ICAD - Playing with Watercolour Crayons etc.

This week I continued my index cards for my ICAD project and played with my Neocolour watercolour crayons.

Koi - with pens and acrylic background

Pears growing on my pear tree...

My Clematis...

A duck playing in puddles...

Octopus cheerleader...

Playing with crayons...

Zen Doodle

And those were my ICADs for this week.  A few days I wondered if I'd keep it up, but I did! How are you doing?

Sunday Sketches and Creative Tuesdays - Four Seasons Tree

Sundays seem so busy lately and I have been missing Sunday Sketches with Sophia of Blue Chair Diary! So this week I wanted to get back on track. I was thinking about the seasons recently and how we may have skipped one! Spring never seemed to come here or if it did it was so rainy that it was hard to notice. And yesterday felt like full on summer. (Yay!) Any decent day - the garden (and the weeds) call and I need to be outside working instead of inside on my computer. I did however make some time one rainy day and played with Creative Tuesday's (which I have also been missing lately) theme of "tree". I thought it might be fun to try my own variation of the Four Seasons Tree:

I have also been working on my pointillism tree painting (which if you're joining in at Paint Party Friday you've already seen).

WIP - Pointillist Tree

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's effort at Sunday Sketches and Creative Tuesdays but it may take me until the evening or when the forecasted rain arrives (sigh) to visit!

Successful Completion of Creative Every Day in 2010!!

Phew!!! I made it! 

For 2010, I choose the word "CREATE" for my Word of the Year and then shortly thereafter I came across Leah's Creative Every Day Challenge. I thought - "what a great way to ensure I follow through on my desire to create" and I promptly joined. I have a tendency to take things a bit too literally and so I took a blank book I had and started to create something in it every day. The first few months I stuck closely to the themes and then when they no longer remained inspirational, I switched to just creating something. 

I filled four books and some of a fifth. I did an image for every single day of the year in 2010. There were days I did 2 and days I did none but those were relatively few. Travelling was the major challenge (and I do travel so I experienced that first hand) and so were holidays. Some nights I was up much later than I wanted trying to finish a creation! 

I experimented. I tried pens, zen doodles, coloured pencils, watercolour pencils and crayons, a few kind of pastels, several kinds of paint, pencil and charcoal.

I surprised myself with the ideas I came up with and with what I created!!

Here are the last few:

Monday:

Tuesday: Inspired by my Nutcracker collection "Herr Drosselmeyer"...

:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

I never thought I'd complete the full year. But the more I did, the more I felt I had to continue and finish 2010. Will I do the same in 2011? Not the same, no.

I joined CED2011 but I won't have books of daily creations and I might not do things daily. I discovered I wanted to work on bigger projects and these little ones left no time in my already busy schedule for that. And the big projects can't be completed in a day. But I also found that I like creating and I want to continue and expand on it.

Most of all I discovered wonderful artists in the blogosphere and made new friends. What an amazing community you are!! The news is filled with negativity but I am in awe of all the warmth and positive forces that exist in this creative group. Thank you all for your comments and encouragement.

I look forward to seeing what you will all create in 2011!!!

P.S. I will write about my new Word of the Year for 2011 soon but I am focusing on finishing up the remaining SBP pages for the Sketchbook Project - due soon!

P.P.S. Do you choose a Word of the Year?

P.P.P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!!! May it be a happy, healthy, prosperous and creative 2011 for you!!!

Love

EVA

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I hope you had a fabulous Christmas Day and managed to celebrate with those you love in the way you wanted!

Personally I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. I love it. I love the decorations, the music, the stories, the sentiments. But there are things I hate: the commercialism, the shopping and it is sooooooooooooo much work. (Much of which I put on myself, of course.) I (unfortunately) tend to be a last minute person and am always crazy busy leading up to Christmas, then working all day to make a nice dinner and then spend Boxing Day on all the necessary but postponed things that should have been done but weren't (like laundry) and are now urgent (no clean underwear left for some members of the family). Then Boxing Week becomes more relaxed. Sigh. Do you ever feel like like this?

Blogging and art suffered. I did all my daily creations though I will admit some of them were a day or two late. But they did get done! And here they are:

Monday:

Tuesday:

 

Wednesday: A skunk? At Christmas? I have no idea why, he just called to be drawn...

Thursday: Carols and Christmas songs on my mind....

Friday/Christmas Eve:

Saturday/MERRY CHRISTMAS!!: Christmas Dinner. I tried this yummy pumpkin cornbread dressing/stuffing that Leah had mentioned. Delicious!!

Sunday: A new toy for Yuri for Christmas!! He is like a kitten again!

