BOOKMARKS! ~ Artists Play Room challenge

Jennifer McLean of Just Add Water Silly, and hostess of the Artists Play Room, gave us the topic.. "Bookmarks" for this week's challenge.

Now I have bookmarks that i painted in watercolors in my shop, but I wanted do try creating them in mixed media collage. Besides, for Mothers day, my daughter gave me a Dick Blick gift card and took me to their shop in Chicago. What i time i had selecting all sorts of gorgeous papers, it felt like heaven!! 

So by doing my bookmarks in collage, i would be able to play with & to experiment with the papers!

P.S. Postcard Swap!

The Inspiration Avenue's "P.S."  postcard swap is in full swing! Postcards are being mailed and postcards are being received, and good things are arriving daily!

Here are the postcards that i have mailed out. Three are going to IA sisters. These three cards all have something in common, they have a chickadee bird. What makes that special is that my sister-in-law gave me a very special birthday gift which was wrapped in gorgeous bird tissue paper. I love that paper & have saved it to use on special projects.  I thought this paper would be perfect for my IA Sisters postcards!

The other two postcards are on their way to South Africa and England.

So far I have received three and when all five arrive I'll share them with you right here! :)

Darkness & Light ~ Artists Play Room Challenge

Jennifer McLean's challenge for this week's Artists Play Room is Darkness and Light.  I've been thinking about this all week and decided to do a landscape. The  challenge for me was having a strong sense of the darkness and light  (my weakest area) yet i didn't want it to be too harsh.

So I did an ink & pen landscape, then added washes of color. I really liked it but for this challenge i wanted to see what would happened when i enhanced it digitally.

 4x6 inches, Fabriano 140 lb Hot Pressed

Thanks so much for another terrific APR challenge Jenn! I loved doing it :D

Days of the Week - I A Challenge

Kim of IMGIRL, is hosting her first Inspiration Avenue Challenge, her theme, "Days of the Week" as according to the nursery rhyme.   We were challenged to create a piece of art that fits the description for the day we were born. Kim even included a link so we could determine that. :)

 Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

 It turned out I was born on a Wednesday.... "full of woe".

I tend to create more uplifting or even whimsical art & landscapes and rarely create anything somber, so this was a bit of stretch!  What kept going though through my head was the classic Spiritual... "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows but Jesus. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen; Glory Hallelujah."

I painted this with burnt umber ink and and a bit of Mayan Blue watercolor, on 5x7 Fabriano Hot Pressed paper.

 For this version I played around and digitally enhanced the color a bit .

It still isn't too late to submit your entry for the Inspiration Avenue's challenge, you have till Sunday noon!
Thanks so much Kim for this interesting & terrific challenge! I really enjoyed this!... oh maybe i shouldn't say that since i'm a woeful Wednesday child... revise that... it was a miserable experience! LOL  ;D