Category Archives: Techniques and Tutorials

Project Ideas, Techniques and Tutorials

Hello 2023! : Pantone Color Of The Year Project

I’ve mentioned previously that aside from Christmas my favorite thing about the end of the year is the unveiling of Pantone’s new color of the year. Since I started on youtube, I have enjoyed doing a project demo revolving around the chosen color each December. Another holiday artist tradition I have is creating a new series of whimsical, themed Santa ACEOs for my ebay shop. This year, I combined these two traditions into one project as I show you how I illustrate my miniature Santa portraits, this one with a Viva Magenta theme.

By a stroke of good fortune, one of my most popular teaching projects I developed this year features a heavy accent of this vibrant color. Pre-Covid, I was teaching a Creative Minds class to my adults with disabilities at Creative 360. After teaching, I shared many of the projects here if you’re inclined to take a look. The idea of Creative Minds is to learn about accomplished artists from the past and present and create projects based on their process with the goal of discovering our own artistic voice. Creative Minds has a special focus on artists who think differently than what is considered “typical”. They have disabilities, mental health struggles, weren’t classically educated, dealt with poverty. It’s important for people to see examples of why having different types of brains and backgrounds in our world is vital and something to be celebrated, not approached with apprehension. After Covid, like with many things, the class series died for a bit. This Fall, I brought it back successfully and opened it up as an evening workshop series to make it more available to all ages and abilities.

I covered globally exhibited artist Judith Scott previously, but streamlined the project a bit more this time. Scott is an artist who had down syndrome and was deaf, and was unfortunately discounted and underestimated for most of her life. When her twin sister became her guardian and brought her to a groundbreaking arts program near their home in California, Judith on her own grabbed any objects nearby and started wrapping them in yarn. Her eye for composition was soon recognized, and long story short her art has now been exhibited worldwide. This is why art is not a luxury. Art gives people a voice, and unlocks hidden abilities.

For this new iteration of the Judith Scott project, students were given an 8×10 canvas, a stick, and a plethora of yarn. The yarn that has a different texture like fuzziness, or that is netted and stretches apart is especially fun though the old standard would still work well. We painted the canvas with an abstract design. I used a large round brush to dab streaks across the canvas one color at a time until there was no white left. Then, while that’s drying take the stick and wrap wrap wrap! Yarn can be tied at the beginning and ends points, and the tail tucked under the wrapping. I also added some felt leaves as a finishing touch but that part is in no way necessary. If the branch has a lot of contact points where it touches the canvas, it can be glued at those points but my stick was extra twisty so I poked holes in the canvas which I threaded wire through, twisting the ends in the back of the canvas to anchor it. If any readers are in the Midland, Michigan area I’d encourage you to stop by Creative 360, we are always doing something new and fun!

Color is a fantastic starting point for inspiration. You can view my previous Color Of The Year projects below.

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Techniques and Tutorials

Mixed Media Movie Stills – The Wizard Of Oz

I’ve started making a series of “mini” 5×7 mixed media works on canvas board that recreate stills from my favorite movies using a variety of materials. This is purely a “for fun” project and a way for me to do some whimsical, low-pressure creating in between my larger projects. I will likely have them available for sale in my Facebook Shop so if you use that platform, give me a like. I’m starting with childhood favorites, and the first one I have for you is Wizard of Oz. Using a printout as inspiration, I am able to do a simple graphite transfer onto the art paper of my choice. In this case, I used watercolor paper. Finding printed fabric or paper for the background that is already similar to the pattern you are seeking adds ease to the art making process.

In each of these videos, I will be using completely different materials, and I hope you will be inspired to try your own mixed media projects at home. Don’t draw or paint and the idea of trying stresses you out? You could do this same thing all collage style and just cut and paste the figure from the photo! There is always a solution, just have fun with it and as always I’m just a message or comment away with questions :). Materials used for this project are: Viviva Colorsheets Watercolors (love the portability and zero cleanup!), watercolor paper, detail paint brushes, cotton printed fabric, a 5×7 canvas board, and Weldbond glue (used because it is a strong hold for all materials since we are using thicker paper and also fabric). Let me know what you think!

