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From the Art Studio | Watercolor Painting | 1 Apple and 4 Chicks

March 26, 2018 By Laura 6 Comments

I’m so glad you are paying a visit today to one of my favorite places in the world to be:  my art studio.  
I’m going to chat a bit about watercolor painting, and show you some fun pieces I did.
  

Not too long ago, I invested in more art supplies, some of which are shown above.  Supplies such as professional-grade watercolor paints, some high-quality brushes, and some blocks of top-notch watercolor paper. 

I promised myself that this year (2018) I would start spending very regular time working (creating) in my art studio again, for me, much like I did when I was in my 20’s.  I’ve had the same intentions before, but I never managed to balance my time and other obligations, to really get up there very consistantly. Even though inside, I had badly felt the need to. 

Well, this year I have really been really doing it! I go up and work up there almost every day, even if I only have a little bit of time.
And I’ll tell you what . . . . it fills that ‘thing’ in me, that needs filling.  Almost as much as my faith does for me.  It settles my soul, fills my heart, and sometimes even gets my head straight. Well, the last one is a little trickier, it seems. But, I try to think of nothing else but whatever it is I am working on. Because I’ll tell you what . . . . I have one of those brains that never stops, and it could really use the rest, anytime I can get it.  I have to say that many times I pray while I work, too. If I’m not singing along with Pandora, that is. (Which is usually the case.) But neither of those things are the kind of thinking I can’t shut off, and the kind that I get so darn tired of doing.

So anyway, one medium I have always loved working in, and I have been dying to get back to, is watercolor painting. Thus, new supplies. Because I intend to really develop my skills in watercolor, over the many coming years. (Provided I live many coming years.)  I have much to work on. I do clearly see myself in the future, as an old lady, drawing and painting in her art studio. So hopefully that is a good sign, eh? Anyway, while I am working on my watercolor skills, I decided I will just do small paintings for awhile.  When I am feeling a lot more confident, and I’ve mastered some things, I’ll go bigger.

The blocks of watercolor paper I bought are 9″ x 12″, because I felt that was a good size to start working again with.  No larger than that, anyway.
Arches, 300#, cold-press.

Ok, I’m ready to share with you a couple of my watercolor paintings.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, Home Page, Seasonal Crafts and Creations, SPRING Crafts and Creations, Watercolor Paintings Tagged With: apple, art, art-studio, chicks, watercolor, watercolor painting, watercolor-chicks, watercolor-split-apple, watercoloring

4-Leaf Clover Art

March 13, 2015 By Laura 1 Comment

After having a nagging urge to paint for a couple of days last month, I finally found some time to sit down with my watercolor supplies, to create something. As usual, I wanted to make something that would have a purpose; as opposed to just painting for the fun of it, and then wondering what to do with it. (I don’t really like this quality in me, by the way. I’d rather be more creatively spontaneous. So I am working on that in another creative process.) As I figured out what to paint, I realized it was almost the month of March, and so almost time to change our home’s February/Love themed double-mantels.

March….the beginning of spring, and St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t think there is a lick of Irish in any of us, but I decided to go with the theme somewhat anyway, and make a piece of art for our March mantels: 4-Leaf Clover Art.

I had a vision in my head. I got my hues of green ready to go in my palette, and then free-handed a 4-leaf clover, on my ~11×14″ watercolor pad.

As part of the art, I wanted to include a phrase [Read more…]

Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, Holiday Crafts Tagged With: 4-leaf-clover-watercolor-painting-art, 4-leaf-clovers, art, blessings, do-you-believe-in-luck?, four-leaf-clovers, luck, luck-of-the-irish, St-Patricks-Day-art, St-Patricks-Day-decor, St-Patricks-Day-decorating, watercolor painting

My Art Style | Pushing Outside of my Comfort Zone

March 26, 2014 By Laura 8 Comments

For the past several months, about one night a week, a friend of mine comes over to play with me in the art studio.  It started out because she wanted me to give her watercolor lessons. But ultimately, I never could get quite comfortable in that role, and expressed it to her often, because honestly, she has some real skills herself, very different from mine. And I just felt like I had much to learn from her! Still, she continued to call it her lessons, until finally she realized that if we just called it having some creative time together, I’d settle in.  And I did.

