My August 2013 in Photos

August of 2013 is gone and September is here! I've continued to document my days in the form of photos, so here's my calendar and a little movie I created with the photos. I used iMovie from my Mac, which I haven't used in a while. I have some re-learning to do. I don't like how it cuts off the top and bottom of the photos. I'll get it all figured out eventually. For now, this will do. If you have any questions about the photos, just leave me a comment. ;-)

xxoo,

Ri

Random Moments Video

My mind has been a bit unorganized lately. It still is, actually, so I'm keeping this short. I made a video to practice with the iMovie iPhone app. It's a bunch of random moments from today strung together with a catchy tune added and some fading transitions in between. Also, there's a peek at my art table that REALLY needs to be cleaned. Don't judge me!

Test Video and Quicky Journal Page

Joel bought me a new HD video camera for our anniversary (June 19th = 12 yrs) and gave it to me early. It has a Time Lapse function on it for when I want to make art and video the process. I decided to test it out with a quicky Art Journal page to see what settings I should use. For this video I set the frame rate to every 2 seconds. I think next time I'll try every second to slow things down a bit. I know the journal page isn't anything to write home about, but it served its purpose and made a little statement for me at the same time.

Art Supplies used: Liquitex White Gesso, Resist Crayon, Cheapo Watercolors, and Kimberly 9xxB Pencil on Strathmore Mixed Media Journal.

Vlog for 6-5-11 & Photos

First up I have a vlog from today. 

Who's up for a drinking game? Every time I say, "Umm" during this vlog take a drink or a shot! Okay......GO!

Now for some photos from my walk with Sheldon...

....and here are some photos of Mam-maw and Mom working on the quilt I mentioned in the vlog.

....and just for fun here's a photo of my Mom's mute dog, Andy, who constantly keeps his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Weird, but adorable! (Photo courtesy of Kolby)

All of these images were taken with my cell except the last one, which was taken with Kolby's cell. I DO take photos with my other, REAL cameras, but these are more convenient at the moment. Maybe I'll get around to uploading the others at some point. I have some good shots of my neices, my brother, and Mom.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxox,

Rischa

This Love

I don't know why I didn't blog about this before, but a while back I colored a frame of a video for "Drawing This Love". You go to the site, put in your information, and they give you a frame to color. You can use whatever style or medium you'd like as long as the background color is blue. It doesn't have to be plain blue, as you'll see from the video. Here's their video with some colored frames added. My frame is number 698. You can pause it when it gets to that number to see mine.

Really cool idea for a video, right?

For my frame I used Caran d'ache Neocolor II Water Soluble Crayons. Those are my favorite art supplies. They're so fun to play with.

Vlog 3 for 4-27-2011 - Random Dullness

Let me just tell you, this vlog has been SUCH a pain in the ass to get uploaded for something that really didn't even have an interesting topic. I tried to upload to YouTube from 7pm yesterday until 3am this morning. It finally uploaded to YouTube, but not after having to export out of iMovie first. I don't know why that mattered as it didn't the 2 times I vlogged before. So before I was done with everything I ended up uploading to both YouTube and Vimeo. Vimeo gave me trouble, as well. That seemed to be par for the course yesterday.

Of course, my stupid complaints aren't even significant enough to mention what with what's going on in all of the states effected by the tornadoes yesterday and within the last few days. I spent the entire night awake worried about my son, who's visiting my parents in GA right now. I feel for all the people that have lost loved ones, homes, or entire towns during all of this. It's such a scary thought to know that it could happen to any of us at any time.

Vlog: Books, Pancakes, & WIP's

Another Vlog! In this one I ramble about current Works In Progress, books I'm reading, magazines, collage papers, and even pancakes. Sheldon also makes another appearance.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter! Or if you don't celebrate Easter, Happy Sunday!

My First Vlog!!

I did it! I finally made a Vlog! For anyone who doesn't know, a Vlog is Video + Vlog. So anyway, I've been contemplating the idea for a while. I jumped in, though, when I saw that Willowing was doing them. She's committed to the challenge of doing a vlog every day in April. Although, like me, she started late, too. I don't know where the idea originated. Anyway, here it is...

I hope you enjoyed my first vlog. I enjoyed doing it, although, it's a bit uncomfortable being in front of the camera. I'm sure I'll get used to it if I continue.

Sketchbook Project 2011

This is my entry for The Sketchbook Project 2011 by ArtHouse Co-op. I have to admit I'm capable of way better than this. That's what you get when you complete an entire project meant for 6 months in 2 weeks. Don't judge me! At least it's done. The project is filled with pasted prints of my paintings, some of my photography, and new originals just for the book. Mediums used are acrylic paint, oil pastels, water soluble oil pastels, pen, pencil, and watercolor crayons. The music for the video is titled Long Stroll and can be found at www.incompetech.com by Kevin MacLeod. The video has a green tint, so the actual projects look better in real life. The ink blot butterfly is a funny story. I thought I was done, woke up the last day, started shooting video of the book, and realized I had left a page blank. Oops! So I hurried a painting and the ink blot butterfly was born. In the video the colors look horrible, but in real life it looks better. Still, not my best work, though. Whatever....it's done and it was fun! I had lots of fun making my first iMovie movie, too. I think I'll be doing more of those.

