Precious In His Sight

and just pencil, before ink and color, funny how color changes it!...she's looking in a different direction!

I was looking at a GORGEOUS little girl's picture on the internet.... so that big clump of loops on the left side of her head are peddles of some kind of silk flowers...you couldn't make out an actual flower, just big loopy looking peddles.  I didn't want to color them so its hard to know what they are here.

OH! and no, it doesn't look like her, I wish.

What I Did:

1. Drew it with pencil
2. Scanned and Printed
3. Colored the printed version. I used markers to color the lips and eyes, and a sharpie for some of the drawn lines. 
4. Scanned the colored version
5. Opened the colored version in PSE and used the eye dropper to get the color of the lips and eyes to make a background.  
6. I used my favorite "watercolor" brush and just "splatted" it with two of the colors.
7. Added text  

Done. 

Isaiah 26:3

2 Corinthians 10:17-18

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But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

I decided to do things a little differently today.... 

First I started with this: a drawing I did waiting for a day I would need, or want to use it.... What I usually do is draw something in pencil then scan that to color it, so I always have the uncolored original (I explained that in a past post)  I would normally print this out and go from here....

 But today I decided to take an existing True Type Font, CK Paris and paste the text inside the opening like this:

But, you'll notice that everything is very straight and not at all "hand drawn" looking, at least not like anything I would do, which usually isn't straight at all... soooooo, I changed it to this: ..

I broke all the text apart and worked one letter at time, stretching, pulling and moving nodes..sometimes one at a time....now a lot of the same letters are different, not all, no point in totally reinventing the wheel!

When I finished all that work I finally printed it out as shown above and began work coloring it in. The first thing I did was go over every letter with a sharpie, filling in the white spaces and thickening the lines so that it looked even more natural ....I added some pattern to some of the squiggles, then colored everything.

I then re-scanned it and added the black and white boarder.

To be honest with you I think I would have been just as content with  the black and white version, because you know, I am partial to black and white!  

And the good news is, because I did it the way I did, I can have it either way!  

It was a fun experiment but I could have actually hand drawn each letter MUCH quicker!  I don't expect I'll be doing it again.  I will say though, the advantage to it is that I was able to space everything out so that there was room at the end!  I did one last night (a different scripture, not colored yet) 100% by hand and I ran out of room for the last word!!!  I had to erase the whole bottom line and re-do it!!  And yes, I quick sketched it but I never follow those lines ... and this time I paid the price!

Romans 14: 8

 ⁸ If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 

OK, I can not tell a lie, this one stumped me!  Today's scripture was just the one verse, but I didn't understand it on its own so I read the whole chapter and that really didn't help!  I actually understood the surrounding verses much better and pretty much showed that in the drawing.  We are each on different levels of faith...one person believes one thing while another doesn't... God will judge us each on the level of faith we have...but it isn't our job to do the judging!... That's basically what the whole chapter is about, but verse 8 which is right in the middle still confuses me... Hummmm...????  Gotta pray longer on this one!


I created it using both the PC and by hand.  I drew the cross and FAITH, scanned that and printed, then colored faith and brought it back and scanned that.  I wish I would have colored the cross but I didn't so I decided to do it on the PC... and also did all the text and borders with the PC.

Jeremiah 33: 2-3

““This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it—the LORD is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’”Jeremiah 33:2-3 NIV

I knew that there would probably come a day when the words  couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't be a "picture" so I had this ready and waiting...I just left it "blank" waiting for the words.  Today I scanned the "blank" and used the computer for the text....WAY MORE control that way!  I'll probably go back later and hand write it, and add color to the flower, it needs something ... just not today.

Story about this scripture.... Today when I read it, I had to go outside and move the trash to the road.... while doing it I kept repeating  verse 3... "Call to me and I will answer" "Call to me and I will answer"  As I was coming back in I noticed a dead tree in the back yard that could fall any day.  Then the question came to my mind... Hummm?  I wonder if it will make a sound if no one is around when it falls... .you know that question.  As soon as I "wondered" that, the answer came to me... no!  It will make sound waves, but if there is no "receiver" to "receive" it there will be nothing, just sound waves... like radio sound waves have to have a receiver, a radio ... this is the same thing!


That brought to mind the question I have always wondered...if Satan can talk to our thoughts can he also hear them?  That is definitely one of those questions that I can't "search" for the answer.... I believe I got my answer!!!  Not telling, ask Him yourself, then let's compare answers.   :-)

Psalms 119:93

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“I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.” Psalm 119:93 NIV

Why this picture today?

Last night I got the idea to challenge myself, and anyone wanting to play, to do something artistic with the "Verse A Day" that Biblegateway sends out everyday. If you look at the top of this screen you will see the Verse-A-Day button...click there and see the details.  The challenge doesn't start until August 1st but I wanted to start today to have some examples and just to see if it was even do-able!


What does it mean?
Again the scripture is:
“I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.”Psalm 119:93 NIV
I wanted to show

• the "fork in the road" where we all have to choose, life or death, belief or unbelief...
• the Bible on the sign is the precepts with the "Life" to the left arrow and "Death" to the right...it is there for us to keep us from certain death.
• the "road" to the left is the road less traveled, the narrow road ... and I drew it close to the edge of the page because I wanted to show that we really can't see what is next...we have to depend on God for our every step. I didn't do a very good job showing it but the road is rough (gravel maybe) with stones on either side showing that it is a direction that isn't attractive to "the world".
• the road to the right is wider and the scenery is more beautiful with flowers and trees (ok, so use your imagination!)...but what the traveler can't see is the cliff he will drive off of going that direction...in the direction where he/she is their own god...they don't "need or want" ANYONE telling them what to do, "if it feels good, do it" is their motto.
• the text below is the definition of "precepts" (I had to look it up...I knew what it was, because everyone knows about Kay Arthur's Precept Training...  but it isn't a word you hear every day and I wanted to be certain and to put the definition on my page)

That's it!  YAY! I was able to do something!

