Sketches and Musings

  • Art Journal Aquarius

    Any other Aquarians out there? Anyone getting any journaling done in the cold?

    This journal page background is a frozen watercolor experiment. I splashed watercolors on a SOAKED page and then stuck it outside in the 2°F and let the water freeze to push the watercolors around.

    The planets are spray paint or acrylic and the stars are Christmas wrapping paper.

    You can watch the video on YouTube or on the embedded player below:

  • Creative Every Day Monday 18JAN2010

    OK.  I absolutely have to post more.  It seems all I ever blog about anymore are the videos on YouTube and the Creative Every Daythingies.  I have been working on a spray paint workshop over atArtjouranaling.ning.com, and doing The Artistic Biker Live on Ustream.  I have been working on a concept for a podcast.  But mostly I have been editing video!  I need to get out more.  I definitely need to get back to figure drawing group and the colored pencil society.  I want to also join an acrylic group that I found.  OOH! And I have a project I am trying to meet with my local arts council to get funded!  I’m very excited about THAT but I can’t really talk about it yet.
    Anyway, here are the entries for this past week’s Creative Every Day challenges:

  • Creative Every Day Monday 11JAN2010

    Wow! Another week has passed and it’s time for another installment of Creative Every Day Monday.  This has to be, without a doubt, the easiest post to write.  On last week’s Creative Monday post, you’ll remember I talked about hashtags and using them to search with?  Well, every day this week I posted my Creative Every Day challenge on twitter using the hashtag #ced2010.  A simple search of twitter using my moniker, Blade21292, and #ced2010 gave me the list for this week!  So, for your enjoyment and hopefully inspiration, here are this week’s tweets about my Creative Every Day journey:
    1. Tuesday Blade21292 http://twitpic.com/wuy9o – I don’t think this tweeted#ced2010
    2. Thursday Blade21292 http://tweetphoto.com/8237467 In case the show won’t qualify 4 #CED2010 Tonight, 8-10 pm cst, The Artistic Bikerhttp://tinyurl.com/ybgsmc84 days ago from TweetDeck
    3. Thursday Blade21292 I think this qualifies for #CED2010http://tinyurl.com/ylqt5kk3 days ago from TweetDeck
    4. Friday Blade21292 It was my turn to cook so a quick twenty minute meal off the cuff for #ced2010http://tinyurl.com/yjwna3e2 days ago from TweetDeck
    5. Saturday Blade21292 I’m gonna use my artjournaling.ning.com spray paint workshop video as my #CED20101 day ago from TweetDeck
    6. Sunday Blade21292http://twitpic.com/xm8w1 – Cool frozen watercolor bckgrnd #ced2010about 23 hours ago from TwitPic
    7. Monday Blade21292http://twitpic.com/xq1dw – Spraypaint vid production for#ced2010about 4 hours ago from TwitPic
  • Creative Monday January 4th 2010

    I was just saying to myself the other day, “Hey Blade,” because me and my self are on nick name basis, “why don’t we find some kind of challenge to do where we have to art every single day in some fashion?”

    And I responded, “Pray tell, whatever do you mean?”

    “Well,” I said, “we’re always trying to encourage people to create something everyday for at least 10 minutes a day.  What if we had some kind of challenge to join where we did just that?”

    “I believe you have hit upon something there,” I said. “Let’s Google ‘Create Every Day’ and see what we get.”

    Lo and behold I found Creative Every Day! OK, it didn’t really happen that way.  What actually happened was I saw a TON tweets on Twitter that ended with the “hashtag” #CED2010.  Now if you don’t know, a hashtag is a marker of sorts. It allows people to search on Twitter, and really any other site, for like minded themes.  Usually it’s a group name or some other way to make a search easy.  So I searched for CED2010 and that’s how I found it.  :)

    From the website:  Creativity is meant in the broadest sense, so it doesn’t have to be something art related. Your creative acts could be in cooking, taking pictures, knitting, doodling, writing, dancing, decorating, singing, playing with your kids, brainstorming ideas, gardening, or making art in the form of collage, paint, or clay…or whatever!

    Of course I am doing it.  Mostly because I don’t have enough to do with my spare time.  On Mondays, we are supposed to update our blogs about what we have done to be Creative Every Day!

    • Friday, January 1st, I shot video for the spray paint workshops on Artjournaling.ning.com.
    • Saturday, January 2nd, I recorded a song for this week’s youtube video.
    • Sunday, January 3rd, I spray painted elements for my journal and my video.
    • Monday, January 4th, I spray painted a scene in my journal:

  • Happy New Year

    On New Year’s Eve, I invited several members of the online community to produce a quick video to usher in the new year.  Seeing that I asked on such short notice, I was VERY pleased at the number of videos I received.  You can see that show at the U-stream site.  A HUGE thanks goes out to:

    • Klair Scattergood better known as Rhomany of Rhomany’s Realm, you can see her video response on her channel HERE. You can follow her on twitter @Rhomany.  She’s an artist, art teacher, human. AND you get Rosie & Marmalade updates.
    • Mike Gray of Life In The Rough.  Normally a flaming golf fanatic, he shows artistic solidarity by not shaving and having a paint brush on hand in his video shown HERE. You can follow Mike’s antics on twitter as@doubleeagle.
    • Leslie Herger of Comfortable Shoes Studios, where she shares her passions for journaling and book binding.  Her video response can be seen on her channel HERE. You can follow her on twitter as @lessherger.
    • Tamara LaPorte or better known as Willowing.  You can see her video on her channel HERE. She’s a beautiful person, artist and singer, and if you follow her on twitter as @willowing, you also get Dyl pickle updates!
    • And finally, Marie Angel, Will & Eric Blumentritt, and Larry Meeker A.K.A The Snake Charmers.  I actually used two videos from them, the one they made for me which can be seen HERE and the one I ripped from their channel just because I liked it so much and it needed to be shared.  That one can be seen HERE.

    As many problems arose in 2009 I have to say that I am glad to see that one go!  It was a rough year emotionally, financially, and professionally.  But as bad as it may have been, let me tell you some of the amazing things that came out of it.  In 2009 I lost 75 pounds, I celebrated my first anniversary of being nicotine free, and we found out that we were having another baby, this time on purpose!

    And then there is The Artistic Biker.  This site launched in 2009 as art began creeping more and more into every aspect of my life.  Every time I let art and creativity shine some light on a problem, it got better.  I created this space to share that light with others.  I couldn’t be happier with the direction it’s going.  2009 saw the launch not only of this website, buy also my Flickr site where I post tons of images, YouTube Channel where I post a weekly video series, Facebook Fan Page where I post everything I find that’s art related, I am all over Twitter in the art, golf and adult entertainment (R rated, not X) twibes, and the launch of The Artistic Biker Live U-stream weekly broadcast, and creating tutorials for Artjournaling.ning I also started a Podcast and finally, a Newsletter to help followers keep track of it all. Whew!

    2010 began with my beautiful young pregasaur and Girl2 bringing me coffee and biscuits in bed.  Breakfast in bed, surrounded by beautiful girls is the start of a GREAT year to come!

    On New Year’s Day, I posted a youtube video for the New Year’s Art Journal entry.  While I was editing the video it was discovered that I had failed to turn the camcorder back on after pausing it for the hairdryer!  Luckily, I had the U-stream footage to fill in and complete the demonstration.  There will be a great many more videos done this way as I’m constantly improving the production quality and I’m having so much fun doing them.  You can see the video on my youtube channel HERE, or in the embedded player below: