29 Faces - Face 5, 6 and 7 & an Art journal page

I am a bit behind with creating a face every day for 29 days.  I find it quite tricky to keep up with any challenges that involves creating something every day for consecutive days.
I try to get in my art room most days and do at least something small towards a project that I am working on.  I often have many projects going at the same time.  As a result I don't always finish everything I am working on.  Sometimes it can stay half done for ages.  But at the end of the day I guess that does not matter.  As long as we are busy making something that inspires us on a regular basis to give us joy.

Here are first 3 faces I sketched in my sketching journal with pencil.  I like to sketch faces to practice different face shapes and hair styles.

Face 5:

 

Face 6:

 

Face 7: 

 

 

Art Journal page:

 

For the following art journal page I created, I was inspired by the Art Journal & Tutorial videos by Iris Impressions.  The particular video that inspired me for this page is called: 'She did her best'.

Here is a link to one of Iris's blog post that includes this tutorial:/http://iris-impressions.com/2014/08/art-journal-tutorial-videos/

 and many more great inspirational videos created by Iris.

Today she has posted another great tutorial on her YouTube channel called: Access your Joy.

Being Brave

Today I am being brave sharing the following art journal page with you that I created this morning.  I always enjoy trying out new techniques or drawing something that I have not  tried before. Last week I fell  in love with big eye art drawings created by Sherri Baldy.  The first one I drew  last week I used a drawing from Sherri Baldy as a reference.  Today I tried to draw this style of girl out of my own head.  Well I found that rather challenging.  I have been practicing drawing faces for a while now, but still have great trouble with trying to draw a body to go with it.  I first drew in pencil and then traced my drawing with a micron pen.  Because the eyes were so big I needed a bigger black pen tip to fill in the black of the eyes.  I used a memento pen which just happened to catch my eye in my pot of pencils and markers.
But I did not realise that the memento pen would smudge when I started rubbing out all the pencil lines.  Then I wanted to give her a bit of colour.  I started with some water colour pencils, to soon find the journal I was using did not like water.  The paper in an ordinary visual art journal does not tolerate much water at all.  So I finished colouring by putting a little bit of chalks on for colour and then journaled around  the drawing about how I felt about this 'failure'.  Most people would probably only want to share on their blog successful creations.  Today I have decided to purposely share something that did not turn out very well.
I am not happy with the result of the creation, but I am happy with the lessons I have learned on the way.  Journaling around my drawing about how I felt with this creation helped me to accept what I had put on paper so far.  I first wrote about all the stuff that did not work out for me creating this drawing, and then I also tried to put a positive encouragement on the page to help me move on and accept my 'failure'.  This is what art journaling is all about.  A space where we can experiment and try out new things.  They don't have to be master pieces.  As for every success, there are many failures.  It's only through using our products that we can learn how to work with them.  It is not something that can be learned through reading out of a text book or just  looking at and admiring other peoples creations and You Tube videos only.  We have to be brave and have a go ourselves.  Practice something every day.  As it is the habit of this practice that will open new doors and experiences for us.  That is why I have started this blog.  To make myself accountable for creating.  To see my own creative journey with its ups and downs.  A creative diary online.

What have you created or practiced today?  

Please feel free to leave a link to your blog in your comment to show what you have made today. 
Where you happy with your creation today?
What did you learn from what you made today?

Big Eye Art

Today I enjoyed creating a Big Eye Art drawing inspired by Sherri Baldy "Besties" Digi Stamps.

Art Every Day Month, Day 18

I recently decided to start blogging more to make myself accountable for my commitment of wanting to create more often.  I like creating to be a way of life, rather then just a hobby I do in my spare time.
Up till now I would see creating as something I do in my spare time when all the chores and all the work is done.  With other words creating would come last on my to do list.  Lately I have decided to make creating a more important part of my life.  I notice that I feel great when I create.  It makes me feel calm and at peace.  It is like an active meditation.  In meditation we try to just be aware of one thing at a time and when our minds wanders bring it back to the one thing.  It might be a word or our breath or the awareness of how our body feels.  While creating our full awareness goes to our project in front of us.  I feel it is a great way to switch of from the world around us for a little while and go within.  Express ourselves through the media at hand.  They say we benefit most from meditation when we practice it regularly.  So I figured the same will apply for creating every day.  Then on the weekend I stumbled onto this blog: Creative Every Day where Leah runs: November is Art Every Day Month.  What a coincidence.  Even though it is already half way through November I decided to still give it a go for the remainder of the month.  And I am glad that she says we don't have to post every day, only when we get a chance.  As the idea is to bring more creativity into our lives not to feel overwhelmed or pressured.

