Inspiration - Bad Poetry - Artful Journeys - Week #33

Ok... Bad Poetry... Did you know National Bad Poetry Day is August 18th? Who knew it had its own day! I didn't! but it is awesome to have a day that makes me realize I'm not the only one that cant write like Shakespeare!

For the Artful Journeys prompt we put a twist on it and made it a 'Found' Poetry prompt as well! Basically cutting out words from magazines, books, flyers, newspapers etc. and seeing what we could come up with!

I had so much fun with this one! I sat on the couch just cutting words out of magazines, I thought I was done then realized I forgot to cut out my Fanboys! (Fanboy is an acronym for the basic conjunctions F=for A=and N=nor B=but O=or Y=yet S=so) So don't forget your Fanboys!

I also had a page in my junk journal that I had no idea how to use so I started gluing my words down, I didn't even add any other embellishment on the page, I just like how they look on top of the wheat.

It says:

I looked in the mirror
Dream
Serenity and a Dog,
Is Mystery
Intensifying
Into the Last Best Plunge with you?

Lets pretend it's deep and meaningful, shall we?










To go along with it I just used paint and colored pencil to make a girl with a dog on the other side of the page, covering as little of the background as possible.

Here is the full spread, it may not be my absolute favorite journal entry but it was a lot of fun! and I love that I don't have to stare at the wheat pages anymore!

And just for fun I made a second one for bad poetry day, This spread I made using napkins I received from a member of Artful Mail Groupies as a "just because" she is so sweet! (thank you P.J.!)













I started by separating the layers of the napkins ripping them apart and gluing them down along with some book pages using Liquitex Matte Medium.

I used gelatos and gesso to color the back ground and added splatters of black India Ink around just for some contrast.

The large yellow and red butterfly I stamped on the page using my StazOn ink pad.

I used acrylic paint, Neocolor II's to paint the face in the sunflower and the butterflies then used my Faber-Castell Pitt Pens add some dimension and lines.

At that point I felt that the butterflies were stealing the show from the flower so I watered down some gesso and did a thin coat over everything except the face of the sunflower to tone them down.

I then scanned the image into my computer and added the bad poem that I wrote!

I want to apologize for getting this post up so late! I had company this weekend, my puppy Tomah had his brother Slate over for a visit 

and they had fun!

And wore each other out!

Hard to believe they are from the same litter!

Big hugs and Mushy Stuff everyone!

be sure to go check over at Artful Chicks to see what the other ladies did and go on over to Artful Journeys on Facebook to share how you used the prompt!

- Shana aka wisccheeto

Inspiration - Effects on watercolor Salt and alcohol - Week #32 Artful Journeys

Oooo! I love it when I get to to do a 2 for 1! and this week I got to!

Those of you that follow my art page on Facebook (Shana Conroy) may have noticed that I have been doing quite a few cancer ribbons with wings lately, these have all been commissioned by my Aunties, like most of you reading this our family has had to deal with the scary reality of cancer and with the 3 Aunties we have had 3 different types, they want to have purses and bags made with awareness ribbons so I obliged! I made the custom art for them and uploaded it into my Society6 Store and into my Zazzle Store

The latest one I did I was also able to use the Artful Journeys prompt for this week, it is a red and white ribbon with dragonfly wings for basal and squamous cell carcinoma awareness for my Auntie Kathy.

The prompt for this week is to use salt and/or alcohol with watercolors, because I knew I would be using watercolors for this piece I was excited to use these effects, and because I wanted to try something new I used the effect on Yupo.

Yupo is a synthetic 100% recyclable paper that is tree free it is made from polypropylene pellets, the paper is non-absorbent so the effects with water color or even acrylic inks is awesome!

To get the background effect I painted my subject with a heavy hand in red then used a paper towel to pick up the excess around my image, I then used alcohol ink to paint the dark red areas and the effect on the watercolor was a cool marbling of color, to make it more so I added alcohol to it as well!

I then went over it again with the watercolor with a heavy hand and applied table salt while it was still wet and let it dry fully before removing the salt with a large soft bristle brush. using a soft brush to remove is important on Yupo, because the paint sits on the surface of the paper and is not absorbed it can be easily scratched.

this is how the piece looked after my 1st color and the addition of some white

I sent the above picture to my Auntie and we both agreed that even though it looked cool with the splatter and the salt effects it did kind of look like blood! So with her input we decided to add purple into the background to signify the awareness of all cancers and some black for contrast.

I applied the purple with a lot of water around the dragonfly then added drops of alcohol and red alcohol ink to it, I kept adding the purple then salting and adding alcohol until it no longer looked like a crime scene, I then added the black around the page using both watercolors and india ink, I used the alcohol in the black to give a neat effect then used a paper towel to pick up anything that looked to dark.

