Heyyyyy, guys, and welcome back to Art Lab! Today I’m going to show you three super simple and fun techniques for creating art with watercolors. These ideas are great for art-starters, warm-ups, or even as finished pieces. I used ATCs for my canvas, but you can use whatever paper you like (though watercolor paper works the best, if you have it). Also note that you can use watered-down acrylic paint instead of watercolors if you need too.
Alright, let’s do the easiest (and perhaps most fun) first. 🙂
Technique #1: Magic Islands
I discovered this one by accident and I just LOVE doing it!
1. Lay down some plastic wrap and drop some water in one corner. Dip your wet paintbrush in watercolor and mix it into the water.
2. Load up your brush with the diluted paint and splatter it onto the plastic wrap.
3. Lay a paper of some sort on top and smooth it out, then pick it up (obviously 😛 ).
4. Wait for the paint to dry, then trace around the splotches with pen.
5. And you’re done!
I think this technique looks like islands, don’t you? This would be a fun way to make a map:
Technique #2: Bubble Maze
This technique produces a fun and striking result. The translucence of the watercolor lets you see the colors overlap which makes a really neat effect.
1. Start by painting some dots. Overlap them and attach them to other circles so that the colors bleed into each other.
2. Continue adding dots of different colors until the page is mostly filled.
3. Fill in the white areas with black Sharpie or pen. And you’re done!
Technique #3: Splatter Trees
This is a great way to give the impression of leaves without drawing ever single leaf.
1. Splatter different complementary colors (I used fall colors, but you can use whatever you wish) onto your paper. Try to keep it roughly in a tree shape, but don’t worry if the splatters get a little out of control.
2. After the foliage is dry, use a slightly damp brush and brown paint to add in some branches and a trunk. Don’t draw all the branches the tree has, just a few poking out for effect. 😉
3. Add some grass and a few dots of fall color if you’re doing an autumn tree. And you’re done!
And there you go! Three fun and simple ways to make some watercolor art.
Which technique was your favorite? If you make art inspired by this post, we’d love to see it! Click here to learn how to help us fill our art gallery!
***Allison***
P. S. Hannah and Buttercup have joined the Art Lab team! Thank you so much, girls. ♥ Check out their first posts on the Art Lab blog and drop them a comment! 😀
Megan and I recently changed our bedroom a bit, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do a room update. (You can see my first new room redecorating post here, and second here.) I also wanted to mention a few tips and tricks for making your bedroom fresh and bright and pretty – not that I’m an professional interior designer or anything. XD
Ahem. Let us begin the tour. Won’t you step inside?
Welcome to our room. Please pardon Jinx, our cat. He looks like a black boulder. O.o
Right next to the door we have Megan’s bulletin board filled with random stuff, but mostly pictures and NeedtoBreathe lyrics. XD
(Ugh, sorry for the AWFUL picture quality! This corner doesn’t get much light.) Our small but tiny bookshelf holds on top of it a framed graphic print (made by Megan) and a spiky plant that resembles green onions but is nonetheless cute. The middle shelf is currently missing the KOTLC series because our cousin is borrowing it. 😉
The mantel doesn’t look much different than it has in previous bedroom posts, so…
And now we’re at the dresser. More on that later.
Okay, now for the light garland! I love the string of lights above our bed. ♥ (They’re from Hobby Lobby, by the way.) They aren’t fairy lights, but I think they’re just as pretty. It makes the room so cozy and, well, aesthetic. 😛 Oh, and that’s Megan, listening to Christmas music BEFORE IT’S EVEN THANKSGIVING. *sigh*
Interesting story: Shutterfly had a “101 free 4″X4″ prints” deal (you had to pay for shipping, though), so Megan and I ordered it! :O Megan wanted to hang some of the pictures in between our lights, and while I was a bit skeptical at first, I think it looks lovely now! All of the photos up here are of our bunnies, except one of Megan and one of me. 😉
This is my bed, starring Jinx (again), an elephant I made in sewing class, and a canvas I painted when we first redecorated.
Also starring… a quilt made in sewing class and Megan looking at the iPad.
I wanted to make a picture mosaic with some of the other 101 photos, and I’m rather pleased with how this turned out too! I chose only the cool-colored pictures from our selection so it wouldn’t be too overwhelming.
While we’re here, this is our beloved fuzzy cube. Pretty much the only change in this corner is the (also fuzzy) needle-felted fox I made. He may feature in a later post. 😉
Now for our plants. One day we had a friend over and since we were bored, we decided to name all of our plants. Heh.
First up we have Rapunzel, who is rather hard to get a picture of, but her hair reaches all the way to the floor. Impressive, no? (Also, yes, those are random clay things in the pot.)
On the dresser we have Finley…
And Einstein, a new addition. Don’t you think the name fits perfectly?
Here’s Einstein’s brother, Sylvester.
This is Droopy.
This is not a plant. This is me. Hiiiii! 😀
And then we have our plant rehabilitation center (aka, the spot in front of the window). In the foreground we have Cottontail (it’s a Rabbit’s Foot fern), and then in the background we have Puff the Magic Fern on the left and Miss Crispy on the right. *sigh* I do hope they recover.
And… that’s about it for the room tour! Before we leave, here are my three simple but helpful tips for a fresh, clean look. I hope they help!
My tip-top top tip is to declutter your room. This is seriously the best thing you can do. Go through your stuff – the little knickknacks lying on your dresser, papers poking out from your bed, clothes piled on the floor – and either give away the extra, throw it away, or put it into a nice container, box, or basket so it doesn’t sprawl all over the place. Don’t like cleaning your room? Trust me, this will help. If you don’t have as many things to get out, you won’t have as much to put away!