My goal for this week is to relax, work around the house, finish up my sketchbook project and CED2010, catch up on some of your blog posts I've missed, do a puzzle and think/write about 2010 and 2011. I hope to post my sketchbook pages as I finish them and take and post photos of my extensive nutcracker collection/ Christmas decorations, so please drop by later! 

I hope you have a relaxing and creative week!

Christmas and the Creating Becomes Challenging

A crazy busy week with another one to come! Are you going too crazy to be creative? Or are you creative in a different way? Shopping for the perfect gift is creative. Decorating your home for Christmas is creative. Juggling everything involves creativity. Or so I like to tell myself....but I do think it's true.

I did complete my pages for this week but it was a challenge. I had hoped to do more sketchbook pages and participate in some of the fun weekly challenges but time did not permit.

Monday: I have an extensive nutcracker collection (which I will post pictures of later this month as I have been loving the photos that some of you have been showing of your Xmas decorations). I tried drawing one for the first time...

Tuesday:

Wednesday: Another nutcracker done in oil pastels...

Thursday:

Friday: Trying to capture a beautiful sunset I saw over water... (Unfortunately my watercolour crayons look totally washed out.) 

Saturday: I finally put my tree up. Lights only. (The blue are actually supposed to be white but white wouldn't show up.)

Sunday: My tree top angel.

I'm getting closer to having the house decorated (though boxes and mess still abound) and have finally even start shopping! I have such a love/hate relationship with this time of year. What about you? All organized and relaxed? Or like me? Hope you have a wonderful Christmas (if you celebrate it) and a Happy Holiday Season!!

On to CED2010 Book#5!!!

Such a busy time of the year! I'm still keeping up with my CED efforts daily though there are SO many distractions! Here is what I've done this week...

Monday: Still playing around with ornaments but this time in crayon.

Tuesday:

Today I finished my fourth blank book. 

CED2010 Book #4

And did the "title page" on the fifth. There aren't enough days left in 2010 to finish this book but I will likely use the rest in 2011 (though not in the daily fashion I have been doing).

CED2010 Book #5

Wednesday: I started blank book #5

Cover tab open

Cover tab closed

Thursday: For some reason I had Dr. Suess on my mind...

Friday: For Inspiration Avenue's Weekly Challenge...

Saturday: One of the things I've done with each of these books is try to imitate the art on the cover. I'm no Rembrandt but here is my attempt. A fitting sketch for the Christmas season.

(Double-clicking makes the pencil sketch clearer. Scanning pencil is such a challenge!)

Sunday: I loved the pencil line drawings I did earlier this year and my green sharpie has been calling to me....

Looking forward to seeing your efforts this week!!

AEDM Day 23

I'm starting again to have days when I have no idea what I want to create. The blank page haunts and taunts me. Eventually something comes but  it is often a surprise what it will be....

Hope you're having the type of day where the ideas flow in advance of encountering the blank page!

AEDM Day 21

A bit of a change today... thought I'd zen doodle but ended up playing with crayons...

Also finished two more pages for the Sketchbook Project which I posted to Blue Chair Diary's weekly Sunday Sketching - another very wonderful and warm group to participate in.

AEDM Day 15

I was encouraged to keep on going with my variations on the tree theme. So today's little creation is done using my fun Caran D'Ache watercolour crayons (sans eau/without water). Like the last time I played with these crayons here, various colours cried out to be used that weren't in my planned palette. I listened....

Last week, one of the AEDM participants who I have just met, Michelle Pendergrass, posted an amazing photo that she had taken. I looked at it and looked at it and the urge to paint took over. I am a very novice painter and this is only the second real painting I've done since joining CED2010 in January. Here is my take on her photo:

Scanned below (Grass at edge of first image is grass in second image. I couldn't quickly figure out how to paste the images together as canvas was bigger than the scanner!)

Sitting on my easel with the photo on top:

And Yuri wanting to be involved in the filming process:

Anyways, beautiful photo Michelle!! I'm not sure about the painting - I like parts of it but might have to tweak it a bit. We'll see.

Lastly for Leah, who was musing about stuffing recipes - my Lemon Cornbread Stuffing recipe from an old Food & Wine Cookbook. Love it! (Double-clicking should enlarge it. Hmm, perhaps I should include the turkey recipe too as it is different from many with a much shorter cooking time yet always moist. Maybe tomorrow... if anyone is interested.)

Until (late) tomorrow!

AEDM Day 8

What to do each day? This month seems harder than most to come up with ideas! (I guess after 300+ days of creating every day, that's no surprise but...) 

I think I will play around with media this week. After only having pens and pencil while travelling last week, it might be fun to play with my other tools(toys).

Today is crayons.I thought this would be a brilliantly coloured butterfly but instead a moth emerged!

Oops, I guess I sketched too close to the inside/gutter of my CED2010 book!