I finished the dragonfly wings and the ribbon with black, white and red India ink and a dip pen with a fine point nib.

Here are some close ups of the finished piece and the awesome effects that alcohol and table salt can make in a project.

I love how the finished piece came out and love that is was made for someone I love!

If you would like to see some of the products available with these images just click them and you will be brought to my Society6 store

Finished Red and white Ribbon for basal and squamous cell carcinoma awareness for my Auntie Kathy

Periwinkle Ribbon for Esophageal Cancer for my Auntie Deb created using prismacolor pencils

Black Ribbon for Melanoma Cancer for my Auntie Gwen created using prismacolor pencils

Purple Ribbon for all CancersCreated using acrylic inks on Yupo

I hope you enjoyed my process! big hugs and mushy stuff! XOXOXO

Go on over to Artful Journeys of Facebook to show us how you used this prompt and to see what the others in the team did go over to the Artful Chicks!

Inspiration - Go Organic - Week #31 Artful Journey

I have a knack for finding 4 leaf clovers, the family on my Dads' side say that I get it from my Granny, she would find them all the time and had them stashed in most of her books. I find 4-clover all the time too, but usually when I am not looking for them, I actually found these in my Dads' yard when I was looking out the truck window as we were leaving to go fishing one morning! With the day of fishing we had I should have picked them before we left!



Living in Arizona in the summer I don't come across patches of clover. So I took mental note of where they were in the yard and picked them when we got home after a successful day of casting practice.

After I picked these two I actually found two more not far away and I put them in my art journal for safe keeping until I found a use for them. I thought this prompt was going to be where I actually got to use a few!

 But nope... I ended up having so much fun using basically every medium and fixing my klutzy mistake that the clovers just did not look right when I tried to find a way to place them! So they ended up being the inspiration instead of the focal point.

For this prompt I used my large Dylusions Journal, I coated the page in gesso then used watercolor to paint the clovers and stems. I ended up deciding they were not bold enough so I added some acrylic paint and Prismacolor pencils.

I then added Golden Gel medium over the clover leaves and flowers to give them a little more texture and make them stand out from the stems a bit. 

I didn't like the background it was just BLAH! So I grabbed a stencil and sprayed Dylusions After Midnight Ink spray through it. I let it sit for a it then used a damp paper towel to smudge it around a bit to add more fun and color and pattern to the background.                                                                                                                        

My Plan was to let it dry then use more gel medium as glue to put my 4 leaf clovers into the page, but, that didn't happen, because I am a klutz! While the gel medium and ink spray were drying I was working on a different piece and I accidentally dropped my bottle of black paint, I didn't realize it but some of it spattered on my page and by the time I noticed it was to dry to remove.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

I didn't want to lose all the work I had already done, a couple expletives did escape my lips, so I figured the worste that could happen is I would have to start over and I grabbed my black Sharpie paint pen and started doodling making the black splatter work for me and the black tangled line background just happened! I love how it makes the clovers pop and gives an almost art deco feel to the page! I love when mistakes go good!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my process and I apologize for not getting more images while I was working! Go check out the other ladies and how they interpreted this weeks prompt over in the Artful Chicks Blog  and go over and join our Facebook Page Artful Journeys to show us what you made using this prompt and what others are doing too!

Big Hugs and Mushy stuff!

Inspiration - Background - Paint with 3 favorite colors and stamp through a stencil Week # 30

Oh Whoa is me! I have been gone for a bit! I went home to my home state of Wisconsin to visit family and attend 2 family reunions! Sometimes I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation! Haha!

I interpreted this weeks prompt as some grease for my creative gears in 2 ways: I normally do not use my 3 favorite colors together and I usually start with my main subject when i do a journal spread, my journal is full of unfinished backgrounds!

For my background I applied my 3 favorite colors, a rich chocolate brown, orange and turquoise, with a 1" brush randomly across my journal spread. I then used my extra large paisley stencil (which is actually made for walls) and stamped my wood grain unmounted rubber stamp with Colorbox frost white through it. To add a bit more texture I then sprayed water on my stamp and cleaned the excess ink off on my pages, as you can see there was some leftover brown on the stamp too!

When I saw this background it made me think of a magical deep forest, the type of place that fairies live so I decided that is who needed to live there a little woods fairy sitting on a toadstool.

To challenge myself even more I decided to use only the colors from my background, the orange, turquoise, brown and white.

I created my little fairy using acrylic paints and prismacolor pencils. I watered down my white paint to get a sheer look to the wings so they look kind of transparent, I used the turquoise and brown as my shadow colors and the orange and white as my highlights, I imagined the light source as sunset through the trees.

I was going to add more detail, trees and maybe a stream for the forest but decided to leave the background as abstract scenery, keeping the right side of my spread simple I just added the quote "Those that don't believe in magic will never find it" by Roald Dahl with a white sharpie paint pen.

