Excited about possibilities in 2011!

I am so jazzed today; one of my fav bloggers and artists, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer wrote a post today and she showed work from many great artists who will be joining her in an Art Journal Every Day challenge for 2011. I was shocked to see she chose one of my works to comment on!!! She showed this one, and challenged everyone to try getting paint on their hands!

Another artist Julie highlighted, Melanie Kisr, had a fabulous hand-carved leaf stamp that she used on her page. Julie encouraged us to create our own stamp.....and I just so happened to have bought a stamp blank at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last month!! So, I drew and carved this:

Then, I took this page in my art journal that I had painted with a credit

card and acrylic paint in September, and stamped it!

as it was:

and newly stamped with my new stamp!

oohhhh.....now I have to go find some more carving material...........don't I have some potatoes in the kitchen?? LOL!

Please go check out Julie's blog

http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2010/12/art-journal-every-day-inspired-to-begin.html

- and even if you don't think you have time, join her Art Journal Every Day challenge. Even if you only can do some of the time, it will inspire you to create - and that's what it's all about. Make Art Every Day is one of Julie's favorite sayings; it feeds the soul and gives us and others a lift.

A BIG THANKS to Julie Fei-Fan Balzer for hosting this journey and to posting my work; and for the lovely comments she made about everyone's art. She is a kind and generous soul, and a great artist.

More Challenge work!

I finally was able to photograph and upload some more work based on Challenge #44.

The first one is a page I had painted and "embellished" previously. I had used a paint that had a gritty texture to it, so when I scraped over it with the card, it removed that "grit" from the surface. It's impossible to tell in the pic, but it created a fabulous suede-y texture - so incredibly tactile - I love it!!

The second one is cool, minty greens that I then scraped over with white & wiped off most of it - I wanted a wash, or like a filter, not a "layer."

I can't wait to see what Michelle plans for us to do to these next!!!