What are some of the prettiest movies you remember?

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Techniques and Tutorials

Good Omens for 2022 With Pantone’s Very Peri

It’s that time of year again! Yes, a day after New Year’s, but also the time when Pantone assigns the new Color Of The Year ;). I actually found out what the new color was going to be before Christmas, but just got around to doing my annual themed artwork after the holidays. I hope it means something that 2022’s color is one of my favorite hues!

The collage of lovely Very Peri art inspiration above is by myself (including some of my recent Christmas themed ACEOs), Emiliano Vega, Bonne Idee Art, Coral REEFlections, Giacomo Carmagnola, Artologica, and beautyspock.

Happy New Year!

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Project Ideas, Techniques and Tutorials

Vintage Inspired Christmas Ornament Crafting Tutorial

I usually wait until Thanksgiving weekend, but I couldn’t resist putting up my tree early this year ;). I love vintage Christmas decor almost as much as I love handmade ornaments, so I’ve combined my two holiday passions with this fun and simple craft. I hope you are inspired to give it a go!

This year, my main tree in the living room is covered in my paintbrush assemblage ornaments accented by bulbs in different shades of gold, some vintage pieces, and some softies gifted by friends and family. My second small tree in the spare room has all my bulbs decoupaged with images from art magazines. And of course, I have my own vintage jewelry tree hanging up in my kitchen! I did some tutorials showing my process for both the paintbrush ornaments and trees using old junk jewelry pieces last year, so be sure to check those out if you need some inspiration. I know for me, crafting these decorations has been wonderful art therapy in between my more taxing commissioned pieces, gifts, and pieces for upcoming shows. I know it can be difficult, but I hope you all take some time near the end of this year to reflect and unwind, and remember holidays are supposed to be fun – don’t pressure yourself too much or feel you have to stick to traditions that don’t work for you. Make these next couple months what you need them to be. ❤

sdas

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Techniques and Tutorials

Happy Inktober 2021!

One thing about me is, I always at least show up for Inktober even if I don’t necessarily do all that stellar. It’s very reminiscent of when they’d make us do the 1 mile run once a quarter in junior high school gym class – at least I did something, even if I walked the whole way ;D.

I did a bit more than once a week at 6 Inktober illustrations, all available as original ACEOS in my ebay shop. The whole point of Inktober is to get in the habit of daily art practice, and I can say in full confidence I am doing art every day even if it wasn’t all Inktober sketches ;). I think my favorite is the little clowngirl. Which is yours???

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Art Education, Techniques and Tutorials

Surprise Box Challenge! (Like “Chopped”, But For Art) Week 2

Those who have visited before may have noticed my affinity for art subscription boxes. Whenever I receive a new box, I always challenge myself to create a small piece of art using only the materials that came in my monthly box as a way to try new techniques and get to know the materials. I am also quite the fan of the cooking show “Chopped”, in which contestants are give a basket of mystery ingredients, some delicious and some just plain odd, from which they must make a cohesive dish. My “day job” is running a program for artists of all abilities, and this new Fall semester I decided to run a class based on this concept. Each week my group will get a surprise box filled with 3-4 different types of materials and be challenged to use only those to make a work of art. Everyone gets the same supplies each week, just different colors or designs. I will be sharing what people came up with, as well as some tips for those who want to try the materials featured at home.

Week 2 was all about collage, and using materials that may oftentimes be discarded. Students were given magazine pages, fabric scraps, a simple plastic beaded necklace, some acrylic paint to tie it all together, and an illustration board base. Collage is a fantastic method for telling a story with your art.

Some of my favorite collage artists are …

Julien Pacaud / Teesha Moore / Joshua Burbank / Rocio Montoya

Collage works well when, much like a narrative, there is a central “character” be it a person, plant, or animal. You also want to be sure to choose a color scheme, build in some “space” that is just color or all over pattern rather than more people or objects, layer and overlap cutouts in 3 planes to create a background, middle ground, and foreground (the very front), and include a variety of textures whether they are just visual or actually tactile such as by using some 3D/mixed media items like the beads.