One of wonderful things about spending time with her, is that she has a whole new perspective in seeing her art, which I find intriguing. She has a way with expressing what she is trying to accomplish in a piece she is working on, or in retrospect, where she felt she went wrong, and what she could have done better.  She enjoys the process of creating art, seeing where it takes her, and what she may learn along the way.  Furthermore, she is always content enough with how it came out, and grateful for the lessons she took away from it.

I have never been like that!

I tend to expect instant perfection from myself. I want to plan it right, and execute it right, right off the bat. And I want it to come out as perfectly as I see it in my mind. And if it’s not coming out that way, or I’m not happy with how it came out, well….it’s practically useless to me. And more shamefully, I see the whole process almost as a waste of my time and materials. 

Just imagine how that has hindered me over the years. Not only in productivity, but in an open willingness to experiment and learn. I am quite sure, that as a direct result of my demanding perspective, I have limited my productivity, and most certainly hindered myself from true growth as an artist.  Which is just SAD. And years I cannot get back.

The good news is, I have noticed that my friend’s healthy attitude and perspective practices, is rubbing off on me. I am trying to take this time with her, and any other time I can dig up, to just enjoy the process of art. As an artist should. And learn from it all I can, as I go, as well as when the project is complete.

Because of this, I am now growing as an artist, just a little bit so far, in my older years. I think that’s a really good, if unexpected happenstance, for me.

So today I thought I would share with you a bit of what my style has always been, and then how I have actually felt drawn lately, to styles that have never appeared to have been my own before, and am digging up the courage to experiment with them.

First, just a handful of samples of my work from my past.

These are all scanned photos. Some even scanned photos, of photos of photos.  (Did you follow that?) And I wasn’t always a professional photographer, so the exposure and color balance is not great on them. But anyway…. I am talking many years old artwork, here.  Some of it is almost hard for me to look at now, as I see mistakes and things I could have done better. But at the time I apparently was pleased enough with it.  And this awkward and humbling experience is an opportunity for me to grow as well. Right?

But my really intention is sharing these with you, is to show you what my style has always been. In my own words, I would describe my work as very tight, with an effort to make my subjects look as real as possible. That goal has always been what my style has been about.

Allow me to gush for a moment. This is a portrait of my nephew and Godson. To give you an idea of just how old this is, he just turned 21! So adorable. Michael and I always thought he resembled the actor Gene Hackman, in this photo. (Right, anyone?).  Anyway…..back in the day, as a freelance artist, I did a whole lot of large pencil and watercolor portraits, as client work. Approximately 22 x 30″, matted and framed.  Mostly pencil.  Possibly 100’s before and after this one.

–
This was a HUGE watercolor painting I did for our own kitchen, before we had any children. (Although I may have been pregnant with our first?) It was a serious painting project, that probably took me months to do.  It did hang it in our kitchen for years, and certainly served as a conversation piece at times, with guests.  I always liked most of the work here, except the very inaccurate perspective of the black and white tiles. I just couldn’t get that right. It was all to me more of an aerial perspective, but the tiles really tended to confuse the viewer I think. Which was usually me.  Painting the water puddles and droplets were my most challenging and favorite part.
–

This was one of my first watercolor portraits.  Working with the medium of watercolor in and of itself, has always been equally a joy and a challenge to me. I have always longed to work more loosely with the paint, and yet create work that, when viewed at a distance, really pulls together in a realistic way.  I would seriously consider myself a very amateur watercolorist, at best.
–

And yet I have sold many watercolor paintings. Including this one, I believe? I forget. This is Nobska Lighthouse in Falmouth, MA.   I did a few lighthouse paintings in my time. This photo of this painting was very underexposed, so the color to the true painting is not accurate.  Though in truth, nor was the painting accurate to the actual scene. Another challenge of mine:  mixing the the color I need, with the paints I have.

