Free Art Class by Willowing - The Heart of Art

I've mentioned Willowing here on my blog in the past. I've also taken, and enjoyed, a class from her called, "World of Whimsy". So now I'm here telling you about her FREE new Art Course! Yay! How can you beat FREE? You can't! She's really a fantastic teacher. Her way of teaching is gentle, but effective, and her art is whimsical, fun, and inspiring. Since she's being generous enough to offer a class for FREE I thought it was only fair for me to try and spread the word about it.

Click HERE to join "The Heart of Art".

Rachel The Matriarch made a treasury!

Look! My Saint painting, Rachel The Matriarch, made a treasury!

Thank you lookonmytreasures for including me in your All Saints treasury!

Winsor and Newton

Yesterday I visited the Michaels in Altamonte Springs. I always love shopping there. There's a little bit of everything for the creative soul. I was almost finished choosing my loot carefully when I came across a set of Winsor & Newton Inks. The set contains 8 colors for $32. I used my 40% off coupon to bring it down to around $19. So, I get home, open up my black, canvas Michaels bag, open up my ink set so I can play, and realize the red ink is half empty. I immediately remembered that this was the last set at the store. Also, the store is around 45-50 minutes away. I'm not driving that distance for half a bottle of ink. I was way too excited to take the set back anyway. I was ready to play. So I typed up an email I found on the http://www.winsornewton.com/ web site and sent it off explaining the problem. I included photos and an image of the receipt from only a few hours earlier. I was ready to write off that half a bottle. To my surprise, , though, I opened up my email bright and early this morning to find they'll be sending me a new bottle at no charge to me. Now THAT is customer service I can appreciate!



Ohhhh, and the inks.....the beautiful inks! Do you have some of these? I had no idea how brilliantly vibrant these inks would be! I did some fooling around in my journal last night and just fell in love with them! I can fully support a company that has awesome products AND will take care of their customers promptly like that, too.


In other news, I have my Sketchbook Project journal, so look for those images coming to a blog near you soon. Wish me luck with it as I'm a little intimidated by some of the images I've seen from other artists and from the sheer volume of empty pages.

Until next time....wishing you lots of X's & O's!
Rischa

The Sketchbook Project

I've signed up for something called The Sketchbook Project. It looks like fun and it's a great way to get the word out that you're an artist. I think it'll be so much fun knowing my work is being displayed at The Brooklyn Art Library as well as many other places on the tour around the country. I might even take a trip to Atlanta when the tour makes its way there. I chose the theme, "This Is Not A Sketchbook". I thought it would give me more room to do whatever I want. I ALMOST chose nightmares, but I thought that might be a dark journey that I already have to go through in my dreams. I'd probably be drawing things like spiders, snakes, death, plane crashes, etc... That could be interesting, but I just don't feel like facing those things day AND night, ya know?

So, who's with me!? It costs $25 to sign up and they'll send you the journal in your color choice. I chose black only because they didn't have any more red ones. I can change the cover, though, once it's here. You also have the choice of paying more to get your work digitized for their web site so you can view your work on their site or send others to see it that might not be able to go to any of the tour stops. Of course, I always scan anything I make, but that wouldn't get me on their web site, so I figured it would be a good idea just to get more eyes on my work. Know what I mean, Jelly Bean? That will be a nice little link on my blog or soon-to-be web site.

In other news, did you notice the new (simple) header? I got tired of the boring font choices Blogger gives you and didn't really want anything elaborate. I chose Pointy for my font. Katie recently mentioned it on her blog and reminded me of how awesome it is. Thanks Cuz!

I'm still working on my two classes. The Flying Lessons one is over, but I'm not quite to the finish line, yet. Luckily she's offering PDF versions of it to her students AND she'll let us copy and paste into documents for us to keep forever, as long as we don't share, of course. The Gut Art class is going slowly for me. It's taken me so long to get the journaling pages right. I hope that's not a preview of how the Skethbook thing will go. Yikes! Naw, it has just been a really busy time here. That's all. I'll catch up soon. Here are a coupld of images from the book so far...

The unfinished cover: (which can be finished after class is over, btw)

And here's one of the journaling pages:

Both of these photos were taken with my cell phone, so sorry about the crappy photos.

I'm still working on ATC's for Christa and Sharon. I'll show those when they're in their recipients hands. I don't want to ruin the surprise for them.

I guess that's about it. I'll try not to be such a stranger. I know I've been slacking in the blog department. I just haven't felt really chatty lately. I have funks that I go through sometimes. The only few people I talk to are Joel, Kolby, and Christa when I get that way. Poor them, right? Ha!