Okay, that probably wasn’t a very popular tip, huh? XD But you try it and tell me if I’m wrong! Anyway, my next tip is to choose a limited color palette. Our colors are mint green, white, and purple, but mainly mint green (obviously). Keeping your decorations to two or three different colors really helps your room look more fresh, clean, and pretty, especially if you choose light colors.
Which reminds me. Choose a light color scheme. Now, this isn’t necessary of course, but light, bright colors like white, mint, light blue or pink, etc. make your room seem fresher, bigger, and even cleaner! This is important for the wall color, especially. But if you can’t change your wall color, don’t worry, the first two tips will still help a ton, and you can make your decorations are light. 😉
Well, that’s all I have for today! I hope you enjoyed the room tour. 🙂 What was your favorite part of our room? If you’d like to see more details on the parts I didn’t cover, make sure to check out my other room posts (linked at the top of this post).
Hey there, my dears! I’m back with another Cameras and Pens Contest challenge! Part of these characters and storyline ideas are from a story I’ve been rolling around in my head for a couple of years. Who knows, maybe I’ll write it sometime. Until then, I hope you enjoy this short story and accompanying illustrations! 🙂
Prompts Used: 3
Art Submitted: 6
Photos Submitted: 3
Total Points: 22
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~ e x p e d i t i o n ~
Aeryn slung her backpack over her shoulder, swept up her long, mocha-brown hair into a loose bun, and headed over to her sister’s house. Her leather moccasins padded silently over the springy path of moss and lush undergrowth that grew up so fast in the island’s rainforest climate. She grabbed a handful of pink berries in passing and chewed them contentedly, humming to herself and wondering if they would find anything interesting on their expedition today. They nearly always found something good after a storm.
She felt the familiar thrill as she raced across the plank-and-vine bridge they had built years ago, smiling as the floor bounced and swayed under her feet and the rough vines slid quickly past her fingers. Had it really been four years since they had built it together?
Prompt picture. Not mine. (Although I wish it was. XD)
Aeryn wondered for the millionth time how many years before that they had lived on this island, or if they had lived her all their lives. She wondered if the world was just water past this island or if there were more islands somewhere else. The current was too vicious and protective to let them get anywhere out of sight of the shoreline even if they’d wanted to leave.
She sighed as she walked straight up to her sister’s wooden door instead of climbing a rope ladder like there was at her own house. That was one of the reasons she and her sister had decided to live separately: Aeryn loved heights and Tasha despised them. She was about to push open the door when she noticed the yellow pumpkin staring innocently up at her from the step.
“Hey, Tash,” Aeryn said as she stepped inside the airy room. The sunlight filtering through the palm-leaf roof danced across her sister hair – hair the exact same shade as hers.
Tasha looked up from the bag she was filling for the expedition. “Yeah?”
“Why is your pumpkin still here?”
“What are you talking about? I threw it out a long time ago.”
Aeryn shook her head. “Then how come it’s sitting on your step again? And hold on, was the scarecrow like that yesterday?”
Tasha heaved the sack onto her shoulder and peered out the open window. She looked surprised to see the pumpkin sitting there and the scarecrow lying forlornly in the dirt nearby. She shrugged. “Huh. Maybe Terence was in a bad mood or something.”
Aeryn followed her sister out of the house, frowning. “I… don’t think so. How could a toucan knock over that heavy scarecrow? It was probably the wind from the storm last night.They argued about it as they hiked down the hill, under towering trees dripping with moss and vines and ferns, past roaring waterfalls that sprinkled their faces, over twinkling creeks, and around huge green-haired boulders.
This picture and the one above are from this post.
When they reached the shore they still hadn’t arrived at a conclusion, but suddenly the argument died on their lips.
“What,” Tasha whispered, “is that?”
Something black and shiny and covered with seaweed sprawled in a heap at the edge of the ocean. Tasha hung back, but Aeryn crept closer and narrowed her eyes, inspecting the thing closely. She chewed her lip and scrunched her nose in concentration. They had never seen anything like this on their expeditions. She flicked off a piece of seaweed and then screeched, scrambling back in terror as the black thing made a shuddering movement.
“Tasha, it’s… alive.”
Tasha’s eyes widened as wide as they could go, which was considerably wide seeing as her eyes were quite large to begin with. “Is it a beached whale?” she asked in a hushed voice.
In answer, the black heap began to move again, slowly and with what looked like great effort. As it unfolded itself, the two sisters could make out a head and a body, arms and legs, and rumpled gray clothes.
And a face. A face like theirs and yet completely different. While the girls both had light brown hair and lightly tanned skin and light periwinkle eyes, everything about the stranger was dark: curly black hair and glistening black-brown skin and black-brown eyes to match.The stranger just stared dazedly at them for a while as if trying to sort something out in his head, and then spoke in a soft but oddly deep voice. A voice like the rich bitter-sweetness of cacao beans, Tasha thought. “I’m not a whale. I’m a boy; Terence.”
The girls blinked and backed away. This was getting way too strange. For one thing, what on earth was a boy? And for another thing, Terence was their pet toucan, not this… whatever it was… this chocolate person.
Terence laughed a raspy but booming laugh, and the girls jumped. “I guess you never heard of boys, huh? Because you… wow you girls must be The Twins.” He stopped and looked awestruck for a moment. “Thirteen years. Thirteen years on this island, all by yourself. And – just look at you! As like as two peas in a pod.” He shook his head in amazement. “I can’t believe it, I sure can’t believe it.”
A hundred thoughts were screaming to be picked up in the girls’ minds. What are twins? We’ve really been here thirteen years? I didn’t even know anyone knew about us. I didn’t even know there was anyone else. Is this Tarence person safe? But finally Aeryn chased down one of the questions, grabbed it by the tail, and forced it out her mouth. “Are you… one of us?”
