A Whole New Level and hopefully a whole new me!

Here are my completed week 2 assignments in the Art, Heart and Healing course I'm taking.  I really got a lot out of this healing exercise. The first page was to depict what we wish could have been for our young selves.  The second was to take a childhood trauma and turn it into what we wish it could have been. Growing up, my home life was absolutely wonderful with lots of love and feelings of safety and security. It wasnt until I went to school for the first time and experienced ridicule, humiliation and embarassment for the first time in my life that I realized the rest of the world was a scary place. That had a huge impact on me. I spent the rest of my growing up years keeping my mouth shut, doing everything I could to avoid drawing attention to myself, being too afraid to try anything or risk anything and living in constant fear of ridicule and humiliation. Even today I struggle with anxiety and leave the safety of my home as little as possible. It wasnt until this lesson that I really, truly connected the two. I knew I was a frightened little kid and a stressed out teenager and I could never connect that to my truly wonderful home life.
I'm really learning alot about myself through this course and my art is really being taken to a whole new level.  I'm creating things I never dreamed I could but always wanted to.  Its so thrilling and scary all at once.

New Directions

I'm really feeling compelled to step out in directions I've never gone before with my art and it feels really good.  I always said I could do just about anything but paint and yet here I am painting.  I've avoided drawing faces for so long and yet here I am...drawing faces...that I actually like! 

I took some of the things I've learned from the Art, Heart and Healing course and put them into some small 5 X 5 canvases that I found a while back.  I really love how they turned out.  I put them in a friend's booth at a craft sale today and actually sold a couple.  Always a good thing!  I'll try putting the rest on Etsy.com and see if I can sell anymore. 

I have some ideas for some more new things I want to try and test the waters with.  I hope to have some done in time for an Open House I want to have for the holidays.

Here are the canvases...

 

 
 

 
 

 

Journal Page

I've wanted to create an Art Journal for a long time.  I finally made myself one but had only completed one 2 page spread based on the art of one of my favorite artists.  The first project in the Art, Heart and Healing course went in there too.  Yesterday I was inspired to do another.  I love pumpkins.  The color, the shape, the promise of fall and all that it brings.  I was reminded just the other day of a wonderful analogy using the pumpkin.  It seemed the perfect time to combine them into another spread for my journal.

First Art, Heart and Healing Project

I spent the day completing the first project in the free Art, Heart and Healing Course.  The single most enjoyable project I have ever done!

This is the first lesson in a free art class I'm taking called Art, Heart and Healing.  The first part was to write down on the left side of the page all the negative things that the inner voice in my head tells me that keep me from feeling good about myself or my art.  Then I had to consider that the voice is simply bad at communication.  I then had to turn the negatives into the positive things that the voice is actually trying to say and then paint over all the negatives.

 

Then I had to come up with one positive statement to encompass it all. 

The lesson also included instruction in drawing, painting and shading a face and creating a layered background.  I'm so excited about it.  These are things I've been dying to learn and I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out.  I cant wait to do more and I cant wait for the next project lesson on Monday. 

I would highly recommend this course to anyone.  Its completely free and so much fun.  You can just click on the link at the bottom of this page, sign up and get started.

 

Altered Women: Paintovers Swap

Here are some cards I just finished for a swap hosted by the same person who taught the wonderful paintovers class. 

Here are a couple of Blind Draws that I did for a personal trade.  A Blind Draw requires that you actually close your eyes and draw a face.  Then you color it, give a it a background, name it, even give it a story.  Some of the ones I've seen in the swaps I've done have been hilarious.  People really get into these.

This is Timmy.  His mother was horrified when he got into his first fight.  Timmy, however, thought the black eye and the split lip made him look cool.

This is Frankie.  Picture Day at school was always a nightmare for poor little Frankie.

A Whole New Buddy!

I completed another assignment in this awesome paintover class.  Having so much fun with this technique!  Here is our beloved Buddy.  He sure looks good in green, dont ya think?

The Muse is back!!

Love when a creative slump finally ends and the muse comes back!  Feeling much better and now finally able to create some projects for an online art class I'm taking.  This one is called Artful Paintovers and teaches techniques for taking photos, pictures, even clip art and changing and painting over to make new and exciting images.

The first project I tackled was a vintage photo.  This is not one of my vintage family photos.  I simply couldnt paint over any of them.  This is a Xerox copy of one I found online.

The second one I tackled was a project in my art journal using vintage clipart.  I love this technique and cant wait to try some fun projects with family photos!

So glad I took this course and I cant wait to see all the ways I can find to use the techniques.

The free Art and Healing Class starts tomorrow so if anyone is interested, click on the link at the bottom of this page and sign up.  Sounds like it is going to be great!

I'd love feedback on my art work.  Let me know what you think, really!