I’m not much of a doodler, but when I am stressed, I find myself turning to Zentangles. It’s just so calming to put on some music and focus on creating intricate patterns.
Tag Archives: Art Journaling
On my art table: 2-minute art journal page
You’re busy, you have NO time, and you have NO space. You have NO art skills and NO supplies.
{Don’t you think there are too many NOs here?}
Anyhow…. I am here you to tell you that YOU CAN STILL CREATE ART!
I painted this piece in a tiny 3.5×5″art journal using only watercolor pencils and some white paint and yellow acrylic ink in the last step to bring it all together. And I love how lose and abstract it looks.
I created it as part of a 7-day speed art Instagram challenge hosted by Eli Trier. Her original idea was to have challenge participants do each prompt on a different sheet of paper, as an exercise in learning how to loosen up and get over the fear of a blank page. I decided to combine all the daily prompts on one page {without even knowing what each day’s prompt would be}, and it turned into the perfect summer art project {you can see it evolve, step-by-step, below}.Continue reading
Whimsical art: Let your imagination run riot
Rainbow colored animals, bright happy colors, make believe world, fairies and mermaids, gnomes and elves, monsters and angels – that in a nutshell is whimsical art. Most whimsical artists produce light, airy, happy pieces of art that are meant to fill the viewer up with joy.
But it isn’t all glitter and fairy dust in whimsical land. There are also dark, brooding monsters and sinister characters – like the Corpse Bride and Tim Burton’s more gothic whimsical style.
Whimsical artists play firmly in the field of imagination – flowers with a human face, unicorns, phoenix girls, centaurs – it’s all about the quirky. Continue reading
Release your fear: create art with wild abandon
Fear of paint, of art, of creativity is something I’ve come across over and over again. People constantly say they can’t paint, or they can’t draw. But I say that everyone can paint. Yes, everyone.
Think back to your childhood – chances are that painting and drawing were your favorite pastimes. But as you grew older, you suddenly started thinking that you cannot paint.
Why?Continue reading
Harness the power of water: 5 fun painting techniques
Over the last few days, we’ve talked about brushes and collage, creating abstract art and examining art deco patterns to gain some inspiration for our art journal pages. Today, let’s look at some fun ways to add paint to paper.
5 fun painting techniques
Drips: This is one of my favorite things to do. Use some watered down acrylics or acrylic ink, stand the journal upright, and watch the paint drip down the page. Take a look at the super short video below to see this technique in action.Continue reading
#PocketFullOfArt: A daily art challenge with a twist
Challenges seem to have become a thing around here – after the Mindful Break and Kindle Thy Spark, this is my most ambitious yet – a daily art challenge! But first:
Why a daily art challenge?
Because my one small regret from last year is that I did not make enough time for art, especially in the second half of the year. Moving to a self-hosted blog and all the tiny little tweaks I had to make to it ate up a lot of my time and attention. Setting up an online Tarot reading business took up another chunk of energy. And then there was all the time I spent dreaming about blogging and fun new ideas – like the two Instagram challenges mentioned above. No wonder that my art table felt a bit neglected! Continue reading
On my art table: Soulful surrender
There’s a current of magic that flows through our life.
I’m not talking about the Harry Potter kind of magic. I’m talking about the magic that shows up in our life – through synchronicity. Which is simply being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people at the right time, hearing a message or a piece of music at the right time.
It’s not necessarily earth shattering magic.
Beat stress with art: intuitive painting
When I wrote about adult coloring books last month, it generated a lot of interesting comments and discussions. Chief among them was the argument that coloring is a fun, easy and quick way to beat the stress.
My argument is that the best way to beat the stress is with art.
Well, what if I told you that over a period of about a month, maybe even less, you could have a painted canvas ready to hang on your wall? You need no prior art background, you don’t really need to know how to draw, and all it will take is 5-10 minutes a day. The set-up and clean up is also super easy and very quick.
Painting this canvas will also help you to be mindful, it will help you to beat the stress while creating a piece of original art, and maybe even help you to experience a bit of art therapy.
Sounds interesting?Continue reading
The Red Thread
There’s something magical that I’ve been noticing in my life recently. It his to do with art. With learning, teaching, and living an artistic life.
When I started down this path, I was quite a babe in the woods – clueless about where I was going, what I was doing, and why I was doing it. All I recognized was a calling… a yearning to create – to pick paints and paper, glue and pictures, with no idea of what to do with them, how to mold them into something that was pleasing to the eye.
I stumbled upon a few teachers – wonderful people who shared their art, tips, and techniques online for free on YouTube. I picked up a few tips here, an idea for a technique there. But very often, these free videos were disappointing. They were either timelapsed and so fast that I had no idea what or how the person was doing what they were doing. Often, they were product demonstrations – and said products were not necessarily available in India. But I persevered.Continue reading