Altered Books

Today is my daughter's 10th birthday.  She is my only child who loves art as much as I do.  She drew this direwolf for me.  (My husband lavished me with gifts for mother's day this year.  One of the gifts was a Game of Thrones House Stark T-shirt which has a similar wolf on it, which she used for inspiration. )


During the past two weeks, I was asked to judge two art fairs.  I love seeing the projects that other art teachers develop.  The ironic thing is that I was asked to judge the show at my old school and I totally messed up and totally forgot.  I don't forget things like that.  Anyway, yesterday, the show at another school, was so extremely difficult to judge because all the entries were all so excellent.  This particular art instructor is a kindred spirit in that she loves trees like I do.  One of the projects ... for third grade, was inspired by tree circles.  Another multi-stepped project was a tree with metallic borders and watercolored backgrounds, they looked like they should be in a medieval manuscript.  If I get permission, I will post pictures of them here, or I may try to recreate them on my own.

On another ramble, I have been playing around with my altered book and art journal.  Here are some new pages....

 Rather random concoction of things French, and fairies, and calligraphy...

Names and Artistic doodling

For a while now, when a friend has a child, I have painted a piece for the baby's room.  My sister wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise, so I was working on a neutral sheep (her theme) painting for the nursery.  It was not working for me.  She had the baby and no spectacular painting.  So, this is what I came up with when I heard the baby's name.  Adeline is a family name from my dad's side and Frances is a family name from my sister's husband's family.  Now at least she has something pink. 

In other artistic pursuits, I have been mainly doodling.  There is a trend in art called Zentangles, it is basically structured doodling.  I have been looking at some online and it has been a lot of fun.  Zentangles are awesome because you do not need any artistic experience to learn, but as an art teacher, there is a lot of skill development.  Some of my art lessons have doodling included which are very similiar to the Zentangle approach.zentangle explanation 
What I have below are not really zentangles though, but my own take on artistic doodling.

Not a zentangle, but a watercolor poppy.  Poppies always remind me of the Wizard of Oz.

Above are a couple of my Zentangles.

A sketch of a rose from my Valentines bouquet. My husband, bought me the best bouquet this year, because it was a mix of red, pinks, and white.  I think the white ones were my favorites.  Red roses are so hackneyed.  And they are more difficult to sketch, since the values are so dark.