Friday-8:15am

Caroline was here before the rain.  The porch was vacuumed, chairs and tables moved, dead bodies searched out and sucked up.  :)

But we had thunderstorms and it was sopping wet out there all day yesterday--and the carpeting is still wet this morning.  

And this very morning...two moths!!  One in the porch and one in the house (because I have had the doors propped open since Caroline left, of course).  Those moths could have been hiding anywhere out there.  I don't see how any actual new ones could have gotten in?  I hope that is the last of them.  When the carpet dries out I can scrub down the metal chair and the two tables and we can enjoy the porch again!  :)

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The APR (Artist's Play Room) challenge for this week was drawing or sketching.  I did a Karma sketch from an old picture of her sitting on the back of a chair.

This is why I don't like Moleskines.  I wanted to like them, but see the bleed-through from the other side of the page?  I drew the Fargo Theater on the other side (landmark of your city EDM challenge).

I was using this Moleskine for the EDM (Everyday Matters) challenges.  It also bled through the page when I tried to use watercolors on it.  It's like trying to draw on a manila envelope.  Dry mediums with a light to medium touch only, I guess.  This was the main reason I quit doing the EDM challenges.  Sad, but true.  

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I had also purchased a Moleskine watercolor journal.  Well, it was better, but I wasn't impressed with the paper in that, either.  It buckled easily and will bleed through so that you couldn't necessarily paint on both sides.  And it has perforated pages? 

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I had heard about the Moleskines and had wanted to have one for so long.  Maybe they are good for writing in, but I was not impressed with them for drawing and painting.  I am probably too heavy handed for them.  I wondered if their writing journals can handle fountain pens, but I didn't like them enough to try buying another one.

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Anyways, I managed to finish the APR challenge this week!  :):)

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So next I decided to try the blobs of acrylic paint and the credit card.  I dripped on some blue, green, and yellow and scraped away.  I discovered that I didn't need that much paint, acrylics dry rapidly, and the dark colors really, really dominated.  

So I added more yellow and this is what I got.  Additional layers sit on top and you have to move fast. 

 I know something about watercolors and how they react and dry, but I'm such an acrylic novice that I was giggling as I was working.  Shocked at how little time I had to react and how much it felt like I had entered into a foreign land--LOL!

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The sky cleared yesterday.  It looks pretty much like this right now and going to be in the 80s again today, too.  

Thunderstorms predicted for tonight again, but that's not so bad when you have pretty days like this.  :)  Even if it does get into the mid-80s with 94% humidity.  *sigh* 

Okay--I went back to the page spread.  Decided to play with some stencils.  I've never used acrylic paint on a stencil.  Figured I would water it down a little.  LOL!  But that didn't work well at all.  You can't even tell those are squares on the top left side.  

So I added more white acrylic paint and redid them. 

I already cleaned it, of course--well, you know how OCD I am and acrylics dry so fast, right?  Anyways, I used this handy little dish Leah made me in her pottery class and a make-up sponge. 

I managed to get the white stenciling done.

Next I got out the mixed media pen and marker supplies box.  This plastic tray fit perfectly inside one of my new pretty boxes. 

When I lift it out, the paint markers and foil pens are underneath. 

I used my parallel pen with the black ink and got this far on outlining the squares.  Two sides and that was it for me--but at least I got started! 

Acrylics seem so messy to me.  I would run to the sink to clean off the stencil and my hands after each one.  Will take some getting used to.  At least the pens and markers won't mess up my hands so much.

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See?  According to popular opinion, if you aren't messy you aren't a "real" artist.  If that is the case, I never have to worry about being a real artist, I guess.  LOL!  ;)

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Unless this course changes me over the next six months??

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Hey, if I can even not immediately go wash a stencil--that would be a huge change for me.  Or--OMG!--leave paint on my hands and keep going--ROFL!!  

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Loose woman...loose woman...I'm trying to learn to become a loose woman...  ;)

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See you soon!
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"Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains."

Paulo Coelho