Now It's a Marker Summer

I have discovered acrylic markers. I love markers because you don't have to clean out any brushes. I hate cleaning brushes. I usually let them sit in water until the cup dries up and then I have to soak them in alcohol to get the dried up paint out of them. So... markers are great! This one is a collage and markers inspired by Terry Runyan Creative. I just love her tutorials on YouTube @Terry Runyan. She is the original cat lady! I also have a few of her books from the library and they are very fun to work through.

I have wanted to try Posca markers for a while but they are cost prohibitive so there are alternatives that are more affordable and just as good. Ohuhu makes markers too. They make acrylic markers, alcohol markers and just plain marker markers for coloring books. I got the acrylic ones because I love acrylic paints. So I'm using them with watercolors and gouache on watercolor paper.

I've been drawing some animals again and trying different painting methods. And I ran across some of my older artwork circa 1997. I got a great idea while looking through them. I can make paper frames for my little practice paintings to use as refrigerator magnets. They also make cute little gifts.

So I got a page of colored squares painted for future paintings as a creative block buster. When I can't think of anything to paint I just draw something on a square and paint it in. It's hard to ignore these little boxes of color and you can get great ideas just by looking at them.

I'm having a lot of fun with these paints and animal drawings. It's turning into a pretty nice Summer!

It's Watercolor Summer 2026

I've spent almost half the year already in knitting and crochet and now that the weather is heating up, I'm ready for some water... and some cool water coloring. I'm a perpetual student, always learning new things so I'm taking classes again to do some whimsical watercolor, drawing and shading hoping to enhance my skills. 

I love whimsical and fairy things. I've spent most of this year already working in the yard and the garden and now that my garden is planted I've almost got it manageable, I'm encouraged by the bugs and my pond to do something buggy again. So I've discovered some free paint-alongs with Karen Campbell on YouTube. Go look her up.

When my kids were little I had aspirations and inspirations of children's book illustrating. Some of my favorites for the artwork were The Jolly Postman and Each Peach, Pear, Plum by Allan and Janet Ahlberg. I also loved the interactive and popup books like Jingle Bugs by David A. Carter. My kids had a lot of books.

So I had to drag out some old supplies and update a few new ones for these classes. I could not find my gouache paints I bought last year. I only got a chance to use them a couple of times but I cleaned my room and reorganized things and now I can't find my gouache paints and my alcohol inks but they are probably hiding somewhere together and now that I've bought new ones, I'm sure they will turn up (that's just how it works). So I just bought a new set for cheap. I used to do portraits in colored pencil so I have several sets but this is my favorite set since Spectracolor pencils went obsolete. Now I prefer Prismacolor. They are expensive but you can get them on Prime Days on sale.

This is the first 'live' paint along I've done in a while and I have new confidence with the steps I'm learning as far as how to shade and layer color. Karen has a formula she calls the 'hamburger method" so it seems to be easier this time around. "Baby dragon, baby dragon!"

Valentine Love Soldiers

I was pretty busy with the nutcrackers I made for Christmas and I liked them so much that I carried them over to Valentine's Day.

They have such funny faces that I just wanted to keep making them.

I made four for Christmas and I could have made more but I wouldn't have known what to do with them if I did.

Now that Christmas is over I have Valentine's day on the brain. I've been making little decorations and just thought they would look darling as soldiers for love.

I've never seen nutcrackers done up for valentines' day that I can remember. I got to drag out my heart bling and my red and pink sparkles for these.

I've been working on a few other little projects but not too much to brag about so far. I've also been doing a lot of reorganizing and cleaning out my stash of die cuts. I've had a lot of creative blocks so far so maybe it's time to just rest or do some old fashioned house cleaning.

But I'm still looking forward to Valentine's Day!

Christmas Nutcrackers 2024

Everywhere I go this year I'm seeing nutcrackers. I don't think I have even one of them in my Christmas decorations. I'm not a collector of these things but this year I'm going to make a few. So that's this year's theme. I like to DIY my decorations whenever I can.

So I guess these things have been popular this year because they keep popping up on my pages. People actually have a group for collecting these seven foot tall plastic ones that they paint and post online. I don't have anywhere to store anything that huge so I'm not interested in those.

But I do see a lot of DIY ones on YouTube. Bargain Bethany has a huge nutcracker she makes out of Dollar Tree laundry baskets for about twenty dollars in materials. Go watch that here, it's amazing.

I'd like to make one but I don't want to tear them down or store them anywhere so I ran across a tutorial to make smaller ones. And they are so cute. They are made of all Dollar Tree finds! Araceli Chan has a great small nutcracker DIY that you can use to make your own little decorations. 

And that's the one that I used. I think I added a little more bling to mine though. I also drew and painted a face for mine while adding a few personal touches. I didn't want mine to look scary.