Anyway, the shingles on the roof are an excellent example of how tight I always worked, when really, there is a looser form to paint such things, that appear realistic, for which I have not even begun to master yet.  In conclusion, you have no idea how hard I would work, to replicate exactly when I was using as a reference. (Which was often from a photo given tome, or one I took myself.  I never took liberty to change anything from the reality, which I think is a real weakness in an artist.

OK, so back to the present.  Lately I have had an urge to create a more abstract piece of work. Which may quite possibly be because of the freedom it would lend me, when I have felt as of late, as I work in the studio with my friend, that I have lost any art skills I once had.
The style of abstract artwork is an area I have never even remotely been interested in. Not as a an artist, or a viewer. I have always somewhat liked mixed medium kind of artwork, but have never done such a piece of work myself.  But in the past couple of months, an idea/visual of such a piece has begun to take shape in my mind. Something very much layered, and of mixed medium. I have decided that although I have decided on a theme of sorts, and a general palette of colors I’d like to work with, I am not going to try to make the vision in my head so clear in detail before I begin, nor make an effort to create that vision exactly.

I really want to just enjoy the process of creating art.

These are just some of the materials I gathered, to work with. I have thought of many other materials since, that I may, or may not, incorporate as I go. I decidedly don’t know entirely, what I’ll use as I go. I’m just going to go with the flow!

I do know, that I will share it with you when the piece is done. Whether or not I like it. And I will not see it as a waste of my time, or materials.  For it’s my intention to just enjoy the process of creating it, and seeing what lessons I can take from it along the way, or in the end.  If nothing else, I will have grown from the experience.
And that alone, can often be the best piece of work, of it all.
– Laura



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Filed Under: Crafts & Creations Tagged With: art, art-abstract, art-realism, art-styles, artists, artwork, pencil-illustrations, watercolor, watercolor painting

Hello, 2013. / Introducing: House Of Joyful Noise Social ShareIts

January 1, 2013 By Laura 2 Comments

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Well now . . . . we’ve all talked about the coming new year enough. Don’t-ya-think? Now it’s HERE.
Time to just LIVE IT, People!

That includes us.
We’ve told you we have some all new and exciting things in store for this year, and I’m about to tell you about one of them.

At the beginning of last year (2012) I resolved to get back to my hand-created artwork skills.  Many of you (may) know I went to art school, worked in the illustrating art field for some years freelancing (mostly doing large portraits of people), and then got more and more in depth with photography.  Something I had always studied. But in the course of my 13 great years in my (photography) business, I really got away from my love for creating my own authentic artwork. : ( You know….artwork created on paper. With pencils, paints and palettes and other fun tools in my hands. I got to missing it so much, it almost hurt. I’m not kidding. But I had no time to spend with it!  No time to really make a mess, and create something – mine. Without my camera. So in 2012, with putting my photography business aside, I found the time! I did. Not quite as much time as I wanted. But I did create a handful of things! Things that I found so much great joy in creating.  In fact one of those things turned out to be our #1 most viewed project of the year 2012!  Maybe because that one was made with extra love. Or maybe because the world was a little mesmerized with my doodling. (Something anyone can do, by the way. Just give it a go!)  But back to the here and now.

This year, I will find even more time, for my artwork. Yes-I-will. And I know I will, because I need to so badly now. The more I indulge in creating, the more I just have to.  After anything with my children, or singing a song that gives praise to the Lord, just sitting . . . . and fooling around with different mediums, is way too much fun for me. And therapeutic. And it just puts a happy in my heart and soul, that I would never be able to describe. All is right with the world, when that’s what I’m doing.  Hours escape me. (“Really? I should have started dinner an hour ago? What in the world time is it, Honey?”)