Though many things today have become paperless, we all still have some old paper laying around our house be it magazines, ads, greeting cards … Put that paper to use and make some interesting art!

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Techniques and Tutorials

Happy (Late) Father’s Day Palette Knife Painting Demo

Sharing this nearly a week later, but my wonderful father at least received his palette knife bird painting on time ;)! I shared earlier how I’d been doing a lot of from-afar collaboration over the last year with my dad over quarantine through using his bird photographs as inspiration for illustrations and paintings. When looking through some of his more recent photos for inspiration for a painting to gift, this little guy stuck out to me. I loved the striking black and white pattern, which meshed perfectly with the already existing abstract background. (Seriously, if you want to paint more often prep a bunch of small canvases with random color blend backgrounds so they are already primed for when inspiration strikes!)

I hope you enjoy this peek into my process. I find birds to be one of the most accessible things to palette knife paint. If you visit my channel I have other videos with step-by-step verbal instruction accompanying the footage.

Flowers more your thing? Check out my Mother’s Day demo.

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Techniques and Tutorials

Palette Knife Tulips Demo (Dedicated to Mom!)

For Ashley

I’m going to start off by saying I used to be really bad at painting anything outside of my quite narrow areas of interest. I went through a phase where I was putting dragon wings on everything, for example, and only did fantasy or surrealism inspired art. I remember my roommate freshman year of college asking me to paint a picture of a teenage girl holding a cat surrounded by flowers after she found out I was an artist (She was the opposite of me, into all pastel cutesy stuff). Hence, this dead eyed girl and cat with guess what, dragon wings, was born. If I still had it, I’d consider submitting it to The Museum Of Bad Art.

Over the years and especially through teaching, I’ve learned to enjoy the process of creating itself and not just the end result, so that even if I’m making something that isn’t necessarily my go-to aesthetic, I can still harness the therapeutic benefits of creativity. This makes accepting commissions a lot easier, and creating art for loved ones that may not fancy surrealism and oddity as much as I do. I have literally never painted tulips in my life, but my mom loves them and while we were recently out walking remarked on the beauty of a particular variety planted at Dow Gardens. I hope you enjoy this visual walkthrough of the process!

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Techniques and Tutorials

10 Minute Winter Watercolors

Happy Winter! I know I am already getting sick of the cold, but there has been some beautiful snow and bright blue skies lately which have been nice to admire out my window 😉 … Winter can be one of the most attractive seasons if not always the most comfortable, and winter scenes are so fun to create with watercolors.

These quick tutorials are an easy way to take a bit of time out of your day no matter how busy you are to do something for yourself, relax, and get creative. They are also great practice at blending color and working with white space for beginners to the medium. If you have kids, these simple projects would be fun to do together. Grab a watercolor palette, 3 different sizes of round brushes, and let’s paint!

As always, if you run into any problems or have questions feel free to shoot me a comment or message. I’m always happy to help with troubleshooting! Have fun!

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New Work, Techniques and Tutorials

Happy 2021! Pantone COTY Inspo

Finding out Pantone’s Color Of The Year is always one of my favorite things about New Year’s Day (dork, I know). This year is a combination of 2 colors … Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. I’m not a big yellow person on its own, but love it paired with gray or black so I’m digging this theme (See my bathroom). To celebrate, I created a fun 9×12″ mixed media artwork using ink and water on watercolor paper, and some fabric scraps and old book pages for the background.

What’s interesting is I also started a new project late this year in collaboration with a supporter of the inclusive arts program I run, Express Yourself Artshop that ended up in this same color scheme. The project celebrates the independence and unique homes and lifestyles of adults with disabilities. My friend Ric LOVES yellow. More on this to come at a later date!

What do you think of this year’s colors? What kinds of videos would you like to see me share in 2021?

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