a little doodley-hoo

I doodled this cute little owl on a wooden egg that I picked up at Michael's.

I coated the egg with white gesso first and doodled the owl with Indian ink pens.

I used Faber Castell pens in black fine point tip and shades of brown with brush tips.



I envision a few more egg creatures hatching in the days to come.

a Carla Sonheim tutorial

This is my result from following Carla Sonheim's tutorial.   My lion measures about 6" x 8".   I had to make a few substitutions ... I used sketchbook paper instead of watercolor paper, and white acrylic paint & the back end of a paintbrush to make the dots, instead of using a paint pen ... but I am really happy with my results.

Here are my step-by-step photos:

I will be headed back to Carla's blog real soon to try out some of the assignments from her newly published book: Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists (which is on my wishlist).

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*update: I got my copy of Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists and started working on the assignments. I will be posting my progress through the book in my Journals & Sketchbooks blog.

a crazy busy Halloween art weekend!

I have spent this entire weekend making art. (Which is just the way I like to spend my weekends.)

I just finished making a postcard for a Halloween Postcard swap at ATCsforAll.com. The swap is open until October 10th (postcards may be any media: digital, collage, drawn, fabric, etc..).

This postcard features a mechanical element. The door opens and a witch with candy pops out. This 4" x 6" postcard was drawn with Indian ink and colored with markers and colored pencils. I added a little bit of glitz with gel pens and glitter glue.

Hmmm... maybe I will make more mechanical postcards.

The other Halloween project I worked on this weekend was chunky pages for another swap at ATCsforALL.com.


The main characters have a mechanical element: move the lever and the message changes from "Trick or Treat" to "Smell My Feet", and a foot pops out from under the costume.

Other elements include printed and handpainted papers, ribbons, fibers and shrink plastic charms. Larger photos can be seen at my hobby site: hobbyloco.com.

Halloween Inchies

These Halloween inchies are for a swap at ATCsforAll.com. I made the backgrounds in "Serendipity Square" style ... collaging handpainted papers and Halloween print scrapbook papers, adding some painting, doodling, stickers, etc.. and then chopping it into 1" x 1" squares. I then edged each square in black paint and added a little hand drawn skeleton as a focal point. I just love the way the Serendipity Square backgrounds set off the skeletons - and each one has its own personality.

Watercolor Pencils

I have had a set of watercolor pencils for awhile now and haven't used them too often, so I decided to play around a bit. This piece was drawn with a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen (black Indian ink) and colored with the pencils. I then blended the watercolor pencils with a paintbrush and water.

This is an ATC (Artist Trading Card) which I plan to keep in my own collection (at least for the time being).

Time to Doodle

Taking my mandatory stitching break, I spent some time this weekend drawing these ATCs for a "Day of the Dead" themed swap at ATCsforALL.

These cards were drawn with Faber Castell PITT Artist pens (black Indian ink), over water based marker on smooth bristol. The pattern doodling is somewhat meditative for me.

I started drawing patterns back around 2002, and have drawn over 100 pattern based ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and a number of larger pieces.