He smiled, flashing the big, bright white teeth set into his dark face. “Sure am.” He saw them looking him up and down and cleared his throat. “Well, I mean I’m not exactly like you – you’re girls and I’m a boy, you know. See… it’s like with animals. Two different kinds of the same animals, two different kinds of same humans – boys and girls. See?”
When they still looked skeptical, he added, “Well that and my skin is a different color, but that don’t make any difference. Lots of folks are all different colors, but we’re still people, see? We might look a little different on the outside, but our insides be the same colors. Not that I ever checked for certain, you understand.” He flashed another grin and they tried to return it but failed miserably.
Two brilliant butterflies chased each other past his face and his eyebrows jumped. “Oh hey, I know. Okay, so some butterflies gonna be yellow, some gonna be red, others gonna be black, see? But they’re all butterflies just the same, and they’re all downright pretty no matter the color. Make sense? Now, course we’re different from those butterflies, you know, ’cause they don’t even know they’re different colors atall, they don’t even know what colors are, now do they?” He looked at them kindly and they nodded, relaxing at last, understanding at last. “You got me. I knew you would. You’re not scared of me now, huh?”
They smiled a little and shook their heads. Tasha stepped forward just a bit and said shyly, “I’m not scared. I think you’re beautiful. I wish I could have chocolate skin.”
Terence chuckled gratefully. “Naw, you’re skin is good the way it is. I think you’re beautiful too – both of you.” He smiled easily at them, then shook his head in amazement again. “I can’t believe I just been talking to the famous Twins! We all thought you was dead! Aw shucks, I thought I was gonna be dead when that storm come up. That ocean don’t seem to want people to find you, huh? I guess it’s pretty good at keeping secrets. But I’m done with secrets. I’ve had too many for my liking already, so I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you want to hear it. And say, you girls better tell me how you managed to survive all the way out here! But first…” Terence broke off and looked down at himself guiltily. “Do y’all have a place where I could refresh myself? And maybe… get a drink or a bite to eat?”
His eyes gleamed longingly as he spoke the last words and Tasha, the motherly one, could see that he was quite in need of nourishment. Aeryn at last had warmed up to his easy manner and was willing to help him, on the condition he would talk while they walked.
That wasn’t a hard condition for Terence, who routinely also talked while he slept. And so as they walked slowly back to Aeryn’s house, he gradually pulled their past out of the mist. And the twins, listening with wide eyes, almost wished it had stayed there.
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That was rather fun to write. 😀 Did you enjoy this story? What was your favorite piece of art or photo?
Also I know I just posted CPC challenge not too long ago and now here’s another one, so I may or may not just post the next challenge on my CWWC page. (Hmm, perhaps I need to change that title. XD) If you’re interested, I also have the two other challenges I did not post so far on that page as well.
Have a lovely day, lovely people! ♥
***Allison***
P. S. If you’re in the mood for more reading, you should totally check out the latest WordCrafters chapter here! Sarah did an amazing job on it. 😀
I’ve been thinking of doing this post for quite a while now, but just haven’t posted, perhaps partly because there are so many other posts like this that I didn’t feel it was necessary. 😛 But I do enjoy looking at BuJo posts, plus it’s fun to see people’s different styles, so here I am!
I just got my second bullet journal the other day and it felt like I knew better how to set it up this time, so I thought it’d be a good time to show you guys.
What is a bullet journal? In brief, it’s a notebook to keep track of pretty much everything – to-do lists, habit trackers, favorite quotes, books to read, cleaning schedules – really whatever you need! They’re really more of a customizable system than a physical notebook. You can lean more about them here.
The hardest part of setting this up was finding a balance between pretty and practical. I love all the gorgeous bullet journal formats I’ve seen on Pinterest, but I also don’t really want to spend twenty minutes a day just on the header/design, you know? But since I’m who I am, I obviously wanted it to be at least a little bit aesthetic. XD
I’m pretty happy with the layout I ended up with. Hopefully it will help you guys too if you’re setting up a bullet journal for the first time! Although just a note: there is no one way to set up a bullet journal. That’s the great thing about these journals – they can be whatever you need them to be!
Oh wait, before I start, I bought this bullet grid journal from Amazon. You can see it here. It’s pretty, cheap, and also pretty cheap. 😛 The grids aren’t very precise (if you flip through the book, the dots move toward the left a little bit), and the paper is pretty thin, but it’s good enough for me. (I know I’m using “pretty” a lot but I don’t know what else to use. Help.) You can make any ol’ notebook into a BuJo, but I really like having the faint dots there to use as guidelines while they’re not as distracting as whole lines.
This is the first really customizable spread, after two pages of inspiration printed in the front of the notebook.
Your key basically helps you keep track of what different icons you use and what they mean. This is helpful for things like to-do lists especially. (Also “migrated” means moved to the next day/month/list/etc.)
Banners are a fun and easy way to spiff up your header. The grid format makes it easy to draw them. I wrote my header in flowy cursive and added a touch of purple colored pencil.
You’ll want to number your pages and write them in your index so you can quickly find whatever you need. That way if you think of a new list or topic you want to add, you can just use the next blank page and write it down in your index.
Of course I needed a pretty hand-lettered quote in here somewhere. XD
Okay, now we’re getting to the main part. Remember my discussion of pretty vs. practical? I decided to spend a little more time making the permanent pages pretty (like lists that will last me the whole time I have this journal), and keep the repetitive pages simple (like my daily entries). The beginning of my journal is mostly permanent lists.
I don’t particularly like this page’s layout, so I would suggest looking up a better one on Pinterest. XD But anyway, I really enjoy having a books-read-tracker so I can look back on how many and what books I’ve read in a month. So far I’ve only read one. Heh heh.
