Recreating an old sketch to use on my Cricut!

I've kept sketchbooks off and on for years... simple, inexpensive notebooks I'd pick up either on sale or at the dollar store. While looking through some of my older sketches, I found several I'd like to make into stickers. I started with this strange little critter that seems somewhat frog-like.

My original drawing was fairly messy, but still fun.

He needed a LOT of work! The original photo of my sketch wasn't all that great, and he very much needed to be cleaned up and sharpened up. Because of this I brought the image into Photoshop and basically redrew the entire image.

Once I was finished, I saved him as a basic PNG image, then brought him into Illustrator to save him as an SVG. Then I had an idea...

I love the rough quality of the lines, almost like the tool marks from a chisel!

I recently saw a post on Reddit that linked to a really fun website called CuteCutter that helps you create simple SVGs of your images so that you can print them and/or cut them out on your cutting machine. I've done several images and I love how they come out... I'll be sharing more of those in the coming days, believe me. :D

I have to say I loved the way my original drawing came out using CuteCutter! It has an interesting, organic feel to it... almost like a linoleum print! It will definitely make an interesting sticker!

Also, once I finished cleaning up my drawing I decided to share an animated gif to show the difference between the two images. It's always good to start with the highest quality image you can, so that you can wind up with better end products.

Hopefully I'll be showing you some lovely stickers soon, including this chunky boy. I also have several other things to share coming up, so keep an eye on this space!

Til next time!

Drawing is wonderful for pain management!

You know, I'm dreading winter. If I'm flaring like this when the weather starts changing, I'm in for it. But hey, maybe this will be the winter that doesn't hurt me as much, right?

In the meantime, I've been doing lots of drawing and doodling. The above image is a background I painted, but the text was done in Photoshop. I have some more images too... enjoy!

Be aware, this is graphics-intensive. The images are optimized to load quickly, but there's still a ton of them.

What would YOU do over, given the chance?

Front cover of my current art journal.

If you were given the chance to go back in time and do something over again, what would it be? Would you go? I've thought a lot about this idea in the past, and overall I think I wouldn't change anything. The life I've lived has shaped me into the person I am today, and I like the person I am. I love my husband and my son dearly, I have amazing family and friends. I'd be afraid that any changes I made would end up with different people in my life, and I wouldn't want to change that.

However, there is one thing that I regret deeply. Given the option, I would love to go back in time and finish my degree.I try not to mention this very often, but the truth is that even though I was in college for 8 years, I still don't have a degree.

I was a year from graduation when we had to move the first time. My husband had graduated and was moving on to graduate school. I had no idea that transferring would set me back so far! When we settled in at our new university I lost 2 years of credits which was not cool!

At that point, I switched my major from mass communication to art. I was beginning to believe I might have some sort of artistic talent, and I wanted to explore it. Besides, I was only really losing a year of basic courses that still applied to my new major. It was a perfect plan, or so I thought.

Back cover of my art journal.

Then I got sick a couple of years in and lost a year due to it. After that year, I had a hysterectomy and my husband graduated, and we moved less than 2 weeks after my surgery. Oh yea, that's helpful! We ended up moving back home and spending 6 months job hunting.

After that, we needed money, so I went to work. I figured I could go back at any point and finish my degree, but as many of you know it's just not that easy. And now, here I am 12 years later, disabled with no degree.

Fact is, I regret it deeply. I don't know how I could have done things much differently, but I feel like I gave up. I know there were options preventing us from staying to finish my degree at the original college, but man I still regret it.

But, that's the past. I've also learned you don't have to go to college to educate yourself, and I'm still learning things even now.  Besides, it's kind of silly focusing on things you wish you'd done differently. That just makes you lose sight of today and what you could be doing now!

Ah well. Here... enjoy the photos of projects I've been working on in my art journal. :D

 

I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own..
See my disclosure statement for more information.

I've finally learned to draw faces!!

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Being a mom is a never-ending job, even when your kid is older. It seems like you never stop worrying, even once they're grown! Thankfully, I'm learning ways to turn off that worry line of thought for a little while using art. (Yes, it's another art post... :D)

Take the piece on the right. I started out with a blank page one night when I was feeling really down. I wrote a journal entry that filled up the entire page, writing about how sad I was, how overwhelmed I felt. Then I turned on my music and began to work.

Although I was really sad when I started this page, the process helped me feel so much better. I feel like I was able to confront those feelings and convert them to more positive ones, and eventually the journal page reflected my new mood- strong, creative, and happy.

