It was warm lemonade, hot tea and lots of honey during my week 4. Luckily I was able to watch my e-courses so not all of that bed time was lost ;)

The "Book of Trees" was lovely and I watched all of it! I was eager to see the end result and didn't want to skip forward :)  Lovely concept indeed. I see myself doing a book like that in summer time, when I can ride my bike and sit outside. Or at least when it's not cold ;)

My next watch was "Inquire Within" and I was blown away. Oh my. I loved it. I always thought I disliked encaustic paintings but this one, the way it was done.. it was so different to me and the fact it made my heart sing made me very determined to have at least a try in this medium. As soon as I get better that was. And because I loved the teacher I watched "Hand Formed - Simple Sculpting" too. And I liked it very much as well.. made me all itchy to get back on my feet and all creative again. 

I really am a lot about hand made stuff. This is getting very clear to me. Very. 

I just HAD to go and try out what I've learned so I made myself 3 substrates to work on. One 30x30 cm wooden board and two tiny 10x10 cm chip boards. All I need now is wax and I cannot decide how to go about it. Sadly they don't sell the pre-made stuff in our art stores so I'll need to make my own wax medium. But I do need to make my paintings first :)  ​

I was also inspired to make tea stained handkerchiefs and press already dry Hydrangea flowers from our garden. I haven't checked on them since I put them in the book but I'm hoping they'll flatten nicely so that I'll be able to use them. Maybe on one of the tiny boards. Who knows.

By Friday I felt pretty much ok so I made a ton of things. I got an idea about sketchbooks which I am not prepared to talk about (yet) but it's exciting and I hope I get to follow through. I seem to be unable to do so lately. I get overwhelmed with all the ideas, by all the things I promised to do and want to do but I lack creative time for them. Or I totally fall out of the mood. And I don't like it. Here's a note to self: 

Really. Do it.

I also bought (totally on a whim) 2 meters of white jersey just because I was so happy I got 100% cotton one. I need long sleeved shirts. And I have a book with patterns all to be sewn by hand. Sigh. Did I mention I have a lot of things I'd like to make? Paint? Sew? No? :D  Anyways, this fabric will end up hand colored and sewn into something wearable. And at least one of the garments will be sewn by hand, all of it. Just because I want to see if it really is so different to have it sewn like that, if it really moves differently. Will let you know of course ;)

Week number three started very creatively. I baked on Monday, then on Tuesday my friend came around and I showed her how to make stamps. She made two and both came out so well, really cute and she plans to use them for thank you cards in her Etsy shop. 

You can see how she changed her stamp a bit after her first test. We used white paint pen to hide what was bothering us so that she knew what to cut away (right side stamp). I am really so proud of her, she only cut herself once :)

I tested my newly bought watercolor pad called Aquafine by Daler Rowney - final verdict is yet to be acquired :D This rainbow colored page was done with my old Pelikan watercolors and I must admit I still like how they behave. 

I went on to try out a combination with watercolors from Ecoline*s brushpens and Inktense sticks. It's interesting that the sticks produce rather opaque color and are not behaving like watercolors at all. But this could prove useful if I don't forget about it (flower on the left). I proceeded with watching Danielle Donaldson's mini e-course titled "Be Still" and started practicing with leaf shapes and florals. I must admit, these are much harder than they appear to be or how easy they look when somebody is painting them. I have a lot to go through here but my wish was to paint what Danielle teaches and gift that as a birthday gift. 

The last thing I did, or better say started, were these two watercolored "flowers of life" which didn't turn out as they should have mainly, because my masking fluid was very much "out of the lines" :D  I don't think I'll go and try to fix them but who knows, right?

Sunday brought another cold to me :/  We went climbing anyway just to get out and be in the sun and warm and lovely surroundings but I knew week 4 will not be as productive :)

 I really didn't expect time will still be flying as fast as it did in December because up until now Januaries were pretty slow, but nope, it's still flying! 

It also feels like I wasn't creative at all but luckily, I take photos daily so I have at least some proof that I was :) Taking photos daily has been my project since 2014 and I love going through photo books made with them in case you were wondering why I do that. 

WEEK 1

I continued watching the e-course titled "Scribblepedia" by Rae Missigman which led me to experiment with colours and splashes and being messier. Definitely fun stuff. Much fun!