Oh, and since I filled my last journal in about six months, I formatted this to last the same amount of time. So I have six bookshelves for six months.
I use a task box instead of a bullet point so I can see the prayers God answers. ♥
I didn’t have this page in my last journal but I wanted to add it now. This is a pretty simple layout compared to some, but it’s still pretty (at least I think). Not perfect (UGH SMUDGES 😡 ), but nice. I’m planning to write the birthdays in the cupcake wrapper first and then in the icing if I fill that up. You could also write your family’s birthdays in one section and your friends’ in another.
I use this page a lot too, to record all the post ideas I have. (This is an incomplete list, by the way.) I decided to make two columns since I used up my last blogging page way too fast.
This one’s not very important, but it is fun. 🙂 Especially around the holidays. As you can see, I mostly want art stuff. XD
I use this page as a sort of big picture to-do list. It’s currently filled with art projects, although not in this picture. XD
And my last page is Notes. My thoughts/notes/ideas overflowed my allotted one page in my last BuJo, so I came better prepared this time. XD
Before we move on to the next section, I just wanted to say that I think it’s a good idea to keep a few pages blank before you start your daily or monthly section, just in case you want to add more lists later.
Okay, we’re done with the lists. I like to draw a little “cover” for each month. This is one of the parts I had trouble with in my last journal – when I came to the next month, I usually wasn’t ready to sit down and draw an elaborate header for it, so I just kind of scribbled something.
This time, I decided to write each month’s name in simple (fake) calligraphy in one corner so I could fill in the rest of the page later with a picture, or just add a small doodle like I did here.
My my, that “b” got a little out of hand. XD
Alright, now onto the daily section! I personally don’t have a need for a habit tracker or anything broader than a daily journal. I usually write the month, date, and day in cursive first. Then a bullet point and a few sentences to a paragraph about my day (no, I don’t record any secret thoughts or that sort of thing really XD). I also record what post I’ve written if I’ve posted, and my to-do list for the next day, which is my favorite part. 😉 The picture below is from… well October, obviously. Heh.
I find that it really helps me enjoy the day more and stay more focused if I have some goals to look forward to, however small. Sometimes I even just write “Draw” as one of my goals if I can’t think of anything more important. And here’s where I use my key.
I promise my days aren’t always that boring. XD
And that’s about it! I hope you enjoyed looking through my bullet journal! Did you find any good ideas or inspiration? Do you have any tips or inspiration for me? Do you have or want a bullet journal?
Heyyy, guys! I’m back with another CPC entry for Carol‘s writing challenge! I actually spent a rather long time on this (especially on the art and such) because I was determined to earn a lot of points for my team this time. XD SO YOU GUYS BETTER LIKE IT. Juuuust kidding. I do hope you enjoy, though! 🙂
Prompts used: 2
Photos submitted: 12
Art submitted: 6
Total points: 39
Callie’s Cloud Journal
Purpose: To record my cloud dreaming, for further analyzation in case I’m a famous scientist some day.
Materials: Pen and paper.
Hypothesis: You can do things two ways: the art way or the science way. I am a science child. Most of the time.
Data/Observations: I guess I should do a little introduction since this is an autobiography. You have probably already concluded two things from the data given: my name is Callie and I am a very scientifically-minded child. I have concluded that if I have a choice of doing something with the left side of my brain or the right side, approximately 97% of the time I will choose the left side.
Take baking for an example. Some people think of baking as a work of art: they can take a pinch of this and a dash of that and make a masterpiece. Art is not my strength. I excel in precision. I always weigh my ingredients to the tenth decimal place and make sure the cup of flour is perfectly level and the brownies are cut in exactly 2 inch by 2 inch squares. I follow instructions to the letter, and to the numbers and punctuation marks too.
Perhaps you’re wondering where the other 3% of right-minded-ness comes from. Well, that’s the subject of this entry – this entire journal, in fact. This data is super secret – it may or may not make it into my actual autobiography when and if I publish it in the distant future. But I guess this paper won’t spill any secrets because it cannot speak. (I meant that as a joke, in case you were wondering. Sometimes people aren’t sure whether I’m joking or not because in addition to being a very scientifically-minded child, I am also very serious.)
But back to the subject. Basically the only times I use my right brain for thinking involve clouds. I enjoy studying clouds – always have – but this is not studying. It is… well, daydreaming, as much as I hate to admit it.
I close my eyes and focus on sending false messages to my mechanoreceptors. All I do is imagine what I wish clouds would feel like so hard and so long that my nerves are tricked, and when I stretch out my hand, I feel it. (Now, I know clouds are actually made of water droplets and that I have in reality felt them many times when I walk in fog, but I told you – this is the 3%. The other 97% of the time I send my brain such accurate information that it’s easily fooled for cloud dreaming.)
I have a list of ten different clouds I choose from. If I’m really angry I’ll go with stratus or nimbostratus, and occasionally I’ll choose cirrus, but my favorite is cumulus.
Today I chose my favorite, Cloud Nine – a cumulus cloud tinged with lavender and coral pink. Cumulus clouds feel warm and silky soft and puffy, like sitting in a pile of memory foam covered with the fuzziest blanket ever, or on a giant, lightly toasted marshmallow without the stickiness.
What do I do on my cloud?
Prompt picture. (Not mine.)
I look out the window and observe. I take notes.
Miles. 16. Wearing a completely black suit. Independent, entrepreneurial.
Jayne. 15. Wearing a hot pink and cyan jumpsuit. Fashion-obsessed, talkative.
I have no facts, no data about the people I see, only observations and the hypotheses I come up with myself. It’s a good exercise, and sitting on clouds helps with it somehow. My theory is that after my brain gets started by imagining clouds, it’s easier to imagine how old a person is, what their name might be, etcetera. I’m not certain of this, though, and that’s another reason I want to start this journal.
