:

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Dawn

Art Spark Wednesday!

           Welcome to this week's Art Spark Wednesday. I had fun playing with some homemade spray inks. Some worked, some didn't. I think I learn more from what doesn't work than what does. Which reminds me of something Donna Downey said in one or two of her Inspiration Wednesday videos on YouTube (look her up if you haven't already, you won't regret it). She taught me to go with those "what if..." moments.What is a what if moment? Well, let's say you're in the middle of  creating a masterpiece and something in your brain says.....what if.....? (what if I paint this sky orange, what if I poke holes in my canvas, etc). By all means try it! You could end up with something really cool and unexpected. You could also end up with a mess that makes you slap your forehead and ask "what was I thinking. Either way you are learning something. And learn I did. I won't lie, I had some forehead slapping moments.....

I cut 2" paper squares from patterned paper and adhered them to my pages with Aleene's Clear Tacky Glue. That glue holds really well by the way. Then I went through my stash and found chipboard, diecuts, paper flowers and added them to my 2" squares. 

Then I sprayed, painted, drew, slung and anything else to help things along.

Here is the video:

I added the quote and the bicycle diecut and VIOLA! 

Thanks for stopping by to have a look. I hope this Wednesday finds you creating.

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Monday without the magazine!

My sweet husband got this for me:

So I created this week's Magazine Monday on Canson Mixed media paper instead. Mostly because I couldn't wait to play with new paper. I hope you like it!

Acrylic paint background applied with a baby wipe. Then I added gesso where the flower was to go. Finally I  painted over that with the colors I wanted went over it with white and black paint. I printed the quote on copy paper and cut it out and pasted it on there. I found some micro tip bottles at Jo-Ann crafts in the quilting tools section that are originally for sewing machine oil. They were on sale for .99 so I got 2 of them. 

They work pretty well for drawing with paint. They are really tiny bottles, and so cute. Just be careful filling them with paint. I went gung ho and managed to get paint all over the outside of the bottle. A slow, steady stream of paint that doesn't touch the top what-so-ever is key. lol. 

I hope you like my page this week. Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs, Dawn

Art Spark Wednesday!

Here is today's Art Spark Wednesday! Wait til you see what I used on the background. I love the texture I got ;)

Here is the Video:

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful Wednesday!

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Monday on WEDNESDAY!

Wow am I ever late posting this one eh? Sorry about that! I really like how this page turned out. Not terribly thrilled with the way I added the verse, but I am not going to change it now (I tried and it wanted to rip eeeppp!)
I gesso'ed my pages and then added some drywall tape, for texture.

Here it is after I sprayed on my background and painted all the flowers on.

Here is the page with the Bible verse added. It is John 20:29

Thanks for looking and I hope you have a blessed Monday (and Wednesday)

Hugs, Dawn

Art Spark Wednesday!

Hello everyone :) Here is my latest art journal page. It took some unexpected twists and turns. I learned some things, made a mess and had fun in the process. Isn't that what it's all about after all? I sure  hope so lol. After the video was done, I turned to my art journal and it "told" me it needed a few more finishing touches. I smeared some gesso around the paper the quote is on and then dripped some white paint onto the pages. Sorry I didn't think of it while making the video.

Here is the video:

Thanks for stopping by and have a creative week!

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Page Monday

   

Another Monday means another magazine page! I started out gesso'ing, (gessoing, gesso-ing) my pages and then added some embossing ink through some tape backing that has these little holes all over it. Then I added UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) to the ink. Here is what that looks like:

Gorgeous! Right? Lol maybe a little too soon to tell. So let's continue shall we? We shall :)

So I plopped some Magenta Paint onto these pages and then saturated the whole shebang with water and smeared it all around with a paintbrush. Once that was dry, I used a baby wipe to wipe the paint off the embossed areas. I then went around the edges with a purple dye based ink spray and blotted off any excess. Then I used my gesso again to block in the heart and then the letters. You can tell at the bottom of the pages I started to run out of room before letters so I had to squeeze them in there a little. I still like the way it looks. I painted over the gesso with acrylic paint and then drew over all that with painty pens, sharpies, 

Bic Mark it's etc. 

As always thanks for looking and I hope you have a fantastic and blessed Monday!

Hugs, Dawn

Art Spark Wednesday!

      Welcome to another fun filled episode of Art Spark Wednesday! This week I worked in my art journal. I am happy with the art I created this week. Not so happy with the editing I did. I do these videos a week behind just to give me extra time to edit and upload lol. I hope you like it. For some reason when I convert my video files they lose quality. My camcorder saves the files as .MTS which my computer doesn't recognise so I have to convert them to something my Windows Movie Maker can open. I think that is where the loss of quality comes in. Any tips or advice would be appreciated.

And finally this week's video:

Thanks for watching and have a creative Wednesday!

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Page Monday

Here is page for this week. With such frigid temps and drab January days, I thought some color was in order, flowers too.
I started out with this page:

And I Gesso'ed it:

And then I painted it with Acrylic Paint in these colors:

Finally I added some pen over my crazy good paintbrush writing skills, lol.

I love the Bible Verse and the happy colors. 

Thanks for looking and Happy Monday!!

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Monday

I completely forgot to take progress photos of this set of pages. OooOOoops! I started out with gesso on the pages so the original art, photos and text is covered. It's ok if a little peeks through. After gesso, I sought out my quote. I found a pin on Pinterest that said Rooted in Faith and I immediately pictured what you see here on my pages. I love it when that happens! I painted the background with acrylic craft paint.I gave my pages some texture with white paint on bubble wrap and black staz-on, on a text stamp.

After painting the tree trunk brown I spritzed it with water and ran my Rust colored Crayola Oil Pastel over it. They are water soluble so it makes for a pretty cool product. I think they sell them at Staples, but I had to order mine online. They also come in a 24 pack, for around $10- $15.

I didn't really care for these pages until I went around the edges of the tree and the edges of the pages with a dark blue Oil Pastel. I have a set of Pentel Oil Pastels and they smeared with my finger quite well. I finished it off with my quote, which I stamped with Foam Stamps by Memory Makers that I have had for years. Then I flicked everything with some White acrylic paint and then a silver/black Smooch spritz. 

I hope you are enjoying your Monday.

Hugs, Dawn

Magazine Monday on Thursday

                  What is Magazine Monday?
         It's a new segment I am trying out on my blog here to help me post more frequently and to practice my painting skills. It's just an ordinary ESPN magazine that was going to end up in the trash. I like it's over sized pages.
    I usually start by finding a quote that "speaks" to me and then I gesso my pages.

 The quote I choose usually determines what I will paint on the pages. This week I went with a Bible verse:
He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge.   Psalms 91:4. So I drew and painted a wing with powder blue acrylic paint.. I also filled in the background with green paint, and then went around the edges with white while the green paint was still wet.

 I added some white paint to the wing so it wasn't so flat. Then added some smaller feather looking spots for interest. I painted the lower right of each of these marks with white paint. I also flicked a white Elmer's Painty Pen to make the white paint splats. Giving the wing freckles :) I also darkened the Bottom of the wing with dark blue paint.

 I wanted the shadow under the wing to be darker, so I coated the pages in a thin layer of Collage Pauge. This makes the surface nonporous. Which works well for adding some India ink from my Pitt Brush pen. I marked it on the paper and smeared it around a little with my finger.

 I finished my pages by adding the Bible verse I chose and hand painted some feathers around the edges. At some point I also added some Twinkling H2O's in  Light Blue, Gold and Yellow to add some sparkle.

I will see you next week, hopefully on Monday next time for another installment of Magazine Monday!

Have a great day!

Hugs, Dawn