WEEK 2

I had to move away from splashing color around and concentrate on sewing. My warm up project was a small card holder for a friend and then my big project - long sleeved shirt for my mom (which came out just about so-so; wearable but.... ). Need to pay more attention to collar area next time as it is tricky.  

I also made a few sewn envelopes for my future ATC cards because I find them soooo cute :) And because I had Miss Red out (my sewing machine that is). 

I get lots of creative ideas when I meditate and one of them made me so excited that I just had to run into an art store and buy myself some fabric paints. I have a feeling I'll be going back soon as the glittery ones are FABULOUS! 

Saturday was testing time - here's how my first try looked (colours are still wet here):

My second try at painting on fabric is drying as I write this but I gotta say I LOVED working with colours in spray bottles. Which reminds me I need to buy myself some Ranger inks in spray bottles or something similar to use on paper - any ideas anyone?. I'll definitely be experimenting with this stuff more, much more. Here's how my two fabric pieces looked like wet - I sincerely hope they dry out to be as beautiful as they are now but am not holding my breath for it :) I'll probably work on them some more too. 

I'm going back to my desk to play with my first fabrics a bit more to see how far I can take them.

And then there are exercises from a course called "Fancy Lassies" with Kate Thompson. I watched some of it in December and am itching to try out the warm up lessons - her faces seem to be so etheric which makes me wonder how mine will come out :)

Sooo, see ya next week or in 14 days :)  Do tell what you think it's better - to have a weekly update or bi-weekly one and if I'm writing way too much :D

Much love and creative vibes from me.

♥

​nini

​​Hello and welcome to my new blog pages. 

It all has to do with my intentions for 2018. Back in November I was thinking about how I would like to find my own artistic style, my signature style if you wish, and I decided to just start drawing/painting/crafting more. Use up all the things I already have and just do, make, do, make MORE. I figured if I stay away from all the eye candy one gets exposed to on-line I would be able to pull stuff out of myself, I still think this is a valid plan BUT....

Looks like our loving big Universe had other plans for me :)

On December 2nd, 2017, when I logged into my FB account and checked my messages one caught my attention immediately. Like - BIG TIME. It was from Jeanne Oliver letting me know I won their huge mega giveaway they held with a launch of their beautiful new web site - jeanneoliver.com/  I was awestruck! Of course I wanted to win when I shared their posts but never did I think I actually would. But I did. I was smiling for a week I think (still do when I think about it). 

I was like a kid in a candy store only with a huge difference, I CAN have ALL the candy! Not just one or two, ALL of them. Meaning - I got access to ALL of the courses offered on their site at that day and I'm talking about 80+ of them!  I already bought a few and loved them and was also eyeing a few more but you know how these things go. One just can't have everything, right? 

Well, I am still over the moon about this gift and when Jeanne started her new free project called Series 52 I started thinking how to join in.

I know a bit about these things and how they go. I have already hosted two 12 months projects (back in 2015 and 2016) and one 52 project last year, in a group on FB and I ended up with 3 full sketchbooks. Last year's one being really big, versatile and very challenging. What was common with all three of them was the time frame I ended up making them in. They were all pretty much completed (more than half of the pages that is) at the end of the year instead through out the whole year. And I didn't like that. 

So I have decided to still go and DO more but also to start watching my e-courses and do the practices taught in them. And do it very freely in a sketchbook - no pressure for master pieces, fear of expensive papers and blank sheets of paper. Just me and my home made sketchbook. If I run out of pages I make another one. If I really like making something in my book take it further and go on loose paper. Make art for myself because I want to learn as much as I can to see what works best for me, what makes my heart happy and see how my style comes forward. 

And I want to share my progress here because I would like to document my progress, my struggles and a-ha moments and because I secretly would like to inspire you to start too. With whatever you always wanted to make/do or whatever got left behind.

I have also set up a new group for this occasion called Creative Journey - you can find it here - www.facebook.com/groups/ongoingCJ/. It is not a big group and I am hoping it'll be a good place for sharing what we make or do. Because sharing is crucial for our growth just as much as doing stuff in solitude is so consider yourself invited :)

I sincerely hope I will be able to keep up with this as I have a feeling it's something I need to do. And I hope you'll join me either here, IG or FB so that we can all have a really lovely creative year together. 

Thank you for reading and being here. I hope you'll be returning and that we shall get to know each other better.

With much love and gratitude, 

♥

​nini