Today after I observed those two aforementioned people, I heard a sound so loud it nearly vibrated the fluid in my cochlea right out of my ear.
I looked out the window again and nearly fell off Cloud Nine. Miles had met Jayne and I watched as he pulled his own cloud out of his briefcase and was offering it to her.
I’m serious. And the loud sound? It was Jayne shrieking. This was going to be interesting.
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ISN’T THAT CLOUD SO CUTE? I’ll talk more about it in a minute, but hold on.
Anyway, heh heh, that was more of a character sketch than a short story – the plot never really got off the ground (pun intended). But it was quite interesting to write because Callie is basically the opposite of me in every way. I am definitely an art child, as you have probably picked up through my blog. 😉
Okay. Before you go, here are a few bonus pictures that I didn’t get to work into the story.
Ugh this cloud painting didn’t exactly turn out how I imagined. I’ve never seen such strange, wobbly sun rays. Oh well… let’s call it artistic license. *Sigh* Except for that one pink “Cloud Nine” picture, I am terrible at drawing realistic clouds, so this was great practice!
I got the gorgeous warm cumulus cloud pictures coming back from a vacation.
And now for the fluzzy cloud. THIS LITTLE GUY IS WAY TOO CUTE. I simply bunched up a piece of felting wool in my hand, took these pictures, and then added the face on PicMonkey.
For some reason I LOVE IT. Also help, I need name suggestions. Yes I am going to name a blob of felting wool. I mean, I’m a teenage girl, what do you expect? 😛 XD
♥♥♥ SO. SQUISHY.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures and art, dears. 🙂 Oh, and if you’re interested in reading more of my CPC entries, you can see my first entry here and my 2nd and 3rd entries here, on my CWWC page. I didn’t make a separate post for the two on the page, but I’d love to hear what you think!
Do you have a favorite photo/piece of art? Are you a science child or an art child? Any name suggestions for Mr. Fluzzy? (Hey, there’s an idea…)
***Allison***
P. S. Tomorrow I will announce the winner of my giveaway! I’M SO EXCITED. Also I apologize for all the outbursts in this post. O.o Heh.
WOOHOO Art Lab is back! I’m so excited to show you guys the post for today: 20 simple art prompts to help you erase artist’s block. 😀
Alright. So I’m going to give you the art prompts, explain each one a bit, and show you some of the art I’ve made using the prompts. Quite a few of these work especially well for ATCs, but you can use your sketchbook, a canvas, whatever! Ready?
Go.
Draw a colorful black and white animal. Because art is great for showing things you never see. Paint a colorful panda, zebra, penguin… skunk. Have fun. I made this ATC ages ago…
Draw your favorite music. Put on your playlist and draw what you hear. What color is the song? Blue, yellow, black, pink? Is it a soft, wavy line or an angry spiky one? Draw three or five of your favorite songs stacked on top of each other and frame it.
Paint a pretty background and write a word/quote on top. Super simple, super pretty. I like to use watercolor and black or white gel pen. Look up pretty fonts on Pinterest if you like.
Use a white gel pen to doodle on black paper. This is SO satisfying and fun! I did another (rather short) Art Lab post about it here.
Draw a huge picture of a tiny thing, and vice versa. A crumb, a bug, a part of your fingerprint… fill the whole page and draw in lots of detail. On the other hand, how small can you draw an elephant that still looks like an elephant? I know cats aren’t exactly huge, but I did draw them tiny.
Pick three markers without looking and only use those for a drawing. If you watch art videos on YouTube, you may know this as the Three Marker Challenge. 🙂 Somehow only having limited colors seems to kickstarts your creativity.
Draw a close-up of a tiny detail of something. The stitching on your jeans, your dog’s nose, the center of a flower… I’ll bet a collage of several close-ups would look really neat! Like those mystery pictures in the backs of magazines. It’s also fun to draw several close-up views of one object: your cat’s eye, paw, nose, ear, whiskers, and put them together.
Paint something by not painting. Negative space is fun to play with. I think watercolor is especially neat for this technique. It works well to paint the whole page with water except the silhouette of what you’re drawing, then swirl on some paint. What do you know, another cat.
Draw your dream house and decorate it. Or your dream bedroom, or craft studio, or kitchen. Who knows, this drawing might come in handy when you get a chance to build it!
Close your eyes and scribble. Turn it into a drawing. This is a super fun and simple prompt, which I also made a post about here.
Draw a silhouette with a galaxy behind it. Actually draw the galaxy first, but you know. And guess what? I ALSO made posts about how to draw galaxies! What do you know. There’s one here and one here. Once you’ve made the galaxy, draw a silhouette of a wolf, a person, a tree – the possibilities are endless (maybe)! Or you could draw a galaxy silhouette.
Draw on something unusual. A leaf, a crumpled brown paper bag, yesterday’s newspaper, an old book page, etc.
Use words instead of lines to draw. Draw yourself a story. Instead of drawing lines, write tiny words. Instead of coloring something in, color it in with different colors of words.
Draw a picture of what nothing would look like if it was something. I… don’t even know if this is possible. If you do it, I WANT TO SEE IT!
Draw what smiling and crying feels like. Don’t actually draw someone smiling or crying. Use colors and lines (and objects besides people or facial features) to convey the feeling.
Fill up a page with different versions of the same thing. Draw a hedgehog twenty different ways. Draw ten different cats. Fifteen different trees. It’s fun.
Draw with a non-art supply. Try using coffee, makeup, dirt, nail polish, smashed berries, food coloring, or whatever else you can find.