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".

Something to Inspire

I found this on one of my many Ning.com art communities and just had to share it with my blog readers. You'll love it! Before you watch the video, though, be sure to scroll ALL the way down to my music player and turn the music off so you can hear the video.





I will post photos of what I've been working on soon. I've been bombarded by holiday frenzy, but things will soon be back on track with my art related activities. ;-)

The Weekend Artist / Artful Spaces

Hello my dear blog readers! I hope your November is off to a fantastic start? If not, may it improve by infinity by the time you finish reading. ;-)

I have a little update for you today. Remember THIS entry I posted where I whined about how bad I wanted to buy The Weekend Artist? Well, a couple of months ago the artist of that book commented underneath that entry. Cool, right? I thought so! If you're too busy or lazy to go check it out, here's what he says, "Hello there! I actually am Gerard Smith, author of the Weekend Artist, and someone told me about your blog at work today. Thank you so much for your interest. I have been told that the book will be published by F+W Media in the USA next April or May, but you can get it on the UK Amazon site. Their site is:www.fwpublications.comThere are also a couple of projects on YouTube that were taken from a pilot I filmed about 3 years ago. Just search under 'Art Shop Guy' on YouTube and they should come up.All the best with your art. I love the dreamy quality of your work and how motivated you are.Reading your comments really has made my day!Gerard Smith"

Soooo....being the YouTube junkie that I am....



Be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom of my blog to turn off the music before watching any videos. I really enjoyed that first episode. I'll watch the rest when I have a chance. I haven't watched my class videos yet for the Cloth & Clay Doll Workshop, so all in due time. ;-) I did go ahead and subscribe since, like I said, I AM a YT Junkie! I should say YT Artist Junkie. I'd love to make my own videos some day, but that's another thing to learn......adding to my numerous list of "To-Do's".

So anyway, today Gerard stopped by the ole blog again with an updated that I'm pretty darn excited about....

"G'day, its Gerard Smith again. Just thought I'd let you know that my book is now listed on US Amazon. For some strange reason the name has changed to Artful Spaces, but as far as I know the content is still the same. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Artful-Spaces-DIY-Wall-Home/dp/1600614590/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225744027&sr=8-1 Hope you and your art are going well!Gerard Smith"

Woohoo! Guess what I'll be purchasing! And did you see that price? $16.49!! Even I can afford that! Yep, yep!

Thanks for stopping by and letting me know, Gerard! I'm honored that the author himself would grace my blog with his presence. ;-) Seems like a cool guy......go buy his book!

I've been quite busy the past few days and have not had a chance to finish my Blue Haired Birdy Girl. The Doll workshop started on the 1st, as well, which puts me.....what.....2 or 3 days behind assuming everyone else started on the 1st. I doubt it, though. I think I could make the doll in a few days and the workshop is up for a month. If I had a day job I wouldn't be that confident.

Suzi Blu Wood Burning & My Photos on Imagekind

I know I've mentioned Suzi Blu several times on here since I'm taking her Les Petite Dolls workshop, but I thought I'd post a video of hers. These videos are how I discovered her and her classes. Here she is doing some wood burning on YouTube. It is NOT from the class as those have to be paid for before viewing. If you'd like to take the class go to http://www.suziblu.ning.com/ OK, on to the video:

There's also a new widget on this blog. If you look over to the right you'll see the Imagekind Widget that will take you to my gallery. There you can purchase my art and photography. I only have one up right now, but soon it will be filled to the brim with goodies to customize and purchase. You can get anything from greeting cards to prints to canvases. They'll even add a frame and border for the right price. I then get a percentage of what is sold. I put up Joel's favorite photo of mine first. Go check it out! Go! Run! Buy! Hehe

PS. If you're ever going to watch a video on this blog you'll have to go to the very bottom of the page first to turn off my tunes. That way you'll be able to listen to one thing at a time rather than the video with the music playing over the top of it. ;-)

"...an opportunity for the mind to be quiet."

I'd love to have a life like this man....

....the large studio, the huge canvases, the multitude of paint. What fun he must have, right?

I wonder if that's modeling paste he's using to make the texture. He uses so much of it and that stuff is expensive. Maybe it's on his site somewhere: http://www.jonasgerard.com/

I'm still enjoying my Suzi Blu Mixed Media Class. I took a quick pic with my cell phone of a WIP. (Work In Progress) I'm going to work on her more tonight after I post this. I figured it was time to stop neglecting my blogs. Anyway, keep in mind that I haven't edited the photo, so you'll just have to tilt your head to see it. *Laughing* It's up at the top. I haven't figured Blogger out yet. I still don't really remember how I've made some photos appear in the correct spot and some appear at the top. Oh well.....you'll see it either way. Even if the text is separate from the pic.

Sealing Paintings With Beeswax

I'm SO excited to have found this LINK! It's a video tutorial on how to seal paintings using Bee's Wax. Mystele Kirkeeng does a wonderful job of describing the process. Here's her video on YouTube.