I hope you enjoyed my journal entry for week #30 for the Artful Chicks and Artful Journeys

Just because I love to share my home state of Wisconsin with people I will leave you with a little bit of the beauty of my state.

The beautiful Mississippi River in LaCrosse, Wisconsin

Lost Falls, Outside of Black River Falls, Wisconsin

 Wegner Grotto, Cataract, Wisconsin

Favorite Fishing hole, Tomah, Wisconsin

I hope you enjoyed my journal process as well as some of the awesome stuff from my home state!

Big Hugs and Mushy stuff!

- Shana aka wisccheeto

Inspiration ~ Shaving Cream Background - My Artful Journeys Week #25

Oh Hello my Lovelies!!

I won't lie, I was excited about this weeks Artful Journeys prompt because I already had it done! I had done a video on YouTube about this process using alcohol inks over a year ago so all my hard work was done! No video editing this week for me!

Here is that video, it is such a fun process! 

I made theses papers to be used with cards, they make great accent pieces and are great for contrast when layering papers, sadly I don't have any cars left to share with you, but I did find 1 piece that I hadn't cut up yet so I decided to paint on it, when I looked at the paper I saw the collar right away and decided there needed to be a neck and head to go with it! Right now she resides in a pocket in my art journal, I don't know how I will use her yet but I love how the background turned into a funky outfit for her!

Big hugs and mushy stuff!! Have fun! 

- Shana

Come join the fun over at Artful Journeys on Facebook and show us what you created!

Inspiration ~ Sail Away - My Artful Journeys Week #24

This weeks Inspiration from Artful Journeys is 'Sail Away' I usually try to think outside the box for these prompts but this one I went literal with the subject and actually painted a sail boat, how I made it a bit different is the medium and the substrate I used.

I fell in love with alcohol inks on tile quite by accident, we were getting our bathroom remodeled and there were all of these perfectly clean face white tiles that I couldn't let go in the trash, so I started searching for different mediums that could be used on tile and found that alcohol ink is very easy to make beautiful, I have done quite a few tiles with alcohol inks, and have prints and products available of them for sale in my Society6 store, and I also already have 1 video released of an owl on my YouTube page.

I totally enjoyed the process of making this tile, The background was as simple as color blocking then blending with the alcohol. I wanted it to be sailing into the light and I think I captured it pretty well. The part I enjoy the most is how the rubbing alcohol does most of the work for you as far as creating the highlights and shadows and all the yummy texture that makes this piece!

It just happened that the colors I wanted to use I actually have in the Copics brand marker, but Spectrum Niors or any other alcohol based ink markers work just as well, you can also use blending solution instead of the alcohol for a similar effect (I'm told I have never used it).

I hope you enjoy the video!

Inspiration ~ Music Lyrics - My Artful Journeys Week #23 Journal Entry

Oh! My Lovelies! I am loving the Artful Journeys prompts! They make me think outside the box and make artwork in my Journal that I never would have made! I love the diversity that these prompts give my journal when I page through! This prompt is no different,

The prompt this week is Song Lyrics, I don't think I have share before my love of the band 'Heart', I love them! I start most of my days by putting in one of their Cd's into my player ad I drink coffee and figure out what I am going to work on, I was trying to figure out what song to choose for this prompt actually using google and pinterest with the keywords "Song Lyric Art" trying to get inspired, when the song "These Dreams" played on my player, the words to this song are like poetry and have always sparked my visual imagination, at first I thought it would take to long to get it perfect and detailed, then I decided it's my journal, it doesn't have to be perfect!

I listened to the song while I sketched the image with an 8B pencil, in hind sight I wish I would have left it a pencil drawing the hand is quite wonky (but its a journal!), then covered the pencil drawing with gesso.

I love that with this prompt it took me out of my comfort zone (some of them self imposed) in multiple areas.

Firstly I have an almost compulsive habit of blending everything smooth, so I challenged myself, I handled the brush loosely and  I tried to maintain a 12 inch distance between my eyes and the page at all times. Because I didn't let myself worry about perfection and exact details this page only took me less than an hour total to do and I still like it (except for the wonky hand!)

The second is, I am not good at collage so I tend to avoid it, and this is a collage piece of sorts and I felt the challenge of creating a smooth flow from image to image, I feel that I have done better on this page than I have in the past when trying to do this type of piece.

The third I used a acrylics which is my favorite medium, but I didn't use it as I normally would, I watered my paints down to the consistency of ink and painted in thin layers which you can really see in the face in the stain glass and the figures in the trees. I think doing this also gave it more of a surreal feel.

I hope you check out the Artful Chicks blog a and see what the other ladies have created this week!

If you would like to see what others have created and post your own creations to share checkout The Artful Journeys Facebook Page.


Big hugs and Mushy Stuff!! I am being attacked by cuteness!