Cover a page in lines, circles, or patterns, and watercolor on top. Another super simple but super pretty prompt! Just keep in mind that if you draw with a pen, you’ll need to let the ink dry before watercoloring over it.
Paint yourself without using lines – only colors that describe you. Go for sort of an impressionistic style here I guess. Use blotches of color instead of smooth lines, just for interesting.
Fill a page with watercolor swatches and doodle on top. SO FUN! I got this idea from Pinterest here. And this is mine:
That was fun! I hope these ideas inspired you, dears. Which one was your favorite? Would you like to see more art prompt posts like this?
If you drew something inspired by these prompts, I’d love to see it! Click here to see how to send in a picture of your art and help us fill our gallery over at the Art Lab blog.
Also, here’s an image especially made for pinning if you want to save this to Pinterest for future reference. 😉
(Despite what the title seems to proclaim, no, I am not giving away three thousand followers. Sorry about that.)
AHEM. I am very excited to announce a pretty…. um, exciting giveaway in honor of reaching over 3,000 followers! AHH I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT! You guys are even more amazing than the giveaway. 😀 ♥ I expounded your wonderfulness at greater length in my last post, along with some blogging tips, so be sure to check it out if you haven’t yet. 😉
Anyway, let’s proceed. Are you ready to see what I’m giving away?
OKAY.
What You’ll Win
This is mostly an arts/crafts type of giveaway because I love that sort of thing and I know a lot of you guys do too. Plus, I post about arts and crafts sometimes on my blog, so I thought that would make sense. 🙂 Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll receive if you win:
a paperback copy of the excellent book, Do Hard Things, by Alex and Brett Harris
and maybe a little surprise gift – who knows?
TEN DIFFERENT PRIZES FOR ONE WINNER. IS THAT NOT EXCITING? Goodness, I’m getting so excited and I’m not even entering (though I kinda wish I could). XD Okay, now that you saw an overview of each thing, let me tell you a little bit more about them.
This pen is AMAZING. I know because I have one just like it. It has an incredibly fine tip, perfect for intricate details. (I used this pen for my elephant drawing, a print of which you can buy here at my art Etsy shop.)
Are these not the CUTEST THINGS? I found them at Hobby Lobby and I love them! I believe they’re supposed to be paper clips, but I think they would also make great bookmarks. 🙂
What more can I say? It’s washi tape. You can never have too much washi tape, right? I love these colors and patterns together! ♥
I have never used these particular pencils before but I really wanted to steal a couple out of the package and give you guys the rest. (Don’t worry, I didn’t.) The package says these mechanical pencils actually have a wood case instead of plastic? Also each pencil comes with three leads, so they should last you a while. 🙂 I also like the cute designs.
(If you don’t know what an artist trading card is, go here. They’re so much fun!) It’s much more enjoyable to make ATCs when they’re already cut for you, in my experience anyway. Perhaps you could use a few to test out some new art supplies? 😉
Aww, those eyes! ♥ I really like this little guy, but it’s time for him to go to a new home. *Sniff* I made this tiny owl from polymer clay. He comes with a “stone” nest, also made out of polymer clay. See his wistful expression? He wants to come live with you.
The picture is kind of misleading, but I had to take a photo of something. XD The giveaway prizes include a free custom 8X10″ portrait of your pet, drawn by me, in Prismacolor colored pencil unless you specify otherwise. If you don’t have a pet or you’d rather me draw something else, I can certainly do that (though I reserve the right to refuse anything I think inappropriate, etc.)!
And as a little bonus, you get a 20% coupon for The Color Box Studio! (You can also use it if you order a custom order.) It will be a code, like a promo code, that I’ll include either when I notify you of winning or else in the package.
And lastly but not leastly, we have this great book by Alex and Brett Harris called Do Hard Things. My brother and I got a copy of this for our birthdays and it was so good. It’s written to teenagers and is explicitly Christian, but the message is still relevant to everyone, whatever your age or religion. Basically the authors argue that our culture today has pitifully low expectations for teenagers and show how we can overcome the stereotype, so to speak, and use this time to “do hard things” that make a difference both in our lives and the lives of others. Not just randomly do hard things like try to mountain climb without a rope or something, but meaningful challenges that take us out of our comfort zone and into a whole new world. It was a super thought-provoking while still easy-to-read book and really impacted me, in a good way.
And that’s that! NOW. Are you ready to learn the rules for entering?
How To Enter
This giveaway is only open to people in the United States. I’m sooo sorry about that, guys, but otherwise the shipping cost gets pretty scary, you know?
You must be following my blog to enter. Ideally I’d like for this giveaway to be only for the followers I already have, but that would be too hard to monitor. I don’t want you guys to follow my blog solely so you can enter this giveaway, but I can’t think of a better way to do it and still have it only be for my followers, so…
As usual, if you’re under 18 years of age, get a parent’s permission before entering. But I’m sure you already knew that. 😉
To enter, comment on this post saying that you’d like to enter, and tell me which of these items you’d be most excited to win.
For Bonus Entries…
Take my survey for 2 bonus entries. NOTE: This is option is only for my current followers because it’s not going to work very well for you or for me if you fill out a survey for a blog you just found. 😉
Share on social media for 1 bonus entry. Choose Pinterest, Facebook, whatever. NOTE: You can only get one bonus entry for this, even if you share several times or on different social media platforms. Of course I’ll be quite happy if you want to share it more than once, but you’ll still earn just one extra entry. Otherwise things could get WAY too complicated. XD
Share on your blog for 1 bonus entry. You can add a link to my giveaway to your post or reblog this post – your choice.
Giveaway Deadline
The giveaway starts today, October 16th, 2017, and ends October 31st, 2017, the end of this month. That gives you just over two weeks to enter. I’ll post the winner on November 1st!