Of course, along with hand-created illustration work, I’ll always have what photography and graphic skills I might have too.
And that leads me to what is in all of this for you, this year!

Using any one of those skills, I decided to create a series throughout all of the year 2013, called . . . .

House Of Joyful Noise ‘Social ShareIts’.

 

What are House Of Joyful Noise ‘Share Its’?
They are those little mini-poster sort of things, that you can share all over your social world.
You can Facebook them
Pin them on Pinterest.
Tweet them on Twitter.
Google+ them in your circles.
. . . or anywhere else you socially network.

I’m going to have a blast, making more and more.

They will be created with various forms of my artwork….and express quotes of my own or others (credited.)
Some will be hand hand-illustrated.  Others will be created with photography or graphic design.
The bottom line is…..If they speak to your heart, or inspire you in any way, you’ll be so welcome to grab them and share them for yourself.

The test run has proved way successful.
(Thanks to all of you, who follow us on Facebook!)
I shared my first two New Year’s Eve morning, and they have already been SHARE’d  hundreds of times over. AND counting.
Here are those two – and you are welcome to save them right from here, and SHARE them wherever you’d like.


As they are created, throughout the year, and just as I am inspired to make them, I will share them right here on our blog, and at the various places you may follow us.
(See links to follow us, below.)

 There’s SO much more to come, here at House Of Joyful Noise.
Here’s to an AMAZING 2013, to all of us.
♥

* * * * * *

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Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, House Of Joyful Noise 'Social ShareIts' Tagged With: art, Catholic-blogs, Catholic-families, getting-creative, House-Of-Joyful-Noise-Social-ShareIts, new-year, new-year-quotes, Quotes

A Doodle Journal; Made with Love

October 15, 2012 By Laura 19 Comments

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Not long ago, I shared with you all the Customized Sketch Journals the kids and I made, and I mentioned in that post that the idea came to me while brainstorming a birthday gift for a special little someone else.  I said that I would share more about that in a coming post.  Well this post is about that special little someone, and the little birthday gift I made for her.

00_Ju
This is Julia, my Goddaughter. Feel free to tell me how beautiful she is, and I’ll tell you I know.  I took this photo of her, of course, but it’s a couple of years old.  That just means that she’s a little bigger-beautiful now.  She has a real creative soul, and in that way reminds me of myself at her age. So come special occasions, I like to gift her with little things that encourage that side of her. It’s not always artsy stuff, but often.  It is almost always late.  Thankfully, she is very forgiving, also.

     So for her birthday this year, I knew I wanted to give her some kind of book to seriously doodle in. I’ve been trying to doodle more myself, like I used to when I was younger. I think it really can get the creative juices flowing, and actually express a lot about yourself, if you let it.  You know . . . let your pen(cil) go free as it will.  Wanting her to have this actually has a backstory:  I’m a natural-born artist (don’tcha know), and when I was in 8th grade, I won an artist award. I had submitted a drawing for some city calendar contest made up of students artwork from all of our city’s schools. They chose 12, (for the months of course ; ), and I won October’s slot.  There was an award’s ceremony, and the award was a hard cover book, full of blank pages. I knew what it was for. But I could never bring myself to make a mark in it, and I always regretted that. I just imagine how cool it would be to have that book now, and see all of my sketches and doodles filling the pages, from when I was a kid. So the point is, . . . JULIA, DON’T DO THAT!! I want her to let her pen(cil) go fancy-free, and never have that same regret.  Ultimately, it was all of my thinking about that, that got me thinking I should do something similar with my kids. Thus, their sketch journals.

     For Julia’s though, which was to be made by me, and with love, I had a good vision of the finished piece in my head. I just wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to execute it all.  I did know I wanted to start with a hardcover book of blank quality pages, and I found some at the craft store.

jpg1

 This is the exact book I got.  Black leather hard cover, filled with good blank art paper pages.