Tonight I started another 13 x 13 page whilst cooking dinner at the same time.
Here is the start of the page:

I started with some spray ink which I had watered down, some stamping, washi tape and water colour crayons.

Then for the next layer:

Some more stamping, a bit more ink, and finally I had to stop after this as dinner was ready:

Added a bit of scrapbook paper and some paint.

When I work on these little 13 x 13 pages I often put them on top of a page of my bigger art journals.  That way when I use spray inks and stencils the extra spray will cover on the page in the art journal.  This then can be part of a background of a future page in my art journal.  The page below is the page that was under my project today and also under my project of my previous post.

13 x 13 Art Journal Page Peace Love Calm

I really enjoy creating these small 13 x 13 cm art journal pages.  Gives me the opportunity to let myself be creative for a little while.  I love playing around with my art and craft materials.  It makes me feel peaceful and calm inside.  The Dylusion Spray Inks are just devine.  They are so great to use with stencils to make a background.  The stamp set I used here today for this project is called: Inspirational Flight by Kaszazz.

Quick Journal Page

Here is just a quick art journal page I did this morning in my Winsor & Newton A5 Art Journal.
It started off with a little bit of stamping I did a while ago on this page.  Today I felt drawn towards colouring in the flower and butterflies.  Then I did a bit of doodling around the edge of the page and some writing in the centre.  I coloured this with Prisma colour pencils.  They are one of my favourite colour pencils to colour and draw with.  The background appears to be coloured with green, but in real life it is soft yellow.  I have not learned yet how to adjust the colouring on computer software.

13 x 13 Art Journal

I have decided I am going to create a 13 x 13cm little art journal.
I love creating but find I don't always know what to make or what journal to use for which creation.  I have lots of different journals.  Different sizes with different types of paper etc.  As I never know quite what I am going to make I always find it difficult to decide which journal to work in.
So this weekend I decided I am going to work on just loose pages and bind them into a journal later.
Most my journals are A5 or A4.
I love working on a larger page as it gives me the opportunity to work in more detail when for example I am drawing eyes.  But I find the big page also puts me off from doing just a quick page.  As I know the bigger pages are more work and take more time I tend to put off creating as I have so many other chores to do.
So I decided I am going to create a small 13 x 13cm journal.
Having only a small square to work on I like to challenge myself to create something more often.
I find it very relaxing to create.  I also don't want to put any expectations on myself of what I am going to create or how much time I spend on each 13 x 13 page.  Some days I might spend a few hours on a 13 x 13.  Other days just maybe 15 minutes.

Well  here are my first 2 pages:

I created this little angel on Sunday.  I just started with some journaling on the piece of card stock.  Then applied inks over the top.  Then pieces of scrapbook papers, some white paint.  Drew this little angel over the top and did some stamping.  This first page took me a while to do.  I found it difficult to draw eyes in such a small area.  I am used to drawing faces on pages of A5 and A4 and find I can put more detail in the eyes on the larger space.  So I found it quite a challenge to draw a face on this smaller size of card stock.  As I had used scrapbook paper for layering and part of the textured paper went through her face it made it also challenging to draw the eye in that area.

Today I created this one:

A quick 13 x 13 page.  I used watercolour paper.  Applied some inktense pencils.  Went over it with a water brush and then did some black writing over the top.  Doodled a line around the edge and a bit of stamping to finish off.  This one did not take too long for a working day, but gave me the joy to let my creative muse play for a couple of minutes before I had to get to work.

Hope I can keep up this challenge I have set for myself.