I’ll notify you by email and comment if you win, but if you don’t respond within a week, I will have to pick someone else. 😦
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OKAY, I think that’s it! Ahhhh yay, I’m finally done! That took forever to write. XD I hope you guys are as excited about the giveaway as I am! If you have any questions, just drop me a comment below.
Have a lovely day, and thanks for reading, dears. ♥
Hey, guys! I’m participating in Carol‘s lovely Cameras and Pens writing challenge, so I wanted to show you the first story I wrote for it. What makes this particular writing challenge special is that you can make art to illustrate your story or take photos that pertain to it for bonus points, as well as earning points by using the prompts! So I did all three.
***All photos are mine except the first one, which is a prompt photo. All artwork is mine period. ;)***
Prompts used: 2.
Photos submitted: 7
Artwork submitted: 3
Total points earned: 22
~ t i m e ~
Maybe it was just one minute. Or one second. Or one microsecond. It whipped past my memory WAY too fast.
I’d been looking forward to summer – the laughter, the friends, the pool, the freedom – for practically the whole year, and now here I was, sitting on the edge of the lake, absently spinning my bike pedals with my fingers and thinking about how school started in three days. Where had time gone?
Prompt picture. (Not mine.)
Where had Time gone? I dangled my feet in the water and thought about it.
Maybe he was taking a vacation after all the hard work of making summer go by so fast. Maybe that’s why everything seemed to suddenly slow down – Time was tired.
I used a long exposure (about 8 seconds) to show the second hand moving. 🙂
Or maybe he’s just contrary. When you’re bored, he creeps past you with an evil smirk on his face, an when you’re having fun, he flies past so quickly you can’t even catch a glimpse of him.
Perhaps he has rheumatism. I mean, he is pretty old after all. Maybe sunlight and happy times put a spring in his step and he races along with the best of them; but when it rains and everything is gloomy, his rheumatism holds him back from going at more than a painful crawl.
Wherever he went and whatever the reason, I wished he would have taken a few steps backward before he took his vacation – or even just stopped altogether.
But though he is ancient, he has not retired – nor will he until his Maker comes and sets Infinity in his place. He is so popular that that everyone plans their lives around his schedule, they beg for more of him as if he is a celebrity, and yet he is elusive, the hardest to grasp when you need him most.
But he is a good healer, binding up wounds and soothing them without any medicine. He takes a long time to do his healing, but he does it.
Try as we might, no one except Time’s Creator has ever been able to stop him from marching on. Day after day, night after night, he passes by, faithfully following his schedule.
He is close friends with the sun and the moon and has seen their rise and fall countless times in his life.
We have made many faces for Time – some square, some round, some oval, some hardly a shape at all, with skin imprinted with numbers and evenly creased with lines.
But I think his real face is filled with thousands of wrinkles, one from each year he has seen.
Sometimes his eyes are greenish-yellow slits as they peer at you from the alarm clock on your bedside stand and wait, ready to shriek at you to get up, get up, to not waste anymore of him than you already have.
If that doesn’t work, he uses the sharp cane he carries to jab those who think they can waste him away.
He has one long hand and one short hand. He was born with a sort of nervous tick that he can’t seem to get rid of.
His clothing style is rather eccentric; a mish-mash of fashions picked up from many eras.
Fickle, wayward, unaccountable… and yet what would we do without him? You have to admit, he’s pretty diligent at his job, and there’s really no one that could replace him.
Yes, I am aware that this is a SUPER creepy and kind of awful drawing, but I like the idea, so… Just don’t look at his face. XD
I sighed. I guess Time did deserve a break after all that work, and besides, summer would get old if that’s all we ever had. And how would I learn all of the stories Time has collected over the years without History class?
I stretched and stood up. The sun was setting like an egg the moon had cracked for breakfast, the deep orange-yellow yolk spilling all over the sky. The moon ate it all up and then began its long night’s work.
It was right on Time.
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The End. 😀
I had a lot of fun with that, as you can probably tell. 😉 I hope you had fun reading it!
What artwork or photo was your favorite? Would you like to read my future CPC entries or would you rather me post normal stuff? I’d love to hear your honest (but courteous) opinion!
Thank you for reading, dears, and have a lovely day filled with plenty of Time. 😉
***Allison***
P. S. Oh. My goodness. I ALMOST HAVE THREE THOUSAND FOLLOWERS?! Eeeee! I’d probably better start planning something, which will probably include a giveaway. Any suggestions?
I’ve loved art my whole life and I’ve always dreamed of selling my art and crafts as a business. It was (and still is) my dream job. That’s why I’m so overjoyed to actually be doing it! I believe God gave me what talent I have to use it for his glory as well as to bring myself and others joy. 😀 I hope to build a collection of fun, beautiful prints that will brighten people’s homes and add unique, handmade pieces to their décor that you can’t buy just anywhere.
Behind the Name
After much deliberation, I named my shop The Color Box Studio because I love colors and have a box of 72 Prismacolor colored pencils that is among my most treasured art supplies. 😀 Plus I just think it’s a cute name. XD
What I Sell
Currently I’m just selling art prints, but I hope to add some original and custom pieces soon. (If you have a custom request, just let me know and I’ll be happy to work with you!)
I have four prints available so far and I can’t wait to add more soon! Here’s a peek at two of the listings, and you can see the rest here.
Click on the pictures to visit the listing.
What is Gicleé?
The type of prints I sell are called gicleé (pronounced jhee-CLAY). Gicleé uses a certain process and materials to create super high-quality prints with bright colors and fine detail. I decided on it after some research and trial-and-error, because it’s basically the best-quality art print you can get and looks almost exactly like the original. Each piece of art is printed on thick, white, archival-quality paper to ensure it will last a looong time – a minimum of 80 years! I use this printing company and I absolutely adore their products and customer service.