I love the way they turned out and they are the perfect size. I can easily store these without breaking them. Overall it cost me about five dollars to make one. I already had all the bling and glue in my stash. I recycled the base of the doll from a screw on plastic lid and I already had the white and gold spray paint for them.

All I had to buy was the plastic pieces from the plasticware section of DT. I used six different packages to make two nutcrackers. I used the shot glasses, mini round glasses, clear plastic tumblers, cordial glasses, wine glasses and medium round clear ornaments or any smooth plastic ornament 3-1/2" in diameter would also work.

You need a glue gun, tacky glue and a soldering iron for melting the pointy crown out of a tumbler if you're going to make that one. You also need some zip ties and some fuzzy yarn, acrylic paint, a feather duster or refill pack, ribbon and a lot of bling. And you might need two packages of the cordial glasses if you are going to make two nutcrackers. One package is only enough for one set of arms and legs.

Basically I just threw the decorating kitchen sink at these and made them with whatever I already had like metal ribbon and various assorted metallic bling strings. You can make the hands out of wooden balls or glue stick lids or just paint the bottom fourth of the shot glasses with flesh colored paint. Just use whatever you have and do whatever you think looks best.

I loved the way mine turned out. Even after spraying all the pieces with white, I had to give them two and three coats of acrylic paint. These would make pretty table centerpieces with greenery around the bottom or a nice decoration to include in a gift basket with some fruit and nuts! 

Spring Painting and More Classes

I love to take painting classes and learn new things. I've been taking a class from Yvette St Amant on 15 minute abstract florals. So I've been painting but first I had to organize my paints. Some of them were pretty old and dried up.

These are little 6" X 9" paintings done on watercolor paper but you could do them on canvas or board. I love the color choices and the way they all coordinate.

She is really teaching the basic principles of design here. Color, balance, rhythm, composition, etc... in her style so you can paint them fast. 

I'm only six paintings into a 32 lesson course but already I've found the more you paint, the more your own style gets incorporated into each painting. You can follow along and still change things up. If you don't like a particular color you can change it. If you want to put in more detail, you can.

The backgrounds are really holding my attention and I think are the star of the show. Once you learn how to do those backgrounds, you can use them on any painting with any color palette.

The name of the game is contrast, contrast, contrast. And her colors make them pop. I'm getting so much out of these classes but I'm also learning a new program called Inkscape and laying out surface design for other projects so it may take me a while to move through the whole course.

The thing that slowed me down this time was organizing and cataloging my acrylic paints. I'm telling you some of them were older than my favorite holey granny sweater. Some were dried up and a few of the bottles were concave... yeah, I know. But once I got them catalogued I could tell what I had and it made it so much easier for me to find the colors that I wanted to use.

Believe it or not, I have over 200 colors. And that's just the acrylics. I didn't sample catalog the oils, latex wall paint samples, acrylic strip pots, or my satin, gloss, fancy glitter, metallics, diamond, glazes, alcohol inks, paint pens, loose pigments, pastels, gelatos and color changing acrylics.  This is just the 2 oz. bottled flats. I know, right? I'm a paint hoarder and I freely admit it. 

Painting More Acrylic Sketch Books

Most artists make a color sample chart of the paints they are going to use when they paint. I've seen a lot of them done by watercolor artists as a reference for them to see which colors look right together.

You don't really have to do that for acrylics but you still want a reference to go to so you can see which colors look really good together. That's where these little pocket paintings come into play.

You can try different colors and brush strokes out before you actually get to the canvas or larger painting you might want to make. I would call them acrylic sketchbooks.

You could take any of these samples and use it as a springboard for making a larger painting if you wanted. It's easier to make a smaller sample painting to try different things out. Besides, it's fun! These are more paintings from my third sketchbook.  I make these from 140 lb coldpress watercolor paper and cut the paper 5.5" x 11" for six pieces. Then I fold them in half and sew or staple the center. That gives me 12 double pages that open up. Then I paint one side with bright colors and smear the paint in an interesting background. Sometimes I paint the page halves first and then put them together when they are dry. Then I take my time decorating the pages with details.

And this is my latest one. It's all the detail that really makes these pop. Color combinations are also important on these but mostly I just keep going until I get something I like. I like a lot of detail..

Abstract Painting

I love to learn new things especially art related. I don't mind taking a class or two. I recently took some abstract art classes with Yvette St Amant online and this is what I painted in a little over a week working at my own pace. These two are my own designs and the rest are from the course.

These are from the course.

Best class I've ever taken on abstract art. She covers everything about art you need to know and sticks to the elements and principles of good design.

You will learn so much just by following along and listening to her bits of wisdom sprinkled in as you go.

Take her class if you like bright colors, patterns and want to learn more about composition and pattern design.