WHEN SIMPLE IS GOOD

 I am always signing up for short courses online - could be printmaking, sketchbooking, just anything at all, some more involved.  Every one brings me something simple - and good.  Here is what I did in the latest Jessica Swift Art Oasis course offered recently (a one week only freebie with various teachers).  A lot of the things were very simple (too simple and perhaps too crafty?) but some were just enough to peak my interest so I did them.

The first two are just colored/painted/drawn plain papers glued onto another paper and added to (if needed) later with markers, colored crayons, etc.  This was so fun to just make patterns and then cut them up and use them in other ways.  Playing and creating.

The next ones were just painting a mandala/circle shape while holding a thought or emotion and seeing what colors represented that thought/emotion.  I put the words in last.  

And then making patterns in waterproof ink/marker inside circles (a small, a medium and a large), cutting out the circles and placing them on colored matboard to make something else.  I really like this (and added a watercolor painted one in the blue set).  This is a nice way to slow down, stop thinking, just make a repetitive pattern - and see what you have at the end.

GEL PRINTER’S SUMMIT 2025

 Gel Printer’s Summit for 2025 began last week and I only have had time for this one - made the prints and then glued some to the front of one of my sketchbooks.  I liked it before I went a little crazy with the Posca pen markers but not too bad.  Two weeks’ of lessons and I haven’t had time to do more than these two sketchbook decoarated fronts, but it’s okay.  I can save them and do them later…

No additions to this one except the crow stamp because the far left blue mark looked like a crow to me.

JUST ADDED SHADOWS

OCTOBER LEAVES

 Fall is the time to walk in the woods, gather leaves and sneeze (ragweed).

My models and a start on 140# cold press watercolor paper.

Just need to add the shadows to ground the leaves.

OCTOBER - FALL IS HERE

 

Just a little something in my square nature sketchbook.  I laid out some things I’d collected from the yard and took some photos, then painted them.