Pinspiration ... or Just Filling the Pages

At the beginning of the year I thought I would join in on "The Documented Life" challenge but they lost me on the 3rd week when they said to collect mail and add some of it to my journal.  OK, why???  So, I just decided to make the best I could of a stupid purchase... the Moleskin Calendar... HORRIBLE! HORRIBLE book!  There have been so many people loving and using Moleskin that I decided I would go ahead and follow the TDL suggestion and buy the one they were going to be using.  DON'T DO IT!!!  The pages are unbelievably thin!  You can't use any kind of pen on it without it bleeding to the other side...even ballpoint pens are worthless because they "emboss" the paper so that even if the ink doesn't bleed through the impression of the letters are there.

Soooooo, like I said, I decided to MAKE it work for me.  I now add a piece of cardstock to the right side of every open page so that whatever I decide to add won't be seen on the other side.  It works. 

When I get enough pages filled out I'll do a video so you can see some of what I have been doing.  

It wasn't until the last week of January that I decided to start documenting my days like this: 

I'm not too sure how much longer this will last because my days are pretty boring with little change and little opportunity for creative drawing.

Anyway, because I didn't start doing the above until almost February I have several pages that were blank and needs to be filled with something. (There are actually more than a few because there's lots of pages before the calendar part starts).  Here is how I filled these two pages this week:

As you can see, I called it "Pinspiration" because I literally copied several artists from Pinterest. (their names are included with each "picture").  Actually, none of them are exact because I'm not that good... and, there are a couple that came out so different from the original I decided to not insult the person! ....  Like the black hair girl... the original drawing was of a little girl, FAIL!  But, in my defense I drew everything on the page with a pen so there was no chance of "do overs".  I put the bottom of her nose too low so the "little girl" was lost for good!  

The only thing I did do with a pencil first was the word "Pinspiration" because I have had enough practice to know that I will ALWAYS run out of paper before I run out of word!  ALWAYS!  But ya know, even though I draw it with pencil first, I NEVER draw it exactly the same way when I go back over it with pen!  What is up with that?!

Doodles Done!  Have a fun one!

(hummmm, that rhymed!  and not be design, ha!  seems I might have a new "sign off")

I Wanted To See If I Could ...

One of my absolute favorite artist, for YEARS, has been Laurel Burch (December 31, 1945 – September 13, 2007)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE all the color she used.

As you can see she died 6.5 years ago but you can still purchase her art on almost EVERYTHING, purses, scarves, cups...basically anything that can be printed on they sell it.  Whoever is in charge of her estate has managed to sell the rites to TONS of different companies for production purposes so I am still a happy girl when I see something of "hers".

This week I decided to do something "Laurel Burch - like".  Color is always a challenge for me so it really was a challenge... not the drawing but the coloring.

I actually did them on another piece of  'paper' but I wasn't happy with the background so I cut them out and did them with a more "doodle" background.  

I didn't use as many patterns on each like LB but I'm happy with how they came out..  

I used BIC markers for most of the coloring, all except the biggest one, I started that one with watercolors but switched over to BIC markers. ... I drew them on the inside of a Lean Cuisine box.

Doodling Flowers the Easy Way or The "OK, You Just HAD To Have It, Now USE IT!" Challenge

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Archivers is about 5 miles from my house so it was always my "go-to" when I wanted something that Michael's and Joanne's didn't have.  Well, they are closing... and everything in the store is now 75% off!!!  YES!!  I stocked up with tons of stuff I really don't need...but...it was 75% off!

One of the things I bought was this set of Nestabilities:

I have to say, I didn't love it, but it was only $6.50.  I decided yesterday to force myself to use them and doodle on the cutouts.  Of course I used some of my empty boxes.

I was actually pretty pleased with what I could do just using the shape for inspiration...I started with the obvious, frames for whatever, but then I decided to try flowers....I don't usually do very well with flowers but these were simple.  Start by drawing some circles in the middle then draw the pedals out from the circle to each of the scallops.

And then I stuck them down and drew leaves and stems on the page:

Another thing I did yesterday was to buy more Sakura markers...AGAIN.  I can't tell you how many times I have bought these pens and they fall into the black hole that follows me.  THIS TIME I'm going to try and be better and keep up with them by leaving them in the package they came in!  Well, I don't know about you but all those little size numbers mean absolutely nothing to me so I decided to make some examples:

NOW I can tell!