So yeah! That’s my announcement! 😀
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Also, since I realize the news is probably not as thrilling to you as it is to me (and this post would be way too short otherwise XD), I wrote a little story for you guys at Mercury‘s suggestion. 🙂 I hope you enjoy!
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The Color Box
The air was heavy that day, laying on her shoulders and sitting on her head like a great flock of birds. It was November, bleak and colorless, and Kira was wandering the streets as usual. Her long, gray-brown hair hung limp and forlorn in the miserable weather and she walked slowly, so she could notice everything.
Kira was an Observer. She collected things with her mind. She had a whole room in her brain filled with the small wonders she had seen: mist rolling in mysterious clouds along the street; a striped snail sliding over a little white mushroom; three cats following an old woman with an enormous straw hat… She never took the things she saw; she just looked, and remembered.
Her favorite part about Observing was the colors. Her city had precious little color to brighten its weary streets, so whenever she found a yellow flower springing from a sidewalk crack or a bright bluebird flashing by, she smiled her soft, slow smile and closed her eyes to be extra sure she would remember it.
Today, a piece of color caught her eye and her heart leapt. It was a color box. She saw it flashing in the sunlight, peeking out from under a heap of dry leaves and crumpled papers, and she hurried toward it.
When she opened it, she breathed a shuddering breath of delight. She had never seen so many colors at once. All the colors of the rainbow, and even more besides! The pencils were lined up in an uneven row, some blunt and some sharp, some tall and some short, and they were all beautiful.
Kira looked at it thoughtfully, and made a decision. For once, Kira collected with her hands as well as her mind. She would use it to draw the best memories in her collection so she could never forget them.
She began at once, smoothing out a crumpled piece of newspaper nearby to draw on. At first she tried a flower, one of her favorite finds. Kira chose a periwinkle blue for the petals and a bright green for the stem and leaves. Her pencil scratched and scraped on the paper. Her eyebrows drew together in concentration and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling with excitement. Finally Kira sat up and looked at it.
Her face fell. The colors were beautiful, but the flower did not look like the picture in her head. Kira was discouraged, but then she set her mouth firmly and promised herself that she would make a better one.
All day Kira worked. She drew flowers, she drew snails, she drew her fingertips with their broken nails. A little beetle crawled onto her paper and she drew it too. Twice a pencil got too worn down and she had to take a break to sharpen it with the dull sharpener inside the box. Finally, as the sun was setting, Kira drew the same periwinkle flower one more time. She smiled slowly in satisfaction. It still did not look like a perfect match, but it was much better than her first try.
She could hardly wait to try again tomorrow.
The next day she decided to try and draw the face of the old man who always sat on the weathered bench beside the curb. To her dismay, faces were much, much harder to draw than flowers. But as before, she took a breath, selected a new crumpled piece of paper, and started again. She stared at him for minutes at a time, taking in each wrinkle, each hair, the color of his eyes and skin and lips. And then she drew.
Day after day, she tried again. Sometimes she drew faces of passersby or people who looked out of the windows, but most of all she drew the old man who always stared ahead at nothing, rubbing a thumb over the a brown mark on the thin, wrinkled skin of his hand.
Finally, one day she was satisfied. She looked from her drawing to the old man’s face and grinned. Shyly, she stood up pushed the paper into his lap.
“I drew this for you,” she said quietly. The man blinked and looked down slowly. He stared at the drawing for a long time, and then looked up at the girl. He smiled.
The next day there was an old woman beside the man on the bench. When he saw Kira he beckoned her toward him and said, “Can you draw her too?” Kira could.
Thereafter Kira drew a new person every day. After a while she got tired of drawing with the same colors, so she chose different ones. Kira drew people not in the colors she saw with her eyes, but in the colors she saw inside of them – the colors they really were.
Her solemn gray-brown eyes looked at you unflinchingly, looked and looked until you felt she was pulling your secrets, good and bad, from your eyes, and you dropped your gaze. Kira found the secrets one by one and from those she could tell the color of the person. Some people were bright yellow and orange and pastel pink, and others were blue and gray and purple. One man was only black and white.
Every day Kira drew, on newspaper and scraps of cardboard and paper bags. When she was finished, she hung them on lampposts all over the city, so the people she had drawn could find them. Slowly the city grew more colorful. When people saw the drawings they would stop for a second look, and walk on with their inside colors shining more clearly on their faces. And Kira herself was no longer composed of grays and browns but of all the colors of her pencils, for they had bled into her fingers and crept into her heart, so that they were a part of her.
Nowadays Kira still collects things – the room in her mind is heaped to overflowing – but her favorite memory was and always will be, her color box.
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Hee hee, that was a fun little story. 🙂 I hope you liked it and my Etsy shop. What is your favorite listing I have so far? And what is your favorite “color box” – colored pencils, watercolors, markers, etc.?
Thanks for reading, my dears, and have a most wonderful day!
They argued about it as they hiked down the hill, under towering trees dripping with moss and vines and ferns, past roaring waterfalls that sprinkled their faces, over twinkling creeks, and around huge green-haired boulders.
The stranger just stared dazedly at them for a while as if trying to sort something out in his head, and then spoke in a soft but oddly deep voice. A voice like the rich bitter-sweetness of cacao beans, Tasha thought. “I’m not a whale. I’m a boy; Terence.”
I have no facts, no data about the people I see, only observations and the hypotheses I come up with myself. It’s a good exercise, and sitting on clouds helps with it somehow. My theory is that after my brain gets started by imagining clouds, it’s easier to imagine how old a person is, what their name might be, etcetera. I’m not certain of this, though, and that’s another reason I want to start this journal.
Allison Marie 