New Year Challenges

I am really excited about some of the things that are happening for the new year. I remember years ago, art was a very big part of my life. I've dabbed in oil painting, watercolor, acrylic (which I never could get the hang of cause of it drying so fast.)
I've tried pastels, that's tricky too. lol! I used to belong to an Art guild when I lived in Mt. View. I've done a few, very few portraits.
I've got some drawings but they are packed and at the other house. Am hoping to run by and find them so I can use in my new challenges I am going to do this new year.
As happens in life I got sidetracked learning to quilt. Then as the years progressed I wanted to learn more about color. So took some online classes and then eventually started learning to dye my own fabrics.
Then I got sidetracked again and started learning to crazy quilt, and embroidery. Then I got to studying on color again. I had taken a couple classes on using a journal but never got the classes finished. So some of the supplies I have is from those classes.
Then most recently I have gotten sidetracked with learning collage. I'm having a blast with that.
So as you see at the top of my page there is a button for the sketchbook challenge. I had decided I wanted to do this. I need to get back to where I started from and combine them all together. So do go take a peek and see if it's something that interests you.
Then to top it all off I heard about this new workshop given by Strathmore
There will be three different workshops given. I've signed up for all three.
So below is a photo of my supplies, watercolors, pastels, paint pens, brushes , gesso, white gel pens, blending stumps, graphite pencil, had to purchase the watercolor pencils, that's not on the list but something I wanted to try.
And below my different journals. The one with the cover is just a journal for taking notes and all.
The black one underneath is an artist journal, I have done several collages in it but you can also use watercolors and all on it. 3 moleskin journals, the Strathmore Visual Journal Watercolor and then Strathmore Visual Journal mixed media. I didn't pay attention to that till after I had purchased but I am going to use this little journal to mix my paints, pens, etc so I can see what colors I want to use before using it in a project.
So I am excited and all ready to start the new year. It's going to be a blast!!!

Mail Art Swap

I received my mail art swap today!!! YAY!!! I had thought my mail carrier got it lost, expecially when I saw Wil posted she got hers and she lives in the Netherlands. I got to thinking, which address did I put on those envelopes. I opened up the address sheet that Lenna had emailed and sure enough she had me down for one of my other addresses. So as soon as I could ,I drove over to the other place and there my beauties were. Talk about being excited!!!
The first envelope came from Sabine Schneider in Germany! Such beautiful work and she also enclosed a card she had made inside. Isn't it just beautiful! It looks like the envelope was made out of Lutrador. Sabine, please tell how you made this beautiful work of art.


And this is the beautiful envelope Lenna made to send all the swapped mail to me. Love, love the textured leaves. Also where did you get your mail art stamp from? That is too cool.
And this beautiful envelope is from Leslie Snowden from California. Such beautiful work.
She also included some beautiful vintage post cards that were sent to her maternal grandmother.
I can't wait to use those beauties in some of my work. Thank you so much Leslie!!! I didn't post pics of the post cards but let me tell you they are beautiful !

And this envelope is from Frieda Oxenham from Scotland, UK. I have been a follower of Frieda's blog for a little while now and when I saw I had received one of her envelopes I was so thrilled! And let me tell you she has been getting the snow here lately. I love her work and I also received a beautiful card she had made. Totally awesome!!

I want to thank Lenna, Frieda, Leslie and Sabine for the beautiful work that each of you have shared. I've got to figure out how I can display these lovely pieces of art! Thanks Lenna for having the swap and looking forward to the notecard swap.

Lesson 5: Vintage Basics

In this lesson we were to use a metal object. Well, the only two I could find in my stash here at this house just wouldn't work. So I used an epoxy sticker out of my scrapbook package I had purchased. It's plastic. I went ahead and glued it to make sure it wouldn't come loose. I printed the smaller flowers on vellum then the bigger flowers on cardstock. Trying to give the illusion of distance. It looks great from a distance but not so sure close up. lol

Lesson 3 - Vintage Gluebook

I got lesson 3 of the Vintage Gluebook class completed. I had seen Lenna Andrews use vellum paper in her collages so I decided to use it for the music in this one.

Lesson 4 : Vintage Basics

For Lesson 4 we were to use the envelope and come up with something to go with it. I decided that in my envelope there was a report card of my grandmothers. I combined lesson 4 with lesson 3 in my gluebook page.

Lesson 2- Vintage Gluebook

In this lesson we could only use three papers. I chose these three because the color of the clothes, the wording on the map, and the dark part of the flowers were all pretty much the same color. Mary had suggested some papers to use for the class and these were the ones I chose to use.

Week 3- Vintage Basics, Week 1 Vintage Gluebook

I couldn't help myself, I had to sign up for Mary's Vintage Gluebook class too! I have combined Lesson 3 of Vintage Basics with Lesson 1 of Vintage Gluebook. I will continue combining the two until I get to a lesson that would prevent me of being able to do that.I am loving both classes and am so glad I am taking them.

Week 2- Composing With Color

This weeks lesson was composing with color. I wanted the sailboat to look as if it was sailing the seas. I hope I accomplished that with this piece. I am having so much fun learning the art of collage. This piece was a lot bigger than the ATC I done for the first week. But I do know I will make more of those little guys in the future.