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxox ~Rischa

My ATCs

For some reason it keeps slipping my mind to show the Artist Trading Cards that I've made and traded. Thank you for reminding me on Facebook, Candice! Sometimes I need a little push. It's funny, I seem to have surrounded myself with people that are willing to motivate me. Just this past week Christa got me all fired up to make some Frida Kahlo inspired ATCs for our next trade. We also trade art sites via email almost daily and talk about art even more than that! I call my friend, Sharon, my "Fairy Art Mother" because she's always prompting me to create. Which is EXACTLY what I need! Mom is right there with them, as well, with her motivational prompts. Thanks ladies! I really don't know what I'd do without you all!

Okay, so the first 3 ATCs that I made all looked pretty much like this:

I made the first one, the one above, to keep for myself. Call me sentimental, but I had never made an ATC and thought I should keep the first one. Plus, it was great practice at painting so small before I went on to make the two I made for Christa and Sharon. I'd rather mess up on mine than theirs.

For this one I basically just used Golden Acrylic paint and Matte Gel Medium to seal. For the back I simply adhered a pretty piece of scrapbook paper.

Here are a couple of Work In Progress Shots I took with my Cell of the Chickies being made. Sorry, the Blackberry didn't take very good photos.

After these I decided to try a Collaged ATC like Sharon did for the ones she sent me.

For this one I started with torn white tissue paper and pasted it using gel medium. Then I used watered down Golden Liquid Acrylic paint on top of the tissue paper in spots. I found the image shared on one of my Ning networks, I resized, printed, cut out, and pasted with more gel medium. I used clear embossing ink and powder to apply the letters D A N C E. I then realized it didn't show up very well, so I outlined it in waterproof ink. Then I wrote the words underneath and made a border with the same pen. I then sealed it and started working on the back. For the back of this one I just painted with a matching paint color and used gel medium again to adhere my biz card. Sharon said she wanted to see it, so I just stuck it right on there. I sealed it all with Golden Matte Medium.

I have a few more in the works. I'll show those when someone prompts me to do so. LOL I'm just kidding. I'll try to get them up as soon as they're done.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo,
Rischa

PS. Did you notice my new snaggable badges? Grab one for your blog, why don'tcha? They have a transparent background, so your blog's background will show around the scalloped edges. Just copy the code underneath and paste it into the sidebar. For Blogger blogs you'll just add a gadget, choose the HTML option, and paste my code into the large empty field. Save and you're done!

ATC from Christa

I've been meaning to blog about several art related topics for a while now. I don't blog every day, normally, but recently, over on my personal blog, I've been a daily blogger. That has really taken a lot of attention away from this blog. Even before then I was slacking on my art blog, but when I actually had several things in mind to post here I got busy over there with the 30 Days of Tumblr thing.

So now that I have the excuses out on the table I can get on with the matter at hand. And the matter at hand is ATC's! They're proving to be SO much fun! I've already shared the ATC's that I received from Sharon. I'll share the ones I've sent to both Christa and Sharon in a separate entry. Right now I'm sharing the second of the two I've received from Christa. I can't share the first one because it would give away our secrets. She's really very good at making them personal. So personal that I almost want to keep them BOTH private. But, I won't. I'll share the second and keep the first one for myself.

Check out the front!

...and now the back!

So cool, right?! I couldn't love it more! You should have seen me reading the back. LOL It was fun. If someone didn't know it was written in circles they'd have thought I was crazy if they saw me flipping it all around.

She also always makes the coolest cards to send with them. Those are quite personal, too, though, so you don't get to see those. Sorry Charlies!

See ya soon!
xo
Rischa

ATC Swap With Sharon (SkiesArt)

My friend Sharon and I have started an ATC swap. We've completed our first round. I'm so glad we decided to do this because it's been SO much fun. You should've seen the look on my face as I was opening the package she sent to me. She ALWAYS makes it so fun to receive her packages as she's so creative with every little detail. Here, see for yourself:

After I opened the big, yellow, plastic envelope I see this:


Isn't that sweet? I don't know where she found a Mary Engelbreit folder, but I love it!

I then opened the folder to find...


...a beautifully wrapped gift and a decorated card envelope complete with small felt bedazzled flowers and her pretty handwriting.

Inside was the card and the ATC's. I'm saving the ATC's for last as they're the big finish. Here's the neato burrito card...


I don't know if you can tell by the photo, but it's wire and stands up off the paper. So cute, right? The writing on the inside is personal, so I'm keeping that to myself. Sorry. ;)

Now for the gift! You probably won't believe me when I tell you that I had plans to buy this next time I went to Books-A-Million, but I really did! I've been wanting this book ever sense I got interested in ATCs and just never decided to make the purchase. But now that I'm actually making them I had planned to get it. Sharon MUST be a mind reader! I was so happy to get....