LOVE IS....

This ended up having to be a hybrid  ... not on purpose, its because I misspelled a "angered"!  Thankfully I noticed it before it was colored.  I scanned the b/w version, took it into PSE and erased the misspelled word, then printed it again.  Watercolor painted the background of the heart the used markers for the words.  Scanned that so I have that version... but I cut out the original colored copy, glue it down into my journal and did this:

I just couldn't stop there!

I always feel like I have to fill the whole page!  ... and this was the big tablet again so it took a while!

Love is ...

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Love is .... an ACTION verb!

I did this May the 6th..but at first I had it saying "Love is a Verb"... true that, but I just didn't feel like it was enough... it had to say "action"... so it has been just sitting here, untouched.  But, I don't have anything to load today because I was busy with recycling bottle ideas.  

I decided that I would take the easy way out and add my new PW Doodle font.  I blocked out what was there and typed what I wanted it to say....making it a hybrid. Unfortunately, I saved the original scan at 72 pixels, not nearly enough to modify, and I don't know where the original is...somewhere, under something else... you can see the difference...shoot!

Lessons Learned:
- save all scans at 300 in case I need to print them... then save again at 72 to upload.

Thought I'd Give PollyWolly Doodle TTF a POP!

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That was my plan anyway, but I got a bit carried away and had to dig myself out of the hole I got in!

First I printed a black "A" onto white card stock. Cut it, and folded it into a regular size card.  

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I haven't done anything with the top "A" yet... I used the bottom "A".  Please note the gray behind the black.  That is my new favorite thing to do with my new font...I can add the shadow on the PC so now I don't have to guess where the silly thing goes anymore!  It is right there!... It is fairly light so it disappears if I'm using a dark color, but I know where it is...If I'm using a light color it is good enough to just color over it and a darker version of the color shows up...cool.

THEN I sat down to color...and the more I colored the less you could see the "A"  ... It got kinda busy.  But, I've decided that if I'm not gonna do my favorite ... black and white ... I'm gonna use color, and lots of it!  

See what I had to do?  I had to use a white pen to outline the "A" just so you could see it!  BUT, look what that does!  It almost has a "velum" look to it... ALMOST like it was printed on velum then cut and stuck down.   Hummmmm.... there is some potential there.


Lessons learned:
- don't try to color directly onto the folded card because the ink went through and I had to cut it and stick it onto another card (see the black and b/w border? that is card stock, not part of the original drawing)


- don't go crazy with color, design really, behind, or near, the letter


- you can't trust a white pen to be opaque, the best you will get is a muted version of the color below, but, that can work for you if you need a translucent look.

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I Didn't Feel Like Drawing...Hybrid

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On Monday I bid and "won" (HA!) a set of "Pastel" Tombow Brush markers on Ebay and they came in today.  I can't believe I even bid on them because I am so NOT a "pastel" lover!  But, I did, and I won....so I decided that I would force myself to use them on something.  I really wasn't in the mood to draw today anything so I  went HERE and printed out this chicken:

My number one rule was that I could only use the new markers  (and black and white OF COURSE) and I had to use all of them.  I was pleasantly surprised when all but one color was brighter than expected.... this is what I ended up with:

I'm embarrassed to admit that I also bid on a set of 72 Marvey Le Plume markers and won those too!!! FOR SHAME!!!  But I got them for $43.05+ !!! THAT is a GREAT DEAL! The same thing would have cost me $155.70+ at Dick Blick online!  Whew....OK, feeling better about the purchase now...Confession really is good for the soul :-)

I think YOU should go print a chicken out and see what you come up with!  Coloring is a good thing.  If you do PLEASE comment with a link so I can see...

Need I Say More

How to Create Your Own Word Art ... the easy way.

I actually had a method to my madness today.  Welll....sorta.  Last week I discovered Stephanie Ackerman's art and I LOOOOOVE IT!  

But before I show you some of her stuff let me show you where we are going, because I have learned that the first picture shown is what will show up on Blog Links.

Now, examples of Stephanie's work:

I just LOVE the messy, easiness of it!  I love it so much that I bought both of her classes to learn how to doodle!!!  How sad is that?!  I have to be taught to just relax and do it!  Even though I am a VERY MESSY person, I am also a perfectionist so just "letting go" is HARD for me.  But her stuff is SO SIMPLE it should be SO SIMPLE to do, right?!  My brain struggles...but I CAN DO THIS!!! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!!!

But, in the meantime... there are a couple artists, Rani and Jilustration, at Lettering Delights that have the same "feel" and I have now bought almost everything they have available!  They have the same double black outline, primitive like drawing.  CUTE! CUTE stuff!  They can easily be printed out and modified with the shadowing and markings that Stephanie has.  FUN!

Example... The first is a font and a graphic directly from Lettering Delights.  I printed a copy of this then colored and added lines  to the one below

 Same thing, but with my added coloring and drawings...see, kinda has the same feel as Stephanie's.

Neato Alphabet for the words

Noteworthy Friends Graphic Set for the lamb

Other options:

A font that has no color at all like: LDJ Happy Trails Font (then you can use any color you want)

OR, if you take Stephanie's class you get her empty font!!!!