UPDATE:

I wrote this yesterday and decided on a better title...and a better way to show the graphics for pinning.

Hummmm....I may need to make this a regular challenge for myself!

Doodle Ready ATC Cards From LC Boxes

Last week I posted this on my other blog where I have shown different ways to recycle in the past and just recently I have begun making cards and such using dies...but since I did these for doodling it is just as appropriate here so I thought I'd repost because I don't think the same folks follow both...  ??? I guess ??? If you do then you can just ignore it :-)
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I haven't mentioned this yet but, I started Weight Watchers (again) on January 1st. I only mention this because I have eaten at least one Lean Cuisine every day since and I can't bear to toss the boxes!  That's good, FREE, white cardstock!  So they are my first "go-to" cardstock when using all my new dies.  This week I cut out lots rounded corner cards (about ATC size) using a Sizzix die, that I can use for doodling and/or adding bits and pieces that I have piling up... like the leaf below and the stamped doghouse on the card below... I just like doodling on something that size because any larger blank white paper intimidates me... I figure anyone can fill up this much white space, right?

After I got several cards done (doodled on) I decided that I wanted to hang them together but I didn't want to punch a hole in the top, just in case I decided I wanted to use them for something later.  Sooooo, I punched out a fancy little piece using Spellbinders, Parisian Accents (seen in the middle of samples below).

I only added glue to the back so I could easily remove it without messing up the front of the card... 

I'm showing you a close up of this next card because I love the gingko leaf.  I made that by putting aluminum tape to the front of a piece of box then cut it out...the die has built in embossing lines.  Love it.

Below is a  quick card I made using one of my cards... quick quick because the work was already done.

InLinkz.com

Filling the Space With Words

A while back I bought a book called "Love Your Handwriting".  Actually, it came with a book and a workbook...now that I'm more interested I can't find the actual book but I started the workbook anyway.

The third exercise in the workbook was to fill up boxes that were on the page with words... so, I did:

I didn't want to just use random words so I first started with words from the Beatitudes, like meek (there is another page not here with more)... I pulled up a dictionary online and got synonyms for the word meek and filled a block with those words.  Then, I did the opposite of the word in another square.  The next few blocks I just used words from different scriptures.

Basically, the idea is to fill the box with different shaped words...fat, thin, tall, wide, script....I chose to double up (at least) on each word... write it then write over it again.  I just like that look.  I don't know, to me that makes a normal, everyday handwriting look more "artsy"....In MY opinion anyway.

Just so you guys know... I am slow getting around to writing in the blog because my blog app on my iPad has been down for upgrade, forever it seems.  I don't know why she took it down completely but I had gotten to where that was the only way I would blog, I don't come up to my office much anymore soooo, sorry for the long delays.

Don't Quit

A few weeks ago I was looking at some photos of my nieces on Facebook and noticed that someone in one of the pictures had a t-shirt on that said "Don't Quit" and then I noticed that the DO of Don't and the IT of Quit was a different color.  HOW CLEVER!  "Don't Quit, Do It" ... I thought how perfect since I started Weight Watchers (again) on January 1st.  (Four weeks now, 15 pounds lost...with a Looooong road ahead!)  Don't Quite, Do It!

So, here is my take on it ...

I don't love the b/w washi on the sides but they are the results of a failed attempt at playing along with "The Documented Life" challenge.  I thought I wanted to do it but quickly learned that it just isn't me.  They lost me on week 3 ... adding that weeks, mail envelopes to the book ... ???  I didn't get it so I lost interest.

ANYWAY, the very first thing they suggested you do is purchase a moleskin calendar and washi tape an extra piece of watercolor onto the outside edge of each page (creating a flip out page) so that each week you had extra work surface... glad I only did one! (this one).  I quickly discovered that the paper in the moleskin calendar is HORRIBLE for any kind of doodling because it is so thin that EVERYTHING but pencil shows through on the other side!!!  UGH!!!  So, instead of adding the extra paper to the edge so that it flips out I am going to tape it down onto the lined journaling side, thus covering up anything done on the opposite side.  I'll show what I am doing with it now in a future post, I just wanted to share the "Don't Quit" today.