I've already started reading it and I'm half way through. It's so inspirational! I should be writing down all of the ideas I've got from this book, because I'll never remember them all!

And last, but certainly not least, the ATCs themselves!
Here's one titled, "Caged In Ropes"...


It's great, isn't it? I love that she made it 3D with the rope. She knew I loved birds, too. Very cool looking background, as well!

Here's the back:


The second one is adorable and humorous at the same time. She did a little snagging off of my blog or Twitter for this one. LOL I love it!


That's Sharon on the left and Me on the right. She with her pooch and I with mine. She even dressed me as I was originally wearing a swim suit in that photo. LOL

...and the back....


Isn't she the coolest package sender EVER?
She's a very talented artist and happens to also be a great friend.
Stop by her blog or web site to check out her creations and tell her Rischa sent ya.

If you've ever thought you might be interested in swapping or making ATCs you should go for it. It's so much fun and it's great practice for your imagination and artistic skills.

I've already posted my ATC on Twitter, but I will also make up separate post for that. This one's all dedicated to Sharon and her package....*snicker* You know what I mean.

...and yes, I said "neato burrito". I'm a dork! What of it?

xoxo
Rischa

Andrew & His Paintings

Remember THIS POST about a year ago? Toward the bottom I showed the two paintings I sent to Candice for Andrew's nursery. They're toward the bottom of the post. Anyway, she posted the sweetest photos of him with one of the paintings on Facebook a few days ago. I got such a kick out of seeing him with it. She said I have her permission to post them here, so here goes:

I have some other stuff to show off, but not quite yet. Not until the recipients receive them. ;-)
See ya next time!

Online Art Courses - How To Decide?

I'm one of those "hard to shop for" people. My birthday was last Sunday, Jan. 17th. I told Joel not to worry about a gift, that I'd choose one for myself. That's what he had done for his Birthday two weeks prior, so I figured what was good for him was good for me. I'm trying to keep the pricing about the same, of course. He bought about $65-70 worth of goodies for himself. So, I'm thinking an art class would be just perfect. That's what I wanted anyway, and there happens to be a few new ones about to start that I think I'd enjoy. One is Willowing's Fabulous Faces and the other is Color: Beyond the Basics w/Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen.

I've taken one course from each of them previously and enjoyed them both very much. Well, I've never taken a course from Julie's new co-star, Chris Cozen, but I do have her book, Altered Surfaces.

I'm having a hard time deciding which of these courses is best for me right now. I'd love to just purchase them both, but alas....I can't afford to be spending every dollar on art courses & supplies no matter how much I'd like to do just that. That wouldn't be very frugal of me, now would it? I doubt Joel would appreciate me spending upward of $150 on all of this, either. That is what both would cost if I included the supplies list. I believe the supplies list for both courses are more like suggestions than necessities, however, I have found that it sure does help to have exactly what the instructor is using to get the results you're after.

So, I thought I would compare the two. This will be a comparison based on MY needs. This is not me trying to decide what course is best for everyone, as I think both would be beneficial and fun to anyone interested in art or learning new techniques.

• Both are interesting and would be useful to me.


• Willowing's classes are downloadable. Julie's are not.


• Julie's class is $23 less than Willowing's. (Give or take. Had to use GBP to USD conversion)


• I have all of the course materials for Willowing's class already.


• Both instructors provided contests, however Willowing's contest is over. If I sign up today I could still win something if I choose Julie and Chris's class. (I never win anything...who am I kidding)


• Willowing has a course outline pdf for downloading before the class so you'll know exactly what you'll be doing week by week. Unless I missed it, Julie's course doesn't have this.


• I've taken several face classes from different instructors in the past, but never a Colors class.


• All instructors will be available for questions during the course.


• Both classes are taught on Ning.

Okay, enough of that. It's not helping me make my decision. I still can't choose. There's one other thing that I'm wondering, but not sure about. Just how much are they planning to focus on color and how to mix colors together for a cohesive outcome in Julie's class? I really wish there was a course outline for this class. I don't want to ask all these questions and then decide on the other course. Rude, right? Also, how much of what will be taught in the Colors class is also in Chris Cozen's book? I have her book, as mentioned before. It's a great book and quite inspiring. Then again, so is Willowing, so that isn't a separating factor.

In case you're interested in taking the courses, here are the YouTube video ads for both:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15PueQ_I12o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-UBRQo7WvI&feature=player_embedded

Here's another option; Go to Books-A-Million or Amazon.com and buy books on exactly what I want! That doesn't seem like as much fun as someone walking you through the process, but I could get a taste of both Color and Faces and save a little cash in the process.