I'm especially excited because I've finally learned to do something I've been working on for years- I finally figured out how to draw a pretty female face! I can't even begin to tell you how excited this makes me. I've been drawing for years, and although I could once in a while make the eyes look like they matched, or make pretty lips, I had lots of problems making the whole face work together.

I drew lots of faces with a big swoop of hair covering half the face, so I didn't have to attempt an eye. Still, I was never satisfied. I knew they weren't the faces I wanted to draw, and I just wasn't satisfied.

Thankfully, something clicked for me in the last couple of weeks, and I've been drawing lots and lots of pretty girls since! I've also been having lots of fun coloring their faces in with my new Prismacolor pencils. They're so buttery that I can easily blend the colors into gorgeous smooth tones. So much fun!!

So that's my personal victory of the moment. I'm having a ball art journaling and drawing, managing my pain with big sweeping gestures instead of tiny little motions for nail art. I'm not finished with nail art by any stretch of the imagination. I just love having multiple outlets for my creative expression.

Til next time! xoxo
 

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I was selected for participation in this campaign as a member of Clever Girls Collective.

Wreck This Journal: OMG, I can't actually DO that... can I?

I'm going to break away from the cosmetic goodies today to talk about something amazingly fun I've been playing with lately. A while back, a dear friend of mine sent me a wonderful package with awesome goodies inside. She'd seen a book that seemed like the kind of thing I'd absolutely love, so she picked it up for me.

When I opened it, I think the neighbors could hear my squeals of joy. Turns out, Din had gotten me a copy of Wreck This Journal, a book I'd been dying to get for several years! Isn't it fun when a friend knows you so well? As soon as I opened it, I couldn't wait to jump in.

This isn't your typical sketchbook or art project book. Instead, Wreck This Journal encourages the reader to stop thinking of it as something to be kept pristine and get messy with it. Crease the covers, rip the pages, fold corners down, spill things in it, tape sections together.

The concept is that in every act of creation, there is also destruction. If you're so worried about keeping something precious and untouched, you can never turn it into something else, something better... into art, for example, although I wouldn't call what I'm doing art. :D

I've photographed a few of my favorite pages I've worked on so far. For example, I absolutely love my little cheerleader! At the top of the page, you can see the instructions: Doodle over top of this page and in the margins. That's HARD to do! I got started with a tiny face with no boundaries- just eyes, nose, and mouth. Then came eyebrows, and hair, and soon I had a complete cheerleader! It was a bit surprising, even to me and I drew it!

The strange part is that I've always been slightly intimidated by a blank page, especially if it's in a nice sketchbook. There's something about sketchbooks that seem important to me, and I've always felt like anything I did in them needed to be worthy of being put into a nice sketchbook.

This, however, was just a page of gibberish. You can click the image to see it large enough to read if you like, and I read the whole thing before I got started drawing. Because it was unimportant, I felt able to let go and be free with my motions. Soon, I jumped into the other sections of the book.

One of the first instructions you're given is to scribble on the outside of the book, where the pages all line up. I decided to give myself a message with mine, and to the right you can see the three edges of the book in order, with the message readable.

Gel pens are fun for this, as are Sharpies. Also, I used nail polish over the blue heart at the bottom, mainly as an experiment to see if it would damage the book. It didn't, which is fun to know!

Speaking of nail polish... (oh come on, you knew I'd get nail polish into this post somehow!) There's a page that asks you to drip something onto the pages and then squish them together to form an inkblot of... well, whatever you dripped. Guess what I used!! :D

To the right, you can see the polishes I used. I dripped polishes in several batches, so that they wouldn't dry and would move well. I also closed the book, then massaged the pages a bit to encourage the polish to move and mix in interesting ways. I'm pretty pleased with it so far, and will be fiddling with it some more before I'm finished.

Once I took this photo, I realized I wanted to play with it in photoshop. There are several sections in it that really draw my eye and make me want to play. So... I did. This is one result.

I really like the color in this. There's just something visceral and organic about it, and I'd love to see it in a large print on my wall! Then again, the last thing I painted and put on my wall was a digitally-altered painting I made with cheap acrylics and typing paper. It came out awesome too. :D

So yea... If you like art at all, or doodling and sketching and drawing, definitely look at this book. It's actually changed the way I think about the things I make!

Til next time!

"Wreck This Journal" was given to me by a very dear friend. Hi Din!!

See my disclosure statement for more information.