     Now my vision from here, in order to make it special for her, was to personalize it with a fancy J. I decided to fill the J with my own doodling, incorporating little meaningful messages for her.  I also envisioned the J built up, like piled paper, with ragged edges.

wcp_edge
Much like the ragged edges of single sheets of soft or cold-press watercolor paper, as seen in the photo above. Except, I knew I was going to have to cut out, several J’s, to pile it up.  So I decided to figure that part out when I got to it, and hope I could!

01_strathmore-watercolor-paper-pad
So along with the journal book, I bought a new pad of cold press watercolor paper. I needed some more anyway. Because I wanted the surface to have some texture, but not too much to mess with the flow of my pen, and thus my doodle-control.

02_doodling      I started my artwork on a tracing paper. Because, although I do encourage just letting it fly when doodling, this was a special gift, and I wanted this artwork within this J a little more organized in design form. So, when it was finished on tracing paper, I transferred it to my art paper.  (For those wondering about that method-there are many. But I just laid my pencil down on the backside of the tracing paper, and made a layer of lead. Then I turned it back over, and traced the whole design with pressure onto my art paper. Surely you know of that trick. )   Then I got to work with my permanent pen.  Of course as I worked, my hand kept rubbing off what I had transferred, which was so light as it was. So I had to redraw much of it, or make some up as I went. But that was alright, even if it was different than what I originally drew.

03_doodling
And there it was.  A little bit of everything:  free-flowing strokes, cross-hatching, coloring in solid, and stippling. I used to love stippling. If you are not sure what stippling is, it is the technique of creating a whole image in dots. I have a couple of artwork pieces of stipple-work I could share with you too. I really need to photograph my old stuff, from the art-school days, and share it with you all. I keep saying that. But anyway . . . this J took some time! I think it was 5 or 6 inches tall. I did a lot of it in the car at the park, while my boys were at flag-football practice, and my girls were being otherwise active. (Which would have been a wise idea for me too. )

Now, there are some photos missing here for this step, so my text explanation will have to do. Do you see that light pencil outline about an inch or relief around the J? That is where I cut the J out of the paper, and then traced that several other times on the same art paper, and cut all of those out too. Because I wanted to pile them up! Like a stack of J’s. So, one J at a time, I applied glue between the J’s, but only in the middle/whereabouts that the artwork was on the top layer, staying away from the sides.  Reason being, somehow, I wanted to get it raggedy. And I didn’t know how much paper I would lose whilst trying to destroy the edges some.  The thing was, this cold press paper was pretty hard and sturdy! Even at the edges, it was just a hard edge. So the piled paper was even more so.  I had no idea how I was going to change the hard edge. I thought…sand paper? I went poking around my husband’s stuff, looking to find some sand-paper or….something, because I didn’t think sand paper would work either. When suddenly, I saw one of my boy’s first tool kit.

04_ I thought I’d give that bitty saw a try, and it worked!  Well, not quite the same as I had hoped. But I liked the effect well enough!  It did take a lot of sawing, and did make a fine mess (of fine paper fuzzies), but it worked!

05_doodled-letter-art
Finally, I was able to apply the whole piece to the book, with E-6000.
This baby was stiff, and slightly curved/curled up. So even with E-6000 I was/am still hoping it will hold down flat.

06_doodle-paper-art  Here’s a good look at the edge of my piled up J’s.

07_custom-doodle-journal
Julia’s Doodle Journal, all finished, and made with love.
On the first page, I wrote her a special message from me.
But the rest of the pages are hers to express herself, and I’m sure she will.
Revealing all of the beauty that is within her, as well.

******

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Filed Under: Crafts & Creations Tagged With: art, crafts, creative-journal, doodle, doodle-journal, doodlling, personalized-creative-doodle, personalized-creative-journal, sketch-journal, Zentangle-doodle

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